katesa
08-05-14, 21:16
Hello everyone,
I hesitated to post this but then I thought maybe it will help somebody who is where I once was - HA so bad that is was turning my husband away from me.
It's strange really - I have posted before about the effects my mothers HA had on me as a child. So I knew how badly it can affect those around me. And yet, for the first 7 months of my sons life, it was my obsession. My defining characteristic.
No longer was I "Katie the witty blonde" that my husband had fallen in love with. Instead, I was "Katie the cancer patient who hasn't been diagnosed yet".
That was hard for my husband. God knows, he tried to understand. He tried to ride it out.
But, when the person you marry is so convinced that they are dying, when it is all they ever talk about, when they ignore the efforts of their optimistic 6 month old to get them to play ball because they are too busy reading WebMD and trying to work out how exactly "shortness of breath" is defined.......well, it's got to be hard. Damn hard. Maybe to him it was like I had actually died for a while.
In he'd come from a long days work. "Can you listen to my chest? I can hear wheezing" I'd say.
Or the time I ruined our anniversary by throwing a tantrum because he said he didn't want to discuss my health fears for just a few hours.
I didn't consider that even if I had been correct, if I did have something terrible that the doctors missed, I was peeing my last days with my husband and baby up against the wall.
As I said, my husband tried to be patient. But then he started to distance himself from me. He started to avoid me. He didn't want to have sex with me - clearly, being the damn fine piece of a$$ I am (I jest, I jest) it wasn't down to my physical appearance but more down to my self obsession - never, unfortunately, an attractive trait.
After many arguments - well, it was me arguing. He would just walk away. But after many rounds of me arguing while he walked away, he told me that he felt bad for me but I was not helping myself by.
1) Smoking when my biggest fear was lung cancer
2) Googling constantly even though I knew it made it worse
3) Constantly thinking about/asking about it even though I knew it made it worse
He likened what I was doing to being overweight and complaining about it while ordering 16 big macs. Which I am also sometimes guilty of as a matter of fact, but not on a daily basis. So, from his perspective, I wasn't trying. I thought I was. But I wasn't - I was trying to minimise my own anxiety on a temporary basis repeatedly by increasing the pressure on him with my constant, constant seeking of reassurance.
So, I decided that for the sake of my marriage and my baby I had to try. I met a couple of good people on here - (Chris, by the way, I am working on a LOOOOONG e-mail for you mister. Brace yourself!) and we vowed to work through it together.
My first priority was minimizing the effect on my family. So, to start with, I restricted myself to letting my husband get in, have dinner and chat about our days for a while before I brought up any health concerns. This wasn't a lot, but it soon made a difference in our relationship - because he could see I was trying to put him before my own obsession and show interest in him.
Then I restricted myself to one hours googling a day as well as the above.
Already, as I wasn't indulging my fears as much, I found that they were on my thoughts less.
Then I made myself go a whole day without mentioning my health worries.
Then two.
Before I knew it, I had gone a week.
Don't get me wrong - I was still feeling the fear reasonably often but I was able to focus more on my husband and baby again. And seeing my effort, my husband had so much respect for me and grew loving (and randy as the energizer bunny) again in short order.
And the more I forced myself to not act upon my fears by reassurance seeking - from my husband or Dr Google - the less priority I seemed to give them.
Along with the support of my friends here, some psychotherapy the free online CBT and some lifestyle changes (I've been smoke free for months now) I have got to the point where I do infact have a diagnosis of one the HA sufferer fears, MS, and I'm not afraid of it. I never dreamed I could get in to a place like that.
This post isn't intended to give anyone a full route to recovery - that can look so daunting. My intent is, rather, to reach out to anyone who is finding their relationships are affected by this dragon and tell them that you don't have to just "snap out of it!" or get all better over night. But a little tweak here and there, a gradual change and occasional "fake it till you make it" attitude can be all it takes to start the ball rolling in changing how your loved ones relate to you. And more importantly, how you relate to yourself.
Much love x
I hesitated to post this but then I thought maybe it will help somebody who is where I once was - HA so bad that is was turning my husband away from me.
It's strange really - I have posted before about the effects my mothers HA had on me as a child. So I knew how badly it can affect those around me. And yet, for the first 7 months of my sons life, it was my obsession. My defining characteristic.
No longer was I "Katie the witty blonde" that my husband had fallen in love with. Instead, I was "Katie the cancer patient who hasn't been diagnosed yet".
That was hard for my husband. God knows, he tried to understand. He tried to ride it out.
But, when the person you marry is so convinced that they are dying, when it is all they ever talk about, when they ignore the efforts of their optimistic 6 month old to get them to play ball because they are too busy reading WebMD and trying to work out how exactly "shortness of breath" is defined.......well, it's got to be hard. Damn hard. Maybe to him it was like I had actually died for a while.
In he'd come from a long days work. "Can you listen to my chest? I can hear wheezing" I'd say.
Or the time I ruined our anniversary by throwing a tantrum because he said he didn't want to discuss my health fears for just a few hours.
I didn't consider that even if I had been correct, if I did have something terrible that the doctors missed, I was peeing my last days with my husband and baby up against the wall.
As I said, my husband tried to be patient. But then he started to distance himself from me. He started to avoid me. He didn't want to have sex with me - clearly, being the damn fine piece of a$$ I am (I jest, I jest) it wasn't down to my physical appearance but more down to my self obsession - never, unfortunately, an attractive trait.
After many arguments - well, it was me arguing. He would just walk away. But after many rounds of me arguing while he walked away, he told me that he felt bad for me but I was not helping myself by.
1) Smoking when my biggest fear was lung cancer
2) Googling constantly even though I knew it made it worse
3) Constantly thinking about/asking about it even though I knew it made it worse
He likened what I was doing to being overweight and complaining about it while ordering 16 big macs. Which I am also sometimes guilty of as a matter of fact, but not on a daily basis. So, from his perspective, I wasn't trying. I thought I was. But I wasn't - I was trying to minimise my own anxiety on a temporary basis repeatedly by increasing the pressure on him with my constant, constant seeking of reassurance.
So, I decided that for the sake of my marriage and my baby I had to try. I met a couple of good people on here - (Chris, by the way, I am working on a LOOOOONG e-mail for you mister. Brace yourself!) and we vowed to work through it together.
My first priority was minimizing the effect on my family. So, to start with, I restricted myself to letting my husband get in, have dinner and chat about our days for a while before I brought up any health concerns. This wasn't a lot, but it soon made a difference in our relationship - because he could see I was trying to put him before my own obsession and show interest in him.
Then I restricted myself to one hours googling a day as well as the above.
Already, as I wasn't indulging my fears as much, I found that they were on my thoughts less.
Then I made myself go a whole day without mentioning my health worries.
Then two.
Before I knew it, I had gone a week.
Don't get me wrong - I was still feeling the fear reasonably often but I was able to focus more on my husband and baby again. And seeing my effort, my husband had so much respect for me and grew loving (and randy as the energizer bunny) again in short order.
And the more I forced myself to not act upon my fears by reassurance seeking - from my husband or Dr Google - the less priority I seemed to give them.
Along with the support of my friends here, some psychotherapy the free online CBT and some lifestyle changes (I've been smoke free for months now) I have got to the point where I do infact have a diagnosis of one the HA sufferer fears, MS, and I'm not afraid of it. I never dreamed I could get in to a place like that.
This post isn't intended to give anyone a full route to recovery - that can look so daunting. My intent is, rather, to reach out to anyone who is finding their relationships are affected by this dragon and tell them that you don't have to just "snap out of it!" or get all better over night. But a little tweak here and there, a gradual change and occasional "fake it till you make it" attitude can be all it takes to start the ball rolling in changing how your loved ones relate to you. And more importantly, how you relate to yourself.
Much love x