Help on not relapsing back into a pit of anxiety

[Imrightbehindu]

I have had a lymph node that is about the size of a pea for the last four or so years (I'm 19 now). I never was worried about it until about 2 months ago when I left home for the first time to go to college. Now, my college is pretty close (about a 40-minute drive), so I come home most weekends. I began to worry about cancer, and I never had before. I worried I had lymphoma (main one), mouth cancer, larynx cancer, thyroid cancer, and colon cancer. I think it has to do with not being home. Recently I began obsessing over the lymph which for the last 4+ years hadn't bothered me a bit. Particularly because a couple months after I first noticed it, I went to my pediatrician and he said that he wasn't worried. I was satisfied... was. So I went to a walk-in clinic and saw a doctor about that lymph node and another I had just gotten along with fatigue. She seemed not worried at all, almost relieved when she felt the size of them. It wasn't immediate relief... but I am feeling a bit better now. I don't want to go back down into that pit of despair and constant worry. I don't want to be afraid. I think it may come back when I go back on Monday.

I feel safe at home. I don't feel as safe there. I feel secure here, here everything is going to be fine, even if it were cancer. I know I probably don't have it, it would be very unlikely, otherwise one of the two would have been concerned. It keeps prodding at the back of my mind, "What if they missed something, why didn't they order tests, why would they dismiss it like that?" The logical part of my mind knows that they are professionals, and have felt hundreds of nodes before so if they were concerned at all they would have at least some sort of test done. "or would they? Was it just a dismiss because it was a Friday, and they didn't feel like going through that?" Again, I know they wouldn't do that because I knew the one, and I know he cares, and the other I could just tell cared. The thoughts creep in like a poison on my mind, and for now I can keep it out, but soon I fear it will once again overwhelm me and I will be back into that horrible state of constant pain and worry.

Does anyone have any suggestions on preventing a relapse of negative thought?

[hanshan]

You've seen two doctors who aren't worried about a lymph node that has been stable for several years. A normal person would would say "Great!" and go out and enjoy life with no worries.

Yet you can't. You second-guess the doctors - maybe they missed something. And so on.

This is health anxiety. It is a psychological illness, not a physical illness. You have to realise that the physical fears are not real, but the psychological ones are, and deal with it as a psychological illness.