Hello everyone!
First and before I begin, I'd like to applaud the concept behind this forum! I've "stumbled" upon it on a particular difficult night and the articles/posts did help to put my mind at ease.
However I still find the need to fully overcome/understand this "plage" that is affecting me, so I've decided to seek counsel over the forum.
To make things a bit easier, I'll start by breaking down factors that are not a cause of (conscient at least) concern to me, and then move to the ones that are.
Things I'm not worried about:
-Money: I have a solid financial situation, no debts and I live a bit below my possibilities.
-Work: I co-own a startup, so I choose my projects, set professional path and business has been good so far.
-Material possessions: I live a confortable life and over the years I've aquired all sorts of "objects of desire", so there is nothing reasonable I'm found wanting at the time.
-Emotional life: I have a solid relationship and I'm happy about it
-Social life: I have old and new close friends, plus accointances. I'm very close to my old friends (we are like brothers and sisters)
-Family: My family is in a good financial/professional situation, we are close and get along very well.
Things I do worry about:
-Girfriend had to get a job that doesn't makes her happy (her previous employer went bankrupt) nor it pays enough for her expenses
-Flatmate is in a terrible financial situation and may be out of work in the end of the year
-Not being good enough to succeed on my line of work
-Loosing all my savings over a catastrophic economical event
-Having a severe illness
-Sudden death (due to a hidden health problem)
-Having any sort of cancer
Traumatic events on my life (health-related)
-A friend died on his sleep (age 29) over a undiagnosed heart condition
-A friend's brother suffered a sudden death. He got home from work, felt dizzy, sat down and died. He was 24, healthy, no priors.
-Father had a heart attack that turned out to be a false alarm. It was due to a Myocardial bridge acting out. According to the doctor it is the same as having the attack, but without the damage being dealt on the heart muscle.
So, with that being said, I'll move on to my problem over the last year and a half.
I don't consider my self to be more or less anxious than anyone else, having thought long and hard about this, I find myself stressing over the same things or events as anyone else, things such as asking that special girl to go to the movies, taking that really important test in school/college, making that important presentation to a client, watching that crucial game for your football team, etc. everyday stuff in sum.
I do however obcess a lot over the most diverse kind of matters ever since I was a child. I could spend months obcessing about a specific toy that I wanted, the thought never leaving my mind. As an adult I've obcessed about work, doing or finishing specific projects, about education, about "life projects" or about stuff I wanted to buy.
I've noticed that these obcessions do bring anxiety along, specially when the matter is pending or out of my control to solve. If I can have some measure of control over the result, I' usually relentless on it's pursuit and the anxiety is gone. On professional/academic terms this has been an advantage over the years and I never found myself harmed by it.
If I cannot control or contribute to the resolution of the obcession, I will mutter about it over days, weeks or months, creating anxiety for myself. My life remains fully functional and I'm able to enjoy it and relate with people, but I'll have that monkey over my back all the time. I had full awareness of that issue a few years ago and now I keep myself in check, either managing to prevent the obcession before it settles on my mind or "redirecting it" to a more worthy and less stressing target , such as work or a hobby.
This however isnt't an exact science and sometimes I'm unable to prevent it, but being aware of it does make it easier to cope with and to overcome.
And this brings us to the topic of this post. About one year and a half ago I was going through a very stressfull stage of my life. I was working on a big company, had a lot of responsability and work on my shoulders, personal life was agitated (girlfriend lost her job, flatmate too, mom was sick, etc.), obcessions coming in and out... a total mess.
With all that pressure something has to give in, so I started to have palpitations, first at night, then during the day time. It worried me enough at first, so I stopped drinking coffe and started to exercise. At no avail because the pressure was still there. Next came painful stings on my sternum that caused me to sweat and feel my hands numb, the first time it happened I really thought I was having a heart attack and that I was going to die. I went to the emergencies, did a full exam battery to my heart, blood work, etc. It all came out normal and healthy, so both my GP and cardiologist told me that it was stress....lots of it.
During all that time I really thought there was something wrong with me, that the exams would reveal it and my life would go to down the drain. Of course I went to see "Dr. Google"...big mistake... I tried talking with my girfriend, my family and my close friends, it helped and I felt very supported, but at the same time I also felt I was a worry, I was flattered because that meant they cared, but I hate being a concern for anyone, so I started to keep my "health" issues to myself.
On advice from my GP, I did a small theraphy of non-chemical anti-anxiety pills, since I refused to take the hard stuff, I had a xanax once (I was very stressed out) and hated the haziness and clouding it brings to your mind. The therapy worked and I decided to do some life-changes to break away with the stress.
I left my stressing job, started my own company with a friend, started to do things I'm really passionate about, started to devote more time to my friends, girfriend, family and hobbys too. In sum, I started to enjoy life a bit more.
After those changes were done, for about 6 months I slept well, was calm and "un-obcessed", things were going smoothly and I thought I had overcomed the stress issue. Then out of no where it all came back, palpitations, the agitation, one episode of the "sternum sting". And again I started to worry there's somehing wrong with me. Every time the hearts beats stronger or if I feel a bit dizzier, etc. I worry and I stress, which of course only makes things worse...
Then comes the stomach complains and other digestive issues, the worry becomes greater and I now feel stupid about it, because I know very well that my stomach was complaining about all the stress, it wasn't a "synthom", at the time however all I could think was "what could it be...oh what if it's cancer??...OMGOMGOMG"
I took the anxiety pills for a bit and all the maladies went away. The days I felt worse or due to hangovers or late night work sessions, so my mind was able to process it as "normal"/"expected" opposing to releasing the "health alert". I'm also on a very healthy workout regime, no over-exercising of course, but a healthy short run every morning plus some other exercises are also helping me feel better and proving that everything is OK (I'm also getting pretty fit and girfriend is pleased with it)
But even so, sometimes I get the "worry" and the "fear" and an uncontrollable wave of health concerns, possible synthoms and other such non-sense comes over me. So, now they come less, but they come stronger. It's usually at night when I go to bed and the anxiety pills don't seem to work on it.
The silly part is that I've rationalized it, I know I might be making it worse by thinking about it, I know that there's nothing off or wrong with me, but I just can't help it...Whenever the heart goes stronger (or slower), or I feel "different" in anyway, I start to worry.
So, being tired of all of this situation, I decided to tackle it head-on! First I've asked my GP for "check-up" exams plus any aditional exam he might think of for something that could eventually cause these afflictions. Then I decided to come here, where I have found many articles that have helped me on the rationalizing part, to post my concerns and to seek help from the community in identifying this fear and anxiety, by knowing where it belongs, I can cope and deal with it better. Finally I'm living with the spirit I had when I first changed my life: enjoy things, do what I like, work and avoid slacking off, all that to keep the mind at ease.
And after I told my story, I'd like thank to everyone that read it and cared enough. So now what do you guys think? Is it health anxiety, common anxiety or some sort of OCD thing?
Can anyone help me pin-point this?
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