I've been around here a while now, so I thought I might as well introduce myself. (possible trigger warning for content below: fatal car accidents, cancer, and suicide mentioned)

I'm 23 years old and have been dealing with anxiety mixed with panic attacks since early high school. In my sophomore year of high school, I got into a car accident with my sister that totaled the car/the air bags detonated. After that experience, my anxiety started to become more health focused. I had a feeling like I was supposed to die in that accident and I no longer felt completely safe going about my day-to-day life. Then, a year later, my sister got into another car accident on the same bridge we had gotten into an accident on previously, and she passed away in a head-on collision. This almost felt like fate; like it was confirming somewhat that I was supposed to die the year prior. That if I had died my sister wouldn't.

A week after my sister passed, my Dad was diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal cancer. He was given six months to live, and made it 8. In the last few months, he was hardly ever lucid and the morphine gave him very vivid dreams and hallucinations. He never seemed rested or at peace and was always in pain. The chemo made him feel even worse. He begged for us to put him out of his misery. He passed away at the start of my senior year of high school. This is around the time where I started fearing Cancer and worrying that I may have it.

Four years later, my brother committed suicide and I found the body. I have a lot of guilt associated with this as I noticed something was wrong a few months prior, but didn't do enough to help.

So all of these deaths combined with my anxiety and underlying hormonal imbalances/vitamin deficiencies/etc. which led me to having a massive breakdown in January 2020 right at the start of the second semester of my fourth year of college (and, ironically, also when COVID started). I haven't been the same since. I keep having cycles of very severe anxiety and nocturnal panic attacks that make it nearly impossible to sleep or function interspersed between months of relative normalcy. This combined with some legitimate pain I've been having after eating has basically made my life feel like a living hell. When it gets really really bad, I just want to rip out all of the things that are making my health anxiety flare.

I probably have some PTSD that I need to work through along with me HA, and I am planning on getting scheduled for some EMDR and maybe seeing if I can get into contact with a therapist that specializes in HA (if that is a thing?).