Asbestos in ironing board

I have health anxiety that I manage to control relatively well most of the time.
I am struggling with an issue at the moment though. I discovered a few years ago now that my ironing board (which had originally belonged to my mother in law!) had an asbestos heat pad (the bit where the iron sits). I had used it for years before I realised it. Most of the time it was covered in an ironing board cover, but I would regularly take it off to wash it. Quite often the ironing board fell over as it was unbalanced. It never, ever occurred to me that it would contain asbestos until I took a health and safety course. I then washed the cover one day and realised what it was made from. It left the house in a double bag that night I can tell you! and was collected by an asbestos guy who confirmed what it was. I had never drilled it, sanded it, disturbed it etc, and the only thing that might have caused a problem was it falling over. God I've worried myself stupid about that asbestos though. Its like I have a trauma response to ironing, and every time I get the (new!) ironing board out, I start to panic. As if ironing isn't bad enough without the added stress and flashbacks every time! The night I discovered it was asbestos, my young son had been banging on it, just with his hands. I said to him 'don't do that, it's probably made of asbestos or something.." then I took a closer look and thought 'holy s*** it IS asbestos'....so, of course I'm not just worried about me but also him. How can I stop myself panicking about this so many years later? The asbestos wasn't disturbed, other than that frequent cover washing, falling over, etc , but I cannot stop torturing myself!!

We are all exposed to asbestos every day. It's a natural substance that is in the air we breath. Your ironing board block is a form of cement the fibers are 'glued' together, very little can escape, those that do expose you to no greater than normal exposure. It takes millions of fibers and you need to work in enclosed areas with very high exposure levels, even in these cases, asbestosis is quite rare. Up until the late 70's we used to clad buildings in the stuff, it was used everywhere, yet cases are extremely rare.

This is why I don't iron! Ha, just kidding, I don't iron because I'm lazy and my drier does a fine job...

But, seriously, if this was your mother in law's surely she would have had I'll effects from it by now, along with all the other mothers of her generation who most likely used asbestos ironing boards. And it's true, unless you ground it up in a blender and threw it into the air there's no double any exposure was extremely small.