I'm coming to the end of what's been almost a month-long anxiety spiral after a year anxiety-free. The past week was the worst, and now that I'm on the other side it's like the whole week is a blur! I feel like a drunk who was just black-out wasted for a week.
Here's a rundown of this anxiety flare now that I've had time to settle and look back at my google history.
I think this started when I totally overworked myself the first week of July. I'm a freelance researcher and took a project that required me to work about 20 hours over two days. I felt really mentally depleted by the end, but still had other work to keep up with, plus I stay at home with my 4-year-old.
Tip to every anxiety sufferer: We need to save ourselves enough resources to fight off the beast. I left myself vulnerable without even realizing.
A week later tiny bits of anxiety started peaking in and eventually took over. Here's a brief synopsis of my Google searches:
Can you get brain eating amoebas from swimming pools?
Sciatica pain or DVT?
What is Cauda equina syndrome?
Can you get cauda equina syndrome from sciatica?
What is my groin area tingling?
Numbness in calf dvt
Foot vibrating
Foot numbness
Symptoms of DVT
Symptoms of PE
Head pressure
Panic attack shortness of breath
Panic attack trouble swallowing
Sharp pain in ear
Can heartburn cause shortness of breath
Bubbling feeling in chest
Reflux and chest pressure
Then, I discovered this painful lump over my belly button that Google told me was an umbilical hernia and that was the end for me since I have a horrendous fear of surgery.
Here's what happened in the past 10 days:
July 31: Find hernia
Aug 1: See GP who doesn't feel it
Aug 1: See urgent care doctor who diagnoses it
Aug 2: Schedule appointment with a surgeon
Aug 2: Back to urgent care doctor for bad bloating and bloodwork
Aug 3: Family trip
Aug 4: Sharp pain in my belly, spent money on online doctor advice site at 3am
Aug 5: Back home, panic all night, more $$ spent on online doctor
Aug 6: Spend all day obsessing about hernia surgery, discover a link between slightly elevated platelets (which I had in bloodwork) and cancer.
Aug 6: Back to urgent care for repeat blood work
Aug 7: Convince OBGYN to bring me in for an ultrasound to check for ovarian cancer
Aug 8: Panic I have gallstones after my neighbor tells me he's in the hospital for possible gallbladder issues
Aug 9: Appointment with the surgeon who tells me the hernia is no big deal, wait and watch, come back in 6 months.
And now, my panic has subsided. I just realized now that I went to a doctor 5 times in the past 10 days for a condition that millions of people have and rarely causes any problems.... something I've likely had for at least 4 years since my daughter was born.
Anxiety is such a real and destructive thing. All of that now seems so absurd. I couldn't wait 7 days for a specialist to see me and tell me everything as fine. I had blood work done twice and an ultrasound... because there's a tiny bit of fatty tissue sticking out of my belly. Holy crap.
This was one of my worse flare ups, and I can 100% see how people get totally lost in the fog of anxiety. That's what it is... a fog. You hear people telling you nothing is wrong - you even tell yourself! But, you can't escape the fog.
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