5 years living with anxiety, depression and hypochondria. Any advice on symptoms and life?

I am a male, 25 years old of average build. I do not exercise much but I am careful with my food, trying to eat as healthy as possible, stopped smoking and receiving any caffeine June 2014. I drink alcohol occasionally over the weekends.

I moved away from home for University over 5 years ago. Just before leaving the country I witnessed my first panic attack. I thought I was dying and had the usual symptoms, racing heart, light headedness, tingling sensations in my gut and fingers, blurry vision etc. I saw a psychologist briefly just before leaving who said this is due to me losing my stability from back home going into an unexplored new country. I also saw a cardiologist who just briefly examined my heart saying there was nothing irregular with it.

5 years later this has not improved. If anything, it has gotten a little worse. First year or two were terrible and I had problems functioning regularly experiencing plenty of panic attacks. It calmed down after a while but until this day I still experience the following:

·       I am constantly aware of my breathing. I feel like I have to breathe manually and this of course leads to shortness of breath and other problems.

·       I am also constantly aware of my heart. From the minute I wake up until the last second I am falling asleep I keep thinking of my heart, checking if it does not beat too fast, and touching my chest feeling how ‘strong’ it is. When I am busy I forget about it but the minute my mind is not occupied any more I start feeling it beating very strongly. Chest physically coming up and down, feel it in my throat, fingers, etc.

·       Problems falling asleep. For the reasons above I have developed real problems falling asleep. My mind is constantly somewhere else.

·       Chest pain. Over the last several days I have been experiencing a blunt minor sensation around my heart sometimes turning into a stronger pulsating pain. It comes and goes every couple of minutes for a little while. This obviously does not help any of the above.

·       Socially awkward. Every single interaction with strangers gives me plenty of stress and boosts the above symptoms greatly.

·       Very tired, exhausted and drained. I often struggle waking up in the morning feeling tired already. I yawn constantly, my eyes feeling tired too. I struggle finding motivation to do extra work, focus or do exercise.

·       Being ill every other week. I feel like I am ill every two weeks or so. Feeling slightly feverish, sore throat. My nose is constantly blocked, phlegm in my throat plus minor cough. I have also had to take a lot of antibiotics recently. I take vitamins and probiotics to work on my immunity and I wonder if it can be connected to the symptoms above. Plus having blocked nose obviously does not help my breathing issues.

·       Back pain. I have had an aching back for a long time now trying to stretch daily but it is not helping.

I am sorry for the long post but I wanted to describe it in detail. I feel every single day of mine is revolving around my symptoms. I have not had a single day in the last 5 years when I would not have to think about some of the issues I have. I fail to enjoy any activity as everything sooner or later turns into stress, depression and self-examination.

Additionally, to calm me down I often Google all my symptoms meaning I self diagnosed my self with 5 types of cancer, 3 types of heart failure, seven different mental health conditions and more. Understandably this makes my situation worse with every single search.

I have not seen a professional about the above yet. Every time I feel like going to see my GP and start a little Google search, realise hundreds of people experience the same, calm myself a little and let it go. I guess I just feel embarrassed talking about these and coming across as a hypochondriac or potentially receiving some bad news I might have problems handling.

I wonder what your suggestions are? If there is someone else with similar problems (I am quite sure there are plenty), how you dealt with them, what you propose I do. Also can these symptoms be attributed to physical condition? (Heart conditions come to mind) Or do you reckon it is all due to anxiety?

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