When you have symptoms people tell you "yeah get that checked out asap" for..

[AthenaFaeyrn]

Is. The. WORST.

I just feel like saying, "I know I should see a doctor, oh my god.. do you know who I even am? This is what I DO. Of course I'm going to get it checked out, no need to rub it in!! Please, please tell me what you think this might NOT be, or please try to help me calm down, but don't tell me you think it's serious when you probably even know LESS about the thing than me, considering how much I research this stuff!! Do you think this is serious?? What makes you say that?? You think I'm going to die too? So then I'm NOT even being paranoid or HA about this! This time IT IS real..."

Ugh, but you know what?... Then again, it's pretty much JUST as panic-inducing when they try to downplay your symptoms or shrug them off as something else... And then you feel like, "please please listen to me.. how can you not SEE this is cancer / a tumor / a stroke / etc? It's obvious Look. LOOK at my <symptom>, can you not SEE this? Are we seeing the same thing? Because to me this looks like <symptom as proof of certain death>".

I'm starting to realize how people can quite literally do NO right when it comes to responding to my HA or my symptoms... It's lose-lose, either way, I'll probably come away from them feeling either worse and more anxious, or... worse and more anxious!

Come to think of it... My poor, poor boyfriend, wow..

[popejoan]

I think nothing anybody says helps us as we already make our minds, already convince ourselves this is the worst and this is what I think (know) it is.

But still, when somebody tells me something like get it checked out I literally lose my mind, my ears start ringing, adrenaline travels throughout my body with maximum speed, I feel like fainting, going crazy etc...

I'm so scared of Als at the moment and in my latest blood work I had low creatinine levels. I googled ofcourse and found out that it could indicate muscle loss, uh oh... After that someone told me if they had low creatinine they would immediately demand to see a neurologist. I was told this by another person with HA. We were supposed to understand each other, reassure each other and help each other.

One sentence could cause months maybe years of intense fear! We have to be careful what to tell people and who to talk to...

[DaisyP]

Yep! I have just had this...

'You had better get that seen to, my friend had those symptoms and had a brain tumour'

Oh right lovely thanks for that!

[pulisa]

When anyone posts with specific symptoms on an HA forum what do they really expect people will do? You can't control responses. If people tell you to go to the GP and get checked out they do so because they don't know you and are not medics themselves. If they tell you that you are suffering from anxiety symptoms then you won't believe them as they don't know you and you are absolutely certain that you have X disease anyway..It's a no -win situation on both sides.

Judging by the mass of posts on a daily basis in the HA section here it's clear that not many people take notice of what is intended to be helpful advice. I really take my hat off to those posters who continually try to help HA sufferers despite having major difficulties themselves.

[AthenaFaeyrn]

When anyone posts with specific symptoms on an HA forum what do they really expect people will do? You can't control responses.

I'm confused by this. By nature HA isn't rational, therefore rational responses from others aren't going to exactly sail by, however much we would dearly love them to.


If people tell you to go to the GP and get checked out they do so because they don't know you and are not medics themselves. If they tell you that you are suffering from anxiety symptoms then you won't believe them as they don't know you and you are absolutely certain that you have X disease anyway..It's a no -win situation on both sides.

Judging by the mass of posts on a daily basis in the HA section here it's clear that not many people take notice of what is intended to be helpful advice. I really take my hat off to those posters who continually try to help HA sufferers despite having major difficulties themselves.

It isn't that we don't take notice, it's that we can't. I mean, that is literally the illness...

[pulisa]

I know it's incredibly hard but you can't just sit back and say it's impossible because it isn't as so many kind people on here try to advise. There's no quick fix with HA but you do need to accept that you have HA and that only you can ultimately help yourself by believing all that is explained to you by people who are specialised in treating HA.

I sense your anger and fear and it's a scary business and certainly not easy.

[AthenaFaeyrn]

I know it's incredibly hard but you can't just sit back and say it's impossible because it isn't as so many kind people on here try to advise. There's no quick fix with HA but you do need to accept that you have HA and that only you can ultimately help yourself by believing all that is explained to you by people who are specialised in treating HA.

I sense your anger and fear and it's a scary business and certainly not easy.

I think you might have misunderstood the point of this post, as I'm not at all saying "it's impossible" or looking for some quick fix, etc.. the intent of this thread was as a sort of musing on the way HA functions within us - a pinpointing of the irrational loops our minds with HA tends to run in. We see it all of the time here - the desperation with which so many of us plead for either people to reassure us that it's nothing serious, or the opposite, which has us compelled to plead for understanding and reassurance that we are right in the beliefs HA has us so sure of.

I assure you this was meant to be more of a sort of "relatable" thread, rather meant as any sort of justification of our behavior. I tend to use this forum that way in an attempt to prize me out of the urge to post threads like "PLEASE HELP ME, do you think this is cancer? I'm 100% sure right now", (which I would post dozens of if my HA were running completely amok) Threads like these are just my own way of trying to deal with it, by focusing on the condition objectively, to help me better see the irrationality, listen to others who feel the same, and calm me down a little by knowing I'm not alone in this kind of thinking.

Of course, we all need to seek proper medical help for our HA, but - because of our HA, whilst there are still sufferers (even those seeking help, and have accepted that they have HA) - we can tend to use forums like this to further fall into the mire of reassurance-seeking at either end of the spectrum; it doesn't necessarily mean that any of us are sitting back and not trying to fight it. A lot of us who have begun the road to recovery still spend so much time waiting - waiting for specialist treatment, waiting to see a GP, waiting between appointments, etc. This thread was just me trying to shift the focus onto something objective to try to wrench my mind back around to the irrationality of it, rather than spend time looping back around again to entertaining unhealthy thought processes. In a way, me posting threads like this are my own effort at helping myself, by putting side my desperation to plead for reassurance from people who cannot diagnose me. x

[snowflake293]

Argh I can relate to this! I was telling someone about my thrush once and how long I'd had it and she was like "oooh that's not right is it, you had better see a doctor about that" so I basically diagnosed myself with vulvar cancer there and then!

I think people just think they are helping but nothing getting me panicking more than other peoples concerns, if that makes sense?

xx

[pulisa]

I'm sure that I've misunderstood the purpose of the thread so I apologise!

I