Originally Posted by
aolbfs
Just dealing with it is no guarantee of freedom from anxiety symptoms, I'm afraid to tell you.
I was diagnosed with leukaemia five years ago and I thought I was dealing with it in a positive manner.
But anxiety crept in, nonetheless [after I also developed cancer on my now-removed left kidney] and I am currently recovering from an extreme episode which has lasted six months so far.
Illness comes for us all and there is no avoiding it.
If it's a serious illness or one that is life-limiting, it's a little unreasonable to expect to be totally free from worry over it.
You'd be a robot if you weren't in some way afraid.
Episodes of anxiety, however weak or intense, will eventually pass. Anxiety is part of the human condition. If you were never anxious, how would you know what calm felt like?
If you were never depressed, how would you know what real contentment feels like? Anxiety affects us all differently. Some manage it well and suffer only relatively short episodes.
Others, like me, handle it less well and, as a result, the episodes seem to last much longer.
You react to things how you react to them. It's ok, don't beat yourself up about it.
It's really awful feeling the way you do, but all I can say is what I tell myself when I'm unwell - "This is just a very frightening and extremely unpleasant experience, but it's not dangerous, it won't harm me long-term and it will pass, eventually".
I know this because I have suffered this twice before in life. It took about 36 months to recover from the first episode and about 15 months to recover from the second.
This episode is six months old and I already feel much more recovered than in the previous two episodes.
Anxiety is always with us. I, thankfully, get long breaks in between episodes of being unwell, but when the second episode occurred, I realised this is just what happens when I get too anxious for too long.
Be kind to yourself. When you have anxious thoughts, just recognise and accept them and then just let them pass.
Try to gently focus your attention externally, rather than inwardly, which just makes things worse.
Anxiety causes me to 'derealise', when the world looks 'unreal' or 'dreamlike', even though I know it's neither.
My head feels like it's in a vice, applying pressure on my head in every direction and I become fixated on checking how the world looks and the sensation of pressure in my head from the instant I wake until the instant I fall asleep again.
But it always passes, as the brain settles down and stops firing off your adrenal glands to flood you with stress hormones.
Instead of worrying of every disease which could possibly happen to you, just think that something is eventually going to and keep it vague like that.
Eventually, you will become more at peace with the fact that life is a terminal illness, which no-one escapes alive, but that it's really wonderful to be here, whatever time we get.
It's not going to be happy-clappy or always free from anxiety, but it's still a wonderful gift, this life we get!
A good anxiety therapist would help you contextualise and mitigate your health anxieties.
I wish you good luck in getting well again!