Conversations that set you off !

[ksmith]

A colleague innocently asked if I had lost weight the other day in work. I think I frightened him to death, shouting 'of course I haven't I haven't been dieting, so if I've lost weight you must think I look ill'!! I immediately went to the vending machine and ate loads of chocolate just in case !! It got me thinking about how what people say sets off my health anx and stays with me. For example, here are some snippets I've heard, some more than once ......


"he's just mowed the lawn, sat down, and he went!!"

"she took a Rennie and said she'd had indigestion all day, then just died"

"she was stirring the gravy and said she felt a bit 'funny"

"he said he just didn't feel right ..... then had a stroke"

"he pulled over the on M4 coz he didn't feel right ...."

"she only went to the hospital for a minor procedure but she was riddled with it...."

and so and so on. So what you might think, but .... everytime I stir the gravy, mow the lawn, have indigestion, drive on the M4 etc, you can imagine what I hear ! What can you do? Warn people not to tell you bad stuff cuz it sets you off?? How do others cope with these kind of things?

Kay x

[peach]

hi!

i totally relate to this post!
all the above sentances would set me off too!!!

i find that even ppl just talking about illness makes me feel ill myself!
and they seem to talk about it a lot these days?! im starting to wonder if there is something in the water or something, because ppl seem to me to be getting sicker and sicker in general? do you think?
how do we beat this one?

take care.

[domino]

Hi , interesting thread, the things people say,hum. i guess that sometimes we just do,nt know what to say ,and when we do it comes out wrong.:shrug:

[reddevil]

Hi,

You are not alone with this one, these things in life start me off worrying.
I also find TV or films, when the dreaded C word is mentioned, I clam up and start to worry.

Red

[lass]

Yes, totally agree with this!

I have gained a good 7-10lbs since my ha started a year ago. Normally I would have shed this weight; I hate being this size. But I'm sure an inner part of me thinks that all the time I'm gaining weight, I can't be ill. If I lost weight, even intentially, I'd be worrying more that maybe it wasn't the diet that caused it, maybe I'm ill.

People know I'm usually "dieting" and often remark they think I've lost weight. They probably say it to be nice rather than because they think I'm thinner! But it tips me over the edge, sends me off in a panic.

As someone else says, everyone seems to have a story of someone ill. We seem to have stopped making small talk on the weather and turned our topic to illness.

Everytime I hear something worrying, I take it as a warning. Like someone elses illness was sent to them to warn me to protect against whatever it is, or be on lookout for it. As if the whole world is just about me and everyone in it is here for my own benefit, for me to learn from!!! Very self-obsessed way of thinking on my behalf, I think :wacko:

My way of coping? Well, I had some counselling and that helped me a lot to realise that this isn't rational thought. Nor is my obsession with counting magpies and other supersitions. In a very sensitive way, my counsellor challenged me to think about these things, without me feeling really stupid. She taught me some CBT exercises, so that when I feel the panic rising because someone has just told me about someone else getting ill, or dying, and I start to relate this to me, to challenge this thought and turn the negative thoughts (why have I just heard about someone with bowel cancer? Is it because I have bowel cancer? Blah, blah, blah) - to a positive thought (ok, so someone I know who knows someone has bowel cancer, but their symptoms aren't the same as me, I've been checked out thoroughly by doctors and all tests have come back positive), etc.

I'm just finished reading a great book called Overcoming Anxiety (you can buy it from Amazon and other places) which my counsellor recommended and it has lots of interesting and useful techniques on challenging thoughts, and many other anxiety related problems.

[gabes]

I can totally relate! Theres a highway sign in NJ that says "The C Institute of New Jersey". I pass it twice a day. It cannot be avoided. It drives me crazy! I sometimes have to look the other way to make sure I don't see it.

[ksmith]

Some interesting responses! Peach, I agree people do seem to talk more about these issues, or have we just become atuned to them?

Reddevil & Gabes .... I can't read horoscopes as I seem to focus on the star sign cancer!

Lass - I'm sure one of the reasons I am over weight is because if I stay over weight then I can't be ill can I! In my head people who are overweight are healthy (when probably the opposite is true) .

Kay x

[manmoor]

God Kay what an interesting post and replies too wow xxx I can so relate to people asking have you lost weight now that really sets me off big time. xx

[maya]

I totally get what you are saying.

I think one of the reasons those comments about people not feeling right and then dying are so scary is that with panic we don't feel right. It's hard not to merge the tow together.

Lately, I have been trying to avoid people who make those comments as well as neagtive movies but man it is everywhere!:)

[Phill2]

My star sign IS Cancer. Wish I could change my birthday.
Phill :shades:

[kimmy]

If we believed or took notice of eveything we wouldnt function!!!!!! Its hard but you have to move on, dont mean to be blunt! BUT we just have to!

[sarahe2905]

Ooooh i know all about this one!

I thought recently i had managed to get a grip on my health anxiety. Until i spent one day whilst sitting in a lecture theatre. I developed a headache and started to feel pretty shite, i was coping with it quite alright until people were asking me if i was alright? also becuase i had been suffering with dizzyness a few weeks ago my friends started saying, 'im really worried about you'! 'You haven't been right for a while'!

And even though i knew that my headache were just a symptom of PMS i went home that day feeling incredibly anxious and depressed!!! I kept on thinking well there must be something wrong with me then!!! Even though my rational brain knew it was PMS.!!!

what this has taught me is that if i keep telling people about the symptoms i'm feeling im bound to trigger off negative worrying resonses. This in turn just feeds your anxiety! My boyfriend quite rightly pointed out to me to stop telling other people who dont understand this anxiety thing about my symptoms as they're only going to put ideas in my head that .....it could be something!!

Sometimes though its almost like i am telling people for a reaction. Like i want them to confirm my worst fear to prove me im not going mad! Even though i know it feeds my anxiey!!!

Does anybody get this?

[PITITA]

I can relate to this post 100%. The worst ever line for me is when people tell me, stop thinking about going crazy, because you will :(
Or when I confide in a friend and say I feel DP/DR, they just say you should be careful, because if you don't stop thinking about it, it WILL make you go crazy...sigh xx

[rb1978]

I can totally relate to this post. I used to work in an office with someone who used to watch all of those awful programmes about weird medical conditions that you get on Channel 5 etc You know the ones - the man who's body reacted to something and now he's dead. Then she'd come in to work and relate in minute detail what she'd watched. Once I'd realised I was the only one who wasn't interested, I used to end up picking up a file and a pen, to look like I was going out on a work-related matter :winks: , and leaving the room. Seriously though, before I started walking away I used to remember the smallest details of what had been said and then be mulling them over and mulling them over.

I've tried to be quite strict with myself lately...I don't watch things about health on TV, try to avoid films etc dealing with the dreaded C word - the slightest mention of that sets me off and am trying desperately not to Google symptoms though that's a tough habit to break. Getting out of that office was a big plus too.

PS I'm a Cancer too :D

[Charlottie]

The pharmacist at my work asked if I was diabetic the other day cause I was coming in every few minutes for a drink. Even though I knew it was just because the heating dries my mouth out and I'd only drunk 500ml of pop through an entire 9-5 day it set me right off! Grrr.

[clickaway]

I went through a phase where watching any kind of physical sport would make me worried, thinking they would keel over any minute!

[anxious]

mention the word lump and im totally off on one

[spacebunnyx]

yeah- i can completely identify with this! i always find that if someone says they know someone who's very ill of some disease - i think i have it not too long after! and i have to admit i was a victim of the Kylie effect- in 2005 had HUGE anxiety over breast cancer (apparently it was really common that year a gynae friend told me!)

[Elemental Child]

Thank you.....these posts have had me in stitches.....only because in each one I see myself, hear myself....I used to read through huge great medical book convinced I have some disease. I think deaths of friends and family set me off. I can totally relate to your stories and especially because I can't stop monitoring myself and my sanity....AAGGHH!! and my friend said a few days ago well if you continue to do that you WILL send yourself mad! lol

I think it might be good to write these things down....you know like a little short story...indulge in the fact that a character might make a cup of coffee and feel a bit strange...use the powers of your imagination to be creative....I do think that if you bring it out and just reread it as it appears on paper.....make it real....not computer...it may act as an exorcising process. Reread it again and again until it loses its power!!

Strangely enough I feel comforted by "Six Feet Under" haven't quite worked out why seeing that it tells of exactly the fact that we go in all manner of situations....but perhaps it exhausts us in possibilities.

Take Care
xx

[ksmith]

The weather here has been quite hot lately and a colleague commented that I looked brown. What did I hear? "you look a bit yellow" ...... and you can guess what went through my head. My colleagues are terrified to compliment me lately as I take anything they say and construe it to feed my own bloody health anxiety. If I look like I've lost weight and suntanned, don't tell me!! lol

Kay x

[Gryphoenix]

I'm totally like this too. I hated health class in high school because every time we went over some disease or something I'd get all worried about the symptoms and freak out. O_o Or like those specials on the news about some new rare horrible disease.