I'm spiraling and don't know how to get myself out

[worried94]

Hi Everyone!

So for almost a year my health anxiety has been at bay. I'm thinking it appears at stressful times in my life. Around a year ago I split up with a long term boyfriend and was feeling down, my anxiety was really bad.

Recently I have made a big move back to my mum's to save some money, I don't know if it's the memories of the place of being at my worst with anxiety and depression a few years ago, but I feel like I've slipped right back into it. I was worried this would happen. Especially with all the stress of leaving my friends in a far away place, finding a new job and new friends, criticism from my mum like her asking me to do things when I feel like I need to have a destress like a long sleep during the daytime.

The last few days have been awful. At the moment I'm worrying about around 5 things at once and spending all my spare time out of work googling and googling.

Even if I don't find something life threatening for my issue it's almost like I'm looking for one! For example I have a pretty painful bruised lump on top of my foot that I have no recollection of banging or dropping something on. Google comes back with things like tendonitis (I guess the most likely issue?) a couple of weeks ago the toes just above the lump cramped really badly and I couldn't move them for a good 20 minutes. But it's like I want to find some sort of serious issue to validate my feelings.

Even if I have the simplest mark on my skin, like a red mark I currently have on my knee, in my mind it has to be some sort of super rare infection/disease that's going to kill me any minute now.

My knees are feeling a bit swollen (idk if they actually are or I'm hyperaware of my body atm) and my feet are feeling a bit numb. This and the foot is what I'm really panicking about tonight.

My brain feels all foggy and I feel like I'm forgetting things. When I'm walking down the street sometimes things don't seem real. I've had this rather severely in the past and know it's some form of depersonalisation, but I still can't help thinking I'm going faint because of a dangerous medical condition. I also get these really weird head rushes and I hear my blood rushing in my ears which freaks me out.

I also have tonsillitis/sinusitis that won't budge (it comes and goes every so often but haven't seen a doctor about it) and one of my tonsils has a couple of weird bumps on it. I have a doctors appointment on Monday to see if I need antibiotics. Of course I went through the whole tonsil cancer worry but I've moved on to my new worries mostly. I purposely made it a few days ahead so that I could see if it goes down which is pretty good for me because usually I'd be like "I need antibiotics asap before I end up with meningitis or sepis." which I'm still kind of feeling but I forced myself to do the later appointment.

Last night was the absolute worst, I got into bed and seemed to fall asleep straight away, it felt like I was having creepy nightmares where I couldn't breathe and I woke up with a jolt, the 'dreams' felt like they'd lasted a long time but I looked at the clock and it'd only been 15 minutes since I'd looked at my phone last and I thought you had to sleep for a while before dreams started? Even just closing my eyes again I was seeing weird images. Like I was hallucinating or something. I had to go and splash water on my face and do stuff to try and reset my body as much as possible. I eventually fell asleep again after attempting to do some meditation which I just panicked through mostly anyway. Now I'm afraid I won't be able to even sleep properly again tonight, which is my one escape from my constant worrying...


Basically I've got so deep in the spiral of health anxiety I can't think clearly enough to rationalise anything. I'm thinking this foot thing is going to kill me even though I can't even find the slightest dangerous condition in my googling. It's like trying to climb out of a deep pit with no ladder.

Sorry I just needed somewhere to ramble this and see if anyone relates to any of this?

[Libra96]

Hey, just so you know I relate to how you feel. I get really bad health anxiety, which seems to get much worse in the run up to my exams or under stress (which in turn doesn't help as it distracts me from exams). My health anxiety has been at bay for like the last six months or so, as I've been focused on other things (I met my boyfriend, became a lot closer to one of my friends, and my home life was good so I wasn't so stressed) but lately I find it's worse because my home life isnt the best at the moment and I also have exams coming up yet again, so after 6 months away, my health anxiety is back! I know how you feel, I think we just need to remember sometimes just how ridiculous we can get carried away and try to distract yourself (and oh my goodness stay away from google!). Best of luck, feel free to chat anytime x

[emmegee]

Basically I've got so deep in the spiral of health anxiety I can't think clearly enough to rationalise anything. I'm thinking this foot thing is going to kill me even though I can't even find the slightest dangerous condition in my googling. It's like trying to climb out of a deep pit with no ladder.

Sorry I just needed somewhere to ramble this and see if anyone relates to any of this?

I can empathize! I start out with some likely harmless symptom, and I work myself up into quite an episode. For example, I recently started having some symptoms that are likely reflux-related, and spiralled that into cancer of course. Last weekend I had an all-out panic attack where I spiralled myself downward into all sorts of other cancers that were difficult to diagnose and could be related to my symptoms. It really does feel like a "pit with no ladder". Very scary indeed. Also, most people have no idea how it feels if they have never experienced it. I try to tell myself I will eventually feel better, even though it doesnt seem like it.

[worried94]

Hey, just so you know I relate to how you feel. I get really bad health anxiety, which seems to get much worse in the run up to my exams or under stress (which in turn doesn't help as it distracts me from exams). My health anxiety has been at bay for like the last six months or so, as I've been focused on other things (I met my boyfriend, became a lot closer to one of my friends, and my home life was good so I wasn't so stressed) but lately I find it's worse because my home life isnt the best at the moment and I also have exams coming up yet again, so after 6 months away, my health anxiety is back! I know how you feel, I think we just need to remember sometimes just how ridiculous we can get carried away and try to distract yourself (and oh my goodness stay away from google!). Best of luck, feel free to chat anytime x

Hey sorry for the late reply I've just been all over the place and haven't been able to pull myself together and get stuff done. It's good to know someone else feels the same, even though I wouldn't wish it on anyone!

Stupid me googled my feeling of having an elastic band around my calf and I got 1000 results of "get to A&E now it sounds like a blood clot!!!!!" ughhhh.

I guess the comfort is if we've got through rough patches of health anxiety before we can do it again, and have some spells of relative calmness, even though every time we're in the midst of it all it feels like we're about to die any second, and won't be here to get through it.

I'm feeling really down about getting rejected for jobs I really wanted to be hired for. Being down and stressed triggers all sorts.

Trying to distract myself right now by watching my favourite series and drinking a glass of red!

---------- Post added 21-11-17 at 00:05 ---------- Previous post was 20-11-17 at 23:41 ----------

I can empathize! I start out with some likely harmless symptom, and I work myself up into quite an episode. For example, I recently started having some symptoms that are likely reflux-related, and spiralled that into cancer of course. Last weekend I had an all-out panic attack where I spiralled myself downward into all sorts of other cancers that were difficult to diagnose and could be related to my symptoms. It really does feel like a "pit with no ladder". Very scary indeed. Also, most people have no idea how it feels if they have never experienced it. I try to tell myself I will eventually feel better, even though it doesnt seem like it.

We will eventually feel better even if we go through good patches and bad patches, recovery from anxiety doesn't always mean never being anxious but knowing how to ride out the bad parts until we feel better again. I'm reminding myself of my 2013 self when I was a wreck with health anxiety, if only I could go back in time and tell myself I'm still alive and kicking!

I do miss my non-health anxiety self, back around 5 years ago when I actually believed and trusted doctors 100%. It would be nice to not question the doctor's judgement when they tell us we don't have cancer, heart problems etc etc.