Hello Anxiety.. it's been a while

[googler192]

Hi,

Well, it's been quite a while since I have visited this site. The last time I was here I was in the grip of severe health anxiety and entering into counselling for the 2nd time in a year in order to get a handle on what felt like a spiral of fear.

I managed to overcome (or at least quieten) my HA and enjoy a year of peace. But today I was struck by the familiar tightened chest, pounding heart and blind panic that I now associate with my HA. I'm seeing a consultant at the minute for various (hopefully non-serious) issues. I went for what i thought was a routine colposcopy and ended in the consultant taking biopsies. She tried to reassure me that it was routine to do a biopsy but of course... me being me came back and started googling everything. Apparently the biopsy is a test for cancerous cells.

It's an odd feeling to not know if the anxiety is being caused by the thought that they are testing for C or that I'm terrified of letting the HA get a grip of me again. I was doing so so well. Or, at least, I thought I was.

It turns out the Demons always come out to play when they're not invited.

[boleyn3]

I completely understand what you're going through, I'm the same - the thing is with HA is that it strikes whenever it wants to and you have no control over it, you have periods of feeling OK (usually when I'm busy and have no time to panic!) then periods of being caught in as you say, a spiral of fear.

I'm currently obsessing over what I'm convinced is skin cancer, before that lung cancer, brain tumor, heart disease, lymphoma ect, the list goes on. It all gets checked and investigated, sometimes 10x over, before I'm convinced/ and or find something else to obsess over.

I had a whole year of extreme panic attacks and trips to A&E because of it. It was absolute hell. I was convinced that each and every symptom of panic had to be linked to something serious. That was until I literally experienced it so often that I began to recognize it. It's great that you recognize your 'panic symptoms', especially if you don't get it very often, I was never like that.

I think therapy does help sometimes, but to help yourself is the best way in the long run, I've started doing this by reading some HA self help books, there's a ton out there and some are rather comical, it really does open your eyes up a bit and helps take away some of that irrational fear. :)