axolotl
22-04-17, 11:17
Health Anxiety is a big liar, that feeds you a lot of mistruths to keep itself alive, but one is particularly enormous. A bit of a personal story...
I don't remember having health anxiety at all as a child or teenager. When I was 19 I had bacterial meningitis, and was hospitalised for two weeks, during which I spent one week touch and go in intensive care. I say this only as this is the point I lost my natural "that kind of thing won't happen to me" bravado of youth. The first bad cold I had after that was also the first example of HA I can remember. I went to the doctor terrified and wept with relief in the car afterwards being told I just had a cold. Understandable perhaps after what I went through.
Despite this my HA wasn't very bad after that. Over the next few years I developed IBS symptoms at University, and just put it down to a bad student diet, and starting to take after my dad, who was always diverting family trips to find a loo. I started with bad headaches, and never got worried or even entertained the possibility of anything nasty. I had a visible cyst in the "gentlemen's area", and while this was a concern, I don't remember panicking too much about testicular cancer while it was being checked out, presuming it was more than likely OK. If any of these things happened now I'd be beside myself.
My first proper bout of HA I remember was about 13 years ago, persuading myself I had HIV, because I had a nasty bout of tonsilitis soon after having an uncharacteristic careless sexual encounter (all clear, of course). But generally I wasn't too bad until about two years ago.
Since then it's been a rollercoaster of HA - palpitations and chest pain being an imminent heart attack (all clear - put down to anxiety), tingling being MS (all clear - put down to anxiety), big bruises being leukaemia (of course it wasn't), abdominal pain being bowel cancer (all clear, of course), groin pain being testicular cancer (all clear - had a couple of varicoceles giving me some gip), now I've got some chest and abdominal pain and can't shake the idea of tumours (which I'm not giving in to). There will be other short-lived fears I've had and forgotten about.
So the biggest lie? I'm a thirty-something male. I'm in one of the least likely category for anything nasty to happen to me health-wise, even being a bit unfit and slobby like I am. Sure things can happen, I'm not immune, and we all know someone who things have happened to. But they're outliers, who have been dealt a terrible hand the vast majority of us won't be.
HA has got me associating every blip and burble of my body as a sign of something nasty. The lie is it's not even close to being likely to be. The lie is that I have to be vigilant. That nasty things are inevitable and just a matter of time. My anxiety has made me associate every minor or vague unease with horrible disease, to keep a watch over myself. But why? It makes no sense.
So (TL;DR) my point is when we bounce from one fear to another it makes no logical sense. Take a deep breath and ask yourself, why were you scared about brain tumours a month ago, melanomas last week, and ALS this week? It's your anxiety feeding you the biggest lie of all - that you're destined to be seriously ill, and you have to keep constant, vigilant watch. You aren't, and you don't.
I don't remember having health anxiety at all as a child or teenager. When I was 19 I had bacterial meningitis, and was hospitalised for two weeks, during which I spent one week touch and go in intensive care. I say this only as this is the point I lost my natural "that kind of thing won't happen to me" bravado of youth. The first bad cold I had after that was also the first example of HA I can remember. I went to the doctor terrified and wept with relief in the car afterwards being told I just had a cold. Understandable perhaps after what I went through.
Despite this my HA wasn't very bad after that. Over the next few years I developed IBS symptoms at University, and just put it down to a bad student diet, and starting to take after my dad, who was always diverting family trips to find a loo. I started with bad headaches, and never got worried or even entertained the possibility of anything nasty. I had a visible cyst in the "gentlemen's area", and while this was a concern, I don't remember panicking too much about testicular cancer while it was being checked out, presuming it was more than likely OK. If any of these things happened now I'd be beside myself.
My first proper bout of HA I remember was about 13 years ago, persuading myself I had HIV, because I had a nasty bout of tonsilitis soon after having an uncharacteristic careless sexual encounter (all clear, of course). But generally I wasn't too bad until about two years ago.
Since then it's been a rollercoaster of HA - palpitations and chest pain being an imminent heart attack (all clear - put down to anxiety), tingling being MS (all clear - put down to anxiety), big bruises being leukaemia (of course it wasn't), abdominal pain being bowel cancer (all clear, of course), groin pain being testicular cancer (all clear - had a couple of varicoceles giving me some gip), now I've got some chest and abdominal pain and can't shake the idea of tumours (which I'm not giving in to). There will be other short-lived fears I've had and forgotten about.
So the biggest lie? I'm a thirty-something male. I'm in one of the least likely category for anything nasty to happen to me health-wise, even being a bit unfit and slobby like I am. Sure things can happen, I'm not immune, and we all know someone who things have happened to. But they're outliers, who have been dealt a terrible hand the vast majority of us won't be.
HA has got me associating every blip and burble of my body as a sign of something nasty. The lie is it's not even close to being likely to be. The lie is that I have to be vigilant. That nasty things are inevitable and just a matter of time. My anxiety has made me associate every minor or vague unease with horrible disease, to keep a watch over myself. But why? It makes no sense.
So (TL;DR) my point is when we bounce from one fear to another it makes no logical sense. Take a deep breath and ask yourself, why were you scared about brain tumours a month ago, melanomas last week, and ALS this week? It's your anxiety feeding you the biggest lie of all - that you're destined to be seriously ill, and you have to keep constant, vigilant watch. You aren't, and you don't.