skippy66
02-06-14, 16:49
How many times has a friend or relative said that your problems with health anxiety are 'all in your head'?
Well the fact is, they are right.
Now don't get me wrong, I know that health anxiety is caused by symptoms that are very, very real. My worst were chest pain and heart palpitations. They were not something I concocted, and there's no way that they were simply caused by anxiety every time. I have heart palpitations in my family history.
Similarly, people who find lumps and bumps, and experience muscle twitches - I'm sure anxiety can make some of these things worse (not the lumps!), but to say anxiety is the cause of these symptoms is absolutely ridiculous.
The fact is that the human body is not perfect. We all get weird things wrong with us all the time. Some days you're tired, others you feel full of energy. Some days you'll have a funny turn which doesn't turn out to be the stroke you thought you were having. You'll feel pains in your knee for absolutely no reason from time to time.
Things just happen. We're not perfect. It's natural. The other day my dog was sick all morning, then in the afternoon she was fine. No rhyme or reason. Just the normal fluctuations of life.
So let's get back to the fact it's all in your head. When I say this, what I mean is that EVERYBODY GETS WEIRD SYMPTOMS. What separates the person with health anxiety from the person without it, is how their brain responds to those symptoms.
Example: I used to get stroke-like symptoms, where suddenly one side of my head would go hot and tingly for no apparent reason. When I had health anxiety, I would get a huge rush of adrenaline at the very moment this first came on, because I was convinced that I was having a stroke and going to die. This in itself would cause heart palpitations, sometimes chest pain, the urgent need to go to the loo, trembling, shivering - all of this reaction was caused by my over-reaction to thinking that a normal variation of my body's functioning was signalling my imminent death.
When you overcome your health anxiety, you don't react like that. You may start to, due to old habits at first, but it doesn't lead to the blind panic that health anxiety can cause, the instant catastrophizing. You keep your emotions in check and look at the weird symptom objectively, rationally. You look at your own body like you were someone else.
If one of your friends said 'my head feels tingly', or 'ooh my chest hurts', you wouldn't immediately think they were going to drop down dead. But if it's you, you do think that. And this is the crux of health anxiety. This is why it IS all in your head, because changing that pattern of thinking and irrational catastrophizing is the key to overcoming it.
I hope this helps some of you and I would welcome comments/questions.
Well the fact is, they are right.
Now don't get me wrong, I know that health anxiety is caused by symptoms that are very, very real. My worst were chest pain and heart palpitations. They were not something I concocted, and there's no way that they were simply caused by anxiety every time. I have heart palpitations in my family history.
Similarly, people who find lumps and bumps, and experience muscle twitches - I'm sure anxiety can make some of these things worse (not the lumps!), but to say anxiety is the cause of these symptoms is absolutely ridiculous.
The fact is that the human body is not perfect. We all get weird things wrong with us all the time. Some days you're tired, others you feel full of energy. Some days you'll have a funny turn which doesn't turn out to be the stroke you thought you were having. You'll feel pains in your knee for absolutely no reason from time to time.
Things just happen. We're not perfect. It's natural. The other day my dog was sick all morning, then in the afternoon she was fine. No rhyme or reason. Just the normal fluctuations of life.
So let's get back to the fact it's all in your head. When I say this, what I mean is that EVERYBODY GETS WEIRD SYMPTOMS. What separates the person with health anxiety from the person without it, is how their brain responds to those symptoms.
Example: I used to get stroke-like symptoms, where suddenly one side of my head would go hot and tingly for no apparent reason. When I had health anxiety, I would get a huge rush of adrenaline at the very moment this first came on, because I was convinced that I was having a stroke and going to die. This in itself would cause heart palpitations, sometimes chest pain, the urgent need to go to the loo, trembling, shivering - all of this reaction was caused by my over-reaction to thinking that a normal variation of my body's functioning was signalling my imminent death.
When you overcome your health anxiety, you don't react like that. You may start to, due to old habits at first, but it doesn't lead to the blind panic that health anxiety can cause, the instant catastrophizing. You keep your emotions in check and look at the weird symptom objectively, rationally. You look at your own body like you were someone else.
If one of your friends said 'my head feels tingly', or 'ooh my chest hurts', you wouldn't immediately think they were going to drop down dead. But if it's you, you do think that. And this is the crux of health anxiety. This is why it IS all in your head, because changing that pattern of thinking and irrational catastrophizing is the key to overcoming it.
I hope this helps some of you and I would welcome comments/questions.