I have a pretty heavy surgery coming. I have infiltrative Basal Cell on my nose, and it is acting aggressively and is rather large at approximately 3cm. It is considered "high risk." Even so, it is extremely low probability of killing me, but I am going to potentially face getting a bit uglier with a major Mohs surgery on my nose. It isn't scheduled yet, but cannot come soon enough.
Add to this, it completely destroys plans my wife and I made to spend the winter in the southwest close to my 80 year-old folks. I will have to stay in the north and deal with this. Recovery appointments may take months, and it might be a month or two before the surgery.
I am so stressed. My ability to sleep is all but gone, and I try CBT but I feel like I am standing in front of a massive ocean wave in a rain poncho shouting into the wind. It is as close to a panic attack as I have felt in 20 years, and I have to say, I must have been doing a lot better, because I had forgotten how very low this feels.
I know many, many people face what I am facing and do just fine, and many people face much, much worse and do fine. I even found a support group on Facebook for it and received a lot of fantastic information and support. It is about the only thing that does help.
But I am having a lot of trouble reconciling what I use for anxiety against this very real issue.
Why can I not apply what works so well against fictional problems against the real ones?