Stopping this thing....(trigger?)

[flappergirl]

I can’t believe how much anxiety is ruling my life. I cannot function properly and my attempts at controlling it are reigning some in but not much. In the last 6 months I have had so many worries and am currently in such a heightened state of worry that I am typing this to just make sure I keep from having a full in panic attack.

I have worried about:
Bowel cancer
Rectal cancer
Ovarian cancer
Womb cancer
Stomach cancer
Pancreatic cancer
Sinus cancer
Sepsis (many times)
Brain tumour
Lung cancer
Oesophageal cancer
Throat cancer
Skin cancer (many times)
Breast cancer
Amoeba infection

Literally I am going from one worry to another. I know I have posted like this before. And my other posts have similar comments. I have started new meds so this probably has raised my anxiety. I do the CBT exercises, distract myself yet I return constantly to the worry. It is like a background track that I can’t turn off. It gets louder and louder and affects my focus and I can’t eat or think of anything else. It is making me feel really unwell, physically and I know that it is not helping me or my family.

I can’t even focus for mindful breathing etc. I am so hyped up. How can I keep this down? So far what I am trying helps a little and I know I have to persist at it. I want to be more in control

[ankietyjoe]

What do you do when you return to the worry. What are the habits that return that allow you to get so hyped up about an imaginary illness?

[flappergirl]

I guess what I am doing is being hyper vigilant and body scanning. I’m not conscious that I am body scanning but I must be as I find another “symptom” to worry about. Mostly, my worries are driven by some kind of physical sensation or symptom (like a lot of people) rather than the idle worry that I have an illness with no symptoms.

[flappergirl]

I used to google a lot. I don’t really now but what I learned through google has kind of stuck in my head. Also, I find that reading online news stories about health trigger me massively. I try to avoid them but end up getting sucked in and then later will worry about that too. 🙄

[ankietyjoe]

The body scanning is the place to start then. You're already doing some things that you recognise are helping, albeit slowly. The body scanning however is likely to create more than enough anxiety to cause a snowball effect because it's self sustaining. When you're anxious you will almost certainly be experiencing odd sensations, pains, inflammation etc. If you look, you will find a problem. Therefore, stop looking. On top of the techniques you're already using, find a distraction that works best for you when you feel the need to body scan. It can be anything. Counting, using a game on your phone, going for a walk etc etc. Anything that breaks the cycle of stimulus, scan, reaction.

The thing to understand here is that health anxiety is almost exclusively habit. People develop bad mental habits, and then keep practising those habits until they get really good at them.

And it goes without saying...never Google.

[flappergirl]

Thank you, that’s really helpful advice 🙂 I will try to stop myself when I am body scanning or even if I am aware of it, will try to stop before I start! I agree HA is bad habit, and i need to break the cycle. I had OCD type problems in the past and HA is very similar. It’s ritualistic almost. And exhausting.

I will try to avoid the news stories and stick to the tv news as well as avoiding google. The news stories always has some shock story which sits with me 🙄

[ankietyjoe]

That's good that you're aware of the potential sources of your anxiety. There's no upside to reading the news stories, there's no 'preparation' that needs to be made. It's more important to get on with your daily life than investigate a potential source of incredibly rare disease.

I would also suggest a book called mindfulness by Mark Williams, perhaps a little bit further down the line. The book includes an audio CD containing guided body scan meditations. It encourages you to focus on one part of the body at a time and recognise the sensations as benign and move on. Meditation in itself is an incredibly powerful tool in breaking negative thought patterns. You do seem very aware of the nature of the problem (habit, ritual, compulsion) which is a great place to start from.