somethingwitty
19-05-11, 21:11
Hello people.
In the last 9 months or so I've developed a massive health anxiety. I know exactly why it's come about, and I know that when some everyday ache is happening it really is just an everyday ache that a year ago wouldn't have caused me to bat an eyelid and is in fact not the first signs of a life threatening illness, but when my head really starts spinning none of that helps.
I'm typically quite a closed person, and so struggle in talking to people about this. So, I guess I just want to say my peace here in front of people who truly understand what its like to have a harmless symptom and genuinely, in their heart of hearts, believe it to be the beginning of the end. And then I promise I'll stop being narcissistic and get involved with the forum properly :)
(Oh, and I'm genuinely sorry if people aren't comfortable to me poking a bit of fun at myself for this. I'm not spitefully making fun of HA in any way, shape or form, instead humour and being lighthearted is just how I tend to cope best with stuff).
Truth be told, I'm just fed up. I'm fed up that something has switched over in my brain that has meant that any symptom I get is no longer innocent until proven guilty. Everything is the first stages of something horrific. It doesn't matter if I feel what most people classify as 'healthy' - no fever, no erroneous blood in any fluids, not feeling any more run down than normal, no vomiting, heavy cough, headaches, no family history of anything that nasty, etc. - 99% of the time, every time that 1% happens I can't get it out of my head that everything is about to change.
So far this year, sure fire colon cancer turned out to be a particularly troublesome anal fissure, a strange issue in my testicles was 'probably a tiny infection or bit of referred pain' and not testicular cancer, and struggling to catch my breath after heavy sneezing turned out to be "Oh that's completely normal, everyone does that". Yes, I actually spoke with a doctor about a sneezing thing. Because it totally could have been something fatal. Oh, and after regularly getting severe, crippling pain in my upper back I had pancreatic cancer, and it was only after a friend sat in my office chair and pointed out that it was broken did I realise it was all down to posture.
My current issues of choice are a strange tingling feeling around my mouth, cheeks and jaw that is clearly nothing to do with my wisdom teeth making a final bid for freedom and affecting nerves\a general anxiety reaction\a sinus infection and is a tumour somewhere in my head, and a slightly swollen\tight throat that is of course also not a part of said infection\anxiety related and a lymphoma. I mean, I can't even find a lymph node - let alone a swollen one - and yet I have a lymphoma. Whenever I forget to eat and feel all weak, it's a symptom and not just because I've been an idiot and forgotten that humans need to eat more than a slice of toast per day. I could go on and on but I'll stop there...
The thing that gets to me about this above all else is the fear. I'm fed up of being scared. I'm fed up with being uncertain. I keep thinking of a great quote from Scrubs with Dr Cox saying something along the lines of "When you hear hooves, you think 'horse' not 'zebra'". Literally just now I just shivered and was like "Ah, I'm getting chills, what could it be?" instead of realising "Hey, my window is open and the sun has gone down...". That is how anxious I can be. While spell checking this I felt a light twinge of something around where my liver should be and skipped over wind, indigestion, awkward posture due to a long day at computer and everything else and went straight to "Is that a tumour starting to press on my rib cage? ****, probably is..." because what else could it be? I just stood up to get a glass of water and the pressure change in my head was obvious. Couldn't be either random or a sinus infection, could it, must be a tumour. That is three jerks of panic in the hour I've had this open absent mindedly pouring our my neurosis....
I actually do feel better about this after just typing this. In a poke-fun-at-myself way (again, I'm a humour to cope person, please don't think I'm suggesting that HA isn't a pretty debilitating thing) it makes me realise how ridiculous some of my thoughts really are.
I'm getting a bit better. After my usual triggers, sometimes I'm able to predict what I'm about to think before my brain has a chance to leap to the ridiculous conclusions and lo and behild, I was right. When I'm able to predict what health worry I'm about to come up with before it can surface, it helps to numb the effect a bit. Without meaning to get too graphic, the best example I can think of is every now and again a bowel movement will cause my fissure to flare up, and before it happens I'll say to myself "There'll be blood in this, don't freak out" and then when there is, because I've predicted it, I know it's normal for my condition and don't have a massive anxiety attack. When I'm tired I can stop myself and go "You're tired, you're being silly, stop it".
Anyway, I just had to vent there. I'm following my common sense and avoiding Dr. Google from now on, but still want the reassurance when it's late at night and everyone else is asleep and you're all alone with your warpy thoughts, so thought I'd sign up here. I'm done with spending nights awake but paralysed with fear and only my anxiety to keep me company.
Hopefully I can stop being quite so scared. And if anyone has waded through my little self loathing\crazy monologue, thank you for listening to me rant. I just wanted to spill my guts in a place where I'd be understood, you know?
In the last 9 months or so I've developed a massive health anxiety. I know exactly why it's come about, and I know that when some everyday ache is happening it really is just an everyday ache that a year ago wouldn't have caused me to bat an eyelid and is in fact not the first signs of a life threatening illness, but when my head really starts spinning none of that helps.
I'm typically quite a closed person, and so struggle in talking to people about this. So, I guess I just want to say my peace here in front of people who truly understand what its like to have a harmless symptom and genuinely, in their heart of hearts, believe it to be the beginning of the end. And then I promise I'll stop being narcissistic and get involved with the forum properly :)
(Oh, and I'm genuinely sorry if people aren't comfortable to me poking a bit of fun at myself for this. I'm not spitefully making fun of HA in any way, shape or form, instead humour and being lighthearted is just how I tend to cope best with stuff).
Truth be told, I'm just fed up. I'm fed up that something has switched over in my brain that has meant that any symptom I get is no longer innocent until proven guilty. Everything is the first stages of something horrific. It doesn't matter if I feel what most people classify as 'healthy' - no fever, no erroneous blood in any fluids, not feeling any more run down than normal, no vomiting, heavy cough, headaches, no family history of anything that nasty, etc. - 99% of the time, every time that 1% happens I can't get it out of my head that everything is about to change.
So far this year, sure fire colon cancer turned out to be a particularly troublesome anal fissure, a strange issue in my testicles was 'probably a tiny infection or bit of referred pain' and not testicular cancer, and struggling to catch my breath after heavy sneezing turned out to be "Oh that's completely normal, everyone does that". Yes, I actually spoke with a doctor about a sneezing thing. Because it totally could have been something fatal. Oh, and after regularly getting severe, crippling pain in my upper back I had pancreatic cancer, and it was only after a friend sat in my office chair and pointed out that it was broken did I realise it was all down to posture.
My current issues of choice are a strange tingling feeling around my mouth, cheeks and jaw that is clearly nothing to do with my wisdom teeth making a final bid for freedom and affecting nerves\a general anxiety reaction\a sinus infection and is a tumour somewhere in my head, and a slightly swollen\tight throat that is of course also not a part of said infection\anxiety related and a lymphoma. I mean, I can't even find a lymph node - let alone a swollen one - and yet I have a lymphoma. Whenever I forget to eat and feel all weak, it's a symptom and not just because I've been an idiot and forgotten that humans need to eat more than a slice of toast per day. I could go on and on but I'll stop there...
The thing that gets to me about this above all else is the fear. I'm fed up of being scared. I'm fed up with being uncertain. I keep thinking of a great quote from Scrubs with Dr Cox saying something along the lines of "When you hear hooves, you think 'horse' not 'zebra'". Literally just now I just shivered and was like "Ah, I'm getting chills, what could it be?" instead of realising "Hey, my window is open and the sun has gone down...". That is how anxious I can be. While spell checking this I felt a light twinge of something around where my liver should be and skipped over wind, indigestion, awkward posture due to a long day at computer and everything else and went straight to "Is that a tumour starting to press on my rib cage? ****, probably is..." because what else could it be? I just stood up to get a glass of water and the pressure change in my head was obvious. Couldn't be either random or a sinus infection, could it, must be a tumour. That is three jerks of panic in the hour I've had this open absent mindedly pouring our my neurosis....
I actually do feel better about this after just typing this. In a poke-fun-at-myself way (again, I'm a humour to cope person, please don't think I'm suggesting that HA isn't a pretty debilitating thing) it makes me realise how ridiculous some of my thoughts really are.
I'm getting a bit better. After my usual triggers, sometimes I'm able to predict what I'm about to think before my brain has a chance to leap to the ridiculous conclusions and lo and behild, I was right. When I'm able to predict what health worry I'm about to come up with before it can surface, it helps to numb the effect a bit. Without meaning to get too graphic, the best example I can think of is every now and again a bowel movement will cause my fissure to flare up, and before it happens I'll say to myself "There'll be blood in this, don't freak out" and then when there is, because I've predicted it, I know it's normal for my condition and don't have a massive anxiety attack. When I'm tired I can stop myself and go "You're tired, you're being silly, stop it".
Anyway, I just had to vent there. I'm following my common sense and avoiding Dr. Google from now on, but still want the reassurance when it's late at night and everyone else is asleep and you're all alone with your warpy thoughts, so thought I'd sign up here. I'm done with spending nights awake but paralysed with fear and only my anxiety to keep me company.
Hopefully I can stop being quite so scared. And if anyone has waded through my little self loathing\crazy monologue, thank you for listening to me rant. I just wanted to spill my guts in a place where I'd be understood, you know?