How do you guys deal with your health anxiety?

[Michael2112]

I'm just curious how everyone finds a way to keep moving forward when you always feel like your dying from whatever illness you have at the moment? I have OCD to go along with my severe health anxiety, making it so that the fear is always there, I'm almost always thinking about it. No matter what I'm doing that day, if I try to enjoy myself I'm always reminded that I'll be dead soon. I can never allow myself to think about the family I would like to hbe some day because I'll never get there. I'm 27. All my oral cancer fears were kicked off simply be reading about a toothpaste. That's all it took. Saw a few trigger words, googled then boom. I am going to have mt nephew over today to stay up all night playin video games, what would normaly be a really fun time will now be a night of me just thinking about oral cancer. It's impossible to just enjoy the moment, worry about my fears the next day. With OCD it's too difficult. I'm just wondering how everyone else does it? How do you manage to live keep moving forward. My mind set is what's the point. I know you could just as easily get in a car accident or something like that but honestly I would rather have that because you don't expect it, you're happy untill that moment. Not some slow drawn out death that you know is coming. I try to tell myself not to complain and to remember things like the fact that a factory farmed animal would trade places with me in an instant. Those animals live in the most horrific conditions on earth, waiting for death; never even knowing there is such a thing as sunlight or fresh air. Here I am with problems that may not even be real and I'm miserable. Any advice? Strategies? I keep trying to make a strategy, a mindset that I can use to make life liveable. I am on Lamictal (been on for a few years) I obviously need something else. I have started an Serotonenergic med a few days ago, maybe this will be easier if I can actually stay on it. Whenever I am in anxiety crisis mode it's hard to start a new med because I feel like What's the point of starting to feel happy when you belive you have terminal illness. Please don't teach me any new symptoms/things to fear that I was unaware of. I'm just looking for some wisdom, maybe strategies I didn't consider.

[Thoughts]

My HA lessened with time. Its hard to keep believing you have something super deadly if you stay alive well after it would have killed you if you indeed had it.

That said, I can tell you what happens when I'm not obsessing about heath. The old obsessions that I had long forgot about started to creep back in. Then I was just worried about the same stuff I always had. Given you say you have odd, you may find this happens to you as well.

But, when actively dealing with HA, I challenge the thoughts, analyze why they could be wrong, ask myself if they have any rational basis or if it is just an anxious thought coupled with somatization or normal health stuff that (eye strain, upset stomach) everyone gets. Then if that stuff doesn't work, which it usually does. I say, I'll wait two weeks, and If I still have chest pain/headache/whatever, then I'll consider talking to a doctor, but only if its not better. Its always gotten better. After that, I remind myself, no one gets out of here, I've had a good run at it, and it won't be terribly bad to have my energy flow into some new form.

---------- Post added at 05:09 ---------- Previous post was at 05:01 ----------

With regard to not wanting to move on cause there is no point: Life is only worth living if you are actually living. Never stop living. Especially not because you obsess over things that you don't have and that you are incredibly unlikely to get in the future. Its interesting how we can lose everything by trying too hard to preserve what we are afraid of losing.

[Primula]

Hi Michael, I'm posting a great CBT based treatment for HA. It's been posted before but as you are quite new here you probably haven't seen it. http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/resources/infopax.cfm?Info_ID=53
PS, just carry on doing whatever you would have done if you didn't have health anxiety, even if you don't think you'll enjoy it.