Please help can’t cope with HA

[Amurfina]

I’ve got to the stage where life is no longer enjoyable. I’m terrified by nearly everything now and have totally lost perspective. Today my husband and I went out for lunch with our 10 yr old and had a lovely time now ruined for me because my son has caught the sun on his arms (not burned or anything but definitely caught the sun). I’m now terrified he’ll get skin cancer. I used to slather him with sun cream until I read that the creams are toxic and cause cancer so now I don’t know what to do, how to keep him safe anymore. I found an organic sun cream which I put on his face but I thought I should stop doing things to excess so didn’t cover his entire body in it. I put a hat on him and turned him away from the sun but he still caught it on his arms. Everything we eat, drink or do causes cancer and I’d just rather not live in this awful world anymore.
Someone please give me some perspective.

[ankietyjoe]

Everything we eat, drink or do causes cancer and I’d just rather not live in this awful world anymore.


No it doesn't, calm down.

I suggest you stop reading about all the things that are telling you that everything is going to kill you.

"I'm terrified of nearly everything".....you say. Well, why? What is feeding that fear? Probably trash journalism that is designed to make you feel fearful.

[pav1984]

I imagine sun cream has saved more lives than it has damaged.

Stay away from these sorts of articles and stick to official advice such as NHS website.

You need to chill a little and learn to relax.

[Beachbabyxxx]

I’m sure your son will be fine ☺️ I do really understand how hard it is having health anxiety and children - I used to worry CONSTANTLY for the both of us! You sound like you’re really struggling. Have you spoken to a doctor about your anxiety or tried CBT etc?

[Amurfina]

Thank you @beachbabyxxx - no I haven’t talked to a doctor yet. I pay for private counselling but it’s not really helping. I’ve to the stage now where sometimes I question if it’s worth living like this. It’s absolutely debilitating and beyond distressing and unless you’ve been there people just don’t understand. You say you ‘used’ to worry, can I ask how you got over it ?? X

[ankietyjoe]

Can we go back to your anxiety behaviours?

WHY do you think 'everything' causes cancer?

[pulisa]

Does the private counselling address your fear of cancer and how you feed that fear with unhelpful "research"?

[Amurfina]

I don’t often set out to research things- this is just information you’re exposed to on a daily basis by being a normal person who engages in society. Everybody has heard sun exposure causes cancer, I accidentally found an article that said sun creams cause cancer. I recently started a healthy diet to help with my anxiety and on watching videos about my diet I was told rocket and green leafy veg contain nitrates and nitrites which, yep you guessed it, cause cancer. I can’t cut myself off from the world and information entirely much as I’d love to. The problem is there is no safe place to go and sanity check these facts. Yes sun exposure causes cancer but how much sun exposure? Where can I go to get perspective? Nowhere, so therefore my son gets a patch of pinky red skin from sitting in the sun at an impromptu lunch and I think ‘oh no, he’s been in the sun, what if he gets skin cancer?’ and that thought plants a seed and grows. I understand my fears are perhaps irrational, I understand it’s anxiety- that’s why I’m here on this forum. It doesn’t make it any less real, frightening or debilitating and I can’t un read/see/hear what is already in my brain from years/months ago. My counsellor thinks that a traumatic childhood has conditioned me to always think bad things are going to happen. That’s as far as we’ve got.

[ankietyjoe]

I spent years researching the actual truth behind healthy eating, which for me turned out to be a huge component of physical and mental recovery. I have never once come across any information about nitrates in leafy greens causing cancer. It might be worth having another look at how much information you 'accidentally' come across, and re-assess whether you're actually actively looking for it.

For example, apple seeds contain a chemical compound that metabolises as cyanide. If you eat enough apple seeds you WILL die. However, you need to eat more than 15,000 apple seeds to get even close to a lethal dose, and your body will have forced you to stop eating them WAY before you get there. In terms of nitrates in green leafy veg, so what? What you don't actually understand is the mechanism in place that turns the nitrates in vegetables into a more harmful nitRITE. I suspect you are reading scaremongering articles without an education in biology or chemistry. So you are reading a relatively fact free source (which itself is likely to be biased) and coming to a conclusion without any formal training to extrapolate facts from the source of the information. In other words, almost any food source you mention contains something that is lethal in large enough doses, but whole foods are a balanced source of chemical compounds that are bodies are capable of dealing with, this is what you are not understanding.

So, you say you can't cut yourself off from the world of information? Why not? It's clearly causing you severe mental harm right? You don't need to go to a place for a sanity check or perspective as that's just part of the health anxiety cycle. You scare yourself by 'researching', and then need somebody you don't know to tell you you're overreacting? How is that ever going to end well?

Stop researching. Stop Googling. If you don't, you'll never get out of the HA cycle.

[pav1984]

I remember reading an article saying oxygen causes you to get old, or something similar which made me chuckle.

Anything in excess can harm you. It is all about balance. You wont go far wrong by eating fruit and veggies. A little sun is good for you just dont burn. Sun cream is generally accepted as advisable.

What you need to accept is that one day we will all end up sick, but spending your days worrying about getting sick is neither productive nor healthy.

You need to address your fear of death.

[pulisa]

I think you can cut yourself off from the "information" that you actively search out without disengaging from the world.

It's the best thing you can do to help combat HA. It's good that you recognise the damage that years of "researching" has done to you. You don't have to believe this research. The world isn't "awful" but read the "right" stuff and you will be convinced that it is.

You really don't want to pass your anxiety on to your son. He's at an impressionable age.

Maintaining a healthy diet can quickly spiral into orthorexia if you were to believe everything that you read.