View Full Version : How did you ‘recover’ from health anxiety
Hi guys so what I want to know is do any of you consider yourselves fully recovered from health anxiety ? How did you get to that point ? Or is it something you never fully recover from and just live with better ? I have had this awful anxiety for 14 years now. Now it’s nowhere near as aggressive as it once was it’s true however I still get anxious. Certain things still massively trigger me. Like banging my head, reading articles about people roughly same age as me dying of undiagnosed heart conditions in their sleep, right now I am fearing meningitis because I have an incredibly stiff sore neck that hurts to turn ect and a sore throat. I keep feeling my temp and checking for rash and to be honest my old nemesis googling. Now old me would of bounced off to a&e in a flurry of panic but new me quietly frets and is snappy with my partner who really doesn’t understand or have much tolerance for it. I just sit in a corner all tied up in knots over the fear. Is this the pinnacle of recovery I can hope for ? Any suggestions/tips/stories
I'm not really "recovered" and don't know that I ever will be. I have longer stretches where I am less upset, but there are still times when I trip and fall down into it again, though it usually doesn't last as long and I'm probably somewhat better equipped to handle it. Meds and therapy helped there.
Of course, I think mental health will always be somewhat of a difficulty for me. Currently I don't have any issues with my HA, but that's largely because I have other things causing me anxiety/depression and I just don't really care if something strikes me down, if that makes sense. Which certainly isn't the healthy way to "beat" HA. :roflmao:
I'm not really "recovered" and don't know that I ever will be. I have longer stretches where I am less upset, but there are still times when I trip and fall down into it again, though it usually doesn't last as long and I'm probably somewhat better equipped to handle it. Meds and therapy helped there.
Of course, I think mental health will always be somewhat of a difficulty for me. Currently I don't have any issues with my HA, but that's largely because I have other things causing me anxiety/depression and I just don't really care if something strikes me down, if that makes sense. Which certainly isn't the healthy way to "beat" HA. :roflmao:
Oh no poppy are you ok ? U can inbox me if you ever fancy a chat any time at all. I’m the same. I still miss the person I used to be but realistically that person is gone as I’m now a 32 year old woman and will never be 18yr old me. I suppose I’m still looking for a new normal that isn’t this one.
Oh no poppy are you ok ? U can inbox me if you ever fancy a chat any time at all. I’m the same. I still miss the person I used to be but realistically that person is gone as I’m now a 32 year old woman and will never be 18yr old me. I suppose I’m still looking for a new normal that isn’t this one.
Doing (reasonably) well. I've just got a lot of financial and career stress, my dad is having some health issues - he's actually in an appointment right now to discuss the extent of those issues so I'm a particular wreck today - and my dog's also having some health issues. I'm restarting therapy, but the cost of that + my dog + inflation is really just further compounding the financial stress so honestly I'm just a big ball of yuck right now.
I am also missing the person I was pre-pandemic or even during the pandemic. I find myself just kind of sadly thinking about the fun I had with my friends before I was truly as concerned about things as I am now. I went on a vacation August 2019 where I went hiking and camping with my best friend and really miss that kind of carefree spirit. Even the stress I had in the past seems like it was easier to manage. Am also thinking wistfully of my October 2020 trip - I brought my parents along with me camping with my dog, who is reactive, so it was a really fun getaway and especially perfect for a pandemic since my boy won't be within 50 feet of a stranger, lol. Just wish I could go back to that.
Hi guys so what I want to know is do any of you consider yourselves fully recovered from health anxiety ? How did you get to that point ? Or is it something you never fully recover from and just live with better ? I have had this awful anxiety for 14 years now. Now it’s nowhere near as aggressive as it once was it’s true however I still get anxious. Certain things still massively trigger me. Like banging my head, reading articles about people roughly same age as me dying of undiagnosed heart conditions in their sleep, right now I am fearing meningitis because I have an incredibly stiff sore neck that hurts to turn ect and a sore throat. I keep feeling my temp and checking for rash and to be honest my old nemesis googling. Now old me would of bounced off to a&e in a flurry of panic but new me quietly frets and is snappy with my partner who really doesn’t understand or have much tolerance for it. I just sit in a corner all tied up in knots over the fear. Is this the pinnacle of recovery I can hope for ? Any suggestions/tips/stories
I've always had a horrible fear of meningitis and sepsis, and the same as you I really panic about headaches and or a stiff neck.
But I actually know someone that had it and it comes on fast and strong, within hours she couldn't even walk. I sort of play it out with time and if a certain amount of time has passed with no real increase in severity I panic less xx
WorryRaptor
22-04-22, 13:35
I haven't been diagnosed with HA, but I do have OCD which occasionally tips over into something related to my health. I seem to have tiny bouts of a HA type of process, but they are very short lived. When it does happen however, it kickstarts that process of what ifs, hypervigilance, and mental unrest when I'm feeling a symptom indicative of something serious.
Recently, it's been way less severe and the only thing I can really credit is the ERP therapy I did for OCD. I've had to sit with my fears and essentially let the thought process happen, accepting that there is indeed a tiny chance of the bad thing happening, but just allowing the fear run its course without me doing something compulsive to break that fear cycle. Time passes and the bad thing doesn't happen, and eventually the urge to follow a compulsive behaviour gradually lessens. While health anxiety is different to OCD, there are overlapping features, and ERP had a knock on effect on how I felt when I had symptoms I was concerned about. I strongly suspect it's to do with accepting the fear, and not trying to interrupt it, or "figure it out" (googling symptoms etc)
I also try to recall a time I was indeed overtly ill to compare with a bout of "what if"?. I had sepsis once. It was so very obvious something was awfully wrong with my body and I didn't need to google a single thing. There was no second guessing, or sitting and waiting, and my body was sounding off every alarm. I knew I was extremely sick. I got increasingly worse in a matter of hours. I was hallucinating, passing out, throwing up, and very obviously unwell. A doctor only had to glance at me before I was whisked off to hospital. I try to think back to that time when I'm wondering if this or that is a sign of something serious. Illnesses like sepsis, meningitis etc are not subtle at all.
I feel exactly the same, Poppy! Word for word exactly what you wrote.
Elliejane44
22-04-22, 20:36
Hi everyone
I have heard of many people who have fully recovered . Myself I not sure I believe that possible . I had no health anxiety until 2006 then it went away mostly or greatly reduced until 2014 . Since then I have had good spells of even up to a year and terrible periods following a trigger . Most of my triggers are genuine health things but when they resolve it us after that I am really bad with health anxiety.
I have found this forum helpful in past but much quieter in past while . So not sure if that means more people have left and are recovered?
Doing (reasonably) well. I've just got a lot of financial and career stress, my dad is having some health issues - he's actually in an appointment right now to discuss the extent of those issues so I'm a particular wreck today - and my dog's also having some health issues. I'm restarting therapy, but the cost of that + my dog + inflation is really just further compounding the financial stress so honestly I'm just a big ball of yuck right now.
I am also missing the person I was pre-pandemic or even during the pandemic. I find myself just kind of sadly thinking about the fun I had with my friends before I was truly as concerned about things as I am now. I went on a vacation August 2019 where I went hiking and camping with my best friend and really miss that kind of carefree spirit. Even the stress I had in the past seems like it was easier to manage. Am also thinking wistfully of my October 2020 trip - I brought my parents along with me camping with my dog, who is reactive, so it was a really fun getaway and especially perfect for a pandemic since my boy won't be within 50 feet of a stranger, lol. Just wish I could go back to that. hopefully things are on the up Poppy now In regards to the pandemic I bet you have plenty more fun trips ahead of you. The inflation is disgusting.. the price of petrol in England is something else and everything seems to be going up and up in price it’s really concerning. Xx
I know chlo, my logical brain has told myself to pack it in and I would be seriously bloody ill… random anxiety brain whispers but what if you dieeeee 🤣🤣🤣
To be honest the one time I remember being majorly ill in my adult life I had caught swine flu (remember years ago it was going round) and I was seriously unwell with it. I imagine meningitis feels something like that but on steroids. It’s that stupid obsessive little voice in the back of my head and then obviously the compulsions to Google ect. I was diagnosed with ocd several years ago but a lot of the compulsive behaviours I was exhibiting have faded away so I don’t think I have it anymore ? I used to rituals before bedtime, they where actually quite dangerous looking back. Like not being able to sleep with front door locked incase my at the time small child was trapped in a locked house with my corpse. I imagine the greater danger was some weirdo coming in and making me a corpse rather than me randomly dying in my early 20s in my sleep. Conversely I wouldn’t sleep with a locked door but couldn’t sleep with open windows 🤣 so would prowl my house for ages obsessively trying the handles to make sure I locked them. Making sure all the doors in house where opened at exact angle as I couldn’t stand doors being shut, laying out all food on kitchen counters again incase I died so she would have food to eat until someone found her. It was very unpleasant. In fact moving in with my partner was what sort of cured it as then I wasn’t as worried as another adult was here. I don’t think it would come back now if we split up even though I have another small child who is profoundly autistic because the first one is 12 so that brings me comfort. I think being responsible horrifies me on some deep level 🤷🏻*♀️ What is ERP I don’t think Iv heard of it ?
Hi everyone
I have heard of many people who have fully recovered . Myself I not sure I believe that possible . I had no health anxiety until 2006 then it went away mostly or greatly reduced until 2014 . Since then I have had good spells of even up to a year and terrible periods following a trigger . Most of my triggers are genuine health things but when they resolve it us after that I am really bad with health anxiety.
I have found this forum helpful in past but much quieter in past while . So not sure if that means more people have left and are recovered?
I think a lot of people come on here less when they feel ok… I’m guilty of that massively when really I suppose it’s like being an alcoholic going to AA we should keep up the support Group even in good times. I think a lot of people perhaps leave aswell as they are triggered by the posts from other members or they get sick of the same frantic posts over and over again. Could be numerous things. I can’t see me recovering totally In my life if I’m honest. My dad says if I die before him then he will get a tomestone saying ‘told you I was sick’ 🤣🤣🤣
I think the "responsibility" bit is very hard for people with OCD. Being terrified of making a mistake which is catastrophic for others/being responsible for looking after vulnerable loved ones or small children. I had a terrible time when my children were very small. I had a terrible time checking medication for my premature baby son which GOS told me I would have to get right or......I had a terrible time making sure his gastrostomy tube didn't come out and if it did I could put it back but I may perforate his bowel etc etc..Bloody checking rituals etc etc..
As for HA I think it's learning how to live with it and being able to talk yourself"down" without drama. Normalising everyday aches and pains and being aware of red flags but not obsessed with them. Limiting talk about health and symptoms which are boring to others. Being disciplined and mindful of personal triggers which are guaranteed to induce panic. Not making excuses for being "powerless" against HA.
I know chlo, my logical brain has told myself to pack it in and I would be seriously bloody ill… random anxiety brain whispers but what if you dieeeee 藍藍藍
What do you think would happen if you died, Sar? I would like to think that I might be missed for a while but then life for others would just carry on and my children would cope.
Hi guys so what I want to know is do any of you consider yourselves fully recovered from health anxiety ?
Nope. I'm in control, rather than cured. I think there are some people who develop HA and recover fully but I'd guess that they don't have other MH crap going on generally?
I still have HA thoughts, the difference is that I no longer react with fear to them. I observe & challenge those thoughts and as a result I have kept myself out of the rabbit hole for several years now, and that's despite having several significant health issues to cope with..
I have had this awful anxiety for 14 years now.
I've had HA from about five years of age and I'm in my fifties now. Never say never!
Now it’s nowhere near as aggressive as it once was it’s true however I still get anxious. Certain things still massively trigger me. Like banging my head, reading articles about people roughly same age as me dying of undiagnosed heart conditions in their sleep
If I'd read the above in 2016 I would be triggered to shit. I would be afraid to go to sleep, not that this was too much of an issue in 2016 as I was struggling with insomnia. I would be Googling heart conditions and killing myself off with each stress-increased heartbeat. :scared15:
As it is, my brain is engaged and has been for several years. Fear no longer has me by the flaps and what I think (now) is that dying in my sleep wouldn't be the worst way to go on account that I would be blissfully unaware of what was happening to me..
When it comes to illness? I am in pretty shite health and have been for a while. Nothing that will kill me - unless I beat myself to death with one of my cool gel pads or fall off a cliff in Scotland after taking one of me codeine tabs. (close call :ohmy:) But it's frustratingly life affecting and I'm always in some level of pain. I got a diagnosis in 2019 and it's taken until recently to accept that this is me now. Shit happens, right? And nobody is exempt from life's shit. However, no matter what crap is going on in our lives, we do have the choice in how to respond and that thought actually gives me the feels in a rebellious kind of way. :huh:
In all honesty, I've reached a point in my life where I've experienced that much physical, mental, and emotional pain that I'm actually looking forward to not having to work this crap anymore. I'm not in any hurry to die, don't get me wrong. I have people to hang around for (and folk to annoy) but I'm no longer scared to die. I know that those I love are going to be Ok without me and the thought that they wouldn't be was my biggest ever fear.
You might be one of the lucky ones and be able to kick HA out of the park but I prefer to be realistic and people who are prone to anxiety and who have a history of anxiety disorders will, at best, be able to control their health anxiety but it will always be work in progress. It is with me. I have to constantly work to stay in control and I am constantly being tested because I have a condition which throws out a lot of unusual symptoms.
But the bottom line is to accept your own mortality, the possibility of illness (and that it doesn't equal death) and that this moment is all any of us really have..
WorryRaptor
23-04-22, 15:43
I think the "responsibility" bit is very hard for people with OCD. Being terrified of making a mistake which is catastrophic
Yes, this exactly! My OCD focuses almost exclusively around my hobbies/interests and the people I love. It can be exhausting to pick up my paintbrush, have an intrusive thought about cadmium poisoning/allergic reactions to paint, combining the wrong materials etc etc, and then somehow worry when I cook a meal that evening, I'll get paint in the food and make my fiancé ill! The result will be either that I don't end up painting, or I get too scared to prepare a meal. When I read that back, I can't help but laugh at that my process, but it always boils down to an overwhelming feeling of responsiblity for the safety of myself and my loved ones.
What is ERP I don’t think Iv heard of it ? ERP is exposure response prevention therapy. Essentially, you face your phobia, sit with it, let the anxiety rise, but don't act on the urge to carry out a compulsive behaviour to break that anxiety. With repetition, your brain and body eventually learns not to respond to the phobia with compulsions. It breaks the connection between the feelings of anxiety, and the rituals you then feel urged to carry out. At first I didn't think it could help me at all because my "phobias" were just "too complicated" but with time and repetition, I felt a noticeable improvement in how I responded to my triggers.
One of my phobias never fails to get a laugh from somebody when I tell them about it (and that's perfectly okay with me, it's pretty hilarious). I spent an entire summer intensely afraid that a bat would make its way into our house, bite me, and disappear, leaving me with rabies. Because my OCD leeches from all the things I love, my enthusiasm for animal conservation and behaviour became my worst enemy. Statistics about how UK bats do in fact carry a variant of the rabies virus, and it is still 100% fatal in humans if contracted. People would keep trying to calm me down and rattle out the usual "but UK is rabies free", while I argued back that it wasn't technically true, further raising my anxiety about the whole thing. I used to work with animals a lot, and know a few vets. One was unwittingly unhelpful when they exclaimed that they wondered if illegally imported dogs might reintroduce terrestrial rabies to the UK, thinking I just had a natural interest in the disease. That was part of the tipping point for me, and from there it consumed my mind.
My whole day would fall apart if I saw a bat whizz past our windows at dusk, and my mind would fly to the fact we have a small hole in one of our bathroom ceilings where a light never got replaced. I was also sure the extractor fans were another entrance point for a disoriented bat to make its way into my home. I became the bat police. I studied everything about how our house was built, down to the companies insulation processes, so I could figure out if bats could find their way in via the attic. I measured out estimated of bats skull sizes and compared them to the opening in our extractor fans to work out if they could fit through. I studied flight patterns, seasonal behaviour, and even learned all about the tendons in their legs to see if they could take off from certain heights in my house.
I would check the bathroom every time I used it. Twice behind the toilet, twice under the lid, twice behind the sink and then I would shine my phone torch into the extractor fan/ceiling hole. I would wash my hands after the checks, and open the door with my sleeve to avoid any rabies filled bat saliva that might be waiting on the handle. It was EXHAUSTING.
I was so sure ERP wouldn't help with something this deep seated or specific, and working through it was rather horrific at first. I had to let that anxiety well up while I refused to check behind the toilet, sink and fan, and then trust that I hadn't unwittingly encountered a rabid bat. Eventually, the more I did it, the more my body simply learned to forget and the anxiety would fade. Now I can watch those winged cuties fly past our window and (mostly) appreciate what wonderful creatures they are.
That's a tremendous achievement and you should be rightfully very proud for doing all that incredibly challenging work and now reaping the benefits from it, Raptor!
As for the responsibility poisoned chalice...I could never be a vaccinator...If I didn't get it right I'd be responsible for failing to protect people adequately and letting them think that they were vaccinated when they weren't really...Likewise being a doctor and administering IV meds..Ironically I had to do this a lot at GOS when the night staff were all agency and clueless and more interested in watching videos during their shift.
Another tip re managing HA..Curb the endless "researching" and need to know "everything" which in turn leads to misery.
Hi guys doing one big reply rather than individually sorry (I’m being harassed by a small person) pulisa I agree responsibility is horrific for ocd sufferers. All the thoughts of I’m going to **** this up and then I’m going to **** this person up also. When my eldest daughter was small that was my height of anxiety and fear being alone with her. I actually got scared once that I was a peadophile 😳 she was in the bath and I was sat next to her then I got this jolt of fear that I was staring at her naked body and then I started getting horrific intrusive thoughts and all kinds of stuff I just point blank refused to change her nappy and when I changed her Clothes I would keep my head turned it was really troubling. I ended up confessing to my therapist and thankfully she explained why I was not a peado (that fear was a pretty low point for me) I guess the worst thing that would happen is my eldest would forever miss me and it would mess her up and she would turn to a life of drink, drugs and bad relationships. My youngest wouldn’t miss me I guess I know when I go on holiday my partner tells me he doesn’t show any signs of missing me. I think that’s for the best though isn’t it. Nora I’m nowhere near as bad as I was I know that for a fact I haven’t visited a&e for a longgg time so that’s an improvement and I also think I’m less obsessive with googling and reassurance seeking. I deffo get less hysterical perhaps it’s a maturity thing ? I notice now as I get older I get more depressive moods then I used to although maybe I notice them more as I used to just take myself off to bed when I couldn’t be arsed and have a long day nap then be up twitching at every little noise doing bizarre stuff all night. I have every intention of dying in my sleep the day after my 100th birthday 🤣🤣 despite my depressive episodes there is so much I still want to see and do. Also I won’t lie I’m still afraid of ‘the other side’ thanks for your message I do appreciate a no nonsense approach x Raptor I did laugh at the bat thing but you know what I actually get it. I went thru a sort of similar phase with paranormal activity I’m surprised I didn’t actually give myself a heart attack over it. I was thinking obsessed with the fear of being haunted. Researching each house I moved to history. Constantly being freaked out by every noise, marching my dog around the house watching for his reaction! Lots of other stuff to. My big finale for that was I moved into a new house and the next door neighbour was a bit weird anyway the girl who lived in the house before me only lived there for a year or so and this lady had lived in street all her life. She insisted on regaling me of the story of the old lady who lived here when she was a kid who was mean to all the kids then a man who died there and just said to me everyone who had lived there since the old lady had died in the house apart from the young girl before me…….. when I tell u that sent me off on one. Wow… words couldn’t describe it. I literally forced my younger brother to live with me for the first week of me being there. Then he insisted he had to go home to his girlfriend well that very night I was laying in bed with daughter and dog. Heart beating fast and trying to control my panic, next thing a loud creak and footstep at the top of stairs the dog only lifts his bloody head stares out onto landing and starts growling really horrifically and then jumps up barking. I’m surprised I didn’t die of fright that night. I literally pulled my sleeping child out of bed and the dog and ran out of the house barefoot to my friends house round the corner. I forced her to come home with me and he started doing it again at bottom of the stairs it even freaked her out 🤣🤣🤣 it was discovered anyway that I shared floorboards with next door so when she stood on her landing at top of stairs mine actually freaked and dipped. You could feel it if you sat on landing the floorboard move underneath you if she was on them. It sounded like a loud footstep at top of my stairs. I had religious music playing around the house and everything. I actually ended up living there 2 years and I was only just getting comfortable there. I’m much better now but I still don’t like doors being shut and I’m terribly afraid of the dark. If it’s dark in the house I feel that spine chilling fear dripping down my back and the fear something is going to emerge from the darkness…. Realistically I need to grow up don’t I 🤣 but that’s one thing I can’t fight the landing light stays on all night and if my partner has to stay out the night I leave every light in the house on apart from the bedrooms and I leave my bedroom door wide open. Well done for fighting ur fear though it’s brilliant that you could work through something so crippling !
Blimey.....Eye watering electricity bills for you then! Needs must though..
I quite like the dark..Not so keen about daylight though and facing the day and all that it brings!
Blimey.....Eye watering electricity bills for you then! Needs must though..
I quite like the dark..Not so keen about daylight though and facing the day and all that it brings!
My partner complains it’s like Blackpool illuminations when he comes home late 🤣 I cannot stand the dark. Freaks me out terribly convinced some demon is going to appear before me. As I said… I probably need to grow up 🤷🏻*♀️
It's a genuine and distressing fear so you shouldn't belittle it to others or think that it's not an "adult" thing. I'm sure plenty of adults feel the same as you and would talk about it if pushed. Whatever means you can use to help yourself is just fine and you need to be able to sleep in order to care for your demanding children.
Also I won’t lie I’m still afraid of ‘the other side’
Why?
To my way of thinking there are two avenues of belief here. There is an afterlife or there is not. Personally, I believe that consciousness survives biological death. We are confident now that it survives clinical death, what we're not sure of is why. I've had numerous paranormal experiences which have driven me to my conclusion and I'm good with it. But if that's not what's happening, what is to fear about not existing at all? There will be no comprehension whatsoever. What is it that scares you?
Have you ever read up on the near death experience? It might help you. This is as close as we get to know what it's like to die and the majority of experiencers come back with their fear of death removed and similar accounts of incredibly pleasant experiences of what happened to them while they were 'dead'.
Culturally, Brits don't celebrate death like other countries do. We pretend it doesn't happen and refuse to talk about and all that does is to make scary what's perfectly natural. The arts dramatise death, as do the tabloids but my experience of being around death isn't like that at all. My nan dreamed of my grandad the night before she died. She told my mum that she dreamt he came into her bedroom, took her hand, and told her that he'd come to take her home (my grandad had been dead for two years) and in the time it took for my mum to go downstairs and make a pot of tea, my nan passed away. My dad passed away peacefully. As did my father-in-law. My friend passed away in a beautiful hospice which totally changed my perception of them. I couldn't sense death there at all, only a very deep sense of love & peace. And I believe that even those people who don't appear to pass peacefully probably do because it's our own perception we are going on and I learned that lesson recently when I booked a soul path reading only my deceased mother had other ideas and she hogged the entire session from start to finish. Through the medium, my mother told me how she died and that it was quick. This much I knew. Then my mother told me that she knows it was shocking for us to see her lying on the floor and we've always worried that she suffered or was scared but my mother said, 'Darling, there was no time. I didn't know what was happening to me. I wasn't scared and I went without resistance but it was my time to leave'.
Now, I don't need anybody trying to debunk the above. Doubt it but don't try to debunk it. The medium gave me two pieces of info that she couldn't have known (or guessed at) and it's those which I base my opinion that I got a genuine medium as everything else was accurate but could have been researched. So I am able to accept this communication and that means that after ten years of worrying that my mother was scared in her final moments, I know that she wasn't and that's lifted a huge weight from off me. My point here is perception. Regardless of everything else, I realised that I have been basing my fears on my own perception - of what I saw - which was after the event. I wasn't there so how could I possibly know? And even if I had have been there, I wasn't privvy to what my mother was thinking and feeling. Do you understand me?
If you fear what happens after we die, research it. Understand that death can be quick, as with my mother, or it can be a gradual process and part of that process (regardless of what we believe or don't) is to give us comfort as we're passing. Read up on death bed visitations and the comfort that they bring to people who are dying. My MIL dozed off in the chair not long before she died and she told me she'd woken up to see her deceased mother sitting in the opposite chair smiling at her. Hallucination or whatever. Doesn't matter. I just remember the look of happiness on my MIL's face. And nobody can say with certainty that this was some kind of hallucination or if it was real. I can accept it as real because of my own experiences.
Read up on NDE's. Read about good deaths. Watch movies about good deaths. The news will only ever dramatise death. You won't read about the millions of folk who have good deaths because that doesn't sell papers.
I also quite like how I do get some say in how I depart this planet because I got no say at all in how I came into it. I didn't even get to choose my own name - something that's always annoyed me. At least I can plan my own funeral and do it my way and I found it quite cathartic to do this. Interestingly, older people tend to fear death less. Maybe it's because they've done a lot of shit or they're like me, as in knackered lol.
I'm not afraid to die, but I have always been very afraid to live and that's partly because I have a brain that's not in synch with the world I live in but also because human beings can be downright nasty. Personally, I am looking forward to being somewhere where those negative ego-based emotions have no place (and I was given the gift of experiencing it via my deceased grandmother many years ago) but for now I will keep working to make life as good as it can be because I beat some astronomical odds to be here. Today I get to hold my grandson and chase after him. I say chase, but in reality I can manage a brisk(ish) walk before I collapse. And I will get to sniff my granddaughter's hair (she's 6 months) and be myself with people who love me. And it's awesome. One day I won't be here and I want them to remember me as fondly as I remember my grandmothers and to do that I have to be emotionally present. Fear mucks about with the ability to be emotionally present so it's very important that we work on facing what we fear..
Death doesn't scare me at all now. It's living that's the scary part. :roflmao:
WorryRaptor
24-04-22, 15:15
Realistically I need to grow up don’t I 🤣 Nope! I'm the biggest sceptic out there but I'll still freak out if my cat even looks at a dark corner wrong. I grew up in a house that could have given some haunted houses a run for their money, and there were things I still can't explain.
That does sound pretty torturous for you though. I can imagine that kind of fear plays havoc with your nerves, because it's the biggest "what if" out there. (I'm glad you got to the bottom the mysterious case of the dog and floorboards though! 🤣
I consider myself "in recovery". I still need to keep up with therapy and keep an eye on myself so that my anxiety doesn't run away with me, but my life is typically perfectly manageable now. Once in a while I'll get a flare up where I jump from one thing to the next, but never stay with anything for more than a day or two because I'm able to work past it. When that happens I'll usually book a therapy appointment, come on here to talk stuff out, talk to friends, and find things that help me relax. I can still have a more extreme than necessary response to actual health issues (a hernia I had repaired recurred and it got me REALLY down even though it's not a serious medical emergency), but I haven't fallen into a pit of despair about a totally manufactured fear in many years. I'm not sure I'll ever be "cured" of anxiety, but as time goes by I get better and better at managing it.
WorryRaptor
24-04-22, 17:35
Why?
To my way of thinking there are two avenues of belief here. There is an afterlife or there is not. Personally, I believe that consciousness survives biological death. We are confident now that it survives clinical death, what we're not sure of is why. I've had numerous paranormal experiences which have driven me to my conclusion and I'm good with it. But if that's not what's happening, what is to fear about not existing at all? There will be no comprehension whatsoever. What is it that scares you?
Have you ever read up on the near death experience? It might help you. This is as close as we get to know what it's like to die and the majority of experiencers come back with their fear of death removed and similar accounts of incredibly pleasant experiences of what happened to them while they were 'dead'.
Culturally, Brits don't celebrate death like other countries do. We pretend it doesn't happen and refuse to talk about and all that does is to make scary what's perfectly natural. The arts dramatise death, as do the tabloids but my experience of being around death isn't like that at all. My nan dreamed of my grandad the night before she died. She told my mum that she dreamt he came into her bedroom, took her hand, and told her that he'd come to take her home (my grandad had been dead for two years) and in the time it took for my mum to go downstairs and make a pot of tea, my nan passed away. My dad passed away peacefully. As did my father-in-law. My friend passed away in a beautiful hospice which totally changed my perception of them. I couldn't sense death there at all, only a very deep sense of love & peace. And I believe that even those people who don't appear to pass peacefully probably do because it's our own perception we are going on and I learned that lesson recently when I booked a soul path reading only my deceased mother had other ideas and she hogged the entire session from start to finish. Through the medium, my mother told me how she died and that it was quick. This much I knew. Then my mother told me that she knows it was shocking for us to see her lying on the floor and we've always worried that she suffered or was scared but my mother said, 'Darling, there was no time. I didn't know what was happening to me. I wasn't scared and I went without resistance but it was my time to leave'.
Now, I don't need anybody trying to debunk the above. Doubt it but don't try to debunk it. The medium gave me two pieces of info that she couldn't have known (or guessed at) and it's those which I base my opinion that I got a genuine medium as everything else was accurate but could have been researched. So I am able to accept this communication and that means that after ten years of worrying that my mother was scared in her final moments, I know that she wasn't and that's lifted a huge weight from off me. My point here is perception. Regardless of everything else, I realised that I have been basing my fears on my own perception - of what I saw - which was after the event. I wasn't there so how could I possibly know? And even if I had have been there, I wasn't privvy to what my mother was thinking and feeling. Do you understand me?
If you fear what happens after we die, research it. Understand that death can be quick, as with my mother, or it can be a gradual process and part of that process (regardless of what we believe or don't) is to give us comfort as we're passing. Read up on death bed visitations and the comfort that they bring to people who are dying. My MIL dozed off in the chair not long before she died and she told me she'd woken up to see her deceased mother sitting in the opposite chair smiling at her. Hallucination or whatever. Doesn't matter. I just remember the look of happiness on my MIL's face. And nobody can say with certainty that this was some kind of hallucination or if it was real. I can accept it as real because of my own experiences.
Read up on NDE's. Read about good deaths. Watch movies about good deaths. The news will only ever dramatise death. You won't read about the millions of folk who have good deaths because that doesn't sell papers.
I also quite like how I do get some say in how I depart this planet because I got no say at all in how I came into it. I didn't even get to choose my own name - something that's always annoyed me. At least I can plan my own funeral and do it my way and I found it quite cathartic to do this. Interestingly, older people tend to fear death less. Maybe it's because they've done a lot of shit or they're like me, as in knackered lol.
I'm not afraid to die, but I have always been very afraid to live and that's partly because I have a brain that's not in synch with the world I live in but also because human beings can be downright nasty. Personally, I am looking forward to being somewhere where those negative ego-based emotions have no place (and I was given the gift of experiencing it via my deceased grandmother many years ago) but for now I will keep working to make life as good as it can be because I beat some astronomical odds to be here. Today I get to hold my grandson and chase after him. I say chase, but in reality I can manage a brisk(ish) walk before I collapse. And I will get to sniff my granddaughter's hair (she's 6 months) and be myself with people who love me. And it's awesome. One day I won't be here and I want them to remember me as fondly as I remember my grandmothers and to do that I have to be emotionally present. Fear mucks about with the ability to be emotionally present so it's very important that we work on facing what we fear..
Death doesn't scare me at all now. It's living that's the scary part. :roflmao:
That's a pretty great way to look at it Nora! I think I'm in a similar headspace about death, mostly. The one thing that really gave me an inward shake was the fact I might only be remembered as a nervous wreck who was too worried to make time to embrace the life I had. Imagine somebody trying to write something creative for my eulogy...."well she shook like a chihuahua on caffeine tablets and wouldn't let anybody use the oven in case it blew up" - not really the legacy you want to leave behind.:roflmao:
It really caused a shift in my perception, because I started treating every moment as a potential positive/funny/healthy memory to make for my loved ones should I leave before they do. That's not to say the existential dread never seeps in from time to time, but I'm far more relaxed about the process of life. I don't fear my own ending, but what I leave behind. I definitely don't want that to be negativity. I want people to remember me as a positive presence in their life.
I would want people to be really honest at my funeral and talk about me as i really was which includes plenty of negative stuff. I don't really want a funeral as such..I'd happily have one of these no nonsense cremations with minimal fuss. I don't feel proud about how I have lived, more shame. My goal is to turn that around if I can..even a bit... in what time I have left.
WorryRaptor
24-04-22, 18:12
I would want people to be really honest at my funeral and talk about me as i really was which includes plenty of negative stuff. I don't really want a funeral as such..I'd happily have one of these no nonsense cremations with minimal fuss. I don't feel proud about how I have lived, more shame. My goal is to turn that around if I can..even a bit... in what time I have left.
Absolutely. I'm sure people would remember you with a lot more positivity than you might expect, pulisa. We are our own worst critics afterall!
I'm quite hyperbolic/tongue in cheek (terrible combo) when I talk about things, so I'm not really expecting unicorns and sparkles at mine either, but I'd love to be remembered for something more than the stresses and anxieties. I'm not terribly fond of the idea of a funeral either myself, and if tradition didn't demand one, I'd prefer to be chucked into one of those seed pod things that helps a tree grow.
That sounds like a very good idea....I reckon this is the way forward and expensive traditional funerals will become a thing of the past as people decide that they want alternative memorials which have a lasting legacy.
That's a pretty great way to look at it Nora! I think I'm in a similar headspace about death, mostly. The one thing that really gave me an inward shake was the fact I might only be remembered as a nervous wreck who was too worried to make time to embrace the life I had. Imagine somebody trying to write something creative for my eulogy...."well she shook like a chihuahua on caffeine tablets and wouldn't let anybody use the oven in case it blew up" - not really the legacy you want to leave behind.:roflmao:
Well this made me shake with laughter so you've obviously got a good sense of humour, Raptor. Maybe that's what you will be remembered for? :winks:
It really caused a shift in my perception, because I started treating every moment as a potential positive/funny/healthy memory to make for my loved ones should I leave before they do. That's not to say the existential dread never seeps in from time to time, but I'm far more relaxed about the process of life. I don't fear my own ending, but what I leave behind. I definitely don't want that to be negativity. I want people to remember me as a positive presence in their life.
Great stuff! I'm applauding you. Because this is how we worriers win. We turn our crap into something funny. Many comedians have mental health issues and that's not lost on me..
A lil story...
I'm currently in a fibro flare and when I met my son in town yesterday I was feeling unwell. Fibro fog was well and truly kicking my arse, I was slurring my words and forgetting stuff. I had to ask my DIL when my birthday was as my brain glitched in Bodyshop when the assistant was trying to find me on the system. Awks or what? :whistles: I also spent five minutes trying to get into the wrong cottage when we were away last week. :huh: I'm having a lot of memory issues and although I know why, I do occasionally feel sorry for myself and this was the case yesterday after my Bodyshop blip..
I told my husband about my latest brain fart and he gave my hand a squeeze and told me not to dwell on it. But I was dwelling on it.
I was walking behind everyone else, sulking, and my son turned around and fell into step alongside me..
Son: 'Have you taken a codeine Mum?' (This is because I go slurry when I'm on them)
Me: Not yet.
My son gently removed my hands from the pram handle (I was leaning on the bugger for support) he cuddled me into his chest and said, "Ma, it's time you we put you into Shady Pines. That, or it's 'Ol Yeller' time.
Then he made with the loading the gun and shooting action..:roflmao:
I almost wet myself laughing. Not joking, it was a close call. But it's what I needed - a damn good laugh - and a reminder that humour can be found in most situations. I can always rely on my lads to cheer me up. We always have a laugh when we're together and I hope this is what they remember about me when I'm gone. This, as well as my magnificent taste in music.:shades:
I would want people to be really honest at my funeral and talk about me as i really was which includes plenty of negative stuff. I don't really want a funeral as such..I'd happily have one of these no nonsense cremations with minimal fuss. I don't feel proud about how I have lived, more shame. My goal is to turn that around if I can..even a bit... in what time I have left.
One of my requests is that people who couldn't be arsed with me in life can stay away from my funeral. I will go full poltergeist on them if they so much as glance near my coffin!!
This also means that it will be a very small do. :roflmao:
I agree absolutely that black humour is a great way of coping...if you "get" it that is as it's not for everyone and some can take offence.
Quality not quantity ticks all the boxes for me and that includes funeral turn out. If I have one that is. My sister was telling me about an elderly friend of hers who died recently and who had arranged to have a cremation done without his family's knowledge. The family were enraged but my view is that it was his wish and his last wish should be respected.
The family were enraged but my view is that it was his wish and his last wish should be respected.
Absolutely. Respect to him I say!
I've planned mine. Got three songs (no hymns). My lads will read out an excerpt from Matt Haig's 'The Humans'. Coffin will be cheap & cheerful. No flowers except a wildflower on the coffin from each of my kids and grandkids. No black unless it's personal choice. I like colour. And I'm going through the curtains to Feels Like Heaven by The Cure. :shades: I've also done my eclectic funeral wake playlist where mourners will be forced to listen to the likes of The Clash, Guns & Roses, Feeder, Embrace, Iron Maiden, Fleetwood Mac, Elvis, Kate Bush, Ella Fitzgerald and the song which was number one in the charts the day I made my entrance into this world and it's naff as hell. :lac: Another week and it would have been Elvis.:weep:
Your family will be thankful for small mercies...:D
Your family will be thankful for small mercies...:D
You don't like Elvis? :ohmy:
Err..no. Sorry. I know someone who has a dedicated shrine to Elvis in his house. I just don't get it but he has millions of fans so I must be missing summat..
To be honest, I'm less afraid of outright death (though I haven't fully made my peace with it, lol) and more afraid of becoming disabled and being unable to care for myself, or being unable to work and afford to live and consequently being all on my own to figure it out. That's a big reason I'm still so afraid of covid - less that I'm scared of dying from it and more so that I'm afraid of developing long covid and being
Err..no. Sorry. I know someone who has a dedicated shrine to Elvis in his house. I just don't get it but he has millions of fans so I must be missing summat..
That's a bit much, though I'm not an Elvis fan. I do have in my home office a framed (and autographed!) picture of John Denver. I picked it up for like a dollar at a flea market I went to - it was buried at the bottom of a box under a bunch of jewelry. I think the seller was surprised that's what I was after, he didn't even have a price for it. :roflmao:
AnxiousMancunian
25-04-22, 17:28
Hi,
I caught what I thought was covid(don't know for sure) - I survived it. After that, I realized I wasn't as weak as I thought, so I decided to keep going out without wearing a mask. Living in fear all the time was more horrific than catching a virus.
Some might say that was stupid, but I adopted a healthier lifestyle to reduce the risk, in addition to obviously not going out with covid symptoms. It worked.
When health anxiety kicks in, It's a good thing because it's an opportunity to get better.
Err..no. Sorry. I know someone who has a dedicated shrine to Elvis in his house. I just don't get it but he has millions of fans so I must be missing summat..
I grew up listening to Elvis because my dad was a big fan. I love his early stuff & the Vegas years. He truly is the King of rock and roll. Him and Shakin Stevens. :D
I'm looking forward to watching the movie that's coming out. :shades:
A lil story...
I'm currently in a fibro flare and when I met my son in town yesterday I was feeling unwell. Fibro fog was well and truly kicking my arse, I was slurring my words and forgetting stuff. I had to ask my DIL when my birthday was as my brain glitched in Bodyshop when the assistant was trying to find me on the system. Awks or what? :whistles: I also spent five minutes trying to get into the wrong cottage when we were away last week. :huh: I'm having a lot of memory issues and although I know why, I do occasionally feel sorry for myself and this was the case yesterday after my Bodyshop blip..
I told my husband about my latest brain fart and he gave my hand a squeeze and told me not to dwell on it. But I was dwelling on it.
I was walking behind everyone else, sulking, and my son turned around and fell into step alongside me..
Son: 'Have you taken a codeine Mum?' (This is because I go slurry when I'm on them)
Me: Not yet.
My son gently removed my hands from the pram handle (I was leaning on the bugger for support) he cuddled me into his chest and said, "Ma, it's time you we put you into Shady Pines. That, or it's 'Ol Yeller' time.
Then he made with the loading the gun and shooting action..:roflmao:
I absolutely love this story!
Who wouldn't have an addled brain moment in Bodyshop?:D I reckon you are far sharper than most people I know and anyone suggesting otherwise deserves a thick ear!:D
Who wouldn't have an addled brain moment in Bodyshop?:D I reckon you are far sharper than most people I know and anyone suggesting otherwise deserves a thick ear!:D
Tbh P, the memory issue is by far the worst thing about this condition. Pain? I've known pain since I started my periods at 11. I'm used to it. But I have (had) an exceptional memory (photographic) and I used to excel at music quizzes - music being one of my obsessions. I would blow people's minds with my knowledge and my recall was instant. It's hit & miss now and it's incredibly frustrating. I mix up names and temporarily forget things that I 'know'. Last week I got my grandmother's maiden name completely wrong and I've known that name for decades. It's like getting my kid's name wrong. There is a lot of other stuff too but it's the music aspect that saddens me as it's always been such a big part of my life. It's like someone has shaken up all those files in my brain and not all of them have gone back in the right place. On the positive side, I am still in control of my health anxiety and I have yet to go down the rabbit hole. It's obvious where I could go with this if I chose to, but so far I have been rational. I accept that it's common with the condition I have so I just have to find the humour in it and try to be less negative. It is what it is. I can't change the situation so I have to change my attitude. Haven't I said that enough times to people on here?
P.S, I'm not too bad in Bodyshop but I can't even walk past Lush without feeling nauseous. The smell!!! :ohmy:
Why?
To my way of thinking there are two avenues of belief here. There is an afterlife or there is not. Personally, I believe that consciousness survives biological death. We are confident now that it survives clinical death, what we're not sure of is why. I've had numerous paranormal experiences which have driven me to my conclusion and I'm good with it. But if that's not what's happening, what is to fear about not existing at all? There will be no comprehension whatsoever. What is it that scares you?
Have you ever read up on the near death experience? It might help you. This is as close as we get to know what it's like to die and the majority of experiencers come back with their fear of death removed and similar accounts of incredibly pleasant experiences of what happened to them while they were 'dead'.
Culturally, Brits don't celebrate death like other countries do. We pretend it doesn't happen and refuse to talk about and all that does is to make scary what's perfectly natural. The arts dramatise death, as do the tabloids but my experience of being around death isn't like that at all. My nan dreamed of my grandad the night before she died. She told my mum that she dreamt he came into her bedroom, took her hand, and told her that he'd come to take her home (my grandad had been dead for two years) and in the time it took for my mum to go downstairs and make a pot of tea, my nan passed away. My dad passed away peacefully. As did my father-in-law. My friend passed away in a beautiful hospice which totally changed my perception of them. I couldn't sense death there at all, only a very deep sense of love & peace. And I believe that even those people who don't appear to pass peacefully probably do because it's our own perception we are going on and I learned that lesson recently when I booked a soul path reading only my deceased mother had other ideas and she hogged the entire session from start to finish. Through the medium, my mother told me how she died and that it was quick. This much I knew. Then my mother told me that she knows it was shocking for us to see her lying on the floor and we've always worried that she suffered or was scared but my mother said, 'Darling, there was no time. I didn't know what was happening to me. I wasn't scared and I went without resistance but it was my time to leave'.
Now, I don't need anybody trying to debunk the above. Doubt it but don't try to debunk it. The medium gave me two pieces of info that she couldn't have known (or guessed at) and it's those which I base my opinion that I got a genuine medium as everything else was accurate but could have been researched. So I am able to accept this communication and that means that after ten years of worrying that my mother was scared in her final moments, I know that she wasn't and that's lifted a huge weight from off me. My point here is perception. Regardless of everything else, I realised that I have been basing my fears on my own perception - of what I saw - which was after the event. I wasn't there so how could I possibly know? And even if I had have been there, I wasn't privvy to what my mother was thinking and feeling. Do you understand me?
If you fear what happens after we die, research it. Understand that death can be quick, as with my mother, or it can be a gradual process and part of that process (regardless of what we believe or don't) is to give us comfort as we're passing. Read up on death bed visitations and the comfort that they bring to people who are dying. My MIL dozed off in the chair not long before she died and she told me she'd woken up to see her deceased mother sitting in the opposite chair smiling at her. Hallucination or whatever. Doesn't matter. I just remember the look of happiness on my MIL's face. And nobody can say with certainty that this was some kind of hallucination or if it was real. I can accept it as real because of my own experiences.
Read up on NDE's. Read about good deaths. Watch movies about good deaths. The news will only ever dramatise death. You won't read about the millions of folk who have good deaths because that doesn't sell papers.
I also quite like how I do get some say in how I depart this planet because I got no say at all in how I came into it. I didn't even get to choose my own name - something that's always annoyed me. At least I can plan my own funeral and do it my way and I found it quite cathartic to do this. Interestingly, older people tend to fear death less. Maybe it's because they've done a lot of shit or they're like me, as in knackered lol.
I'm not afraid to die, but I have always been very afraid to live and that's partly because I have a brain that's not in synch with the world I live in but also because human beings can be downright nasty. Personally, I am looking forward to being somewhere where those negative ego-based emotions have no place (and I was given the gift of experiencing it via my deceased grandmother many years ago) but for now I will keep working to make life as good as it can be because I beat some astronomical odds to be here. Today I get to hold my grandson and chase after him. I say chase, but in reality I can manage a brisk(ish) walk before I collapse. And I will get to sniff my granddaughter's hair (she's 6 months) and be myself with people who love me. And it's awesome. One day I won't be here and I want them to remember me as fondly as I remember my grandmothers and to do that I have to be emotionally present. Fear mucks about with the ability to be emotionally present so it's very important that we work on facing what we fear..
Death doesn't scare me at all now. It's living that's the scary part. :roflmao:
I admire you sentiment I hope I can get to the point where I’m not so afraid of death. Sorry for late reply i have been working some long bizarre hours past few days. Some days I look at the state of humanity or I read the news and see what terrible things that people have done to others and I just despair with humanity and worry for what it will be like for my children. I have noticed older people fear death less I used to be a carer for elderly and I noticed that some had some definitely dark humour jokes about death (the ones that still had their marbles intact anyway) I am going to read up on all the things u suggested.. maybe that’s what I need !
Nope! I'm the biggest sceptic out there but I'll still freak out if my cat even looks at a dark corner wrong. I grew up in a house that could have given some haunted houses a run for their money, and there were things I still can't explain.
That does sound pretty torturous for you though. I can imagine that kind of fear plays havoc with your nerves, because it's the biggest "what if" out there. (I'm glad you got to the bottom the mysterious case of the dog and floorboards though! 🤣
Yeah I grew up in a pretty spooky house. As a kid I wasn’t afraid but as an adult when I entered it after not living there for several years I felt really uncomfortable and almost like I was being watched. We used to hear footsteps on the stairs my sister and I and they would stop outside our bedroom door at top of stairs and we would usually be reading in the dark and chatting. Our stepfather was very strict so we would freeze and pretend to be asleep but then no-one would come in room or walk anymore on landing. My brother was in bathroom and it had a mirror on wall facing doorway and he was stood in bathroom looking at himself and he swears an old man just strolled from mums bedroom to mine! It only had a tiny square landing at top of stairs with a door on each wall. Me and mum seen a shimmering mist type thing in dining room. Once my brothers friends where whistling at his window and then seen someone peer out of curtains and they where telling him to open window (he was grounded) and then he heard them as he was in front room with mum and came to front door. They all screamed and ran away. For years they refused to knock on door for him. It was an old house with a lot of history and my mums family had owned it for around 100 years she was convinced it was her nan and grandad. Apparently it used to be a pub before it was a house. As I say didn’t scare me or seen abnormal. However I had a massive fall out at 14 with the family and I never really stepped foot in that house for over 10 years and when I did it didn’t feel homely at all. I felt like something was watching me and it felt creepy and intimidating x
Thanks for all the replies people. Had replied to 2 and then realise the thread had gone on abit so i don’t have the time to reply to them all as I’m in work at 7am (joy) I appreciate you all x
Some days I look at the state of humanity or I read the news and see what terrible things that people have done to others and I just despair with humanity and worry for what it will be like for my children.
I totally getcha. This is why I made myself stop watching the news. I can't change what's happening out there. Crap will always happen. It was happening the year I was born (over 50 years ago). It always has, it always will. And people do love the drama! And that's OK if you are lucky enough to be able to turn it off like my husband can. Dude can watch shit unfolding on the news and then it's, 'Right, I'm off to work. See you later!. Meanwhile, I can't function because I'm an emotional mess. I can't turn my emotions off so I have to turn the news off and this is self-care for me..
I have noticed older people fear death less I used to be a carer for elderly and I noticed that some had some definitely dark humour jokes about death (the ones that still had their marbles intact anyway) I am going to read up on all the things u suggested.. maybe that’s what I need !
Older people fear death less because they've been around a long time. They've loved and lost. Got pissed. Got married (or not) Reproduced (or not) seen the world or just Blackpool every year. Waved their kids off into the world. Seen people they love die. Retired. Done life. Most of them are physically knackered and are more likely to welcome death as a friend than the scary reaper that our culture seems to have turned death into. If you buy into that vibe, read Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. Death looks like the scary reaper bloke, he even has the scythe, but he also has a sense of humour! He's also baffled by humans, and in this we are the same. :roflmao:
My ex always told me the story about how his grandad died and it's really lovely, because his grandad got up early as he always did. He made himself a cup of tea, as he always did. He sat in the chair by the window and drank his tea listening to the birds, as he always did. And Death was there. I imagine that Death waited patiently as this hard-working man finished his tea. The cup was still in his lap when his daughter found him a few hours later. He looked as if he'd simply dozed off. One last decent brew. Not a bad way to go eh? My belief makes me think that his wife was there too because somebody always comes for us because they know the ropes, right? Sometimes people see their loved ones prior to death and they are able to talk about it and the shame about this is how people dismiss these experiences as hallucinations. My nan had one. My MIL had one. I recall that, a few weeks before my dad died he told my mum that he'd had a very vivid and comforting dream about his mother and my dad was someone who generally didn't remember his dreams. Granted, he was on morphine but I've also been on morphine and my dreams were trippy, interspersed with brain zaps, and not a bit comforting.:scared15:
There are thousands of anecdotes of deathbed visitations, and maybe you've come across some in your line of work? And even if they are just a a brain 'blip', I would certainly welcome seeing my parents again before I pass away. And how wonderful the human body is that it has this type of mechanism when our systems are all about survival? What can't be dismissed, however, is the comfort these experiences give to the dying which in turn comforts their loved ones..
Sar89,
So many points to cover here but firstly in my opinion I don't think you get over health anxiety, you manage, cope and rewire your thoughts as much as you can. Most people will be anxious about their health at some point in their lives, it's only natural to be so. It's the excessive overthinking that needs curbing so we are not in a state of worry and panic all the time.
Researching a symptom can make things worse if the answers you find are not relevant to you and it is difficult to ignore a feeling or symptom as our brain wants to know! A little knowledge can be helpful though, just Google has a habit of telling the worst scenario.
As for the dark. I am one of those people that has every door in the home open and a light on all night. I now leave a couple of fairy lights on timers during the night to save the electric bill and is actually quite comforting. All lights would be on too if I was on my own. I don't like the dark, I don't even like a cloudy dull day.
I was very interested in Nora's posts about afterlife. It's subject which I think most of us try to avoid because of fear. With me it's the process of dying, not the death itself. And none of us have crystal balls but I think it is a very helpful suggestion from Nora to read about people's experiences so we don't have that awful death scene in our minds which is so over portrayed on the tv and news.
In my experience through losing family and friends they seem to have a calm knowledge of knowing and a hand guiding them in their heads to peace.
Illness is the trauma for me and an upsetting scene unfortunately stays and haunts me.
Nora, I also have a photographic memory which can be a blessing but also a curse. I can look at someone playing a tune on a piano, sit down and play what I have just seen. I can give good descriptions of a scene as evidence and I can remember recipes when cooking. But I also have a vivid memory of trauma situations which isn't so nice. Like I said, curse and blessing. Just like empathy. You not only feel your own woes but of others too, even complete strangers. Just reading or hearing about something can send you into feeling it as if it was yourself.
What I try to do to make my life as easy as I can, is avoid the news, papers, even the weather forecast. Avoid people that give off continuing negativity, even sadness. Avoid places that I just don't enjoy. Keep a reasonably varied diet. Try to think as many positives every day! Not do so much research on my headache, pain or strange mark and remind myself that my body and immune system will deal with it. Look for things that make me smile or laugh. Have a balanced day. Laugh at my ridiculous thoughts. Have trust!
Nora, I also have a photographic memory which can be a blessing but also a curse. I can look at someone playing a tune on a piano, sit down and play what I have just seen. I can give good descriptions of a scene as evidence and I can remember recipes when cooking. But I also have a vivid memory of trauma situations which isn't so nice. Like I said, curse and blessing.
Yes, me too. You may have read where I've said (a few times) that I have a lot of memories (that happened to me) that I don't want but I remember them clearly and my stress response still gets triggered when I think of them or see a similar situation depicted on TV or in books etc. Sometimes it can be a song that triggers me, and that's a problem because music is one of my main interests so there are many songs which trigger me. Similarly, songs evoke positive emotions in me, like when I listen to Ella Fitzgerald. I remember my mum and it's nice..
What I try to do to make my life as easy as I can, is avoid the news, papers, even the weather forecast. Avoid people that give off continuing negativity, even sadness. Avoid places that I just don't enjoy. Keep a reasonably varied diet. Try to think as many positives every day! Not do so much research on my headache, pain or strange mark and remind myself that my body and immune system will deal with it. Look for things that make me smile or laugh. Have a balanced day. Laugh at my ridiculous thoughts. Have trust!
This is excellent, Carnation. These are all positive things that you are choosing to do for yourself. This is me too, but I think we can also cut ourselves some slack for the days where we struggle to be positive? All emotions have their place, after all. It's when we allow ourselves to wallow in the mire of negativity that we perceive it as being too big a problem to get out of. I do try to find at least one positive in my day and some days that can be a nice cup of tea I had while I was in bed with fibro. (I wish I could say it was Tom Hardy.) :roflmao:
The biggest success I have had is to question my perception. You say that an "upsetting scene" haunts you? I won't ask you to describe it but I will ask you to consider that it's your perception of the scene which is the problem?
Example: We often see terrible accidents on motorways and we think the worst as we pass them, but the reality is that people mostly walk away from them. Cars are designed to take the impact so the humans are protected. But we take in the wrecked vehicles, the blue lights of the police cars and ambulances and we come to our conclusion that people 'must' have died when in actual fact they all walked away unharmed or with only minor injuries. Do you see what I mean? When that footballer collapsed on the pitch last year (?) it was shocking to see. It was dramatic, and it certainly affected people on here. But the person who was on the floor wasn't conscious. Sometimes people do suffer, but I'd argue that this is an era where we have the medical technology & know how to alleviate severe pain really quickly so suffering is kept to a minimum. History tells a different story so if nothing else we can thank our lucky stars that we got to exist now and not hundreds of years ago. A few yards away from this house, there is a Defibrillator machine and my husband knows how to use one (he's trained through work) so I know if I drop down with a cardiac arrest (and he's here) I have a chance. If I drop down and nobody is here, I won't know anything about it because I won't be conscious. That comforts me from a selfish perspective. But I know that while it won't be a problem for me, it will be upsetting for others to find me. I had this problem with my mother because I thought that she 'must' have suffered and she 'must' have been scared. That was my perception. But I wasn't there so how could I possibly know? And how could I possibly know what her emotions were? My eyes took in a scene and my mind filled in the gaps. Regardless of what 'Mum' told me via a medium (that it happened too fast for her to comprehend what was happening to her and that she wasn't scared at all) her autopsy report checks out with the speed in which things would have happened and speed implies less time to be scared so, yes, it is entirely possible that my mum had no fear at all when she died..
No fear. How about that?
But I also should remember that when I was in a life-threatening situation myself (13 years ago) that I wasn't scared at all, and I wasn't even medicated at that point..
The body itself has coping mechanisms where consciousness can actually separate from the body (OBE) or adrenalin overrides pain - this is why people are able to do extraordinary things whilst being seriously injured. Only the experiencer knows what they are feeling and thinking. The observer can only go on what they see and even when someone is crying out in apparent distress, we can't be 100% that this is due to pain alone. One of my lads used to make a huge show of falling over whereas his brother used to get up and carry on. Emotions play a part in our experiences too..
Does any of this make sense? I do tend to ramble on a bit...:ohmy:
WorryRaptor
29-04-22, 11:07
Does any of this make sense? I do tend to ramble on a bit...:ohmy:
That makes a lot of sense to me, Nora :) Especially the fear + pain thing. I had an extremely nasty fall off a horse when I was a teenager. I was practicing some showjumping, and my horse spooked and galloped at full speed across the field. She then started bucking and I flew up in the air, flipped, and landed head and face first (might explain some things!) into the hard winter ground. My neck bent all the way to the side as my full body weight came down on it, I actually saw stars, and my nose crunched. But I had no pain or fear. I was outside myself, just kind of in this numb state of "oh sh*t, well I guess I'm dying, alright then".
I only really felt the first sting of pain when people were surrounding me, one trying to help me up while another told them not to in case my neck was broken. I saw a lot of worried and panicked faces. I turned out to be fine, with a bloody nose and a comment about my hypermobility probably helping me out that day. The event itself, and the impact, was just this kind of nothingness that I accepted. Some confusion, but not the heart pounding terror that I would have expected. However, according to people who saw it happen, I screamed so loud. While it all turned out ok, my body didn't know that at the time, so I feel like it released all the feel good chemicals in preparation for something more traumatic.
That's an amazing story WorryRaptor. So pleased you were ok.
Nora, everything you said makes perfect sense to me.
Perception, imaginative, triggers, all add up to a mental thought that can flip the anxiety one way or another.
Music has been a big part of my life too. From being a teenager and spending many days recording the top 20 off the radio to playing my latest single on my portable record player. Listening to certain LPs after a relationship breakup, mainly being The Carpenters. 10cc I'm not in Love, All by Myself, Living Without You, all spring to mind and to this day sound so depressing.
Both sides of the family had musicians and I got thrown into piano lessons which now I am truly grateful for. Met a guy in a band who then taught me how to play guitar. And finally ended up with a professional musician as my long-standing partner. So music is huge for me. My mum's favourite songs I couldn't bear to listen to for a while after she passed, same with dad. But now I can manage it with a smile.
For me I see music as a great comfort, a way to express your emotions, heal, cheer, dance, relax, exercise, remember. Life without music is like life without air to me. Well almost.
Getting back to health anxiety. If only we could our imagination more positive. I know myself when I see or hear an ambulance, I'm guilty of thinking the worst. Waiting for test results, another one. Being on my own when something awful could happen. Having an accident with devastating injuries. Even cars driving too fast and erratically. I suffered PTSD from a car accident and only driving again after 8 years! Like you say, at the time your body, mind go into a calm like mode, I suppose to protect you and for me, I was lucky in the sense of no physical injuries. The mind is another matter. The memory stays and photographic memory of that day. Let's just say I'm very aware of cars and roads and I'm on guard.
But health anxiety for me is a lot of imagining, over thinking, too much attention on a feeling or symptom.
And it is a comfort to be aware that if you were ever in a situation of a poorly state, that you automatically go into a calming mode or not even aware of it. This is very true in my experience. The body and mind is an amazing piece of equipment. And our main aim in life is survival. The need for survival is excelled in the form of anxiety and adrenalin. So we shouldn't be afraid of having something that is there to protect us but at the same time we need to let go so it doesn't haunt our every living hour. We need to trust our bodies more, our instinct and not our imagination. Our experience and knowledge, not any catastrophic thoughts. A visual is just a picture with imagination. When reading a book, you form your own visual. When watching a film or TV, it's not real, it's drama. A memory is past, it's a photo in our mind.
Although I say all of this in theory, it's much more difficult to change the mindset or thoughts. Maybe it's become a regular pattern or habit to what you might think is keeping you safe. In reality, it keeps you on guard, in the fear mode. Anxious. Because we want to survive.
I read sometime ago. When you are not afraid of death, your health anxiety leaves you. How true this is in my opinion.
ckelley116
29-04-22, 19:37
Why?
To my way of thinking there are two avenues of belief here. There is an afterlife or there is not. Personally, I believe that consciousness survives biological death. We are confident now that it survives clinical death, what we're not sure of is why. I've had numerous paranormal experiences which have driven me to my conclusion and I'm good with it. But if that's not what's happening, what is to fear about not existing at all? There will be no comprehension whatsoever. What is it that scares you?
Have you ever read up on the near death experience? It might help you. This is as close as we get to know what it's like to die and the majority of experiencers come back with their fear of death removed and similar accounts of incredibly pleasant experiences of what happened to them while they were 'dead'.
Culturally, Brits don't celebrate death like other countries do. We pretend it doesn't happen and refuse to talk about and all that does is to make scary what's perfectly natural. The arts dramatise death, as do the tabloids but my experience of being around death isn't like that at all. My nan dreamed of my grandad the night before she died. She told my mum that she dreamt he came into her bedroom, took her hand, and told her that he'd come to take her home (my grandad had been dead for two years) and in the time it took for my mum to go downstairs and make a pot of tea, my nan passed away. My dad passed away peacefully. As did my father-in-law. My friend passed away in a beautiful hospice which totally changed my perception of them. I couldn't sense death there at all, only a very deep sense of love & peace. And I believe that even those people who don't appear to pass peacefully probably do because it's our own perception we are going on and I learned that lesson recently when I booked a soul path reading only my deceased mother had other ideas and she hogged the entire session from start to finish. Through the medium, my mother told me how she died and that it was quick. This much I knew. Then my mother told me that she knows it was shocking for us to see her lying on the floor and we've always worried that she suffered or was scared but my mother said, 'Darling, there was no time. I didn't know what was happening to me. I wasn't scared and I went without resistance but it was my time to leave'.
Now, I don't need anybody trying to debunk the above. Doubt it but don't try to debunk it. The medium gave me two pieces of info that she couldn't have known (or guessed at) and it's those which I base my opinion that I got a genuine medium as everything else was accurate but could have been researched. So I am able to accept this communication and that means that after ten years of worrying that my mother was scared in her final moments, I know that she wasn't and that's lifted a huge weight from off me. My point here is perception. Regardless of everything else, I realised that I have been basing my fears on my own perception - of what I saw - which was after the event. I wasn't there so how could I possibly know? And even if I had have been there, I wasn't privvy to what my mother was thinking and feeling. Do you understand me?
If you fear what happens after we die, research it. Understand that death can be quick, as with my mother, or it can be a gradual process and part of that process (regardless of what we believe or don't) is to give us comfort as we're passing. Read up on death bed visitations and the comfort that they bring to people who are dying. My MIL dozed off in the chair not long before she died and she told me she'd woken up to see her deceased mother sitting in the opposite chair smiling at her. Hallucination or whatever. Doesn't matter. I just remember the look of happiness on my MIL's face. And nobody can say with certainty that this was some kind of hallucination or if it was real. I can accept it as real because of my own experiences.
Read up on NDE's. Read about good deaths. Watch movies about good deaths. The news will only ever dramatise death. You won't read about the millions of folk who have good deaths because that doesn't sell papers.
I also quite like how I do get some say in how I depart this planet because I got no say at all in how I came into it. I didn't even get to choose my own name - something that's always annoyed me. At least I can plan my own funeral and do it my way and I found it quite cathartic to do this. Interestingly, older people tend to fear death less. Maybe it's because they've done a lot of shit or they're like me, as in knackered lol.
I'm not afraid to die, but I have always been very afraid to live and that's partly because I have a brain that's not in synch with the world I live in but also because human beings can be downright nasty. Personally, I am looking forward to being somewhere where those negative ego-based emotions have no place (and I was given the gift of experiencing it via my deceased grandmother many years ago) but for now I will keep working to make life as good as it can be because I beat some astronomical odds to be here. Today I get to hold my grandson and chase after him. I say chase, but in reality I can manage a brisk(ish) walk before I collapse. And I will get to sniff my granddaughter's hair (she's 6 months) and be myself with people who love me. And it's awesome. One day I won't be here and I want them to remember me as fondly as I remember my grandmothers and to do that I have to be emotionally present. Fear mucks about with the ability to be emotionally present so it's very important that we work on facing what we fear..
Death doesn't scare me at all now. It's living that's the scary part. :roflmao:
This is absolutely beautiful! I'm so glad you have peace!
I consider myself healed from health anxiety. In the past I've tried all sorts. Counselling, meditation, I'm on antidepressants, nothing seemed to make a difference for me. Although I've prayed for years, it was around 2020 ish when I found myself learning more about Jesus and taking faith more seriously. I no longer suffer from health anxiety. My advise to anyone is to look to Jesus. If you haven't really thought about faith in Jesus, I highly recommend that you start.
That makes a lot of sense to me, Nora :) Especially the fear + pain thing. I had an extremely nasty fall off a horse when I was a teenager. I was practicing some showjumping, and my horse spooked and galloped at full speed across the field. She then started bucking and I flew up in the air, flipped, and landed head and face first (might explain some things!) into the hard winter ground. My neck bent all the way to the side as my full body weight came down on it, I actually saw stars, and my nose crunched. But I had no pain or fear. I was outside myself, just kind of in this numb state of "oh sh*t, well I guess I'm dying, alright then".
A very good example of what I was talking about, Raptor. Shit hit the fan and you were not scared or in pain. Your body was protecting you by releasing adrenaline, then endorphins - and these are our body's natural painkillers. The next day we might feel like we've been rolled over (several times) by an elephant, but by then we have access to pain relieving medication. :yesyes:
I saw a lot of worried and panicked faces.
This is a good example of how the perception of the observer differs greatly to that of the experiencer. The observers were taking in the scene and running with their own commentary, same as we do when we pass an accident on the motorway. For some (if not all) of those observers it will have been a traumatic thing for them to see. Their fight or flight responses will have been triggered and their imaginations running away with them, yet there was you, on the floor, experiencing no fear and no pain..
I think it is important for HAers to understand this and use the knowledge in order to help them to challenge those fearful thoughts..
My mum's favourite songs I couldn't bear to listen to for a while after she passed, same with dad. But now I can manage it with a smile.
I couldn't stand to hear my dad's funeral song or my mums, and for years afterwards. Now they both make me smile.
For me I see music as a great comfort, a way to express your emotions, heal, cheer, dance, relax, exercise, remember. Life without music is like life without air to me. Well almost.
You're speaking my language here Carnation. :shades:
Getting back to health anxiety. If only we could our imagination more positive. I know myself when I see or hear an ambulance, I'm guilty of thinking the worst.
Next time you hear or see an ambulance hurtling past you, remind yourself that it might be a woman about to give birth? Remind yourself that the outcome isn't always death - even with the most seriously ill of people. And even when it is a case of death, why can't it be a person who has lived a very long and full life in that ambulance and they're more than happy to 'go'? Could be that the person in the ambulance has a cob on with the paramedic because they are trying to keep them alive when they really want to go? How many little old ladies have belted the paramedic with their handbag because they're done living and they want to dance again with their husbands? How many oxygen masks have been flung off in the frustration of being carted off to hospital when all they wanted to do was to slip away quietly in their chair only a neighbour peered through the curtains and raised the alarm? Also, that the experiencer might have no comprehension of what's happening to them. They could be in a lovely situation of nothingness or even be 'outside' of their body watching the whole thing with fascination and zero pain. Even if there is pain then this is 2022, not 1972 where the role of an ambulance was for the driver to administer the most basic of aid (if any at all) and get them to hospital. Paramedics are trained to alleviate pain and distress and the ambulances these days are pretty snazzy! (I can vouch for this) although my paramedic was obviously at the end of his shift and yawning his head off. Ya don't see that on Casualty! :roflmao:There are so many possibilities that you can explore here..
Being on my own when something awful could happen.
The way I see is it this. If we become seriously unwell when we're on our own, we either have time to get ourselves some help or we don't and if we don't this generally means it's because we're unconscious, or dead. Either way, we have no comprehension. If your fear is that you can't get to a phone (say because you've had a fall) then you could get a 'panic alarm' installed. I hate the word 'panic' here because I think it's triggering but there you go. This would greatly reduce the fear of not being able to get to a phone. Also, we can help ourselves by doing things to help prevent things like falls. I'm galloping towards 52 but I am post-meno by 10 years and I had Osteopenia (at my last Dexa scan) so I make sure I do weight bearing exercise specifically for this condition.
But health anxiety for me is a lot of imagining, over thinking, too much attention on a feeling or symptom.
Me too. I'd say this is HA for most people?
And it is a comfort to be aware that if you were ever in a situation of a poorly state, that you automatically go into a calming mode or not even aware of it. This is very true in my experience. The body and mind is an amazing piece of equipment. And our main aim in life is survival. The need for survival is excelled in the form of anxiety and adrenalin. So we shouldn't be afraid of having something that is there to protect us but at the same time we need to let go so it doesn't haunt our every living hour. We need to trust our bodies more, our instinct and not our imagination. Our experience and knowledge, not any catastrophic thoughts. A visual is just a picture with imagination. When reading a book, you form your own visual. When watching a film or TV, it's not real, it's drama. A memory is past, it's a photo in our mind. This. ^^^^^^ :shades:
Although I say all of this in theory, it's much more difficult to change the mindset or thoughts.
It is difficult C. And I always say that it's work in progress with me. I am continually challenging my thoughts because they still come. They always will because anxiety is resident in my brain, rather than a visitor. But I have educated myself to the degree that I am now able to observe these thoughts and not react with fear to them.
Maybe it's become a regular pattern or habit to what you might think is keeping you safe. In reality, it keeps you on guard, in the fear mode. Anxious. Because we want to survive.
Fear is survival. We experience fear because we need to survive. If we had no fear, we would die. We would make poor choices. We would take unnecessary risks. As a species we would become extinct. Fear means we use caution. It's the most important emotion we have because it's the one which will protect us. But it is meant to be an 'off or on' response. As in, reacting to actual danger to life. People can become stuck in a cycle of chronic anxiety where the body's natural alarm system (fight or flight) is constantly on. Anxiety alone has a purpose, as does pain. But when we develop anxiety disorders like health anxiety, we lose sight of what's what. It becomes all about anxiety and fear, and we are unable to enjoy life. And even in those rare moments of calm thoughts, our bodies are still swimming with stress hormones - which is why so many people can't understand why they still feel so crap even when they are not actively having anxious thoughts. And this is why it takes time to de-sensitise the body..
I read sometime ago. When you are not afraid of death, your health anxiety leaves you. How true this is in my opinion.
My fear of death itself left me when I was 12. I had an incredibly profound experience and I was no longer afraid of death. (thanks Gran)
I became a mother and it was back with a vengeance! :ohmy:
HA upped several gears when, at 39, I had my third son who is autistic. That was the fear which broke me and then I had to go all out to help myself out of that mess. I learned some valuable stuff during that journey but ultimately I learned this: To successfully overcome HA we have to accept our own mortality, potential illness (and that illness doesn't equal death), and that our loved ones (even those with disabilities and challenges) won't cease to thrive when we die, and for numerous reasons. We can spend valuable time imagining a fearful future for them or we can be present and give them the best of our ability. That's what I'm doing with my son. So far, it's working..
Once I got my head around all of this, I was able to effectively control my health anxiety and it's been several years now. And in that time I've had an actual health condition (with numerous symptoms) to cope with and several issues crop up (including being fast-tracked) which previously would have sent me hurtling down that rabbit hole. I've not gone down there. I've been concerned, yes, but not scared or irrational. I know what I have to do to keep myself out of that hole and it really is work in progress but ultimately worth the effort..
Hi guys sorry Iv been slow in replies. Iv had a couple of days off work and to be honest my mood is really low atm and I have had a terrible lapse in health anxiety probably the worst it’s been in years.I want to try and be postive I feel like shit. I am actually not very well in general with some throat bug/infection and mentally really not at my best. To be fair it’s like my job has triggered it. It seems to co-incide with that. I love my job to I do actually enjoy it so I’m not sure why it would trigger anxiety (if it is even that)
Sorry to hear that sar89, I hope you managing to relax over the weekend. Could you listen to some Apps, do some muscle relaxation, meditation?
It's maybe not your job at all but your current thoughts, especially if you are feeling poorly. Try not to think too much into that and just rest as much as you can.
I've got a throat thing too, actually lost my voice, lol.
Anxiety will either jump on the situation or take a back seat. Wishing you better.
Sorry to hear that sar89, I hope you managing to relax over the weekend. Could you listen to some Apps, do some muscle relaxation, meditation?
It's maybe not your job at all but your current thoughts, especially if you are feeling poorly. Try not to think too much into that and just rest as much as you can.
I've got a throat thing too, actually lost my voice, lol.
Anxiety will either jump on the situation or take a back seat. Wishing you better.
Hi love thanks for message. I’m abit of a grit my teeth and get on with it person although sometimes it makes me physically present but mentally checked out. On Saturday I took my youngest to gullivers world which he really enjoyed. They where quite good actually they have a thing where you can get a queue jump if you can prove they are unable to wait in a queue so that was a saviour. The day went free of any major dramas 🤣 he just tried to strip naked a couple of times when his pants got wet on the log flume but that’s just a standard day. Also he refused to leave the pirate ship and had repeated goes on it. Sunday I was back in work and had hideous anxiety then for some reason decided to make it worse by having a coffee with colleagues and I never even drink the stuff… sent myself into orbit 🤣I suppose I could try meditation it’s something Iv never really tried so it couldn’t hurt xx
Oh my, that's not relaxing at all. What a full on weekend.
I always find if I'm a bit run down it tends to attack my throat area. Or just overtired. Hoping today you can have an easier day.
The meds is a good thought. I've never taken them but I know people on citalopram and sertraline that find it helps to take the edge off. It takes a month for it to kick in and sometimes it gets a little worse before it gets better. It's something to maybe look into and speak to a doctor if it's something you are considering.
In the meantime, maybe decaf coffee /tea or herbal might be a step in the right direction.
Nora, that's a very good way of looking at seeing an ambulance. You are right, it is not always some sort of tragedy. Women about to give birth, a routine visit, someone being shuttled off by the paramedics because they think its best to get checked over.
Generally it's impossible to have no fear, like you say its part of keeping us safe. And we need to put certain situations into perspective. A thought can be changed and its only a thought, not reality. I've learnt to laugh at a lot of my thoughts because they are normally so ridiculous and way too much overthinking, imagination running wild.
You've done incredibly well Nora in controlling your anxiety and although there may be occasions when you are taken by surprise like the time in the cinema, your response was the right way and if you keep that going you eliminate further situations like that.
I had this going into shops for absolutely ages, but I kept at it no matter how uncomfortable it was and it got easier and easier. The thing is to remember that it is just uncomfortable, no more, it's not a real life threatening situation.
Hi love thanks for message. I’m abit of a grit my teeth and get on with it person although sometimes it makes me physically present but mentally checked out. On Saturday I took my youngest to gullivers world which he really enjoyed. They where quite good actually they have a thing where you can get a queue jump if you can prove they are unable to wait in a queue so that was a saviour. The day went free of any major dramas 藍 he just tried to strip naked a couple of times when his pants got wet on the log flume but that’s just a standard day. Also he refused to leave the pirate ship and had repeated goes on it. Sunday I was back in work and had hideous anxiety then for some reason decided to make it worse by having a coffee with colleagues and I never even drink the stuff… sent myself into orbit 藍I suppose I could try meditation it’s something Iv never really tried so it couldn’t hurt xx
I remember taking my daughter to Eurodisney, Paris before there was a special needs pass to jump the queues..Never again (I didn't book the trip..It was a "surprise"!!!!!) The number of people who crossed themselves and tutted in French whilst we "waited" for our turn...It's all really stressful and accumulates in horrible anxiety in carers. I suspect you are exhausted and your brain wants you to slow down no matter how hard this is for you xx
I've never done "conventional" therapy as such as I prefer to make my own "rules" for HA and stick to them. I don't get tempted to google health sites because I know what they can invariably do and I don't want to get a reputation as a season ticket holder at the GP surgery as I want to be taken seriously if I have a real health issue. I think it's ok to make your own plan as regards taking control back if you don't rate what's on offer at the GP's.
I consider myself healed from health anxiety. In the past I've tried all sorts. Counselling, meditation, I'm on antidepressants, nothing seemed to make a difference for me. Although I've prayed for years, it was around 2020 ish when I found myself learning more about Jesus and taking faith more seriously. I no longer suffer from health anxiety. My advise to anyone is to look to Jesus. If you haven't really thought about faith in Jesus, I highly recommend that you start.
Thank you for this. I needed this today.
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