Been a tough week

[pulisa]

Sorry to hear you are struggling at the moment. I saw your other posts as I was combing through the IBS threads last night. I'm on the forum because my IBS kicked up again. I get panicked when symptoms either increase, show up at seemingly random times, etc. I don't know if this would be helpful to you but I do the following to help manage my HA.

I try hard to avoid catastrophic thinking (always ultimate worst case scenario) or magical thinking (this random pain is connected to another random symptom) when I get in a panicked frame of mind. I reserve my visits to the forum only for the times when a new symptom kicks, an old one comes back, or I'm waiting for test results. And I allow myself to look for a certain amount of time and then I leave the site. As long as I stick to those parameters, I can keep my HA fears in check. I used to be obsessed with looking up symptoms and in the past often spent hours at a stretch constantly looking up things online to reassure me.

Finding this forum helped greatly with breaking away from the obsessive googling of symptoms. I can see that there are others who also jump to worst case scenario thinking and it makes me feel less like an ocd weirdo. I also have gotten to a point where I allow myself to accept test results and doctor's opinions (this was not the case for most of my life).

When actual physical symptoms do show up, I keep track of them to see if they are related to stress (physical, mental, or for me, as a woman, hormonal). I do deep breathing everyday as part of a pain derived from stress management technique. I've used deep breathing to help with pain management for about 7 years now and while it's not a miracle cure, it helps me in in so many other ways. I also let my husband and son know when I am not feeling great and they are both pretty supportive.

Do you have strategies in place to keep you from falling too low? Do you recognize when you are headed downwards? Who is the best person in your life that can offer you peace of mind when you aren't doing well? Part of me thinks that people with HA or have somatic forms of anxiety are generally very sensitive people who don't have consistent or solid self-care strategies in place. Even with all that I listed above, I still fall into bad spots at least once a month. But they are way less frequent than they have been in the past and definitely do not last as long.

I hope you are already in a better frame of mind and I hope what I shared above was helpful in some way.

You've barely acknowledged this extremely insightful, helpful and hugely kind post from MJ, Jonny. You are still just focusing on yourself and what you still perceive to be sinister symptoms despite them being nothing more than a sign of a benign condition heavily linked to anxiety. You did well not to post but all you are doing now is more of the same....reassurance seeking under the guise of "I'm trying my hardest but this is due to anxiety, right?". If you don't believe your anxiety diagnosis why bother posting on here at all? You aren't accepting anyone's advice/interpretation of your condition.

[Noworryjonny]

I did acknowledge it, it was very helpful. Honestly with you and fish on here I wished I’d stayed off


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[pulisa]

Please don't be a "victim", Jonny. I won't post anymore on your thread. I hope things improve for you soon. Believe it or not I go through the same as you but manage it differently.

[KK77]

I did acknowledge it, it was very helpful. Honestly with you and fish on here I wished I’d stayed off


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But you keep repeating the same mantra that you "can't believe/accept this is only anxiety" no matter what anyone here says. This pattern shows the severity of your deeply entrenched HA, not any physical symptoms or illness.

No one disputes your physical symptoms, however, and most of us here experience this daily, including myself, even though we might not post about it.

Meds alone rarely work for HA in my opinion because the fears are so deeply ingrained. But you have had lots of very good advice during the 2 years you've been here. Now is the time to look back and act on that advice.

[Noworryjonny]

I’m not playing the victim, we are all victims of anxiety hence why we are on here and I get sometimes you need tough love but there is a way to go about it


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[BlueIris]

Sorry, Jonny, but I don't think of myself as a victim.

I'd also add that Pulisa has been perfectly civil, and when you post to a forum where others can reply, sometimes you won't get the replies you want.

[ankietyjoe]

I’m not playing the victim, we are all victims of anxiety hence why we are on here and I get sometimes you need tough love but there is a way to go about it

Very, very wrong. Very wrong.

To be a victim, something has to happen to you beyond your control. This is something fundamental you are not getting.

[Noworryjonny]

Ok I’m sorry, it’s just getting to me but I know everyone here is trying to help. I think I’ll just come here completely but thank you all for your advice x


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[MJunderway]

So it sounds like you are moving towards a better place but here are some additional thoughts. Trusting drs and test results can be extremely hard for people with HA or somatic anxiety! Do not feel bad because you are struggling with this. My HA stems from a pretty horrific (not hyperbole) medical experience I had as a young child. It was common in the day but it is now consider to be abusive. The medical community still doesn't really acknowledge it. It has take me almost my entire life to get to a place where I can accept the results of medical tests. Trusting the medical community is still very much an issue for me.

I work very hard to find doctors who can understand what I have been through and I have ended relationships with doctors who had horrible bedside manner, abused their relationship to power (we don't often acknowledge the imbalance of power between patient and doctor), were test or procedure driven, pushed new or expensive meds that weren't any better than a cheaper generic version, or were just not good fits. Have you created a checklist of things you would want in a dr/patient relationship? I know that things are different in the US where I am located but can you find drs that would be a good fit for your needs so that you can begin to build a relationship based on a balance of power, compassion, and trust?

I don't know if this helps with your struggle of accepting the all clear on your crohn's test but sometimes it helps for me to understand the difference between anxiety symptoms and an actual condition. I have two friends with UC and one friend (my brother-in-law) who went from UC to crohns. My friends who have UC are both doing ok at the moment but when their condition flares they both have to go to the hospital to be able to just function. They go through a course of steriods and meds and then can resume their lives within a couple of days. While stress contributes to their condition it is very different from stress related stomach issues. My BIL's crohn's is similar to UC in that he also has flare ups but instead of going to the emergency room for a flare he winds up being admitted to the hospital and can be there sometimes for weeks just so that he can function. If you can go about your day chances are you are just dealing with anxiety related stomach issues. To give an example from my own experience with that when I was first married my husband and I went through a really bad rough patch (separated for 6 months). I had unrelenting D for over 4 months. I lost 25 pounds during that time but at no point did I ever need to go to the hospital nor did I stop doing what I normally did at the time. Thankfully there was a secret bathroom at my office and while I spent a lot of time in it, I never missed a day of work.

Last thoughts, research has been showing some really fascinating connections between the brain and the gut. Most of the chemicals we use in the brain are actually produced in the gut. If you feel the need to look up something to reassure yourself start looking into that. Also look into the Vagus nerve. It's the big nerve that runs from your brain to you body. There's so much that they are finding out about the function of that nerve and what can happen when it becomes off-balance or dysfunctional.

I know that I don't know much about you other than what you have posted but I think that it's safe to say that you will be ok. Be kind to yourself while you are in this rough patch. Find ways to be able to put space between your anxious mind and your life. If you can do that you will be able to start unraveling what it is that undermines you and causes you to worry. It's totally doable. It's just going to take consistency and time.

[MJunderway]

your post is inspiring, such a logical way of dealing with anxiety when it rears its ugly head! I'm going to write down those things you suggest, as I do all of the things you mention especially the magical thinking (never heard it called that before...brilliant!) and I just hope they can help me too. Thanks for sharing, a lot of people will appreciate it xxxx

Thanks Kah! Trust me when I say that it is a work in progress. I've had anxiety and OCD since childhood. It's been a long road and I still regularly struggle but I can see that it is much, much better than before. Can't take credit for magical thinking but it really is a prefect description of OCD thoughts. Our need to make sense of things or to have greater meaning is what makes us amazing creatures but it can go off the rails so easily. Glad my post was of some help!