Unreasonable fear of rare condition - endless loop of anxiety!

[valley]

Hi there,
I have suffered with generalized anxiety disorder for many years, which has more recently morphed into health anxiety. Normally the pattern is this: life becomes stressful due to work, etc; I then develop a new symptom of anxiety; become anxious about the symptom and begin worrying about a disease it could be a sign of; my stress morphs from the inital stressor (work or whatever) into a full blown anxiety episode about my health.

Well, what I've experienced the past few days is a change in the pattern which is scaring me quite a bit. I recently started worrying about a new symptom, dizziness, that I have been experiencing. Naturally (as all of us health anxiety suffers do) I started googling and researching. Once I found enough evidence that could begin to convince me it was anxiety related, I did what I've found to help at that point, which is pull out a few of my books about dealing with anxiety and health anxiety. Well, one of those books focuses specifically on health anxiety. It is called "Stop worrying about your health!" Its a great book - don't get me wrong. At the end of each chapter, though, the author gives a case study/summary of a person who was experiencing some kind of anxiety and physical symptom and what they did about it. One of the stories talked about "Shy Bladder Syndrome" (which I had never heard of before). It's basically an anxiety/phobia condition relating to being afraid of relieving yourself in public restrooms, or restrooms away from your own home. Your body actually responds so much to this fear that your become physically unable to "go" unless you are at home, even if you really really need to. Well, I have never had this problem before, but now after reading the piece, my brain has "stuck" to it and I have a new consuming anxiety that I will develop this! My reasoning even is that anxiety has affected my bladder before (feeling like I need to go to the bathroom alot), so I'm afraid that by being so afraid of this condition, my anxious mind will convince my body that I have it! Like, now I am getting to the point where I am afraid of my own anxiety.

Usually I just freak out about symptoms once I already have them. This has been all new though - just reading about this condition in a book has made me start getting really anxious that I will develop this condition!

The only function it's serving is that I'm no longer worrying about the dizziness. This is just an endless cycle and I feel even more trapped in the cycle than ever before. Has anyone experienced this condition I'm talking about, and what can be done about reducing your fear of a condition you don't have (and have no symptoms of) but are afraid you might get? I truly feel like I am going mad.

[Gazman]

i have shy bladder syndrome but it's quite mild now, i cant go in public toilets, but can go if i'm at other peoples houses now. i dont know what u can do about it tho other than push it from your mind as u dont suffer from it.

It's not too bad a condition, well for me at least but u don't have it so dont worry about it, i understand what u mean tho, all it takes is to read about it when u have anxiety and symptoms seem to manifest themselves from it.