rainbowsend
12-06-15, 11:39
Hello all,
I have followed this forum on and off over the years and am finally joining :)
I have been put off joining before as I was concerned I would use it for diagnosis and reassurance, which I still might, but, well here I am.
I have OCD and anxiety (currently health, sometimes social). My first health related panic attack I can recall clear as day - 8 years old in the bath at my great grandparents I had a memory (5 years old) of almost eating some poison berries. The whole class at school had to go to hospital for a stomach pump. I had spat the berries out and when i told them they said I didn't need a stomach pump. Here I was, three years later with my first "WHAT IF". What if I ingested some of the berries and I am slowly dying. I remember the rush of adrenalin, the queasy stomach, the fight or flight feeling, the shaking.
For the teenage years it was mostly OCD, rituals, fear of dying, magical thinking and avoidance of situations where I perceived any threat.
I was always obsessed with the number 25. My rituals all focussed on that number and I was sure that was the age I would die.
Once I passed 25 I became sure that maybe I had got it wrong and it was at 25 that I had contracted the disease that would kill me. I became completely sure that disease was HIV. I was TERRIFIED and absolutely convinced I had it. I would not get tested. If I got a negative test I would just have found another way to convince myself I had contracted it in the three months prior to the test or afterwards, plus I was far too scared.
(Westielove I have read your posts on this and my heart goes out to you, you sound like me ten years ago - please PM me if you want).
I lived in a state of fear and terror a lot of the time although sometimes my health anxiety would drift some something else it was nearly always HIV that really got me. How would I cope? What would people say? It is interesting that the diseases my HA likes the best are those that could be self inflicted, therefore I could self loathe a bit more I guess.
After a while my anxiety shifted and started to focuss on social situations. I was going out and drinking a lot and would spend days with hangovers convinced I had molested someone/attacked someone/had sex with someone (and contracted HIV of course) and somehow forgotten.
I ended up in my doctors surgery a complete mess and started a course of CBT. It really, really helped but my counseller discharged me after a few months believing me to be well (I was better but not well). I was chuffed to bits, feeling like a student with an A grade and thinking that I was fixed.
I wasn't. But at least I have some useful tools for bringing myself down from a PA.
When I got pregnant with my son (20 months old) and since then, I have reverted to health anxiety. After having him I absolutely and completely diagnosed myself with lung cancer. I had a lot of shoulder and middle-upper back pain. The doctor and physio diagnosed it as a mechanical problem.
I was pregnant again quickly and after my daughter the constant fixation with my breasts (due to breastfeeding and hand expressing) made me sure I could feel lumps and had breast cancer.
I've moved on from that though as I now have something which I was actually referred for.
I went to the dentist in late pregnancy and she said "oh there is a little thing there, like a spot" and said she would refer me non urgently to the oral surgeon and they would remove it. Cue absolute blind panic. For days.
She said I would get an appointment in 8 weeks. Six weeks later I gave birth and was a little busy to think about it (plus I had the breast cancer worry inbetween). My appointment came through and I went to see the doctor at the hospital. She looked at it and said it looked like a wart or "skin thing" and they would take it off. At some point, during the consultation she asked "any heart or chest problems?" and I said no, but was thinking "WHAT? WHY? Real or perceived? Diagnosed or something I have spotted myself?"
Then she said "do you smoke?" I said no. But I'm an ex-smoker and I'm worried that she didn't think it was urgent because she thought I was a "never-smoker".
She said the appointment would come through in 2-3 weeks and it came through for a months time and I went yesterday.
The surgeon laughed when she finally found it (right at the back of my gum behind a tooth) and said it was "such a tiny little thing". She took it off and I was shaking from adrenalin but managed to ask her if she thought it was "anything bad" - she said, "no, no, no, no, no", and "why would you think that" and "no it is nothing to worry about". I told her I had HA and she looked at me a bit mystified. She said the results would come through in 6-8 weeks and I would come back in for them.
I felt ok afterwards but today is a real struggle. I feel convinced (at times) that the ONLY reason they do not think it is bad is because I said "no" to "do you smoke?" at the previous appointment. The fact that one dentist, one doctor and one oral surgeon have said that by the looks of it it is a warty skin thing is not getting through to me. Sigh.
I have taken the positive step today to make a GP appointment to discuss my anxiety. It is definitely time to go back to CBT and possibly time to try medication. I am aware that my reaction to perceived threats is way off course.
I may or may not have cancer (of any description at any given time) but I DO have an anxiety problem and I really want to kick it's butt.
Thank you for reading and much love to you all.
(BTW - I had an HIV test as a matter of course in my first pregnancy. It was negative. I was pleased but it was such an anti-climax as my health anxiety had moved on. What would have felt like the golden ticket ten years ago just didn't have the same impact as I was no longer fixated on HIV (mainly because it is no longer a death sentence), oh the years I wasted worry about that.........
I have followed this forum on and off over the years and am finally joining :)
I have been put off joining before as I was concerned I would use it for diagnosis and reassurance, which I still might, but, well here I am.
I have OCD and anxiety (currently health, sometimes social). My first health related panic attack I can recall clear as day - 8 years old in the bath at my great grandparents I had a memory (5 years old) of almost eating some poison berries. The whole class at school had to go to hospital for a stomach pump. I had spat the berries out and when i told them they said I didn't need a stomach pump. Here I was, three years later with my first "WHAT IF". What if I ingested some of the berries and I am slowly dying. I remember the rush of adrenalin, the queasy stomach, the fight or flight feeling, the shaking.
For the teenage years it was mostly OCD, rituals, fear of dying, magical thinking and avoidance of situations where I perceived any threat.
I was always obsessed with the number 25. My rituals all focussed on that number and I was sure that was the age I would die.
Once I passed 25 I became sure that maybe I had got it wrong and it was at 25 that I had contracted the disease that would kill me. I became completely sure that disease was HIV. I was TERRIFIED and absolutely convinced I had it. I would not get tested. If I got a negative test I would just have found another way to convince myself I had contracted it in the three months prior to the test or afterwards, plus I was far too scared.
(Westielove I have read your posts on this and my heart goes out to you, you sound like me ten years ago - please PM me if you want).
I lived in a state of fear and terror a lot of the time although sometimes my health anxiety would drift some something else it was nearly always HIV that really got me. How would I cope? What would people say? It is interesting that the diseases my HA likes the best are those that could be self inflicted, therefore I could self loathe a bit more I guess.
After a while my anxiety shifted and started to focuss on social situations. I was going out and drinking a lot and would spend days with hangovers convinced I had molested someone/attacked someone/had sex with someone (and contracted HIV of course) and somehow forgotten.
I ended up in my doctors surgery a complete mess and started a course of CBT. It really, really helped but my counseller discharged me after a few months believing me to be well (I was better but not well). I was chuffed to bits, feeling like a student with an A grade and thinking that I was fixed.
I wasn't. But at least I have some useful tools for bringing myself down from a PA.
When I got pregnant with my son (20 months old) and since then, I have reverted to health anxiety. After having him I absolutely and completely diagnosed myself with lung cancer. I had a lot of shoulder and middle-upper back pain. The doctor and physio diagnosed it as a mechanical problem.
I was pregnant again quickly and after my daughter the constant fixation with my breasts (due to breastfeeding and hand expressing) made me sure I could feel lumps and had breast cancer.
I've moved on from that though as I now have something which I was actually referred for.
I went to the dentist in late pregnancy and she said "oh there is a little thing there, like a spot" and said she would refer me non urgently to the oral surgeon and they would remove it. Cue absolute blind panic. For days.
She said I would get an appointment in 8 weeks. Six weeks later I gave birth and was a little busy to think about it (plus I had the breast cancer worry inbetween). My appointment came through and I went to see the doctor at the hospital. She looked at it and said it looked like a wart or "skin thing" and they would take it off. At some point, during the consultation she asked "any heart or chest problems?" and I said no, but was thinking "WHAT? WHY? Real or perceived? Diagnosed or something I have spotted myself?"
Then she said "do you smoke?" I said no. But I'm an ex-smoker and I'm worried that she didn't think it was urgent because she thought I was a "never-smoker".
She said the appointment would come through in 2-3 weeks and it came through for a months time and I went yesterday.
The surgeon laughed when she finally found it (right at the back of my gum behind a tooth) and said it was "such a tiny little thing". She took it off and I was shaking from adrenalin but managed to ask her if she thought it was "anything bad" - she said, "no, no, no, no, no", and "why would you think that" and "no it is nothing to worry about". I told her I had HA and she looked at me a bit mystified. She said the results would come through in 6-8 weeks and I would come back in for them.
I felt ok afterwards but today is a real struggle. I feel convinced (at times) that the ONLY reason they do not think it is bad is because I said "no" to "do you smoke?" at the previous appointment. The fact that one dentist, one doctor and one oral surgeon have said that by the looks of it it is a warty skin thing is not getting through to me. Sigh.
I have taken the positive step today to make a GP appointment to discuss my anxiety. It is definitely time to go back to CBT and possibly time to try medication. I am aware that my reaction to perceived threats is way off course.
I may or may not have cancer (of any description at any given time) but I DO have an anxiety problem and I really want to kick it's butt.
Thank you for reading and much love to you all.
(BTW - I had an HIV test as a matter of course in my first pregnancy. It was negative. I was pleased but it was such an anti-climax as my health anxiety had moved on. What would have felt like the golden ticket ten years ago just didn't have the same impact as I was no longer fixated on HIV (mainly because it is no longer a death sentence), oh the years I wasted worry about that.........