What do you do when you feel yourself spiraling?

[Mommyof1]

I have had major anxiety the past 4 months after my grandmother died and my father in law got diagnosed with terminal cancer out of nowhere. I was convinced I had breast cancer for months. Started taking lexapro 2 months ago and the last month has been pretty good. I've continued to worry, but it stopped affecting my every day life so much. The nausea and crying spells stopped.

However, over the last 3 days I've found myself miserable again. Staring at the wall for hours, crying, feeling hopeless, wondering what the point is, convincing myself the doctors are wrong, obsessively checking my breasts again. I'm miserable. I can feel it coming. I'm spiraling out of control back into the dark pit of axiety and depression.
I eat healthy, I used calming essential oils, I go for walks...i dont know what else to do.

So my question is, what do you all do when you feel yourself spiraling?

[NervUs]

I think the most important thing you can do is just keep living. If you are crying at the wall, pick yourself up and godo something. Even if you are faking it, just keep going. That is sending your brain a message that you are fighting back and you will get to a point of feeling strong snd alive again.

[jray23]

I've recently been a regular poster here, but before that, one thing I would do is come to this board and read the various threads! I could then see the same thought patterns I go through reflected in the posts here and take that as evidence that I was experiencing health anxiety, not cancer or heart attack or whatever.

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[ErinKC]

I've recently been a regular poster here, but before that, one thing I would do is come to this board and read the various threads! I could then see the same thought patterns I go through reflected in the posts here and take that as evidence that I was experiencing health anxiety, not cancer or heart attack or whatever.

This helps me a lot too! My therapist told me that any time I was worried about a health issue and felt the need to google that I should google things about my anxiety not about my symptoms. Finding posts on here where people had the same fear is always helpful in seeing my fear for what it is. So, instead of googling "*fear of the day* symptoms" I google "*fear of the day* nomorepanic," ha... and then I see how many other people have been in my exact same place.

---------- Post added at 11:49 ---------- Previous post was at 11:40 ----------

Also - my therapist often points out to me that a lot of my anxiety, when it starts reemerging, is focused on a deep fear of spiraling out of control and ending up where I was in the start of this - 4 years ago when I had a major breakdown postpartum. I was in EXACTLY your same place. I would just wake up and cry for hours, poking and proding my body, looking for the next thing wrong with me, racking up urgent care and doctor bills, digging deeper into the pit of despair. But, she tells me that I will not go back to that place because now I have more tools, more support, and more awareness than I did back then. So, try not to fear fear itself.

You have real things to be sad about and real triggers for your anxiety, so try to focus on dealing with those feelings in a healthy way. It's ok to be very sad about losing your grandmother and very upset/nervous about a terminal cancer diagnosis in your father in law. These are manageable feelings that even those without a hint of anxiety experience. Instead of focusing on your own health, look for support groups online or in real life for people who have lost loved ones and are experiencing grief.

My father in law died of cancer in the winter and it was very disconcerting for me because it happened very quickly, so I can understand where you're coming from. But, in that case I kept telling myself, "this is not about me. this is not happening to me. this is real, this is tragic, but this is happening to someone else." It helped me to not start misplacing my emotions about my FIL onto myself and imagining my own symptoms. This is not easy! But I was able to keep myself from falling into a hole during this really difficult time.

Do you have someone you can talk to about this? A therapist or even a loved one who can offer support?

[IreneRumi]

Struggling with this myself. But the time in between health anxiety flares has gotten longer, and I can just hope itll go away at some point.