CBT for health anxiety

[axolotl]

After another bout of health anxiety that sent me to the doctor's this morning over nothing I've had enough - it's impacting on my social life, my work life, my happiness, my enjoyment of events and my ability to make future plans. It's increasing physical symptoms leading to a vicious circle of panic, and I keep dragging my poor wife into my spirals of irrational bulls**t.

I know NHS services for mental health services are stretched, and I know people with anxiety way worse than mine who are in a state where they're actually a danger to themselves who have waited ages for CBT. Therefore, for my relatively low-grade anxiety, I'm not confident I'd get any help any time soon and figure I'll have to go private.

I was wondering what people's experiences of this for predominantly health-related anxiety was, and practical issues such as cost, how many sessions were needed, etc?

[pulisa]

I think you have the skills to get out of this current "bout" yourself, axolotl. I also think that you should limit the time you spend supporting others on the HA board because it can be a double-edged sword when you are on a bit of a temporary downward curve.

You need to have confidence in your own ability to manage your HA in my opinion because you offer excellent advice to others who are stuck in their own HA mindset.

[axolotl]

Thanks. You're probably right to a point, as my most active times on here coincide with my own anxiety, although I rarely post directly about it. I tend to use my advice to others to give myself a slap down at the same time (which may sometimes explain why I can be a little blunt with people). But like for everyone, this place is great but can also verge on unhealthy when you're not in the right mindset and spend too much time here.

I'm just quite bad at taking my own advice, and sometimes think I need a bit more of a professional programme to snap me out of the more general trend and patterns of thought I have. I recognise my anxiety is quite low-grade compared to many others, and I am generally a rational thinker (which makes me hard on myself when I veer into irrationality) that can usually snap out of things eventually, but I've had three years where I've lost months to worry over ultimately nothing.

I think I need a bit of help to get past the general pattern of getting fixated by uncertainty and worst cases. It's like I'm a computer programme with a glitch that gets it stuck in a logic loop sometimes. It's not just health - world events have had me in a similar state recently (I spent about a month after Trump got in irrationally presuming a nuclear war was coming, to the point I couldn't look at a view of my city without imagining bombs dropping), and moving house I noticed very similar patterns in getting obsessed with crime stats of the new area, and worrying unduly about minor points on the house survey. I realised health anxiety is its usual manifestation, but I was thinking very similarly about many other situations too.

Like I say, I think I just need a bit of a professional viewpoint in changing my thinking patterns.

[pulisa]

It may help you to have a professional on board to back up that you're doing the right things to keep tabs on your anxieties? It will probably be expensive though if you decide to go private but what price is better mental health if the therapy really helps you?

I know how hard it is to "practise what you preach" when it comes to your own HA and anxiety can fix onto any thought process to cause distress and frustration.

I just wanted to say that I think you have great insight into anxiety and HA as a whole so that's why I thought you might be prepared to ride it out on your own but there is always comfort in having a professional on board to guide you in the right direction and I hope you are able to find a decent therapist with minimal effort.