Reading the news ramps up anxiety

[ledzepp94]

Hey all, haven't posted in a while. Recently I came across some news items that ramped up my anxiety.....specifically the story about that girl dying with dignity. I don't know if it's OCD or what but my anxiety is up and I start searching again, googling, looking up statistics all that stuff. Can anyone relate to this?

[Andromeda]

I think most of us can relate to this. I tend to stay away as best I can because I know what reading things like that do to me. I'm pretty sure when I went through therapy, my psychologist said that health anxiety is part of the OCD spectrum as it is essentially obsessing about ones health.

I think that reading things like that does trigger the OCD as you then obsess and fixate on what you have seen/read.

Although avoidance isn't normally the way forward when it comes to news etc avoidance is the best way until you have other aspects of your anxiety under control

Xx

[Fishmanpa]

I believe the media plays a large role in spiking the levels of anxiety in a person, especially someone with HA. Let's face it, there wouldn't a plethora of ebola fears if it wasn't being reported right? If it were about the dreaded "Hoochie Coochie" disease, there would be threads about that and thousands worried about it ;)

Positive thoughts

[Frankie123]

I don't read or watch the news as I find both make me sad and upset me as there is never anything good in them. I keep my TV remote control next to me and turn over as soon as a medical subject comes up as I know it will start my health anxiety off again.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I don't believe HA is the same as OCD, as an OCD sufferer, but I think it shares common characteristics. The same can be said for GAD. Intrusive thoughts are often discussed under the OCD banner, as in pure OCD, but they occur across the full spectrum of anxiety disorders yet people often don't seem to spend the level of time someone with pure OCD does thinking about their impact.

Obsession is also not part of just OCD, its a character trait thing. So, I guess its possible to be obsessional without the need for ritualistic behaviour.

The thing about OCD is that you do things to negate anxiety whereas HA seems to follow the same line of thinking until the ritual is completed e.g. Googling, which just makes you worse. Its true that performing rituals also makes you anxious but this more from the frustration of doing something illogical, irrational and that you feel you have no control over.

[Junot]

I can relate. I panic every time I read that someone young and apparently healthy died unexpectedly (usually due to cardiovascular events).

[wnsos]

I have severely obsessive traits that I've only sort of realised after my HA kicked off. They're not intrusively obsessive but things like I need to sleep with my phone to the left of me or something bad will happen, etc etc. Both are awful though and the media definitely perpetuates HA, my problem is I try to saturate myself in it to avoid being triggered and end up triggered anyway. A day in the life ��

[Molochop]

Oh goodness. I know how you feel. Just today I read something about someone with shoulder pain suddenly passing away from a heart condition. Now I'm sitting here with shoulder pain and worrying the hell out of it. Also I do searches like you: How rare is it? What are the symptoms? Who's likely to get it? etc.
It's driving me nuts.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I have severely obsessive traits that I've only sort of realised after my HA kicked off. They're not intrusively obsessive but things like I need to sleep with my phone to the left of me or something bad will happen, etc etc. Both are awful though and the media definitely perpetuates HA, my problem is I try to saturate myself in it to avoid being triggered and end up triggered anyway. A day in the life ��

That may be a safety behaviour, like when we carrry water 'just in case'. Being an asthmatic, I would carry my reliever that was low on remaining puffs so would carry the new one too.