skippy66
30-09-13, 15:27
Your mindset needs to change.
Yes, this sounds very vague to you and not helpful at all. So let me explain exactly how it needs to change.
If you're like I was you are getting symptoms pretty much all the time. You long for your 'normal' life back. You think that you're definitely about to die any time you get that twinge of chest pain or shooting head pain, no matter how many times you've had it before and no matter that each of those times has turned out fine. THIS ONE IS THE ONE. That is what your brain tells you.
So you think that to get rid of your health anxiety, all you need to do is get rid of these scary symptoms, right? Very simple. If I could just get rid of the chest pain I won't have anything to be anxious about. So you try all sorts of things: pills from the doctor, diet changes, changes in your routine, stretching. It might work. You might start doing yoga and one day your back pain is gone. So you make the false assumption that the yoga cured your back pain. You might convince yourself that your gluten-free diet (even though the endoscopy confirmed that you weren't a coeliac) has definitely improved your stomach problems.
But then, one day in the not too distant future you get the symptom again. Or a new, more scary symptom which means you definitely have a lymphoma. Maybe sweating at night. Or hot flushes. Or a lump somewhere on your body. Oh my god you think, here we go again. Just as my stomach problem got better, this new symptom has come like a bolt from the blue and it's more scary. It DEFINITELY means certain death.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. I have learnt this the hard way. You MUST change your attitude to your body.
I'm not going to tell you that you need to look at people less fortunate than you and think 'lucky me' because I know that just gets people angry. I'm also aware that some people will react badly to the suggestion that you need to get yourself back working again, active again because if you're in the depths of HA you think that can't be done - it seems impossible to you.
With this in mind I'm not asking you to do this straight away. All I'm asking is for you to have an open mind, and the resolve to try and make yourself better. Here's where the mindset change comes in....you're not going to like this....
YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE SCARY SYMPTOMS SO DO NOT TRY TO AVOID THEM.
By trying to avoid or lessen your symptoms you are keeping the cycle of HA alive and kicking. The human body IS IMPERFECT. Like a car, things go wrong and for no apparent reason. The other day the radio on my car stopped working. For NO reason. It wouldn't change station no matter what I did. I thought 'that's odd' but then kept on driving. It wasn't critical to the running of the car, it was just odd. The next day, I turned the radio back on and guess what? It worked! I hadn't done anything. It was just one of those unknown things. What I didn't do was run to the mechanics asking them to fix the problem as soon as it happened. I waited it out as it wasn't very important and I realise that things go wrong with cars all the time. How often though have you been driving along and your car has suddenly just become a write-off (with no accident). Unless the car was very, very old I'll wager that this has never happened to you. I hope you can see the parallels I'm trying to draw with the human body here.
Once you start accepting that you're going to get symptoms that are scary, uncomfortable, even painful and unexplained, once you truly accept this, you lose the fear of them. This lessens the anxiety surrounding them. Next time you get a twinge of pain in your chest, or head, or stomach ache, or arm, leg or back pain, or twitches, or floaters, or dizziness - just think of the car analogy. Things happen but the chances of your body becoming a write-off from this is absolutely remote. The more you dwell on the symptoms the worse they get. "But I can't stop dwelling on them" you scream at me. I know. I've been there. You definitely can't stop dwelling on them unless you've got something else to dwell on - only then can you stop dwelling on them. Distraction was one of the most crucial factors in my recovery. Get your mind off your bodily symptoms and your health anxiety will lessen.
When Jack Bauer in 24 is in a gunfight he doesn't notice that his chest was badly burnt from being tortured the hour before. That's because he's distracted. This is not just fiction, it happens in real life too. Let's say you are a woman who suffers from twitching muscles. If you gave birth I guarantee the twitching wouldn't be bothering you. Distraction is absolutely key. Get something in your life which stops you from focusing inwards on your health.
Wow, this rant has gone on for longer than I hoped. I'm not going to be posting as much on this board now as I'm focusing my efforts on my new blog. I do however hope this helps you to some degree.
Bye for now,
Mike
Yes, this sounds very vague to you and not helpful at all. So let me explain exactly how it needs to change.
If you're like I was you are getting symptoms pretty much all the time. You long for your 'normal' life back. You think that you're definitely about to die any time you get that twinge of chest pain or shooting head pain, no matter how many times you've had it before and no matter that each of those times has turned out fine. THIS ONE IS THE ONE. That is what your brain tells you.
So you think that to get rid of your health anxiety, all you need to do is get rid of these scary symptoms, right? Very simple. If I could just get rid of the chest pain I won't have anything to be anxious about. So you try all sorts of things: pills from the doctor, diet changes, changes in your routine, stretching. It might work. You might start doing yoga and one day your back pain is gone. So you make the false assumption that the yoga cured your back pain. You might convince yourself that your gluten-free diet (even though the endoscopy confirmed that you weren't a coeliac) has definitely improved your stomach problems.
But then, one day in the not too distant future you get the symptom again. Or a new, more scary symptom which means you definitely have a lymphoma. Maybe sweating at night. Or hot flushes. Or a lump somewhere on your body. Oh my god you think, here we go again. Just as my stomach problem got better, this new symptom has come like a bolt from the blue and it's more scary. It DEFINITELY means certain death.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. I have learnt this the hard way. You MUST change your attitude to your body.
I'm not going to tell you that you need to look at people less fortunate than you and think 'lucky me' because I know that just gets people angry. I'm also aware that some people will react badly to the suggestion that you need to get yourself back working again, active again because if you're in the depths of HA you think that can't be done - it seems impossible to you.
With this in mind I'm not asking you to do this straight away. All I'm asking is for you to have an open mind, and the resolve to try and make yourself better. Here's where the mindset change comes in....you're not going to like this....
YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE SCARY SYMPTOMS SO DO NOT TRY TO AVOID THEM.
By trying to avoid or lessen your symptoms you are keeping the cycle of HA alive and kicking. The human body IS IMPERFECT. Like a car, things go wrong and for no apparent reason. The other day the radio on my car stopped working. For NO reason. It wouldn't change station no matter what I did. I thought 'that's odd' but then kept on driving. It wasn't critical to the running of the car, it was just odd. The next day, I turned the radio back on and guess what? It worked! I hadn't done anything. It was just one of those unknown things. What I didn't do was run to the mechanics asking them to fix the problem as soon as it happened. I waited it out as it wasn't very important and I realise that things go wrong with cars all the time. How often though have you been driving along and your car has suddenly just become a write-off (with no accident). Unless the car was very, very old I'll wager that this has never happened to you. I hope you can see the parallels I'm trying to draw with the human body here.
Once you start accepting that you're going to get symptoms that are scary, uncomfortable, even painful and unexplained, once you truly accept this, you lose the fear of them. This lessens the anxiety surrounding them. Next time you get a twinge of pain in your chest, or head, or stomach ache, or arm, leg or back pain, or twitches, or floaters, or dizziness - just think of the car analogy. Things happen but the chances of your body becoming a write-off from this is absolutely remote. The more you dwell on the symptoms the worse they get. "But I can't stop dwelling on them" you scream at me. I know. I've been there. You definitely can't stop dwelling on them unless you've got something else to dwell on - only then can you stop dwelling on them. Distraction was one of the most crucial factors in my recovery. Get your mind off your bodily symptoms and your health anxiety will lessen.
When Jack Bauer in 24 is in a gunfight he doesn't notice that his chest was badly burnt from being tortured the hour before. That's because he's distracted. This is not just fiction, it happens in real life too. Let's say you are a woman who suffers from twitching muscles. If you gave birth I guarantee the twitching wouldn't be bothering you. Distraction is absolutely key. Get something in your life which stops you from focusing inwards on your health.
Wow, this rant has gone on for longer than I hoped. I'm not going to be posting as much on this board now as I'm focusing my efforts on my new blog. I do however hope this helps you to some degree.
Bye for now,
Mike