puzzledlass
14-03-18, 22:18
So I haven’t been here in awhile. Primarily, because I’ve been doing ok. I’ve been in counselling for over a year and have been working on my issues. I was diagnosed with PTSD due to a sexual assault.
My contract role was made permanent, and I enjoy my job. There was some bad times with a manipulative colleague which were hard and were a massive trigger of assault.
My doctors visits had decreased, I had moments of clarity where I was able to tell myself “This is just a mark, you’ve had this before etc”. There were times I had even googled my NMP username and could see I had posted about the issue in the past. I was able to see this and think ok you’ve had this before, it’s gone and you’ve been ok.
Thing is, I’ve had a relapse with my health anxiety. I’ve felt it coming on for awhile but have pushed it away. In doing that I think it’s saved itself up jump on me. So here I am.
It started a couple of weeks ago, when I found I had quite a few small bruises on my legs. My first thought was - feeling tired + bruises = leukaemia. The bruises went and I managed to feel somewhat normal but the bruises still lingered in my mind.
I didn’t want to go to the doctor, I felt it was some kind of failure. But I felt so tired and sluggish and bleh and I couldn’t put it off. I figured I had low iron again, happens to me a bit.
So I made an appointment with the doctor and saw her this morning. I knew she’d ask me to do blood tests, and I tried to gear myself up to not be super panicky about it.
She has sent me for the following tests and I’m terrified. I can’t help thinking it’s going to be bad results based on how shitty I feel.
- iron studies (expected)
- CBC (also expected but terrified it’ll show leukaemia or some other horrible thing)
- Creatinine blood & urine
- B12 (not worried about this, I suspect will be low)
So now my thoughts have gone from a couple of things to be worried about to heaps. To kidney failure, leukaemia, diabetes, the list goes on. I feel so down.
We also talked about how anxiety impacts body, about how for example if someone DID get a C diagnosis how you would feel, how you would process, how your body would react to hearing that news etc. Then she raised about how when I’m essentially telling myself that...physically I’m going to be feeling very similar things.
I told doctor about my leukaemia concerns and she said “the tests would show if anything is awry” and that made me panic too! Then I mentioned bruises and she said that if they didn’t go and got worse that may be a concern. She didn’t seem to think there was reason to think that but why so many tests then? Does she think something is very wrong with me? With my kidneys?
I’m so scared. I feel so rubbish I’m like “how can it NOT be something bad?”. She’s booked a phone consult for 2.30pm tomorrow to discuss results. I’m terrified, I can barely function.
Apologies for the novel.
xoxo puzzled
My contract role was made permanent, and I enjoy my job. There was some bad times with a manipulative colleague which were hard and were a massive trigger of assault.
My doctors visits had decreased, I had moments of clarity where I was able to tell myself “This is just a mark, you’ve had this before etc”. There were times I had even googled my NMP username and could see I had posted about the issue in the past. I was able to see this and think ok you’ve had this before, it’s gone and you’ve been ok.
Thing is, I’ve had a relapse with my health anxiety. I’ve felt it coming on for awhile but have pushed it away. In doing that I think it’s saved itself up jump on me. So here I am.
It started a couple of weeks ago, when I found I had quite a few small bruises on my legs. My first thought was - feeling tired + bruises = leukaemia. The bruises went and I managed to feel somewhat normal but the bruises still lingered in my mind.
I didn’t want to go to the doctor, I felt it was some kind of failure. But I felt so tired and sluggish and bleh and I couldn’t put it off. I figured I had low iron again, happens to me a bit.
So I made an appointment with the doctor and saw her this morning. I knew she’d ask me to do blood tests, and I tried to gear myself up to not be super panicky about it.
She has sent me for the following tests and I’m terrified. I can’t help thinking it’s going to be bad results based on how shitty I feel.
- iron studies (expected)
- CBC (also expected but terrified it’ll show leukaemia or some other horrible thing)
- Creatinine blood & urine
- B12 (not worried about this, I suspect will be low)
So now my thoughts have gone from a couple of things to be worried about to heaps. To kidney failure, leukaemia, diabetes, the list goes on. I feel so down.
We also talked about how anxiety impacts body, about how for example if someone DID get a C diagnosis how you would feel, how you would process, how your body would react to hearing that news etc. Then she raised about how when I’m essentially telling myself that...physically I’m going to be feeling very similar things.
I told doctor about my leukaemia concerns and she said “the tests would show if anything is awry” and that made me panic too! Then I mentioned bruises and she said that if they didn’t go and got worse that may be a concern. She didn’t seem to think there was reason to think that but why so many tests then? Does she think something is very wrong with me? With my kidneys?
I’m so scared. I feel so rubbish I’m like “how can it NOT be something bad?”. She’s booked a phone consult for 2.30pm tomorrow to discuss results. I’m terrified, I can barely function.
Apologies for the novel.
xoxo puzzled