At the end of my tether with anxiety.

[Victoria84]

Basically what the title says, I'm so utterly fed up of overthinking and panicking over everything. It's usually my health but it's now also the health of my.son, it's crippling me. I gave him a reusable straw this morning, obviously hadn't cleaned it out properly, he spat something out when he took a drink, it was a piece of melon, I'd uses the straws to make melon 'lollies' from and obviously missed that particular one when washing and just shoved it back in the drawer. It must have been at least 2 months old. Even though he spat it out straight away, I'm now convinced he's got botulism and I'm staring and monitoring him for the signs ready to act. I cant carry on like this.

[Victoria84]

I've tried three rounds of CBT, I had a mental health nurse every two weeks when I was pregnant, I've had to call the crisis team before now, I've tried every antidepressant going and currently on fluoxetine as I can't deal with side effects from all the other tablets.

[Victoria84]

Any advice at all?

[NoraB]

You have to challenge your thinking, Victoria.

You can take all the meds you want and turn up for every CBT appointment, but meds only deal with the physical symptoms of anxiety and CBT is useless unless you do the work and practice acceptance.

[ankietyjoe]

You have to challenge your thinking, Victoria.

You can take all the meds you want and turn up for every CBT appointment, but meds only deal with the physical symptoms of anxiety and CBT is useless unless you do the work and practice acceptance.

This is the crucial part.

It's YOU creating the problems in your mind, so it's YOU that has to challenge them. It takes months and months of practice to recover from this kind of health anxiety, and in some respects there's truth in the 'ignore it and it will go away' phrase.

If YOU are monitoring your childs health then YOU are creating your own anxiety.

If your son is fine at this moment, leave him alone. If you feel so anxious you want to check him, say out loud 'NO'. And go do something else.

It's good that you've had enough of it, that's a good stage to get to. Be harder on yourself now. Challenge it all.


Health anxiety is a behavioral issue first, an anxiety issue second.

[NoraB]

Excellent comment, Joe. (Especially the last sentence)