Jeannehc
24-03-14, 22:18
I've been looking through this site off and on since discovering it a few days ago. What a goldmine!
I started having severe anxiety and panic attacks when my mom was diagnosed with cancer 10 years ago, but now I've come to realize that I've been dealing with anxiety in some form all my life. I just didn't recognize it at the time. But the HA came along when my mom got really sick. She had been a smoker, and was dealing with emphysema and then finally cancer (along with a ton of other health problems in between). So I think my anxiety mixed with the information overload that comes with taking care of a sick parent created a perfect HA storm. After she died, the anxiety and grief led me into counseling and trying all sorts of meds, which I now add to my list of phobias.
I was OK for a few years, but then in 2011 . . . BAM. It came back in full force.
It's insidious. Being a smoker, I focused all my HA on my lungs. I've had tons of tests. I don't have COPD, lung cancer or anything. I smoked my last cigarette on 28 December 2013, and within three weeks I had shifted my health anxiety to my heart. Because, y'know, a day without health anxiety is a day without . . . something.
I went through a year of CBT last year because of my panic attacks, so that some things that terrified me before are at least manageable now: big stores, stairs, airports (but not flying, which is weird), crowds. I still can't drive on the freeway, and I'm now afraid of exercise because of the heart thing. My rational self tells me that a beating heart tells me I'm alive, but of course HA tells me that thumping can only be fatal if my heart rate rises even a little. Menopause isn't helping either.
Now I feel myself slipping back into that place where the only safe place is home.
I WANT to go do things, but as they get nearer I feel myself setting up reasons/excuses to not do them. I moved to the UK last summer -- something I've wanted to do my whole life -- and find myself unable to get the courage up to go out and meet people. So I have self-imposed isolation where the only person I see is my husband, and the only people I talk to are either at work via the phone (I work from home) or my friends and family back home.
Anyway, there's my story. This forum has helped already. I am hopeful that I can get back to some semblance of normal, although I do sometimes wonder if I'll ever feel "right."
I started having severe anxiety and panic attacks when my mom was diagnosed with cancer 10 years ago, but now I've come to realize that I've been dealing with anxiety in some form all my life. I just didn't recognize it at the time. But the HA came along when my mom got really sick. She had been a smoker, and was dealing with emphysema and then finally cancer (along with a ton of other health problems in between). So I think my anxiety mixed with the information overload that comes with taking care of a sick parent created a perfect HA storm. After she died, the anxiety and grief led me into counseling and trying all sorts of meds, which I now add to my list of phobias.
I was OK for a few years, but then in 2011 . . . BAM. It came back in full force.
It's insidious. Being a smoker, I focused all my HA on my lungs. I've had tons of tests. I don't have COPD, lung cancer or anything. I smoked my last cigarette on 28 December 2013, and within three weeks I had shifted my health anxiety to my heart. Because, y'know, a day without health anxiety is a day without . . . something.
I went through a year of CBT last year because of my panic attacks, so that some things that terrified me before are at least manageable now: big stores, stairs, airports (but not flying, which is weird), crowds. I still can't drive on the freeway, and I'm now afraid of exercise because of the heart thing. My rational self tells me that a beating heart tells me I'm alive, but of course HA tells me that thumping can only be fatal if my heart rate rises even a little. Menopause isn't helping either.
Now I feel myself slipping back into that place where the only safe place is home.
I WANT to go do things, but as they get nearer I feel myself setting up reasons/excuses to not do them. I moved to the UK last summer -- something I've wanted to do my whole life -- and find myself unable to get the courage up to go out and meet people. So I have self-imposed isolation where the only person I see is my husband, and the only people I talk to are either at work via the phone (I work from home) or my friends and family back home.
Anyway, there's my story. This forum has helped already. I am hopeful that I can get back to some semblance of normal, although I do sometimes wonder if I'll ever feel "right."