Interesting Route to Recovery & Some Insight

[Coping]

Since I've discovered this forum about a month ago, I've been posting on the health anxiety page. It's hard to believe that one month ago I literally thought I had ALS or some other neurodegenerative disease that would ultimately kill me. Thanks to the many responses to my posts, I worked up the courage to see my PCP about my symptoms. I was open to the possibility that they were due to anxiety and he gave me a prescription for Paxil and referred me to a neurologist (to rule out/peace of mind). I will see the neuro in Jan. Anyway, I filled the Paxil prescription, did some research, thought... thought.. you know. I didn't end up taking it. What happened next was a phenomenon I call "working from the cabinet". Meaning, I think Paxil worked from inside the bottle, inside the cabinet, without it ever circulating my bloodstream. I believe this happened for two main reasons. 1) I was so scared of the side effects/withdrawal symptoms that I talked myself out of my health anxiety...My symptoms subsided a good amount (no not completely, but enough to convince me...err 90%). And 2) I knew it was there. There was no more fear or question about whether I should talk to someone or seek some help. The help was right in my kitchen cabinet, a guardian, a there-if-you-need-me.

So, what's my point? Just a success story, or a success story in progress? Hopefully. But there is more:

Since my physical symptoms subsided, the true, not-to-be-mistaken-for-chronic-disease anxiety returned. Yes, returned. I've always had it and lived with it, coped. But I guess somewhere along the line the racing thoughts, worrying all the time, irrational fears transformed into real physical symptoms mimicking terrible diseases. It was like my anxiety said "Ha, you thought you could over come us...but we're back in an inescapable form!" But when I did try to escape it, my anxiety reverted back to the classic mental/emotional symptoms we all know and love. It has to come out some way. One way, or another - whichever you are more prone to at the time, that's where it will hit you.

You know, when I had my physical manifestations, it did relieve some of my other constant worries. I mean, for goodness sakes, I was thinking about what my funeral would be like. Consequently, my boyfriend problems, college GPA, job market, the economy - those things took the back burner. For the first time in my life all I wanted to do was live. And now that I am almost completely over my irrational health fears, I am happy only to be alive. It's like what happens when someone recovers from a near-death experience - only my life was never in real danger! What could be more of a blessing than that??

I'm not sure if anyone can relate to all this, or even understand what I'm saying. But, I was tired of keeping all these philosophies to myself and would like some feeback - if it's out there. As for my CSA (current state of anxiety), yes, I have reverted back to some old worries - money, boyfriend, school, work. But, when I get to that point of unhealthy anxiety, I can say to myself "at least I am alive", and really mean it.

Thanks for listening,

C.

[tmicrowave]

hey hey! just wanna say congradulations on feeling better
i can relate too
i know what its like to think about your funeral and all of that
and ive gotten better and i definetly know what it feels like to just be like wow, i'm alive. and really appreciate it.
thats one thing anxiety will do for you

 

[Pan]

Since I've discovered this forum about a month ago, I've been posting on the health anxiety page. It's hard to believe that one month ago I literally thought I had ALS or some other neurodegenerative disease that would ultimately kill me. Thanks to the many responses to my posts, I worked up the courage to see my PCP about my symptoms. I was open to the possibility that they were due to anxiety and he gave me a prescription for Paxil and referred me to a neurologist (to rule out/peace of mind). I will see the neuro in Jan. Anyway, I filled the Paxil prescription, did some research, thought... thought.. you know. I didn't end up taking it. What happened next was a phenomenon I call "working from the cabinet". Meaning, I think Paxil worked from inside the bottle, inside the cabinet, without it ever circulating my bloodstream. I believe this happened for two main reasons. 1) I was so scared of the side effects/withdrawal symptoms that I talked myself out of my health anxiety...My symptoms subsided a good amount (no not completely, but enough to convince me...err 90%). And 2) I knew it was there. There was no more fear or question about whether I should talk to someone or seek some help. The help was right in my kitchen cabinet, a guardian, a there-if-you-need-me.

So, what's my point? Just a success story, or a success story in progress? Hopefully. But there is more:

Since my physical symptoms subsided, the true, not-to-be-mistaken-for-chronic-disease anxiety returned. Yes, returned. I've always had it and lived with it, coped. But I guess somewhere along the line the racing thoughts, worrying all the time, irrational fears transformed into real physical symptoms mimicking terrible diseases. It was like my anxiety said "Ha, you thought you could over come us...but we're back in an inescapable form!" But when I did try to escape it, my anxiety reverted back to the classic mental/emotional symptoms we all know and love. It has to come out some way. One way, or another - whichever you are more prone to at the time, that's where it will hit you.

You know, when I had my physical manifestations, it did relieve some of my other constant worries. I mean, for goodness sakes, I was thinking about what my funeral would be like. Consequently, my boyfriend problems, college GPA, job market, the economy - those things took the back burner. For the first time in my life all I wanted to do was live. And now that I am almost completely over my irrational health fears, I am happy only to be alive. It's like what happens when someone recovers from a near-death experience - only my life was never in real danger! What could be more of a blessing than that??

I'm not sure if anyone can relate to all this, or even understand what I'm saying. But, I was tired of keeping all these philosophies to myself and would like some feeback - if it's out there. As for my CSA (current state of anxiety), yes, I have reverted back to some old worries - money, boyfriend, school, work. But, when I get to that point of unhealthy anxiety, I can say to myself "at least I am alive", and really mean it.

Thanks for listening,

C.

 


Yep, congratulations you have discovered the fundamental truth of Health Anxiety....as contradictionary as it sounds Health Anxiety is actually nothing at all to do with health it is purely a distraction that enables us to divert our worries and concerns away from the stuff we have been stewing over for years and years and then we start to have what we think is a real and justifiable worry...what could be more important that worrying over the fact that we are dieing from an undetected illness that all our health care professionals are missing?

Anxiety is a sly and clever condition but anxiety that has become chronic and physical is a powerful and debilitating condition....it is very hard to accept physical anxiety as anything other than a real and dangerous physical/organic condition and it is from this that Health Anxiety is born, the thing is Health Anxiety cannot exist without this starting point...mental conditions that generate physical sensations start Health Anxiety....I see very litte evidence that any of us on here are true Hypochondriacs on here that is we do not worry we have an illness when there are no signs or symptoms to support that but rather we all misinterpret and subsequently overcatastrophise our physical anxiety and/or somatic sensations this is the hall mark of Health Anxiety.

With that in mind, it seems to me that Health Anxiety can only really exist after anxiety has become physical.  Now, what I think tends to happen is that when anxiety becomes physical and if we then develop an unhealthy fixation on our health and convince ourselves we are suffering from an organic disease is that we totally downplay or maybe even deny the fact that we where ever anxious before our anxiety became physical....time and time again you hear people getting scared and confused about all of these sensations coming 'out of the blue' when if we actually sit down and examine our lives and coping patterns over the years we can actually see that we have lived with poor anxiety and stress management for years.

I do understand that there are complex issues regarding Health Anxiety when 'stressors' involve health scares for either us, friends or loved ones.  This actually happened to me, I thought I had no anxiety issues and in the space of a week I found a lump, thought I had cancer and a friend I grew up with died of cancer....up to this point I always thought I was invincible and had no real sense of mortality...this literally changed for me overnight.  Now, whilst my main stressor was health based, looking back and knowing what I know now it was obvious to me that this mad week was actually just the straw that broke the camels back....looking at my poor anxiety coping mechanism this breakdown into the world of chronic physical anxiety was as inevitable as anything can ever be....the fact that health played such a central part in this was a big factor but crucially was not THE defining factor.

I suppose the point I am making, and that you have highlighted as well is that when we strip away the health from Health Anxiety we can see patterns and behaviours that often indicate that we are suffering from a plethora of anxiety disorders but we just refuse to either see or acknowledge these as we become so damn fixated on the health in Health Anxiety...it is this falsehood that keeps us embroiled for so long.  If we accept that the very sensations that we are convincing ourselves are the symptoms of an organic ailment are actually nothing more than the by product of physical anxiety we are then actually in a strong logical position as we can then see that anxiety will always come first and that Health Anxiety is dependant on physical anxiety rather than the other way round.  Yes, once the loop begins they feed off each other but the starting point will pretty much always point to the physical anxiety explanation.

Anyway, apologies for waffling on but I found your post interesting.  Congratulations on making such good progress, interesting you mention about the idea of having the feeling of like recovering from a near death experience....it was actually having that experience that was a stressor for me....I though that this would be a good thing but thinking back I'm starting to think that maybe that experience has led to me somatising so badly now as I now KNOW I only have one chance to live my life the way I want to live and that comes with an awful lot of hard decision making and an awful lot of responsibility.

....responsibility you must bear, when it is your future in your own hands, maybe a hard one to face up to but at least you will own yourself

[Pan]

Since I've discovered this forum about a month ago, I've been posting on the health anxiety page. It's hard to believe that one month ago I literally thought I had ALS or some other neurodegenerative disease that would ultimately kill me. Thanks to the many responses to my posts, I worked up the courage to see my PCP about my symptoms. I was open to the possibility that they were due to anxiety and he gave me a prescription for Paxil and referred me to a neurologist (to rule out/peace of mind). I will see the neuro in Jan. Anyway, I filled the Paxil prescription, did some research, thought... thought.. you know. I didn't end up taking it. What happened next was a phenomenon I call "working from the cabinet". Meaning, I think Paxil worked from inside the bottle, inside the cabinet, without it ever circulating my bloodstream. I believe this happened for two main reasons. 1) I was so scared of the side effects/withdrawal symptoms that I talked myself out of my health anxiety...My symptoms subsided a good amount (no not completely, but enough to convince me...err 90%). And 2) I knew it was there. There was no more fear or question about whether I should talk to someone or seek some help. The help was right in my kitchen cabinet, a guardian, a there-if-you-need-me.

So, what's my point? Just a success story, or a success story in progress? Hopefully. But there is more:

Since my physical symptoms subsided, the true, not-to-be-mistaken-for-chronic-disease anxiety returned. Yes, returned. I've always had it and lived with it, coped. But I guess somewhere along the line the racing thoughts, worrying all the time, irrational fears transformed into real physical symptoms mimicking terrible diseases. It was like my anxiety said "Ha, you thought you could over come us...but we're back in an inescapable form!" But when I did try to escape it, my anxiety reverted back to the classic mental/emotional symptoms we all know and love. It has to come out some way. One way, or another - whichever you are more prone to at the time, that's where it will hit you.

You know, when I had my physical manifestations, it did relieve some of my other constant worries. I mean, for goodness sakes, I was thinking about what my funeral would be like. Consequently, my boyfriend problems, college GPA, job market, the economy - those things took the back burner. For the first time in my life all I wanted to do was live. And now that I am almost completely over my irrational health fears, I am happy only to be alive. It's like what happens when someone recovers from a near-death experience - only my life was never in real danger! What could be more of a blessing than that??

I'm not sure if anyone can relate to all this, or even understand what I'm saying. But, I was tired of keeping all these philosophies to myself and would like some feeback - if it's out there. As for my CSA (current state of anxiety), yes, I have reverted back to some old worries - money, boyfriend, school, work. But, when I get to that point of unhealthy anxiety, I can say to myself "at least I am alive", and really mean it.

Thanks for listening,

C.

Oops, missed that.  I agree.  Xal often states that it is common for us to morph from one anxiety disorder into another.  I think that wherever we are weak or suseptible at that moment is where anxiety tends to sneak in and do it's work.  Very sly and clever beast is anxiety.

[kristypants]

yes yes yes! :)
im having the same kind of experience
i dont want to go on medication
(i will if i have to)
and so i was going to mention it to the doctor but ive been getting a bit better *touch wood*  since i seriously thought about going on meds :)

well done you ! :)