Any of you are easily triggered??

[lscmichelle]

Hi i was just wondering if i am the only one.

Since having HA a few months back and convinced i will have cancer, i became EXTREMELY easily triggered by many things. certain terms, tv commercials, old people, disabled people on streets, news about death and sickness etc The list goes on. I used to love watching action movies and sad movies but now I cant watch any movie with a person dying or medical themed dramas which involves saving lives, doctors, death etc.

I will LITERALLY get a mini panic attack everytime i came across this triggers and i try to avoid them but its very hard, everytime i see or hear one of the triggers I immediately go back to square 1 and get reminded that i will have skin cancer and that i will die young etc.

Am i alone in this?

[Leafers]

Pretty easily triggered depending on sources, mainly the worst doctor of the year, google.

[unsure_about_this]

Yes newspapers, articles on line, soaps, footie programmes.

My main worries are the big c, all types.

[Captain irrational]

I don't have a TV so that's one less source of triggers. But any news articles about people with serious illnesses tends set off the old anxiety. I know I shouldn't look at them, but sometimes morbid curiousity just gets the better of me. Google is of course a very big one, but I'm getting extremely strict with myself these days about not searching for anything health or symptom related. I also find if I start self-examining to much, that also sends my anxiety skyrocketing, ie, examining every mole, freckly and blemish, poking and proding lymph nodes, wondering why this or that aches etc.

Staying away from google and not self examining are in my opinion, two of the most effective ways of keeping health anxiety at bay.

[Darwin73]

The only thing that really gets to me is those adverts coming on when you're not expecting it. There's a few particularly harrowing heart-related and cancer ones at the moment. With Google, newspaper articles etc, it's my choice as to whether to go information-seeking and I don't have to read them. With the adverts, you don't have time to prepare for them, and often I can find the remote to turn over straightaway!

[Primula]

Yes all of this and more, your anxiety makes you hyper aware. Everything you are feeling is normal I promise. :D

[thecyberpractitioner]

Radio adverts used to get me, I used to wonder if they were a sign telling me to go and get checked out as every journey I used to hear one about the big C. :doh: Silly really! Definitley my hypersensitivity at the time. Now I'm feeling a bit better, guess what, I don't even notice them :)

[crazygal]

Yes. I don't know about in other countries. But in America there is at least one commercial about cancer or some other dangerous illness every commercial bank. I start tensing up every time a "Cancer center of America" commercial comes one. Those commercials re generally about survivors but it makes me anxious because I start thinking I have cancer.

Also HPV vaccine commercials also make me scared because they showcase people who got cancer due to HPV and then I start worrying about if I have HPV or not.

And forget watching shows like house or greys anatomy.

[GirlAfraid23]

Yes, all the time.
Depending on what I'm focusing on at the time, it can be triggered by anything.

[dale12345]

Yes I am easily triggered by anything to do with cancer. If I hear someone else has something I sometimes than worry about it.

[ScaredCaz]

Hi

I am so easily triggered it's awful adverts posters in public places it's awful

I am struggling at the minute because today we had to go to my sons school to collect some exam results he is Autistic and has taken some GCSE,s early because he is so bright

I was feeling nervous for him because anything less than what he felt he should why he would have beaten himself up about it so was a tense and emotional morning

I'm happy to report he passed his exams so he is over the moon as I am but I am left with heavy aching arms panicky feeling washing machine tummy and really tired feeling

So my day is like ����������

[TinyTina]

Absolutely! I'm the same way, commercials, ads, Facebook updates, even driving by hospitals and clinics trigger something in me

[lscmichelle]

Absolutely! I'm the same way, commercials, ads, Facebook updates, even driving by hospitals and clinics trigger something in me

exactly and it makes me so fragile, once i thougt i got over my HA and then somehing pops up, and Ad or a news about someone dying or somethinf and i literally had a panic attack infront of my friends how embarassing, idk how to deal with that emotional side of me anymore. No joke im jealous of everyone who doesnt have a trigger or such serious HA :(

[ServerError]

I'm not triggered into a hole very often. I don't see or read something and then begin to fear it (usually). For me, I just hate how often I'm reminded of illness and death. It's everywhere and I hate it. Sometimes I wonder if we've evolved too far. No other species lives so outside the moment as we do.