I am a 27 year old guy and I've have health anxiety (and general anxiety) periodically throughout my entire life, but it has never been as bad as it is now. I remember a time when I was in college and the only anxiety I had was in regards to dating women, and this didn't interfere with my life. 5 or 6 months ago, I would wake up every day with stiff hands and this lasted a few weeks. Right after my hands stopped bothering me, I developed persistent body-wide twitching and became convinced that I was dying of ALS after looking up what might cause my hands to cramp and twitching, and reading stories about how people my age had twitching before being diagnosed with ALS. I read about how these people went to doctors who told them nothing was wrong at first and that their symptoms were related to stress, so I didn't see the point in going to a doctor if I wouldn't trust their diagnosis. For 3 months or so, I would wake up every day wondering if this was the day I lost function of a hand or foot and would never regain that function again. 4+ months later, I have been adding muscle mass, gaining significant strength weight lifting, and the twitching has decreased a lot in frequency. I assume if I had ALS I would be in a wheelchair at this point and the situation would be a lot different. I still have ALS in the back of my head, but my most recent focus has been a brain tumor. I'm at a point where I honestly wish I had one of these terminal diseases to put an end to everything, because I know I'm never going to live a meaningful life the way things are going. I can't go the rest of my life convinced I am dying of XYX disease every few months. I stopped posting in the other forums here because it was always something new every few weeks and I felt like it was disrespectful to keep posting about the same things.
I've been socializing much less than I used to and I have little interest in being in a relationship, because I keep convincing myself I'm not going to be around much longer and what woman would want to date a man who doesn't enjoy life and is preoccupied with thoughts of his own death?. I've heard many stories about how people let their health anxiety destroy their relationship and I haven't dated someone in a few years because of this.
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