worried94
17-11-17, 22:06
Hi Everyone!
So for almost a year my health anxiety has been at bay. I'm thinking it appears at stressful times in my life. Around a year ago I split up with a long term boyfriend and was feeling down, my anxiety was really bad.
Recently I have made a big move back to my mum's to save some money, I don't know if it's the memories of the place of being at my worst with anxiety and depression a few years ago, but I feel like I've slipped right back into it. I was worried this would happen. Especially with all the stress of leaving my friends in a far away place, finding a new job and new friends, criticism from my mum like her asking me to do things when I feel like I need to have a destress like a long sleep during the daytime.
The last few days have been awful. At the moment I'm worrying about around 5 things at once and spending all my spare time out of work googling and googling.
Even if I don't find something life threatening for my issue it's almost like I'm looking for one! For example I have a pretty painful bruised lump on top of my foot that I have no recollection of banging or dropping something on. Google comes back with things like tendonitis (I guess the most likely issue?) a couple of weeks ago the toes just above the lump cramped really badly and I couldn't move them for a good 20 minutes. But it's like I want to find some sort of serious issue to validate my feelings.
Even if I have the simplest mark on my skin, like a red mark I currently have on my knee, in my mind it has to be some sort of super rare infection/disease that's going to kill me any minute now.
My knees are feeling a bit swollen (idk if they actually are or I'm hyperaware of my body atm) and my feet are feeling a bit numb. This and the foot is what I'm really panicking about tonight.
My brain feels all foggy and I feel like I'm forgetting things. When I'm walking down the street sometimes things don't seem real. I've had this rather severely in the past and know it's some form of depersonalisation, but I still can't help thinking I'm going faint because of a dangerous medical condition. I also get these really weird head rushes and I hear my blood rushing in my ears which freaks me out.
I also have tonsillitis/sinusitis that won't budge (it comes and goes every so often but haven't seen a doctor about it) and one of my tonsils has a couple of weird bumps on it. I have a doctors appointment on Monday to see if I need antibiotics. Of course I went through the whole tonsil cancer worry but I've moved on to my new worries mostly. I purposely made it a few days ahead so that I could see if it goes down which is pretty good for me because usually I'd be like "I need antibiotics asap before I end up with meningitis or sepis." which I'm still kind of feeling but I forced myself to do the later appointment.
Last night was the absolute worst, I got into bed and seemed to fall asleep straight away, it felt like I was having creepy nightmares where I couldn't breathe and I woke up with a jolt, the 'dreams' felt like they'd lasted a long time but I looked at the clock and it'd only been 15 minutes since I'd looked at my phone last and I thought you had to sleep for a while before dreams started? Even just closing my eyes again I was seeing weird images. Like I was hallucinating or something. I had to go and splash water on my face and do stuff to try and reset my body as much as possible. I eventually fell asleep again after attempting to do some meditation which I just panicked through mostly anyway. Now I'm afraid I won't be able to even sleep properly again tonight, which is my one escape from my constant worrying...
Basically I've got so deep in the spiral of health anxiety I can't think clearly enough to rationalise anything. I'm thinking this foot thing is going to kill me even though I can't even find the slightest dangerous condition in my googling. It's like trying to climb out of a deep pit with no ladder.
Sorry I just needed somewhere to ramble this and see if anyone relates to any of this?
So for almost a year my health anxiety has been at bay. I'm thinking it appears at stressful times in my life. Around a year ago I split up with a long term boyfriend and was feeling down, my anxiety was really bad.
Recently I have made a big move back to my mum's to save some money, I don't know if it's the memories of the place of being at my worst with anxiety and depression a few years ago, but I feel like I've slipped right back into it. I was worried this would happen. Especially with all the stress of leaving my friends in a far away place, finding a new job and new friends, criticism from my mum like her asking me to do things when I feel like I need to have a destress like a long sleep during the daytime.
The last few days have been awful. At the moment I'm worrying about around 5 things at once and spending all my spare time out of work googling and googling.
Even if I don't find something life threatening for my issue it's almost like I'm looking for one! For example I have a pretty painful bruised lump on top of my foot that I have no recollection of banging or dropping something on. Google comes back with things like tendonitis (I guess the most likely issue?) a couple of weeks ago the toes just above the lump cramped really badly and I couldn't move them for a good 20 minutes. But it's like I want to find some sort of serious issue to validate my feelings.
Even if I have the simplest mark on my skin, like a red mark I currently have on my knee, in my mind it has to be some sort of super rare infection/disease that's going to kill me any minute now.
My knees are feeling a bit swollen (idk if they actually are or I'm hyperaware of my body atm) and my feet are feeling a bit numb. This and the foot is what I'm really panicking about tonight.
My brain feels all foggy and I feel like I'm forgetting things. When I'm walking down the street sometimes things don't seem real. I've had this rather severely in the past and know it's some form of depersonalisation, but I still can't help thinking I'm going faint because of a dangerous medical condition. I also get these really weird head rushes and I hear my blood rushing in my ears which freaks me out.
I also have tonsillitis/sinusitis that won't budge (it comes and goes every so often but haven't seen a doctor about it) and one of my tonsils has a couple of weird bumps on it. I have a doctors appointment on Monday to see if I need antibiotics. Of course I went through the whole tonsil cancer worry but I've moved on to my new worries mostly. I purposely made it a few days ahead so that I could see if it goes down which is pretty good for me because usually I'd be like "I need antibiotics asap before I end up with meningitis or sepis." which I'm still kind of feeling but I forced myself to do the later appointment.
Last night was the absolute worst, I got into bed and seemed to fall asleep straight away, it felt like I was having creepy nightmares where I couldn't breathe and I woke up with a jolt, the 'dreams' felt like they'd lasted a long time but I looked at the clock and it'd only been 15 minutes since I'd looked at my phone last and I thought you had to sleep for a while before dreams started? Even just closing my eyes again I was seeing weird images. Like I was hallucinating or something. I had to go and splash water on my face and do stuff to try and reset my body as much as possible. I eventually fell asleep again after attempting to do some meditation which I just panicked through mostly anyway. Now I'm afraid I won't be able to even sleep properly again tonight, which is my one escape from my constant worrying...
Basically I've got so deep in the spiral of health anxiety I can't think clearly enough to rationalise anything. I'm thinking this foot thing is going to kill me even though I can't even find the slightest dangerous condition in my googling. It's like trying to climb out of a deep pit with no ladder.
Sorry I just needed somewhere to ramble this and see if anyone relates to any of this?