Fadeout41
20-10-22, 02:45
I hope I’m posting in the right place. I have pretty intense health anxiety. I have recently had a bunch of tests done investigating pelvic pain, one of which was an MRI which revealed an incidental finding of an issue with my bone marrow - basically it showed an overproduction of red blood cells. This could be related to anemia - I’m celiac but at worst I am sometimes iron deficient, not chronically anaemic. It could then also be the nastiest - blood cancers etc.
My first stop, like many with HA, is my own research. My father was a doctor with anxiety and instilled a distrust in any doctor who wasn’t him. Hence when something like this comes up and my doctors say it’s not really something to worry about - and yet I find a study where a similar thing was reported in someone where doctors dismissed what later turned out to be leukaemia - I find it hard to trust my doctors. My father has now died - ironically of a health issue he knew he had but pretended he didn’t - so I can’t go to him anymore. So I insists on tests upon test and we all know that the more tests you do, the more you might discover incidental benign issues that are usually a result of the human body being in imperfect entity.
I’m exhausted. I see the pattern in myself. I’ve convinced myself I’ve had at least five horrid diseases this year alone. I can see what this is rationally. And yet as soon as I start thinking rationally, my mind says “but what if you ignore it and this one time it’s actually something”. I can’t just leave it be.
I have two small kids who I don’t want to pick up this awful mental illness. I grew up in an anxious household so I know what it can do to a child. But I can’t break the cycle. I really can’t. I’ve seen therapists, I’ve been on anti anxiety medication. It didn’t help. I feel helpless and stuck.
How do you let go and learn to trust your medical professionals, knowing there are times they get it wrong and miss things? How do you let go of that control? I’m sitting here convinced I have leukaemia and I can’t think straight. My whole life is on hold.
My first stop, like many with HA, is my own research. My father was a doctor with anxiety and instilled a distrust in any doctor who wasn’t him. Hence when something like this comes up and my doctors say it’s not really something to worry about - and yet I find a study where a similar thing was reported in someone where doctors dismissed what later turned out to be leukaemia - I find it hard to trust my doctors. My father has now died - ironically of a health issue he knew he had but pretended he didn’t - so I can’t go to him anymore. So I insists on tests upon test and we all know that the more tests you do, the more you might discover incidental benign issues that are usually a result of the human body being in imperfect entity.
I’m exhausted. I see the pattern in myself. I’ve convinced myself I’ve had at least five horrid diseases this year alone. I can see what this is rationally. And yet as soon as I start thinking rationally, my mind says “but what if you ignore it and this one time it’s actually something”. I can’t just leave it be.
I have two small kids who I don’t want to pick up this awful mental illness. I grew up in an anxious household so I know what it can do to a child. But I can’t break the cycle. I really can’t. I’ve seen therapists, I’ve been on anti anxiety medication. It didn’t help. I feel helpless and stuck.
How do you let go and learn to trust your medical professionals, knowing there are times they get it wrong and miss things? How do you let go of that control? I’m sitting here convinced I have leukaemia and I can’t think straight. My whole life is on hold.