for scary sake

[crazymum25]

Ok people I log into Facebook what do I see ??? Brain anarazyim a poor young girl at age 22 died in her sleep from one after her graduation no symptoms just a slight headache due from stress so she thought !! So yeah you guessed it in scared under the weather myself lately and tired now I have a headache !! Worried much poor woman BIM convinced I'm next .... Why am I like this I can not take anymore !!!

[Gary A]

:doh:

---------- Post added at 11:49 ---------- Previous post was at 11:46 ----------

Can I just point out that as well as scaring yourself, your posts are going to freak other people out as well. These people try not to Google etc, because it drives them back to anxiety, but here you are bringing this hysteria directly to them.

You need to put this in the hands of your doctor or mental health professional, this forum is not helping you.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Its not just people with HA that see these things and think for a minute 'my god, that could happy to any of us' but the difference is, we then think 'well, its one case out of how many billion so my chances are astronomical of that happening".

What you have to do is consider the evidence against it such as a) what about all the common causes of headaches that people suffer in the millions on a daily basis b) why has this never happened to me before even though the danger was the same c) why don't I worry about crossing the road, driving or any other higher risk activity but focus on one extremely rare event, etc.

Its called Cognitive Distortion and its a set of negative thinking styles that people with anxiety use and all it does is add to their anxiety and cause obsessive thinking patterns typical of certain forms such as HA.

In CBT you would use something called a Thought Record. On this you write the thought which you fear and rate you belief in that fear. Then you write down all the evidence for & against your thought and finish with formulating a new healthy more balanced one.

http://media.psychology.tools/worksheets/english_us/cbt_thought_record_en-us.pdf?

Try it. See if it helps you. You need therapy to guide you through all this but if something helps you a little bit now until you can engage with it fully later, its worth trying.

I would also encourage you to read the Cognitive Distortions on Wiki. They are fully accurate as they match the ones I was given.

Then when you have one of these thoughts, write down on the thought record. Then get the distortions out and look at what you write as the evidence and note where your thinking is distorted. With some practice it becomes second nature to see a statement and pull it apart in that way.