Can anyone pinpoint the beginning of your HA? How does effect you?

I’ve never been particularly anxious about my health, beyond the usual worries anyway. I’ve had the odd ‘does this small ache or pain mean I have cancer’ panic after a bit of googling, but it usually passed within an hour. In the past year this has completely changed. The constant reporting about Covid at the beginning of last year built up in my mind until I had a series of panic attacks because of it in April last year. Since then, I’ve been convinced I was dying or seriously ill numerous times.

I found a lump on my chest about a year ago and noticed a pain in my shoulder which radiated down my arm and up my neck. I convinced myself it was some sort of cancer, but I didn’t tell anyone and I didn’t go to a doctor, mostly out of fear someone would tell me it was serious. For the next year or so, any little bump, spot, cough, ache, or pain was proof I was ill. In a weird way, I just sort of accepted it, probably because I knew deep down I was making a bigger deal out of it than it deserved.

This changed a week and a half ago when I felt a lump in my neck. For the first time it actually felt real, and I was in an uncontrollable panic. After a few day I forced myself to go to the GP. I was convinced I would be told there and then something was seriously wrong, which only made things worse. Well, that didn’t happen. The lump on my chest is a lipoma, the pain in my shoulder is most likely an untreated rotator cuff injury, and after checking the lymph nodes in my neck, collarbone, armpit and groin multiple times, he found absolutely nothing. I had no symptoms of any serious illness. He did offer me a referral for a scan to ease my mind after I asked, but was adamant there was nothing wrong.

I felt like a complete idiot just wasting someones time, but for the first time in a year I felt free of worry. That was until about three days later when I convinced myself I have testicular cancer, despite having absolutely no symptoms or reasons for worry. I’m worse than I’ve ever been at the moment, but I do have this weird nagging feeling at the back of my mind that I can almost exactly pinpoint when and why this all started. Thinking of that moment seems to ease my worry and stop any incoming panic, for a short while at least. I don’t really know why.

I know this was incredibly longwinded and potentially off topic, but can anyone else actually pinpoint nearly to the minute when their HA started and why? If so, does your knowledge of some sort of initial triggering event ease your mind at all, or effect you in any way?

I have always kind of been afraid of death and pain since I was very little (not sure why, I lived a very sheltered life as a child). However, it wasn't something that affected my day-to-day life until after my sister died, at which point my "general" anxiety became much more health-focused. Then, my dad died from cancer, and it escalated into full-blown health anxiety. Then, my brother died, and that's when shit really started to hit the fan HA-wise for me. Ironically, this was also right around the time that COVID was starting, which definitely didn't help. It didn't help that I was taking a course on virology at the same time. Major yikes.

For me, it was the deaths of three immediate family members that really set off my journey into HA. Other things that contributed to my HA include being in a major car accident a year prior to all of these deaths, getting diagnosed with PCOS after experiencing some pretty wild symptoms (gaining nearly 50 lbs. in two months, starting to grow hair in a "male pattern", having absolutely no control over my emotions). All of these things made me realize just how little control I actually have over my life and body, and just how random and unfair life is. I don't feel safe in the world (due to the car accident and the fact that my sister later died in another one), I don't feel safe in my body (dad died from cancer and I was diagnosed with PCOS, so clearly I can't control what my body may or may not develop), and I don't feel safe in my mind (my anxiety definitely makes me feel unsafe at times).

Now, most people acknowledge that life is unfair and unsafe, but are either able to ignore it or compartmentalize it so that they can go about their day-to-day lives without constant worries of "oh god what if I get into or cause a car accident?", "oh god what if I get diagnosed with cancer?". But that is not how my brain works. For some reason, I hyper-focus on things like this.

I've always suffered from anxiety, and always had a phobia of medical situations. However, my HA didn't really kick in properly until a uni friend's wife died from bowel cancer in her late 20s. That was what brought it home to me, that these things can happen to anyone, so why not to me?

Shortly afterwards I had what you'd call an existential crisis, I guess; cried and panicked for 4 days straight and couldn't get out of bed from the sheer terror of my own mortality. It took me weeks to get back to something resembling normal, and from then on the HA was way out of control. Most weekend mornings I spent 4 or 5 hours stuck on Google, convinced I had some or other deadly disease.

It took me years (and eventually medication) to get past it.

I know I've had health anxiety since I was a small child and I 'think' it's because my granddad was in his 70s, and unwell. He basically wheezed his way through the first 13 years of my life until his heart gave up. I remember seeing diseases on TV or in books and thinking I had them all. I felt sick all the time, and I saw things about my body that were not actually there..

In my case, autism also plays a role because I wasn't able to verbalise my fears or the symptoms I was having. I was physically sick a lot but I don't recall it ever being questioned? So nobody could reassure me because they didn't know that I was suffering..

I was in my late 40s when the penny finally dropped that I can control this, but I think that a pre-disposition to anxiety, OCD, and an ailing Grandpa is the reason I developed HA in the first place..

I had a mental breakdown when I was 46 due to health anxiety. The disorder took me to the very brink of sanity - but they do say that it's often during the very worst time of your life that we can turn things around, and that's what happened with me. The day before my colonoscopy, I decided that enough was enough and I would accept whatever was coming my way. That day I was the calmest I'd ever been in my life. The test was clear, but I had been 100% convinced of bowel cancer - just as I had been 100% convinced of MS, heart disease, a brain tumour, ovarian cancer and all the other imaginary diagnoses I'd given myself..

To control HA means to accept potential illness and certain death- with the understanding that we can't control what happens to us, only how we respond to it.

I know I have to die of something; we all do. But I try to keep myself healthy, and keeping stress levels low is top of my list because stress is the biggest problem when it comes to disease. I also know how remarkable my body is. I cut my finger and I don't have to do anything (except wash it, obvs) for it to heal itself and the body heals itself from the inside too.

I've had two major health blips this year, and of course the pandemic - and the wheels have yet to come off, so I must be doing something right? :shades:

But it's always work in progress...

I was probably ten? when it happened - playing with my cousin he made a remark about me breaking my neck and dying.

Then I learned about black widow spiders and I would check my bed for them at night.

That was 46 years ago: and in its various forms, it's still here with me. I'd love to think I could live my remaining years on this planet free of it but somehow I think this is something I'll only get peace from when my family bury me.

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Originally Posted by Pamplemousse

I was probably ten? when it happened - playing with my cousin he made a remark about me breaking my neck and dying.

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Cheery chap? :ohmy:

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Originally Posted by Pamplemousse

I'd love to think I could live my remaining years on this planet free of it but somehow I think this is something I'll only get peace from when my family bury me.

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I don't think I'll ever be totally free of mine P, but I like to think I have my size 4 up HA's @rse at the moment. :yesyes:

Believe me Nora, these last few days have had me feeling that accelerating towards that ultimate peace ain't such a bad idea.

Around the age of 6 or 7 was when mine started. I used to check myself for lumps thinking they were massive cysts that would leave holes in my legs. I developed a fear of diabetes, and feared I was going blind at around the same time. There's so many pinpoints I can put my finger on looking back. Don't let children watch Casualty, or let them watch a nurse cleaning a persons wounds. That was what started it all off for me.

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Originally Posted by Pamplemousse

Believe me Nora, these last few days have had me feeling that accelerating towards that ultimate peace ain't such a bad idea.

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I sometimes think like this P - especially when the fibro is kicking my ass, only in my case it cheers me up. :ohmy:

Hope you're feeling a bit better now P.