cboyce2215
31-01-08, 00:24
Hi guys,
I'm quite new to this site - this is my first post. It's good to know that there are a lot of people in a similar situation to me.
I dicovered that I've been suffering from health anxiety a few months ago, but now that I look back I have been experincing panic attacks and anxiety relating to my health for about six years! In fact, I've almost gotten used to feeling bad most of the time, which sucks.
I left home in September last year to go to university. Shortly after I left my anxiety got really bad. The worst it's ever been. I started having panic attacks almost every day and I constantly felt on edge like I would break down at any second. I began to panic specifically about my health, and I started convincing myself that I had been infected with HIV even though I understood that I was at no risk of getting something like that (I thought I got it by shaking hands with someone I didn't know, which is impossible). What's funny is that I never panic about the usual stuff -cancer or MS which is way more serious than HIV. I became completely obsessive, constantly checking my skin for rashes or imagining that I had a sore throat or that I was developing an opportunistic infection like pneumonia. Even now I'm expecting to wake up one day feeling awful, only to be taken to hospital and test positive for the disease. It's completely mad and irrational thinking. The thing that freaks me out the most about HIV is that it destroys your immune system which makes you vulnerable to stuff you wouldn't get if you were healthy. I'm really afraid of something like that - I'm afraid of being thought of differently if I was actually diagnosed for real, and having to deal with it for the rest of my life. If I was diagnosed with HIV, would people become afraid of me? It sounds completely crazy doesn't it?
Some people think that dealing with anxiety is really simple and that you just have to "snap out of it" and you'll be fine, which is unfair. I feel so angry and frustrated right now because I've had this condition for so long and I don't feel like it's ever going to go away! I feel depressed and ashamed for having such selfish thoughts all the time. And I feel completely ungrateful and that I don't deserve to be in good health anyway. To be honest I am sick of never being able to view things positively anymore. I'm getting counselling soon so I hope that will work things out for me eventually.
What do you guys think? Crazy huh?
I'm quite new to this site - this is my first post. It's good to know that there are a lot of people in a similar situation to me.
I dicovered that I've been suffering from health anxiety a few months ago, but now that I look back I have been experincing panic attacks and anxiety relating to my health for about six years! In fact, I've almost gotten used to feeling bad most of the time, which sucks.
I left home in September last year to go to university. Shortly after I left my anxiety got really bad. The worst it's ever been. I started having panic attacks almost every day and I constantly felt on edge like I would break down at any second. I began to panic specifically about my health, and I started convincing myself that I had been infected with HIV even though I understood that I was at no risk of getting something like that (I thought I got it by shaking hands with someone I didn't know, which is impossible). What's funny is that I never panic about the usual stuff -cancer or MS which is way more serious than HIV. I became completely obsessive, constantly checking my skin for rashes or imagining that I had a sore throat or that I was developing an opportunistic infection like pneumonia. Even now I'm expecting to wake up one day feeling awful, only to be taken to hospital and test positive for the disease. It's completely mad and irrational thinking. The thing that freaks me out the most about HIV is that it destroys your immune system which makes you vulnerable to stuff you wouldn't get if you were healthy. I'm really afraid of something like that - I'm afraid of being thought of differently if I was actually diagnosed for real, and having to deal with it for the rest of my life. If I was diagnosed with HIV, would people become afraid of me? It sounds completely crazy doesn't it?
Some people think that dealing with anxiety is really simple and that you just have to "snap out of it" and you'll be fine, which is unfair. I feel so angry and frustrated right now because I've had this condition for so long and I don't feel like it's ever going to go away! I feel depressed and ashamed for having such selfish thoughts all the time. And I feel completely ungrateful and that I don't deserve to be in good health anyway. To be honest I am sick of never being able to view things positively anymore. I'm getting counselling soon so I hope that will work things out for me eventually.
What do you guys think? Crazy huh?