Rosie2
19-10-13, 00:34
Hi everyone, I've found this website a few times from
Googling various symptoms and being led here but I've never posted before - but I've never spoken to anyone about my health anxiety and I really need to get it out.
I have lost so much of my life to anxiety. I am only 19 but for the last year and a half I have had no life. I go to work, come home, worry, try to sleep, and repeat. I've lost count of the number of times I have stayed up all night terrified that I am dying of an undiagnosed terminal illness, and waited til the doctors opened and made an appointment after being awake for 24+ hours but only had some temporary relief from their reassurances.
I am scared of everything. Or more scared of everything making me ill. I am fine with broken bones, sprains, cuts - they are all "safe" IMO. What I'm really terrified of is getting cancer. This fear impacts me, pretty much every second of every day. I have googled so many questions about it that I am sure I know everything that causes it- which is so many things. I can't use creams on my skin because I am scared it will absorb and give me lymph node cancer or skin cancer. I am scared to have my phone off airplane mode in case it gives me a brain or breast tumor. I am scared to walk in busy places because the pollution might give me lung cancer. I am just so terrified all the time.
I often think about how much time I've wasted on this, but I can't control it. And the worst part is I have very real symptoms- I have the oh so common weird scary headache (brain tumor), I have a mole which can't be bigger than 2mm and hasn't changed, it is a normal size and shape but for some reason I
Sure it is cancer. Every time I look at it I feel like I am going to have a panic attack. Every time I see or read the word "cancer" or "symptoms" I get so anxious I genuinely want to die. (Which is weird since that's what I'm so scared of). Even just now when I was looking at the health anxiety posts I saw a cervical cancer post which set me off. I have really irregular periods, I have them once a week or 2 so I think that might be cancerous growths. I have a lump in my underarm which I've had scanned and been told it is "probably" a lipoma, but that didn't convince me. I have even thought of ways that they could all be linked - the mole spreading to my lymph nodes, my lymph nodes spreading to my brain, then down my spine and to all my organs (lungs too, hence my chest pains).
Sorry for going on so much (for anyone who made it this far!) but I just really don't know what to do anymore. I am on a waiting list for CBT but it's 6-8 months and I think I might die before I get an appointment. I also don't think my doctor understands how much this is affecting me. I have gone from being popular, outgoing and fun to anxious, paranoid and unhappy in the space of a couple of years. I don't understand how anyone can bear living like this, and I find it so hard to picture myself in the future since I feel I am on deaths door. I just want some relief from this.
If anyone has feelings like this and are managing to cope with it- please give me your secrets! I would love to have anyone to relate to, since I never speak to anyone about this as I know they will think I am crazy, or an attention seeker.
Thank you..
Googling various symptoms and being led here but I've never posted before - but I've never spoken to anyone about my health anxiety and I really need to get it out.
I have lost so much of my life to anxiety. I am only 19 but for the last year and a half I have had no life. I go to work, come home, worry, try to sleep, and repeat. I've lost count of the number of times I have stayed up all night terrified that I am dying of an undiagnosed terminal illness, and waited til the doctors opened and made an appointment after being awake for 24+ hours but only had some temporary relief from their reassurances.
I am scared of everything. Or more scared of everything making me ill. I am fine with broken bones, sprains, cuts - they are all "safe" IMO. What I'm really terrified of is getting cancer. This fear impacts me, pretty much every second of every day. I have googled so many questions about it that I am sure I know everything that causes it- which is so many things. I can't use creams on my skin because I am scared it will absorb and give me lymph node cancer or skin cancer. I am scared to have my phone off airplane mode in case it gives me a brain or breast tumor. I am scared to walk in busy places because the pollution might give me lung cancer. I am just so terrified all the time.
I often think about how much time I've wasted on this, but I can't control it. And the worst part is I have very real symptoms- I have the oh so common weird scary headache (brain tumor), I have a mole which can't be bigger than 2mm and hasn't changed, it is a normal size and shape but for some reason I
Sure it is cancer. Every time I look at it I feel like I am going to have a panic attack. Every time I see or read the word "cancer" or "symptoms" I get so anxious I genuinely want to die. (Which is weird since that's what I'm so scared of). Even just now when I was looking at the health anxiety posts I saw a cervical cancer post which set me off. I have really irregular periods, I have them once a week or 2 so I think that might be cancerous growths. I have a lump in my underarm which I've had scanned and been told it is "probably" a lipoma, but that didn't convince me. I have even thought of ways that they could all be linked - the mole spreading to my lymph nodes, my lymph nodes spreading to my brain, then down my spine and to all my organs (lungs too, hence my chest pains).
Sorry for going on so much (for anyone who made it this far!) but I just really don't know what to do anymore. I am on a waiting list for CBT but it's 6-8 months and I think I might die before I get an appointment. I also don't think my doctor understands how much this is affecting me. I have gone from being popular, outgoing and fun to anxious, paranoid and unhappy in the space of a couple of years. I don't understand how anyone can bear living like this, and I find it so hard to picture myself in the future since I feel I am on deaths door. I just want some relief from this.
If anyone has feelings like this and are managing to cope with it- please give me your secrets! I would love to have anyone to relate to, since I never speak to anyone about this as I know they will think I am crazy, or an attention seeker.
Thank you..