Question about HA and the reason behind it.

[HelloPanda23]

Okay, so I'm going to try and not write too much, but I don't promise anything. Saying that, let's get into the whole thought process behind HA.

Throughout my whole life, I've always found an obsession in things that interested me. For instance, 3 years ago, I had myself completely invested into an online mmo that took most of my time. Played the game for 3 years straight, and cared so much for it. When I'd be off the game, I'd still obsess over it mentally and think about what I'd do next in that game. While eating, while in the bathroom, everywhere. I simply enjoyed the game and cared so much about it.

Sadly though, my parents only permitted me to play on the weekends. As a result, I couldn't play on weekdays. Guess what I did on the weekdays, then? After finishing my homework, I'd go on the forums for this exact same game and spend my free time there. I legit was soo invested in this game that it was insane. After a while though, I started to move on from the game due to some bad experiences I had in it. At this time, I didn't have HA and instead had a tiny bit of anxiety. I had the type of anxiety that if I heard a single sound on the first floor of my house, I'd lose my sh** and start freaking out a lot. I'd assume there was a robber or something, lol. Stuff like that, but not extensive fear that there was or is some disease in me that's slowly killing me.

Fast forward to 3 months ago, my fear of my health started due to drinking redbull. I drank the redbull and started to feel jittery and absolutely afraid that I'd get a seizure or have a heart attack. This led to my HA, but it never truly revealed itself until I first heard about ALS. I started to get super afraid of ALS because I had no idea as to whether I'd get it, and since it is a fatal disease, it was something for me to obsess over.

Just last week, I decided to make the stupid mistake of proving to myself that I had HA (even though I already knew I did), and so I decided to look through these forums and find a disease that would scare me to the point in which I'd obsess over it like I did with ALS. Sure enough, I found it, and BEA took this whole week from me, until I snapped out of it 1-2 days ago.

Now, each time I was obsessed with these diseases, I started to go forums, researched extensively about them, and kept thinking about them in my free time. When I'd wake up in the mornings, my first thoughts would be about them, and I simply wasted a lot of energy and time onto these fears. To put it as simply as possible, I obsessed over this game as much as I am obsessing over HA right now. Considering this, would the answer to solving and curing HA be in finding something positive that I can obsess over more than I obsess over my health? I'm already putting this to the test and moving onto that same game I left because I simply want to get back into it, and so I may keep everyone updated if necessary, but I just wanted others inputs on this.

[nomorepanic]

Could you add some paragraphs please - really hard to read

[HelloPanda23]

Could you add some paragraphs please - really hard to read

Sure, np! :)

[MyNameIsTerry]

It's a question of what is healthy. Life is about balance. But often we are encouraged to be obsessive about certain things e.g. strive to perform better at work and we see our life/work balance skew negatively. Because society encourages this we don't always see what is unhealthy, a lesson I learnt as it was why I had a breakdown in the first place after pushing harder & harder for many years and know I understand the advice my parents gave me from their experience.

You also need to be mindful of crutches. When I returned to work after the initial breakdown I made mistakes. I buried myself in my work and after a few years again sacrificing life for work it led me to a relapse. I didn't realise my mistakes back then, I was new to anxiety and had had no contact with other sufferers or read about it outside of anything my GP gave me but with my dad beating depression when hec was young I had his guidance.

The work I buried myself was a crutch. Whilst I enjoyed the achievements it had become obsessive. Now as an an anxiety sufferer I wasn't only pushing to achieve I was also using my work to avoid confronting some of my anxiety issues emg social events, exercise, etc.

In my relapse I returned to the daily walking I found helpful in my breakdown. My anxiety was much worse in the relapse, which was largely about a med that ramped up my anxiety levels for a long time, and I fell into daily routines of obsessive walking. This was part of the OCD because lots of compulsions took place whilst on those walks. It was again an avoidance, this time not wanting to be sitting with my anxiety at home, it filled in that time for me when my morning anxiety was at it's worst.

I broke that pattern. Now I'm free to walk or not. Sitting with anxiety can still be challenging when I'm having one of my blips but otherwise I handle it now.

So, balance is key. Too much healthy can be unhealthy in some way. Exercise can be obsessive and open us up to injury. Diet can be obsessive to the point we are no longer free to live without guilt.

Aside from avoidance because of anxiety there can also be the addiction side. People get addicted to things like exercise. Addiction is about the reward seeking element whereas compulsion is about warding off that anxiety. A guy at the walk-ins lifted weights at the gym daily. But he wasn't an addicted lifter, his physique wasn't what would be expected in those that live that lifestyle, it took hours out of his day that he wasn't alone with his thoughts & feelings (it was a mental health group, most had anxiety/depression).

[Kramze]

Okay, so I'm going to try and not write too much, but I don't promise anything. Saying that, let's get into the whole thought process behind HA.

Throughout my whole life, I've always found an obsession in things that interested me. For instance, 3 years ago, I had myself completely invested into an online mmo that took most of my time. Played the game for 3 years straight, and cared so much for it. When I'd be off the game, I'd still obsess over it mentally and think about what I'd do next in that game. While eating, while in the bathroom, everywhere. I simply enjoyed the game and cared so much about it.

Sadly though, my parents only permitted me to play on the weekends. As a result, I couldn't play on weekdays. Guess what I did on the weekdays, then? After finishing my homework, I'd go on the forums for this exact same game and spend my free time there. I legit was soo invested in this game that it was insane. After a while though, I started to move on from the game due to some bad experiences I had in it. At this time, I didn't have HA and instead had a tiny bit of anxiety. I had the type of anxiety that if I heard a single sound on the first floor of my house, I'd lose my sh** and start freaking out a lot. I'd assume there was a robber or something, lol. Stuff like that, but not extensive fear that there was or is some disease in me that's slowly killing me.

Fast forward to 3 months ago, my fear of my health started due to drinking redbull. I drank the redbull and started to feel jittery and absolutely afraid that I'd get a seizure or have a heart attack. This led to my HA, but it never truly revealed itself until I first heard about ALS. I started to get super afraid of ALS because I had no idea as to whether I'd get it, and since it is a fatal disease, it was something for me to obsess over.

Just last week, I decided to make the stupid mistake of proving to myself that I had HA (even though I already knew I did), and so I decided to look through these forums and find a disease that would scare me to the point in which I'd obsess over it like I did with ALS. Sure enough, I found it, and BEA took this whole week from me, until I snapped out of it 1-2 days ago.

Now, each time I was obsessed with these diseases, I started to go forums, researched extensively about them, and kept thinking about them in my free time. When I'd wake up in the mornings, my first thoughts would be about them, and I simply wasted a lot of energy and time onto these fears. To put it as simply as possible, I obsessed over this game as much as I am obsessing over HA right now. Considering this, would the answer to solving and curing HA be in finding something positive that I can obsess over more than I obsess over my health? I'm already putting this to the test and moving onto that same game I left because I simply want to get back into it, and so I may keep everyone updated if necessary, but I just wanted others inputs on this.

You remind me of myself.

However, I think my obsession with different topics stems from the Asperger diagnose I got some years ago.

Have you been in touch with a psychologist?

[HelloPanda23]

It's a question of what is healthy. Life is about balance. But often we are encouraged to be obsessive about certain things e.g. strive to perform better at work and we see our life/work balance skew negatively. Because society encourages this we don't always see what is unhealthy, a lesson I learnt as it was why I had a breakdown in the first place after pushing harder & harder for many years and know I understand the advice my parents gave me from their experience.

You also need to be mindful of crutches. When I returned to work after the initial breakdown I made mistakes. I buried myself in my work and after a few years again sacrificing life for work it led me to a relapse. I didn't realise my mistakes back then, I was new to anxiety and had had no contact with other sufferers or read about it outside of anything my GP gave me but with my dad beating depression when hec was young I had his guidance.

The work I buried myself was a crutch. Whilst I enjoyed the achievements it had become obsessive. Now as an an anxiety sufferer I wasn't only pushing to achieve I was also using my work to avoid confronting some of my anxiety issues emg social events, exercise, etc.

In my relapse I returned to the daily walking I found helpful in my breakdown. My anxiety was much worse in the relapse, which was largely about a med that ramped up my anxiety levels for a long time, and I fell into daily routines of obsessive walking. This was part of the OCD because lots of compulsions took place whilst on those walks. It was again an avoidance, this time not wanting to be sitting with my anxiety at home, it filled in that time for me when my morning anxiety was at it's worst.

I broke that pattern. Now I'm free to walk or not. Sitting with anxiety can still be challenging when I'm having one of my blips but otherwise I handle it now.

So, balance is key. Too much healthy can be unhealthy in some way. Exercise can be obsessive and open us up to injury. Diet can be obsessive to the point we are no longer free to live without guilt.

Aside from avoidance because of anxiety there can also be the addiction side. People get addicted to things like exercise. Addiction is about the reward seeking element whereas compulsion is about warding off that anxiety. A guy at the walk-ins lifted weights at the gym daily. But he wasn't an addicted lifter, his physique wasn't what would be expected in those that live that lifestyle, it took hours out of his day that he wasn't alone with his thoughts & feelings (it was a mental health group, most had anxiety/depression).
I know what you mean, using distraction as an escape is a huge mistake, but the issue with anxiety is that it gets soo annoying. My issue is that unless I get distracted, my brain is going in cycles of "what if...what if..." I confront those thoughts hundreds of times and remind myself that they can't be true bexause they're scientifically proven impossible. At points it gets better, but it's just annoying. When i distract myself, the thouvht occasionally pops again, but not as much as when I sit there without anything to entertain myself with. That's why I will confront the thoughts, but at the same time, distract myself with something more important.