Holla! I'm a hypochondriac ~

[joyinmudville]

Hey there!

I'm Cam, 22, living in northwest England. I'm a writer and also work in community arts, and love hiking, reading, photography, gigs, tattoos, languages, and travelling around.

I've never not been a worrier, but I've always felt that I was competent enough to manage that. In a way, I sort of lived for the sense of reward that I took away from having done something despite being anxious about it. It's really all I've ever known.

But in October, following a pretty straight-forward and common surgical procedure (with no complications!), I started obsessively worrying over my health and it has since spiralled into a pretty gnarly situation. I had my first ever panic attack in January and ended up in A&E in February after a series of back-to-back attacks. It's the light-headedness that freaks me out the most. Luckily, they seemed to calm down after that, but my anxiety only seemed to increase, and before I knew it, I'd wasted all of March symptom-checking and reading into all the statistics of all the various things that were wrong with me. I stopped exercising, I stopped reading books, I stopped doing uni work. All I did was obsess and obsess and obsess, and the feeling of eventually coming down off of a really intense bout of anxiety that I always sort of enjoyed stopped coming. I didn't come down. I couldn't relax at all.

Eventually, I ended up testing for a few things, and when they came back negative, I decided to hit up my GP about it. I've been on Citalopram 10mg for about three weeks now, taken right before I head to bed so I don't have to be awake for any of the dreaded side effects. I had a small panic attack last week, but I'm exercising and reading again and sometimes I genuinely feel alright. I don't think I've been long enough for them to kick in yet, so I don't even know if it's worthwhile being on the meds? I'm also on the waiting list for CBT.

I don't know if I'll post much here, but I've been browsing through the forum quite a lot since all of this kicked off.

Nice to meet you all!

[venusbluejeans]

Hiya joyinmudville and welcome to NMP

Why not take a look at our articles on our home page, they contain a wealth of information and are a great starting place for your time on the forum.

I hope you find the as site helpful and informative as I have and that you get the help and support you need here and hope that you meet a few friends along the way

[nikita]

Hello and welcome. This site has been my lifeline. It also is a good place to go to realise that you are not alone and not crazy and that you are actually just like everybody else.