Is this definately health anxiety I have or am I right??

[LisaLisa]

I wonder if anyone could maybe reasure me a little.

Today I having a really hard time. My mind is continusously thinking about hiv. It is always usually there sometimes more or less than now.

Today I feel like i want to keep ut at bay coz yesterday was so good.

Well what i was wondering is does anyone else feel like they cant stop thinking about their body and that at the slightest second their mind could latch onto something and start the real fear cycle that goes out of control? And all the time that I am mamaging to distract my self from my sensations and things I can see like any blemishes etc my mind is going through everything I have read about hiv that i think i have noticed before so i cant seem to do anything to prevent panic and real fear building up again?

Is this just anxiety?

Can anyone help me today with seuggestions about how I should deal with this today? I feel like I cant think for myself :weep:

Thanks
Lisa
xxxx

[Mudskipper]

Yes it is anxiety. Like you, I tend to latch onto various conditions and stress out about them and there's always something new in this vein to worry about. If you want to know how extreme it can get for me, I can recall when the BSE/CJD scare kicked off back in 1996. It was on Newsnight that they broke the news that scientists had confirmed a link between BSE infected meat and people developing CJD. I was watching the programme which went on to describe the symptoms of the illness and I swear to you, within minutes I was convinced I had all of those symptoms! Slowly the story faded from the news, I worried less about it or something came along to take its' place and the symptoms stopped too. For me, the only things that keeps these things at bay is medication, displacement or time, with the ultimate acceptance that if I had these things, they'd probably either have made themselves properly known by now, or killed me. So far, I'm still here...:winks:

Regarding HIV, is there any GOOD reason why you should have it? If not, forget about it, it's not the easiest thing to catch.

Take care.

[nomorepanic]

It is HA yes

There is a good book in the online shop that is only £2.50 that may help you - look under the A4 intro books section.

[nomorepanic]

Lisa - have you read the HA website page on the left as well?

[LisaLisa]

Thanks Guys

I will take a look at that ha section, i havent read it before

Thanks

Lisa
xxx

[Stressed32]

Lisa, you know from my emails and our chats that this happens to me too. At one point it was one extreme to another...I either had HIV or I was spenidng every waking moment convincing myself I did not have it.....either way I was thinking all day everyday about HIV. My Dr. explained to me that thoughts makes little pathways in our brain. You have literally trained your brain to think about HIV and that these thoughts are ok. Now you must retrain your brain....and this is where CBT comes into play. Step one is to instead of thinking and reassuring yourself that you don't have...you already know that you dont.....so instead of thinking ok I don't have it, neg. test, replace the thought right away with some other thought about ANYTHING else. It may only happen for a minute before you find yourself thinking about HIV again....but 1 minute leads to 2 leads to 3 and over time you will find yourself thinking less and less about HIV and more and more about other things. Distraction is key! Remember what happened the other night...you had a bad day thinking about it all day then you went home and the baby and dinner kept your mind occupied and before you knew it...the feelings of fear passed. That is what needs to happen while you are at work! I can see that it happens for you more at work which tells me your mind has time to wonder...you are bored....you have time to spend hours online looking at those sites. So the trick for you is going to be to find something other than HIV sites to occupy your mind while working. That is why I suggested a book....one not related to HIV or anxiety cause all that does is keep you thinking about both then keeping you in this never ending cycle.