How did your health anxiety start?

[Beckybecks]

I have read that health anxiety can stem from being ill in your childhood where family members may have paid a lot of attention to you and your illness.
This is definitely the case with me having spent a lot of time in hospital during my childhood years, and my parents, of course, being very concerned.

Over the years, along with health anxiety I've developed a fear of hospitals, doctors and taking medication.

How do you think your health anxiety started?

[flappergirl]

I think it has always been there to some degree. I remember being young when a neighbour died and it made my realise my mortality. I had a week of total stress and almost needed hospitalisation due to the anxiety binding me up.

I can pinpoint a couple of other key events but what has tipped me most recently was my
Mum being diagnosed with Non Hodgkin's lymphoma and my dad with prostate cancer. Since the diagnoses I have had one crisis after another ��. But excellent news: my mum has just been told she is in remission!! Fabulous!!!!!! Dad is in vvv early stages so no treatment needed either.

[SeagullTerror]

Simply put: I was diagnosed with leukemia as a child, and Google. Google...

[Leslie735]

I honestly have no idea. I've always had a "worry" tendency since I was a young teenager and OCD traits but it was sort of background noise. It wasn't until I got into my late 20's did it really take off. Ever since its been one thing after another. Its awful! My Dad was diagnosed with prostate c. and my brother a brain AVM in the summer of 2009, that was a few years before my anxiety really took off. Then my Dad was diagnosed with thyroid c. early last year so maybe that contributed?

Side note: My Dad is in completely remission with both. YAY! and my brother is doing well too. :)

[ShaunRyder]

My mum said I use to worry about my breathing when I was younger but I stopped.

But from what I remember was about 2013 and one of moles got a black spot on it and started bleeding, I goggled and google said I had skin cancer (What a surprise ay google?), I was worrying for days until I got a docs app, he took one look and said thats fine and sent me home, didn't believe him so went again and got same response then the black spot went and mole went back to its normal self, I then just started worrying about every mole I had then moved onto to other cancer worries.

[LuSmith]

Personally I don't have much idea, as I feel like I've always been anxious when it comes to everything, including my health, but I do remember when I was a kid in elementary school, and a lady came in to talk about how she had to have a pacemaker fitted for her heart as it was failing, and made us all listen to how it made a weird sound as it pumped. I remember for weeks after that I would get paranoid that my heart wasn't performing properly. I was only maybe 8 years old??? so it's possible that had something to do with it too lol

[ScaredLizard]

I choked on a candy when I was 8 or 9 and no one noticed except my elder brother. He gave me the Heimlich maneuver and saved me. My dad and mom never noticed. That's what started mine. They were in the same room with me and couldn't see I was choking.

[samina77]

I'm not sure...

As I younger person I was pretty fearless believe it or not, a bit of a rebel at school. I do remember my mum had a medical book at home and just for "fun" I used to read through the "symptom sorter". I think that has come back to bite me in adulthood.

I used to suffer a terrible fear of flying, that was the first time I had a panic attack. I also lost a couple of young friends to cancer which definitely isn't helping my current HA...

In recent years I have become very afraid for my health but it went through the roof after my son was born and I had the bladder polyp and placenta thing...

But definitely think the tendency for OCD and obsessive thoughts in general has been there for a while...

[Scotttt]

Google.

[Cece6]

I remember always being terrified of seeing someone vomit as a child (although no emetophobia and I was continually sick throughout childhood due to migraines). I do remember things that did frighten me were always profound and the fear lasted weeks. In that sense I have always had a level of anxiety.

I could pick from a few scenarios but everything only came crumbling down for me when I was diagnosed with something in 2014.

As a child I watched my Grandfather die from cancer (we all lived together). Then, when I was about 7 my Mum was hospitalised for Type 1 diabetes gone too far, she thought she had the flu, but when all the sh*t hit the fan it was incredibly terrifying and an emergency.

I have a particular strong fear of emergencies, ambulance sirens, etc. So there could well be a link to that. My mum was also always the best nurse when I was ill, there was no get up and get on with it - maybe I needed some of that rather than the coddling? Who knows!

[colonelkurtz]

Like others, I feel it was always there to a degree. But one summer before fourth grade our close neighbor died and it triggered a bad episode. Very similar to the ones I get today even though I was so young and had no idea what was going on.

I had to quit baseball that summer because of it. I kept reading my moms medical book (this was early 90s and we didnt have internet yet, if wbsites like webmd even existed back then) for symptoms of appendicitis and I was worried my appendix would rupture before I got to the hospital. Kept getting imaginary abdominal pains. Couldn't catch my breath.

This happened most summers and went away during the school year. Fast forward 20 years and I can't even function sometimes.

Right now I keep freaking out because I vacuumed my kitchen floor to get any leftver crumbs after seeing a mouse the night before. Now I am worried I accidentally vacuumed mouse poop/pee and have hentavirus.

I just want to be normal again. :weep:

[unsure_about_this]

It started with googling health conditin, also my Dad reached the age in 2012 when you get bowel cancer screening (poop) test my Dad left his letter on the armchair my mum told me to not read it, it just started from there, I got abdominal pains, kept checking my poop (I got lots of health worries since than) before 2012 I used to have bad OCD washing hands all the time, still do

[roseanxiety]

My mom had and died from liver cancer when I was 40. I will never forget the trauma of being told she was terminal. I think it started then. I obsess about every little thing being cancer . It's terrible .


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[fleurdelis]

I have OCD, so I've been prone to getting "stuck" on particular themes since I was in my teens. However, I didn't start having major anxiety about my health until I had a series of collapsed lungs when I was 20. I had surgery and have been fine since then (I'm now 28), but it definitely undermined my confidence in my own body; you just don't expect to have a serious problem when you're young, so when one happens, you start wondering what else could be going on.

[sarahsarah]

I met my (now) husband and for the first time in my life, I had something really precious that I didn't want to lose. So what did I do? Start panicking about losing my health and therefore losing him and what we had. The first physical symptom to freak me out was a small spot on my chest which I thought could be skin cancer. Dr Google then soon after led me to the wonderful world of lymphoma and pretty much all cancers. I've been via lung cancer to Parkinson's and then kidney failure and everything in between. Spent months of my life checking my pulse and asking people if I look yellow. My HA is under control at the moment but I don't know when that will change. All I do know is I am a walking textbook of symptoms and diagnoses. 8 years of it now and I don't mind saying I am bloody sick of it!

[jenni89]

I've always been a worrier of my own health. As a child, I was scared my tongue was going to fall out and I was overly curious about the human body.

I think my anxiety really kicked in five years ago when one of my managers passed away suddenly due to a heart attack. He was a healthy man, who exercised and ate well. Then my mom passed away two months after a cancer diagnosis. My mom was the strongest person I knew, it was almost unreal.

I guess these occurrences really solidify how short life can be. It can be gone in an instant. Can't help but think every pain, twinge, and something off warrants impending death. I've gotten better over the past few years, knowing I've come a long way, and I'm still here and well.

[Leah88]

My adult bout began when my brother in law died from a melanoma that 3x Dr's diagnosed and treated as a plantar wart.

[palspals]

Well, I have had OCD and anxious tendencies since my early teens, triggered when somebody attempted to abduct me. It didn't lead to major health anxiety though. I was more fixated on other things- and I was extremely mentally unwell. Although I did worry about my health more than the average person. Then I was relaxed about everything for years...bliss.

Recently, I found a lump in my neck and Google led me to believe it was lymphoma. Over the year I've lost many kilos without trying too, so that's added to the fear. I went into a state. Then there was a melanoma scare (I have a few moles and live in Australia so...), then colon cancer, now back to the lymphoma thing... :/

But I guess, it all comes back to me finally being in a place where I love my life and where my future looks bright...and I want to be here for it. So therefore, health is really the only thing that can stand in my way. And I'm obsessing about the uncertainty of it. And the reality that terrible shit can happen and nobody can do a thing to stop it sometimes. On paper, I can understand my behaviour so easily, but when you feel the symptoms and you've made the awful mistake of spending too much time on Google...things can get out of hand.

I'm doing better than I was though. Still not great though.

[hannahc128]

I was always a little bit of a worrier but I was fairly calm throughout my mom having breast cancer and extremely bad reactions to chemo and being very close to death. Then my grandfather died a few weeks after my mom finished treatment, then my mom had knee surgery and had a stroke during surgery. About two months after this I was seeing my doctor about gallbladder pain which they found no stones so sent me on my way. Then my diabetes doctor switched meds around, and I woke up one morning completely panicking about a bruise on my boob I had had for 6 months from my cat jumping on me.

So I think what happened was a combination of having a real pain but being told it's nothing which until then I didn't understand that there isn't always a fix for every problem (btw I still think it's a gallbladder issue but who knows), and switching meds around. I think everything just piled on with my mom and one day I just snapped. I've gotten better since those first few months, mostly because I'm terrified of the feeling of being so out of it from anxiety. I still have physical signs though which really bother me. I can be fine for a month and one thing makes me anxious and BAM, left arm pain.