Stop me spiralling, please.

[Victoria84]

I cant cope with this i want to run away

[NoraB]

I cant cope with this i want to run away

Yes, you can cope.

You don't run away from HA - you turn and face it.

This started because your MIL died - not even your blood relative.

You're worried about not seeing your boy grow up? But you're not exactly here now are you? Your mind is constantly elsewhere - fixated and obsessing on a disease which you have no evidence for.

You've been tested and you are fine. Accept this and work on your health anxiety because it is this which will rob you of quality time with your son.

Reframe what happened to your MIL and understand that her story isn't your story.

From one mother to another, your son deserves better than this. That's what I told myself after I had a clear colonoscopy despite writing myself off to colon cancer - including planning my own funeral!

You're stronger than you think you are. X

[Victoria84]

Thank you, I'm just so tired, im so tired of thinking like this. I can sometimes see how irrational things are that I think of. But when I get stuck in something like this I cant, I was ultrasounded two years ago thats partly why I'm in a panic, that was such a long time ago. I've had to take a diazepam to calm down. Yes my son does deserve better.

[BlueIris]

You deserve better, too. You deserve more than to be in constant emotional pain.

[NoraB]

Thank you, I'm just so tired, im so tired of thinking like this. I can sometimes see how irrational things are that I think of. But when I get stuck in something like this I cant, I was ultrasounded two years ago thats partly why I'm in a panic, that was such a long time ago. I've had to take a diazepam to calm down. Yes my son does deserve better.

HA is exhausting. I went as low as you can go with this horrible disorder. But the strength is there when we need it. We must keep some in reserve or something. Your body is doing a great job in looking after you during this stressful phase. It's your mind which is the problem, and you need therapy to sort that out. The diazepam is only a short term fix to a long term problem which is why therapy is so important.

You can do this Victoria. X

[lilysmith123]

HA is exhausting. I went as low as you can go with this horrible disorder. But the strength is there when we need it. We must keep some in reserve or something. Your body is doing a great job in looking after you during this stressful phase. It's your mind which is the problem, and you need therapy to sort that out. The diazepam is only a short term fix to a long term problem which is why therapy is so important.

You can do this Victoria. X

Aww I'm totally jumping into this thread, giving good wishes to Victoria of course too, but I just wanted to say thank you NoraB because your posts - even if not on my thread - have helped me more than you will ever know. It's so refreshing to speak or hear from someone like you and I just wanted to say a big thank you. In the midst of my worst HA flare, it was your words that convinced me I CAN get through it. And I did. It's back, but now I know even when its bad, it can get better.

Victoria, I've also been feeling how you have before, and I know how exhausting it is. You would give anything to disappear sometimes. But I promise it will be ok. Try to access some therapy if you can. I've been seeing someone for CBT and only in 6 weeks it's made a huge difference to me. You can do it!!

[Victoria84]

Unfortunately I've tried it all, I’ve been on 6 different antidepressants, diazepam, I've had a community mental health nurse come to my home every two weeks, I've seen a proper counsellor and had two bouts of CBT which I absolutely hated. I had a breakdown last year and moved into my mum and dads with my son, left my poor partner in our house on his own because I needed my mum to basically look after my son because I couldn't.

[NoraB]

Aww I'm totally jumping into this thread, giving good wishes to Victoria of course too, but I just wanted to say thank you NoraB because your posts - even if not on my thread - have helped me more than you will ever know. It's so refreshing to speak or hear from someone like you and I just wanted to say a big thank you. In the midst of my worst HA flare, it was your words that convinced me I CAN get through it. And I did. It's back, but now I know even when its bad, it can get better.

I'm so glad my ramblings are helping you Lily. Keep up the good work!

[NoraB]

I’ve been on 6 different antidepressants, diazepam, I've had a community mental health nurse come to my home every two weeks, I've seen a proper counsellor and had two bouts of CBT which I absolutely hated. I had a breakdown last year and moved into my mum and dads with my son, left my poor partner in our house on his own because I needed my mum to basically look after my son because I couldn't.

I had a breakdown too Victoria - a full mental and physical breakdown - and I got myself out of the hell I was in.

I couldn't take meds because my body was so sensitised that it wouldn't tolerate them.

I had two lots of CBT, the first having no effect at all.

Bottom line is; you're a mother and what happened to your MIL challenged your mortality.

I've had several dalliances with HA as a child, teenager, and as a young adult, but the episode which brought me to my knees was when my mother died (suddenly) and the stress created lots of 'scary' symptoms. The symptoms, it turns out, was down to the normal flight or flight response, but I interpreted this as something being wrong with my heart. I had chest pain and my heart raced and skipped. Had to be heart issues, right? That was where it started, right there, with the death of my mother and chest pain from hyperventilating (not that I understood that then)

I went from heart attacks to cancer to strokes and finally MS which turned out to be fibromyalgia. This was my life for 6 years, and at one point, I begged my husband to have me sectioned because I couldn't stand to be in my mind for one more minute!

I kept saying to myself, 'I can't cope with this', over and over and over again, and all that did was release more stress hormones which made me feel even worse!

Every test I ever went for came back clear. All was ever found was low Vit D. No heart issues. No cancer. No stroke. No MS.

I have a son who is autistic and my overwhelming fear was that I would get ill and die and leave him. What didn't help is that my friend died during this period and nothing terrified her more than the prospect of leaving her son!

The fact is that I wasn't here for those years. I was obsessed with my body and so severely anxious that I couldn't function properly. I was in hell and I dragged my husband and son in there with me. My son held my hand when I was in A&E (twice) and those are memories that I wish he didn't have. The other day, he said to me, 'You had a heart attack didn't you Mum?'.

My son thinks I had a heart attack.

I didn't ask to be mentally ill. Nobody does. I can't change any of it. Beating myself up won't help at all. I can only make sure that I keep practicing self-care and acceptance.

The key to recovery from HA is acceptance of so many things, but especially death and dying because this is the core problem with health anxiety. As long as you fear these things, you will never be in control of health anxiety.

Eventually, I accepted that I can't control the future, and all worrying does is make me feel ill which makes it harder to make happy memories for my son. All I can do is keep myself as well as I can, and give my son the skills he needs to survive in life, now, while I am here. I know that, should something happen to me, people will step up as they did for my friend's son. I trust that my body is always working hard to keep me safe, and should there come a time when it is overpowered by disease, I trust that medicine will keep me comfortable as it is keeping my FIL comfortable in his final hours. And no matter what happens to my body, I get tochoose how I want to respond, and I want it to be as positive as possible..

You must accept that, while the future is uncertain, you are physically well now, and the now is all we can work with..

Unfortunately, I've tried it all.

What you haven't tried, is acceptance.

Stop running from the fears which your mind has created. Turn around, face them, and here is where recovery begins.

[Sunshinegirl82]

Hi Victoria, not much advise but some supportive words I know where you’re coming from I am going through a breast cancer scare spiral myself at the moment. I have always had general anxiety panic attacks etc but what tipped me of the edge was my dad dying pretty quickly from an illness the doctors failed to recognise early I think it instilled a fear in me thinking I need to be alert at all time’s as if I’m not quick enough it might be to late. It was a gradual build up but fast forward 3 years later I was in a full blown heart anxiety vicious circle. Repeated doctor visits private counselling CBT sessions nothing seemed to work it’d was like mind over body all though I knew deep down somewhere inside that I was fine the fear crippled me that something was wrong and I need to be alert at all time’s. It took my gp over a year to convince me to take AD and tbh I had no options as my quality of life was absolutely crap and I had a lot of threapy sessions as well and eventually I came to the point of thinking what’s the harm in trying these. Fast forward a year I’m doing much better and don’t get me wrong I have had a few wobbles here and there but what’s worked for me now is giving the fear time like for eg atm Im convinced I’ve got breast cancer and that I’m feeling lumps all the time first thing I had to which is harder than it sounds is to stop checking because the more you check the more the fear gets instilled and then you react more,second I did call my doctors told her my fears and because it’s been a tough year personally she give me some proparanol to take the edge of it and I don’t know if you’re aware of this but it’s called exposure theory meaning you let your body fight this naturally and eventually the fear will just die down and that’s what I’m doing at the moment and in all honesty even though I do get
Thoughts I’m managing ok with this theory. Just hang in there and it does get better get the support you need from your gp or go from some more CBT sessions and give it time