I have struggled with HA since I was around 19 years old, and I am 47 now. The worst of it was in my late 20s, I was worried something would happen to me and my then young children and wife would be left on their own.
But as my 30s waned, I had good and bad days, more good than bad. I wouldn't say I was "cured" but I was much better off. I had done a lot of therapy, and it helped immeasurably.
Enter my 40s, the "andover" years. I had a friend who was a bit older than me call the 40s, the "andover" years when you go to the doctor for your physical. All the risks start adding up at 40 and over. They start screening things they never looked at before and asking you questions they have never asked you before. I suspect the 50s will be more of the same.
Today I suffered a massive setback in my struggle with anxiety, and a realization. I no longer worry overmuch about what happens to me. That is a massive breakthrough. I have a pretty serious, potentially deadly health condition that I have to monitor until it gets to be more risky than the risky surgery I will have to have to deal with it. I am not worried in the least. I have scarcely a moment of anxiety about it, and have learned to live in the day, even the minute, when it comes to my own health.
But at the same time, my wife, who is in the throes of perimenopause, has been bleeding for almost the last three weeks. She is making an appointment to go talk to someone about it, and it could be all sorts of things. I thought I was safe enough in my own head with my anxiety to google her problem. I was not looking for doom, I was looking for answers, legitimately trying to understand so I could help her.
Of course, everything came up cancer. I mean, sure, there were other things. Fibroids, hormone imbalance, thyroid problems, but all my mind could fixate on was cancer. And like that, with the snap of my finger, I am down the rabbit hole again. I am as bad off now as I was in my late twenties.
My HA is not a fear of death and disease. I think the inevitability of it has come to be a reality I can accept. But it is a fear of losing those I love, or leaving behind those I love. I cannot bear the idea of a life without my dearest wife, and the horror of that thought--premature as it might be--has percolated to the top like the anxiety of old.
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