Anxiety/especially health anxiety

So very happy for you, Chickenbone! Your posts in this thread are wonderful and very helpful.

 

Thank-you Ellen. I really enjoy your insightful posts too!

 

Chickenbone, I was thinking about you and wondering how you've been doing so I am just delighted to hear that you're doing well.

And everyone else…what a great conversation. I needed this encouragement!

 

I try to make my NOW as pleasant as I can. That makes it worth living in!

 

Hi Leslie, I totally know where you are coming from. As I work toward healing, my anxiety has gotten terrible. It's embarassing to admit but so far this month I have worried about MS, ALS, cancer..... Of course all chronic things because they serve as such a great distraction. Hang in there, and know others are going through exactly the same thing.

 

Sorry Im just catching up on all of the stuff said on this thread. I just had my own anxiety flare up again this week. I was journaling about fear of work and fear of being trapped. Very soon after my anxiety spiked and I started feeling really anxious, so I think I tapped into something there. I have this feeling that if I become unmotivated to do work while I'm there, lets say its a couple hours in and I just feel like going home, this makes me anxious because I can't just get up and walk out. I feel like I should almost always feel motivated at work and if I don't then there is a problem. I don't think I hate my job, but I've considered that possibility as well. I look to the external to fix the feelings I have inside like "maybe if I had that job I wouldn't feel this way, maybe if I had this job outside I wouldn't want the day to end so quickly". My rationale for it is that people who like their jobs are always happy at them. I've been depressed for quite some time now though and it doesn't just happen at work. I feel pretty much the same way at home as well, but the key difference is that I can stop whatever I'm doing at home whenever I want to and just crawl up into a ball and sleep if Im anxious. At work I can't do this whenever I feel like it so it gives me a feeling of trapped. I talk to others about their feelings demotivation at work and I ask "do you feel motivated or want to work right now?" and their answer is "hell no" but they aren't scared of it like I am. I don't know what this means yet for me but I want to take it easy on the journaling because just journaling about it for less than a half hour brought up a lot of anxiety towards it. Its probably best that I work in conjunction with my therapist to delve into these feelings because I don't want to have another breakdown again.

At the same time I've dropped down another .5mg of klonopin over the past couple weeks so that might have something to do with it but who knows. I started getting the feelings of depression around the end of December 2012 but my questions about "is this the right career" for me didn't start until around january of this year. I think in reality its my brain trying escapism type thoughts out thinking that the job is the problem. Since I have eye strain when Im working, maybe if I switched to a landscaping job it would go away. Thats the thought process that goes on. But I know this couldn't be true because I have so much evidence contradictory to that where Im not using any devices or computers but my eyes are still really tense and ache/hurt/sore. For instance the weekend before last I went to a family get together for a 50th anniversary and went to my moms house the day after that and my eye tension skyrocketed. Wasn't using computers or any devices, but I have social anxiety and the drive to the 50th anniversary was stressful and going to my mom's can be stressful for me too because of what happened in my parents divorce.

 

Wow, thank you so much everyone for your replies. I had forgotten about this thread and just now saw all the wonderful replies!!! Good for you chickenbone on your amazing progress! That is wonderful!!!

Ash: Our fears sound similar, I went through an ALS fear a few weeks ago but now its gone and taken over by a chronic condition, while not dangerous, is life alternating and terribly uncomfortable and it's been spiking my health anxiety like crazy the last week.

 

I'm bumping this thread, because my health anxiety is at it again. I had really calmed down and was doing really well through October and the beginning of this month. Then reandomly last night I was scrolling through my facebook newsfeed when an article caught my attention, because it was related to one of, or is my, worst fear, PGAD (google it if you don't know what is is). Then after reading it, I couldn't sleep, I googled and googled and googled and read stories and articles and got myself into a total panic. I think that is my fear, diseases/issues that are life altering, painful and really uncomfortable that have no real cure, or treatments to make it better and just having to live like that, feeling trapped that way. Scares me to no end! Could this be TMS?

 

Hi Leslie! I know how you feel. Maybe try reading "The Worry Cure" by Dr. Leahy. It was really helpful for me. One thing that really helped is to stop googling a disease when I read about one or think of one. The book (from my understanding) describes this action similar to TMS. When you are researching you are intellectualizing everything. You aren't facing your feelings. Yeah, you get nervous about the disease, but its superficial. It's a distraction. It also helps to notice every time I worry, its all future based. I am never worried about something that is actually happening to me right now. For example, I used to worry about cancer.... what if I have cancer? I should get it checked so I get an early diagnosis... What about work? How will I pay for treatment?.... All stuff that mostly likely is not going to happen. I didn't have cancer, yet I was worried about paying for treatments! You will get through this again!

 

Ash86: Thank you for your reply! It's nice to know I'm not alone with this anxiety. I'm sorry you "worry" like I do though! It's really time consuming. I was doing SO well about not googling lately but did last night after going almost 2 months without googling stuff. My mind takes something and runs with it. Just like you said, worrying about the future. Mine is always, if I get it, it'll never end and I"ll be permanently miserable and can't escape. It totally freaks me out!

 

Maybe write about your fear of being "stuck" or unable to escape. I have read on here that sometimes TMS symptoms are the tip of the unconscious iceberg. Maybe you have something repressed about being trapped. Or possibly there is something else going on in your life making you feel trapped? Worth looking into at least.

 

hmmmm maybe you on are onto something! Thanks!! I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but it's worth exploring.

 

Leslie

sorry to hear about your anxiety issues, believe me I suffer brutally speak to your dr about putting you on a med…not that I agree with them, but it what I needed to get me to calm down and practice mediation and deep breathing since then about 3 months I was able to lower my dose..

Goodluck

 

I can tell you this. You can work yourself into believing you have anything. I went through a couple of months of the ALS fear. I worked myself into believing it so much that I started getting leg and arm weakness. I would even start going out of my way just to find symptoms to complain about an attribute to als. From wasting time studying ALS I can tell you that if you had ALS you would 100% know you had als. I've been suffering from hand wrist and arm pain for two years that I've tried to attribute to so many different diseases and conditions. I've been cleared by every doctor and specialist I've seen. When I think about it before the pain even became severe I was worrying about it. Anxiety It's probably what caused my issues to begin in the first place

 

Thank you so much for your reply! My health anxiety is at all time high right now. About a week ago my upper left arm muscle starting to twitch. Its been on and off for a week now. It disappeared for s couple days then returned today. Earlier almost every time I put my hand on my hip it would twitch. I'm not talking about jerking I'm talking about pulsed type. It would pulse a few times and stop. Its really scaring me!

 

Your twitching stopped. ALS twitching does not stop it keeps going. Look up BFS benign fasciculation syndrome that is much more likely. Actually considering how rare als is I say it's extremely more likely. If you concentrate on the twitching too much it's going to keep happening. I wouldn't worry about it. Believe me if you keep worrying about it now you're going to waste a lot of time on something you shouldn't and you're going to find other reasons to why you think you have ALS. Believe me I know.

 

Thank you jwiles! Its hard to think rationally when it's happening. I was starting to get more positive and not as worried the few days it stopped but then yesterday it came back and that went out the window. It doesn't help that I surfed the ALS forums and found several people who said their first signs were twitching and they did come and go. I think that is what set me off in the first place. Its just this single twitch in my upper arm that is freaking me out. My other ones don't worry me and I chalk them up to BFS or just anxiety. Its the one in my upper arm that persists and is a bit different than the others. Ugh! I hate health anixety is takes over my life. Literally! I can barely think about anything else. This past week this has been on my mind pretty much 24/7, even in my dreams. I'm the type of person that doesn't handle health problems well at all. Its what led me to TMS in the first place. I was having urinary issues about a year and 1/2 ago and that is what brought me here. I successfully got rid of it through TMS. It pops up here and there but the fear is gone behind it so it doesn't get me the way it use to. This is scaring me more than that did though.

 

I need to apply my TMS stuff to this current issue I guess. Its hard though. During my journaling with the urinary stuff I found a few things that COULD be bothering me but I can't say I uncovered anything really, its not anything I already didn't know about. I had a great childhood so no issues there. Most my adult life I've had health anxiety but it's gotten pretty severe the last 2 years I'd say. I'm 30 btw. It use to linger in the background unless I had a reason to be concerned. Now its on the front of my mind all the time pretty much. Its awful!

 

I don't recommend surfing ALS forms. When they say their twitching comes and goes they don't mean that it completely stops. In almost all cases you wouldn't even notice the twitching it's a very fine twitch sometimes not even seen by the eye. Stick to the TMS forum. I would also recommend looking up an anxiety support forum. Look for fellow sufferers of hypochondria. A lot of people with TMS seem to find hope and strength in other people's success stories. The same logic should work with former anxiety suffers.

 

Thanks again Jwiles. Your post was comforting for me. Its hard to be rational but I'm going to try. I'm going to really try to apply TMS stuff to them when they happen. I want to be more carefree and happy instead of stuck in this health anxiety rut all the time.