How I got rid of my anxiety

I wanted to write this to encourage some of you. About 3 years ago, my husband had a cancer scare. We went through testing and had to wait 2 months to go back for another test to see if it had grown. Long story short, it was just an infection in his lungs and all was well- when we went back in two months, it was gone. So, all the stress should leave, right? Well, it didn’t. That scare made me start to think of everything that could possibly go wrong. I was scared of something happening to him, something happening to my kids or something happening to me. It manifested as severe anxiety and severe health anxiety. I was borderline OCD with it, checking myself for lumps or other irregularities constantly. This is no way to live. I was absolutely miserable for 2 years. My husband was fed up as well because I would constantly seek reassurance from him.

In the past year, I have lived with very little anxiety and surprise- most of my symptoms have gone away. In fact, if I begin to feel stressed, I start to see some of those symptoms again which proves to me that they are stress-related. Since I was constantly trying to find some way to break that anxiety cycle, I wanted to let you know how I did it. Hopefully this will help some of you. Throughout this year there have been a few times when the anxiety threatened and I could feel the old habits start to creep up. I went through these steps and again broke the cycle. They work for me and I hope they work for you.
1. Do not go looking for a problem. When I was in the midst of my battle, I would scour every inch of my skin looking for abnormalities. I would push and prod my body and then I would be sore for days afterwards. This soreness then made me think there was something else wrong and the cycle would never end. I know now that a lot of my checking stemmed from boredom. So now, if I feel the urge to check, I go do something else and immediately get my mind off of it. I’ve found that watching a funny comedy helps me.
2. Do not Google anything about your body! Google is the devil. And I say that with conviction. Something I found out in my research was that most of these websites that tell you what is wrong as actually sponsored or run by pharmaceutical companies! They WANT you to run to your doctor so they can sell meds! Actually these days, I really don’t believe anything I see on the internet. It has become so saturated with false information that it’s hard to find the truth. Once I was chewing a piece of gum and I decided to test out my theory. I typed into google “chewing gum bad for you”. Many and I mean MANY articles came up with the most ridiculous reasons that gum is hazardous to your health. Google is bad, the internet is bad…. Just stay away. Oh and maybe the worst part is, when you start searching for health stuff, all of your ads on the internet start to be about health stuff… it fuels the fire big time.
3. Do not seek reassurance from friends/ family/ etc. I always thought it would make me feel better, but it never did. Instead, it just fuels the cycle and keeps the issue at the forefront of my mind.
4. When a symptom arises, don’t go crazy. When any kind of ache or pain or weird spot shows up, I try to think to myself- “is this something that normal people would worry about?” Most of the time the answer is no. If that is the case, I get my mind off of it and ignore it. Yes, this is hard. Yes, it takes practice. But, once you break the cycle, it is much easier. Do not push a bruise to see if it still hurts- you’re making it worse!! Stop checking!
5. Don’t read books, articles, watch shows, etc. about people who are sick. This was a HUGE trigger for me. I would be watching a show and suddenly one of the characters found out they have cancer. Low and behold, within the next few days, I began experiencing the same symptoms they were and my newest fear was what they were facing. I know people say that avoidance is not healthy, but I have learned that I just can’t deal with this negativity. I stay as far away as possible- turn the channel, put the book down- just stay away from it.
6. Stay off social media. I found that another big trigger for me was social media. Social media is really poison. There is so much negativity (especially on Facebook, in my experience) every time I would log on, there was a picture of a sick child or someone fighting with someone else. It was too much for me. These days, the only social media I follow is Instagram and I only follow accounts with pretty pictures of houses, hairstyles and clothing. I still have a Facebook and go on there occasionally, but I no longer keep it on my phone.
7. And last but certainly not least is prayer and spiritual relationship with God. This has been a lifesaver for me. I read scriptures from the bible on peace and joy and I know that I can trust God to take care of me and my family. One of my favorite scriptures is: “So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.” Deuteronomy 31:6

That’s it. I continued to practice these things every time the anxiety would arise. It was hard! Sometimes the urge to check was so strong, I just wanted someone to tie my hands behind my back. But I pressed on and I eventually noticed that the episodes of anxiety were getter further and further apart. Now, I’ve had maybe one episode in the last 6 months and I stopped it within a couple hours. Just keep going, keep moving forward. Set good goals and work for them. I know you can do it!

Good for you, so pleased you are better. Thank you for sharing [emoji3590]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This is an excellent post. Thanks for sharing it! Glad to hear that you are winning the battle!

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

I'm glad you got sorted, happy for you but i've got to say I was expecting some great revelations that you had come across to help us, I do all those things you have lined up and still more or less the same anxiety levels i've had for 15 month's now with no end in sight....I've tried about 6 different antidepressants/anxiety tablets, no improvement at all, so I'll have to keep on going with hope that I'll get there.....Thanks anyway for sharing...

Hi..just visiting this site after a long time away. When I was at my worst there were people on here who supported me, gave me encouragment and who shared openly about their own problems and how they had worked to overcome them. I am eternally greatful to them...just knowing that lot's of people had the same symptoms as me realise I was not alone.
One piece of advice about anxiety was...it it is not a battle..you are not fighting these feelings..(negative thoughts which anxious thoughts feed on).. this is an illness and like any other serious illness you have to take small determined steps on the road to recovery. Sometimes you may slip back..but that's OK..don't judge yourself or give up.
Eventually, the hope is that you will build up a wealth of strategies, over TIME that will help.
You may find that your anxiety never entirely leaves you..but you learn to cope with it and in my case not be frightened of it. I will post again and share my strategies which I practised repeatedly over the course of 3 years...many ups and truthfully more downs, but eventually I learned to become a functioning adult and feel more like my normal self.
IT DOES GET BETTER xx

These successes are inspiring for some, but for others like me, they just highlight my own shortcomings and make me feel inadequate because I have tried the same stuff but it hasn't worked.

I don't have health anxiety but anxiety is anxiety.

The only thing I truly believe that can help in the long term is meditation. I'm working on it now. I would say it has knocked about 30% off my anxiety in 5 months but you have to keep at it. I used to struggle or get bored with just 5 minutes but can now do 25 minutes twice a day.

The most convincing succedd stories I have read all used meditation.

I think "success" means different things to different people but for me it would mean being able to slow down and be at peace slowing down so I can understand how meditation can bring respite after regular practice.