cf09
05-01-09, 17:33
I am so grateful to have found this site and to find other people out there just like me:) . I think this is going to be a long post! Sorry folks!
I'm 28 years old and I think I've always been an anxious and uptight person. Anxiety in some ways has been my friend. Being anxious about exams, work, financial issues etc is actually useful to me as it makes me study harder, work harder or makes me try to find a solution to a problem. But it's anxiety about the things I can't control that is the big problem for me.
I remember being as young as five and worrying that my mum would have an accident and die or that she wouldn't wake up. I have no idea why I would think like that. This continued as I got older, but by the age of about 14 I started to become obsessed with health. I've thought that I've had the symptoms of all sorts of illnesses - cancers and tumours, MS, HIV, epilepsy etc. As soon as I stop worrying about one set of symptoms, another set of symptoms seem to appear.
If I'm not worrying about my own health, I'm worrying about my son's health or my partner's health. For some reason I thought I might get better once my son was born. I think I thought that my son would bring new meaning to my life. But in fact, I worry more than ever now.
I also seem to get lots of physical symptoms from worrying - my heart beats too fast, twitches, IBS, hearing my pulse in my ear and feeling my pulse all over my body etc. I also get this funny thing behind my eye where it feels like the muscle or nerve is buzzing. I was convinced for some time that this was serious but as I now know it comes and goes and is worse when I am tired or anxious, then I put it down to the worrying.
I've found a few things that help me - reading at bedtime so I can clear my mind, staying away from Google etc but it's not gone away. I'm also noticing that I'm feeling more and more down about it. I've not been to the GP about it all because I'm too embarrassed so I've not been diagnosed as suffering from any form of anxiety (although I think I must be). I was thinking CBT might help. Do you think this is the best answer? Should I go to the GP first? Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks
I'm 28 years old and I think I've always been an anxious and uptight person. Anxiety in some ways has been my friend. Being anxious about exams, work, financial issues etc is actually useful to me as it makes me study harder, work harder or makes me try to find a solution to a problem. But it's anxiety about the things I can't control that is the big problem for me.
I remember being as young as five and worrying that my mum would have an accident and die or that she wouldn't wake up. I have no idea why I would think like that. This continued as I got older, but by the age of about 14 I started to become obsessed with health. I've thought that I've had the symptoms of all sorts of illnesses - cancers and tumours, MS, HIV, epilepsy etc. As soon as I stop worrying about one set of symptoms, another set of symptoms seem to appear.
If I'm not worrying about my own health, I'm worrying about my son's health or my partner's health. For some reason I thought I might get better once my son was born. I think I thought that my son would bring new meaning to my life. But in fact, I worry more than ever now.
I also seem to get lots of physical symptoms from worrying - my heart beats too fast, twitches, IBS, hearing my pulse in my ear and feeling my pulse all over my body etc. I also get this funny thing behind my eye where it feels like the muscle or nerve is buzzing. I was convinced for some time that this was serious but as I now know it comes and goes and is worse when I am tired or anxious, then I put it down to the worrying.
I've found a few things that help me - reading at bedtime so I can clear my mind, staying away from Google etc but it's not gone away. I'm also noticing that I'm feeling more and more down about it. I've not been to the GP about it all because I'm too embarrassed so I've not been diagnosed as suffering from any form of anxiety (although I think I must be). I was thinking CBT might help. Do you think this is the best answer? Should I go to the GP first? Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks