Electric Blue
03-09-10, 05:12
Hi All,
My anxiety has returned...and I keep googling away hoping to find something that will reassure me but alas...it never happens...infact it tends to make things worse...arrgh!
Anyways, my psychologist tends to think this is OCD. So I thought I would post this in the OCD forum.
Since March I have convinced myself I've had various illnesses.
First off I felt a lump in my throat and thought I had throat cancer....so I ended up at seeing an ENT specialist and had a tube up my nose and down my throat.
Nope...no throat cancer...okay so I moved on from that one...
Then I started getting re-occurring headaches...and I convinced myself I had a brain tumor...however the headaches went away so I got over that one...and moved on...
Then I started to worry that I had Hep C or HIV because as a child I use to visit the local creek and catch tadpoles...and one of the kids mentioned he'd found syringes in the mud where we were walking bare foot in catching these tadpoles...
I was so worried about it I had a blood test and all came back negative.
And I moved on from that.
Now I am having negative thoughts...and I am terrfied yet again.
Basically my new negative thoughts is again about my childhood (similar to the creek)
I grew up in an old area with quite a few old houses.
My parents house was built back in 1958, it has a flat corrugated asbestos cement roof.
My father always told us that it's safe so long as you do not break it.
I was a bit of a monkey as a kid and loooved to climb trees and climb onto roofs.
Because I knew what my parent's roof was (although didn't quite understand it) I very rarely went onto my parent's roof because my father taught us that it was bad.
Although my brother and I went up sometimes to retrieve footballs/ tennis balls.
The roof never broke, and we never did anything other then go up there, get the ball and get down.
In my later teens I thought about how I use to go up onto the roof and said to myself "Wow I shouldn't do that...I won't ever go up there again."
Then our hot water system broke down...and my father replaced it with the exact same model...and believe me this hot water system is OLD as...how he managed to get his hands on the same model I'll never know.
He was installing the hot water system (which for some unknown reason is hanging on the wall behind the toilet door)
I was doing my own thing and my father came into see me and asked me to climb up onto the roof to help him install the flue.
I said I didn't want to do it, but my father has a bad temper and got angry so I felt like I didn't have a choice...I also thought going onto the roof might be a good way to get over my fears.
So I climbed up the ladder and went onto the roof. My dad was down in the toilet and pushed the flue up.
I was standing probably about a metre from where the hole was in the roof where the flue was being installed and this sudden cloud of dust comes flying up!
I absolutely freak out! I turn away and take a breath and hold it as long as possible....and my dad is yelling at me for not helping him.
So I held the flue while he did what he had to do, eventually I had to breathe again. I was probably only on the roof for 3 - 5 mins at the most.
I remember panicking, I ended up balling my eyes out to a doctor and telling her what happened. She said "No, it's people who worked with asbestos!" and she gave me a chest x-ray and told me I had nothing to worry about.
That all happened about 7 years ago, and I'm not sure why but all these thoughts have come back and I've been panicking about it for the last 3 weeks! It's doing my head in! It's the last thing on my mind before I go to sleep at night...and the first thing on my mind the first thing I wake up in the morning....
I know realistically, that asbestos is safe so long as you don't cut, drill, saw, sand or do anything really dumb like that.
Which I can assure that I never did.
I've spoken to my Dad about this many times, who assures me the dust that flew up that day was just dust which had settled in the roof for over 40 years...my parents backyard also lacks grass...and is mostly just dust and dirt.
But the thoughts keep coming back...so much do they keep coming up I've even been thinking about my neighbours garage! My friends and I use to play in my neighbours old garage. It was really old...filty and dusty.
It was like a cement garage and the paint was peeling off the insides, and the render underneath was exposed. I remember one time poking at the render with a stick and it disintegrated into dust!
And basically I'm just freaking out...I kind of feel that my thoughts are irrational...but it's taking over.
Overall I have a good life...I have a house, my job, my car, my dogs, my partner...I should be enjoying myself...
If anyone has some advice please share...it's doing my head in :frown:
All I can think about is asbestos, and how I am so convinced I am going to get asbestosis or mesothelioma! :weep:
I want to be my normal happy self and enjoy my life.
My anxiety has returned...and I keep googling away hoping to find something that will reassure me but alas...it never happens...infact it tends to make things worse...arrgh!
Anyways, my psychologist tends to think this is OCD. So I thought I would post this in the OCD forum.
Since March I have convinced myself I've had various illnesses.
First off I felt a lump in my throat and thought I had throat cancer....so I ended up at seeing an ENT specialist and had a tube up my nose and down my throat.
Nope...no throat cancer...okay so I moved on from that one...
Then I started getting re-occurring headaches...and I convinced myself I had a brain tumor...however the headaches went away so I got over that one...and moved on...
Then I started to worry that I had Hep C or HIV because as a child I use to visit the local creek and catch tadpoles...and one of the kids mentioned he'd found syringes in the mud where we were walking bare foot in catching these tadpoles...
I was so worried about it I had a blood test and all came back negative.
And I moved on from that.
Now I am having negative thoughts...and I am terrfied yet again.
Basically my new negative thoughts is again about my childhood (similar to the creek)
I grew up in an old area with quite a few old houses.
My parents house was built back in 1958, it has a flat corrugated asbestos cement roof.
My father always told us that it's safe so long as you do not break it.
I was a bit of a monkey as a kid and loooved to climb trees and climb onto roofs.
Because I knew what my parent's roof was (although didn't quite understand it) I very rarely went onto my parent's roof because my father taught us that it was bad.
Although my brother and I went up sometimes to retrieve footballs/ tennis balls.
The roof never broke, and we never did anything other then go up there, get the ball and get down.
In my later teens I thought about how I use to go up onto the roof and said to myself "Wow I shouldn't do that...I won't ever go up there again."
Then our hot water system broke down...and my father replaced it with the exact same model...and believe me this hot water system is OLD as...how he managed to get his hands on the same model I'll never know.
He was installing the hot water system (which for some unknown reason is hanging on the wall behind the toilet door)
I was doing my own thing and my father came into see me and asked me to climb up onto the roof to help him install the flue.
I said I didn't want to do it, but my father has a bad temper and got angry so I felt like I didn't have a choice...I also thought going onto the roof might be a good way to get over my fears.
So I climbed up the ladder and went onto the roof. My dad was down in the toilet and pushed the flue up.
I was standing probably about a metre from where the hole was in the roof where the flue was being installed and this sudden cloud of dust comes flying up!
I absolutely freak out! I turn away and take a breath and hold it as long as possible....and my dad is yelling at me for not helping him.
So I held the flue while he did what he had to do, eventually I had to breathe again. I was probably only on the roof for 3 - 5 mins at the most.
I remember panicking, I ended up balling my eyes out to a doctor and telling her what happened. She said "No, it's people who worked with asbestos!" and she gave me a chest x-ray and told me I had nothing to worry about.
That all happened about 7 years ago, and I'm not sure why but all these thoughts have come back and I've been panicking about it for the last 3 weeks! It's doing my head in! It's the last thing on my mind before I go to sleep at night...and the first thing on my mind the first thing I wake up in the morning....
I know realistically, that asbestos is safe so long as you don't cut, drill, saw, sand or do anything really dumb like that.
Which I can assure that I never did.
I've spoken to my Dad about this many times, who assures me the dust that flew up that day was just dust which had settled in the roof for over 40 years...my parents backyard also lacks grass...and is mostly just dust and dirt.
But the thoughts keep coming back...so much do they keep coming up I've even been thinking about my neighbours garage! My friends and I use to play in my neighbours old garage. It was really old...filty and dusty.
It was like a cement garage and the paint was peeling off the insides, and the render underneath was exposed. I remember one time poking at the render with a stick and it disintegrated into dust!
And basically I'm just freaking out...I kind of feel that my thoughts are irrational...but it's taking over.
Overall I have a good life...I have a house, my job, my car, my dogs, my partner...I should be enjoying myself...
If anyone has some advice please share...it's doing my head in :frown:
All I can think about is asbestos, and how I am so convinced I am going to get asbestosis or mesothelioma! :weep:
I want to be my normal happy self and enjoy my life.