Will this feeling disappear one day?

[Amber<3]

My anxiety problem started around 3 years ago. My first symptoms were the regular panic attack symptoms who appeared just a few times in a month and then disappeared. Then one year later, I started to get brain tumor symptoms, I mean actually only shooting pain in the back of my head and I did a CT scan which was clear plus a few doctors and a neurologist confirmed that there is nothing wrong with my brain so it's anxiety. So now I'm 19 and I can say I feel much better than 3 years ago but still not perfectly well.

The problem is, for example when I have a panic attack, I KNOW I am not going to die, I'm aware of that, but at the moment I feel so helpless and sick, like I'm chocking and can't calm down and I feel like I'm about to die for sure and that feeling is awful. I know I am not going to, but I still feel upset and think of me being the possible death case. Same goes with my brain tumor anxiety. I still get shooting pains and even though I know it's been almost 2 years since my "symptom" first appeared and I know that I would probably be dead by now (if I really had a tumor) but yet every time the pain strikes I get all anxious again, like, I know I don't have a tumor cause I have so many different proves, a scan, doctors, neurologist, 2 years of normal function but something inside me immediately tells me to check google, symptoms, rare cases were brain tumors weren't found etc...

I don't know how to escape that anxious feeling. I feel so scared sometimes.
Sorry for my English.

[PanchoGoz]

Your English is very good and your post is very articulate!
Trying to escape the feeling will make it worse. It's better to accept it as a feeling, something that is a mistake and can't hurt you. It's the part of the panic atack that makes you "problem solve", you are driven to "sort it all out" and ends up with people researching online like you. This is the worst thing you can do because you are letting your anxiety believe there is a problem, and it keep you on high alert.
You know you are not going to die so you must resist the urge to google stuff. Just relax your body and name the feelings of panic in a calm. even bored way or rate the number of the anxiety and watch it go up and down. Learn to just observe without adding a story to the anxiety, let it go down of its own accord because it always does.

[madbadfish]

Bloody good advice

[phil6]

Amber,
Great advise given, but I just wanted to say I completely understand.
I absolutely know that my anxiety is nothing to fear, and that it can do me no harm, and that there is nothing wrong with me. I fully understand that anxiety is a habit of fearful thoughts reinforced by physical sensations. It is designed to make you take action and so I keep you safe. It is therefore a very convincing and urgent feeling. It is designed to be so.
And that is why you (and I) get carried away by anxiety. It feels very real.
Also it is a confusing emotion since to get over this we are all trying not to fear something that presents itself as fear itself. It's a tricky devil.
I try to remember when the feelings start to distress you, that you need to do the opposite of what your anxiety is telling you to do. In this way you can try and detach yourself a little and as Pancho says, observe what is going on... A false alarm.
But we are all finding this difficult because your anxious mind takes over. It is very difficult to see past the thoughts that anxiety is generating, and I agree, you cannot think your way through it. Your mind is a problem solver, and so it is very natural to think you have to resolve this by thinking, but with emotions this becomes part of the problem.
Phil

[Yossino]

Gonna copy and paste something I wrote to someone else. It helped me, I hope it can help you.


You have to treat it as anxiety first. That's the first priority. You can't trust your own body/brain. It may sound crazy, but in a messed up way you're addicted to this. You NEED something to be wrong with you. Did you ever want to be ill? I realized that's what was happening to me, and because I hated the anxiety so damn much it was like a moment of clarity. I recognized the illness. It wasn't a problem with my body or brain, it was a problem with me.

The next step is to force yourself to start feeling positively. Impossible? No heck no. The trick to this is anytime you feel fine, good, or even not 10/10 panic mode relish it. Pay attention to it, feel it. Pay attention to feeling nice. Focus on it. The more you do it the quicker you'll notice you can come out even the worst panic attacks. I take a step back and focus on the entirety of how I feel, not just how I feel based on my heart or any part of my body. I make a mental note of how my anxiety affects my body, and how it can go away quickly based on my thoughts. You get better at this over time.

You gotta hate the feeling of anxiety more than your desire to have something wrong with you. You gotta get mad at it, and freakin KNOW your enemy. It is your enemy, it will make you feel like s**t for years from now. Can you imagine feeling like this for the next few years? because you will. You'll hate it, your life will suck. Living is much more important than focusing on dieing.

I love online hugs, but sometimes a virtual slap in the face is really what you need mate. I wouldn't wish heart palp anxiety on my worst enemy.

That being said will it ever go away? Yes if you work on it, and learn how to deal with it. Read about what anxiety is and what it does.

Anxiety itself is 100% natural, the disorder is how it happens to us how we feed it, how it gets worse. You will never rid yourself of the natural process, but the unnatural bit? For sure!