My health anxiety story

I'm exactly like this. Although I haven't had a serious illness I believe I am living with an undiscovered one. I am rarely sick and never extremely tired so this would point to the fact that I don't have one. I focus on everything small I see and convince myself I have all the symptoms. I thought I was having heart failure a couple of weeks ago and ended up in the emergency room. I have had blood tests and chest xrays done and the doctors seen nothing on these. I keep thinking about death and dying and it's ruining my life. I'm gonna start tablets soon to see if they help.

glad ypur cancer scare was not cancer! (i am always convinced i have undiagnosed cancer). your docs really seem to be highly insensitive to your health anxiety, though. can you change doctors? i would try talk therapy if i were you, to try to break your cycle of needing reassurance. i can totally relate to wanting reassurance - i have that need, too, for my health anxiety - but it sounds like you could benefit from some help to put it all in perspective and relation to the actual situation. hang in there and seek some support!

Hello danjames, you are in a vicious circle and it needs to be broken. This might amuse you and everyone reading this post, but think about this for a few moments. Look at the lives of the closest relative to man the bonobo chimp. Have you ever seen a chimp that has anxiety or depression. Banobo's family life is all about three things a cohesive family unit, lots of sex, this is used to passify others and act as a bond. I am not advocating you going out and having sex with your family members, it is not in our culture nor is it lawfull! The last thing is apes eat a lot of BANANAS. Bananas have a chemical in them that makes chemical changes in the brain but nowbody knows why? but it does keep them happy.

Changing the reactions your internal thoughts and external thoughts. Internal thoughs. You forgot an important interview and on thinking about it you say to your self I'm stupid and useless. This is called altered thinking, this can then set off a chain reaction inside you that affects the way you feel and what you do. This can make you feel really bad and can lead you to have real physical feelings. External thoughts is where you actulally see things that might be beyond your control, with regards to your  interview. " I could not get to that interview because there was a train strike on at the time" or  "I never had a clean shirt to put on" You can see the difference between the two.

There is a really good thing to come out of the dreaded circle and that is it can also rotate in reverse. Just by looking at things diferently is a change for the good.

internal feelings and thoughts "I didn't really forget that interview because the what job was, was to repetative and I would have been too good for it. I will look for a better job to suit my tallents" also If I had really wanted that job I would have prepaired for it the previous day ie "A clean shirt that I had washed myself". These are the good feelings

The circle has 4 sections that follow on from each other. They are Altered Thinking which turns into Altered Feelings causing altered Physical Symptoms and unfortunatelly turns into Altered Behaviour

If you looked at the situations above, you are one your way to change the way you think and feel. That small change will start to change your life for the better.

Dan don't blame the doctors for the way you see the world. Your world is focused on only you at the moment, if you argue with me on that subject then you are in denial. Ok some doctors are old school and their bedside manner is off putting but don't give up. Because of the way you feel at the moment any one that disagrees with what you think is right can expect the way you see doctors and other professionals. With any talking therapy it is up to to you to make the change not the counsellor. They are there only to get you to talk about your problems and get you to see how you can change something in the pattern of your thoughts or life style so that you can go forward. Talking therapies do work. in the 80's there was a study of 3 different types of talking therapies that used different schools of thought. After thousands of hours spent in observing counselling sessions and comparing the results they found that all 3 theories of counselling worked. They summerises that any talking therapy was theraputic to the person with the problem. Best of luch Peter

 

Have you looked into mind body healing? It is used in many cancer clinics and is very helpful. The more docs you see the more diagnosis you get. I have ailments and it sucks but you are not one dimensional. Physical is part of it not the whole of it.