Hi everyone. I just signed up to this site. I have been suffering from health anxiety for about 3/4 of a year. Funny thing, we all know that googling your symptoms or suspected symptoms is a bad idea, but ironically that's how I found this site. lol. It seems that health anxiety is very common here. What a change of pace! I'm used to the only conversation about anxiety being social anxiety, or the fear of failure, etc. I have felt very alienated and outlying being that my stress and fear comes from constantly searching for tumors, and stuff like that. So my hope is to find some comfort in a group of like-type-sufferers.
I have always had a huge phobia of hospitals and surgery and similar things, as far back as I can remember. But it all came real last october, when I found a little lump (like a grape, kinda) on the front of my throat. Obviously I was panicking hardcore and getting ready to face the grim reaper and a long painful road towards death. Luckily for me, when I finally got a diagnosis, the doctor told me it was just a harmless benign nodule on my thyroid and totally normal, and so on. You would think that would give me relief, but no. Ever since then, (the beginning of this year) my anxiety has been even worse than ever! I cannot get it to get better, I literally have to live day by day and still sometimes I go into spinning nosedives of panic thinking "What if? What if?" Mostly I think the worry revolves around finding another lump, and not being so lucky the next time. Or the benign one suddenly turning malicious. Even though supposedly that's rare. I dunno. I spent most of my life in good health, and technically I'm still in good health (physically obviously, not emotionally, lol) so it seems so silly to be so afraid all the time. Over a "little thing." But obviously it doesn't seem little to me or my subconscious.
I look forwards to being able to talk to people here, not necessarily even for advice or anything, but just to get to be honest. It would be such a breath of fresh air to get to just admit my fears and how I really feel, and the reality of being scared all the time. Because I have NOBODY in my life that can handle hearing this in person. Friends, family, all of them, I can say I'm anxious, but I can't go into detail. So I have to keep all that to myself. I have a self-checking routine I do every day religiously, and have to stop myself from doing it too much and constantly digging and digging to find a problem that I feel "must be there." I can't even really look at myself in the mirror anymore, for fear I'll spot something. I look in the mirror 1-3 times a day, just to challenge myself, for a few seconds, but not too long, because then I will undoubtedly obsess over one of the little curves in a bone of my neck or something, and there goes my nerves for the whole day.
I'm glad to have found this place!
- Houndie
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