Anxiety&the internet..a love/hate relationship

[Savvy_Darling]

So I was on my Facebook this morning bored and couldn't sleep and the one thing I just hate seeing are the posts that are like "warning signs of *insert disease/illness* you need to know. They're usually kind of spam posts just to get you to click so they make money.. because we should all know fear is a good way to control someone into doing something.. anyways I stumbled on said post with cervical cancer being the topic of choice.. I instantly felt my anxious rise and my heart quicken and my palms get sweaty.. I started feeling really panicky but I didn't read the post but what I did do is read comments people posted under the article.. which scared me.. because reading about women who went through it and their stories really fed my anxiety. With my last menstrual cycle being weird and being worried about cervical cancer I really shouldn't have read into it. I haven't had a Pap smear before.. I'm 22 and only started having sex about 2 years ago and have only done it with my boyfriend and protected of course. My anxiety makes me paralyzingly scared to go to the doctors and even more so the gynecologist because all I can think about is someone shoving some metal thing into me and scraping around.. in my head it's a scene out of a horror movie which has delayed me in going as of yet. I do know I need to conquer this fear and I plan on it but at the current moment I'm just so anxious and scared. Scared of cancer , dying of cancer and I'm sure most of you can relate. :(
I don't think I can go to sleep now because of how scared I am and paranoid of my body. I just don't know how to separate myself from this fear..and calm myself down. I'm trying but thinking about how I could have cervical cancer.. or anything bad happening with my body is genuinely horrifying. Just kind of needed to come here and vent.. does the Internet ruin anybody else's life as it does to me sometimes?! :lac:

[paranoid-viking]

For the spam posts, use AdBlock. More and more people do that and it will eventually ruin the click monger journalism eventually.

Yes, the Internet information about ilnesses and cancer has allready destroyed my life. I am no longer living, I just exist. I feel emotionally tortured by having read millions of pages about pancreatic cancer. It is disabling me.

[Captain irrational]

does the Internet ruin anybody else's life as it does to me sometimes?! :lac:

Oh yeah. Not so much these days though, as I'm getting pretty good about avoiding health related stuff online. It takes practice and discipline, but you can do it and your life will become far better for it. I even avoid reading the news these days as that also just tends to pile more anxiety and depression on top of me.

[MarkC]

Yes, the Internet information about ilnesses and cancer has already destroyed my life. I am no longer living, I just exist. I feel emotionally tortured by having read millions of pages about pancreatic cancer. It is disabling me.

This is really typical for people with anxiety, even more so for people with health anxiety.

Every time you read an article about somebody who's cancer was missed by their Doctor, or found out they had an aggressive cancer & were dead within a week, it is another little addition to your anxiety levels.

You may not realise it, but you are continually feeding your anxiety. Not just you......lots of us continue to do it year after year.

[Sefton]

Easier said than done I know, but anything health related online needs to be avoided. I'm just speaking from my own feelings here, but by looking up symptoms, reading health related articles, visiting forums etc., just feeds my anxiety. It's like a form of "self harm". I know what it's going to do to me before I hit the search button but I can't help it. If I feel off colour, or I have a strange pain or an odd blemish it must be some terrible disease that's going to totally incapacitate me, therefore I must check online, and you know what? My on line searches always confirm my fears. If I haven't got the symptoms at the time, you can bet your life I've got them within a couple of hours.

The reality of our condition means we will ALWAYS find a valid basis for our worst fears because that's how a HA sufferer will interpret the information in front of them. That's what it like for me anyway.

[Savvy_Darling]

That's why I love coming here because I can talk to people who genuinely understand what I'm feeling. I can relate to everything everyone has posted here!
I haven't gone on Google or googled symptoms in a long while which I'm proud of! It's when I'm confronted with something out of the blue that gets me.. say a tv commercial or news article or the spam bait Facebook posts.. when it's sprung on me it's hard to tell my anxiety no. I also can't watch the news for fear they will say something to get me anxiety going. Evidently it's breast cancer awareness month which yes is a great cause and everyone should be aware but I avoid it because my anxiety will feed off it and I'll start worrying about that cancer. Awareness is not good for us anxiety people because trust me we are already aware of EVERY health problem out there.
Sefton-- Yasss my body freaks me out.. I can't look at stuff on my body for too long or I will start overthinking and wondering what is normal and what could be terminal!! Like just last night I saw dry look skin on my shins of my legs and instead of thinkOmg it's dry skin it must be something awful like diabetic dry skin or one of my organs isn't working properly so it's showing signs through my skin! god I hate that!! I can't remember what it was like to look at myself in the mirror without finding something to stress about! :(

[KatiePink]

Savvy I'm exactly the same! Recently I've started seeing links shared by spam pages about 'signs of an impending heart attack' as soon as my eyes flick past it my anxiety hits the roof, and even though thankfully I never click on it, I still keep thinking of it all day!

It's a nightmare, I hate Facebook for this reason I should stop scrolling through my news feed but I'm too nosy for that :roflmao: