can coming on this forum making your anxiety worse?

[jonnymorley]

I hate to say this but dont you think coming on this forum regularly is just dwelling on your anxiety condition and making it worse? A lot of people including myself, just want re assurance and people never seem to be satisfied with any re assurance. I think its a good forum to use initially for support but continuing to come on the forum is just dwelling on the anxiety

[sixpack]

that is a very valid viewpoint.  And I do think for some people very true.  I also think there is the other side of the coin that some folks see their anxieties are reduced.

I do agree that if you spend all of your time only thinking about your anxiety, reading post after post of other people's anxiety, that it can hinder your own healing.  There are those that seek reassurance after reassurance and with anxiety that is like crack.  It doesn't solve the issue--it may help in the very short term, but like those addicted to crack, some need another reassurance hit.  That is part of the reason I try not to make all of my post about reassurance---I try to make my posts more about my experiences of anxiety and offer some ways to improve the anxiety.  Back in late '08 and early '09, though, I really needed to understand what anxiety was and how it operated.  This website and one other was actually instrumental in helping me get back on the right road (plus an understanding neuro).  So for me this website didn't hinder me anxiety-wise.  I do belong to an epilepsy website---my daughter has a seizure disorder.  In the Fall of '08 (actually for a year prior) my daughter added a new type seizure that was causing injury.  Add to that a few other very stressful things going on for the past two years and I was starting (unbeknownst to me at the time) to slide back into anxiety.  Anyway I Joined this epilepsy website to get better informed about seizures etc.  It was very good, but as I said, I was starting to slide into anxiety-dom again.  Going on that website started to make matters worse for me.  I started worrying about having seizures etc, which was ridiculous because there would be no reason for me to have one.  At any rate I had to make the decision not to frequent the site anymore.  Which was a shame because I'd made a few friends there. 

[jonnymorley]

yer, i dont mean to put people off the site or anything, but i figure reading other peoples posts and worrying ill get those symptoms and constantly reminding myself i have anxiety is probably making things worse

[nervyboots]

I like coming onto the forums and telling people that they're fine...

It makes me feel better :)

[sixpack]

jonny--I didn't take it that way at all.  I think for some it may well make anxiety worse but for some not. 

[jonnymorley]

I like coming onto the forums and telling people that they're fine...

It makes me feel better :)

true but for most people, it will help them feel better for a short amount of time, but then theyll start to worry again, especially as new different symptoms will appear. Then theyll seek re assurance again and again. Even after conclusive proof its anxiety some people will still not believe it I think the key is to stop seeking re assurance after youve been told by professionals that its anxiety. you need to prove to yourself that you dont need reassurance.

[gridder]

I go back and forth on this.
First, my therapist thinks it is not helpful, that I am living in a cyber world when I come here instead of the real one. That I am reaching out to people who aren't real friends when I should be reaching out to my actual friends. I tend to be private with people I know --

Anyway, in a way it makes me feel better to come here and "help" b/c I rationalize that seeing how irrational others' ideas are about health can better help me understand myself. In reality, I am not sure it works that way. I do find that I come here when I am in a heightened state of anxiety myself, and that I tend to stay away when I am fine.

I have had the experience where I "pick up" a worry for later -- I'll have a symptom that I wouldn't have worried about before but b.c someone here worried about it, I start to. But, that is rare. I do find some commradere (sp) with people here that have similar issues to mine, so I am grateful to this place for that. I also like to hear words of wisdom from others (like sixpack) but wish there were more positive and healing posts rather than "reassure me" posts which I think are very unhealthy.

[Warbirdwf]

The thing I find interesting is, when you search posts from 1-2 years ago, you don't recognize the names. Why? Because they came to this site, learned about thier condition and got over it. It's rare to see someone on this site from 2 years ago. I've been off/on this site since last November. I vividily remember a few people from back then who were posting 5 plus times a day. I know two of them of recovered and are feeling almost normal again.

My opinion, I don't come here to seek reassurance. I come here to learn what has helped others heal and offer whatever I've learned in going thru this process. I'll also be honest and tell you that I don't have any ideas to come here once I've overcome my anxiety 100%!

[sixpack]

The thing I find interesting is, when you search posts from 1-2 years ago, you don't recognize the names. Why? Because they came to this site, learned about thier condition and got over it. It's rare to see someone on this site from 2 years ago. I've been off/on this site since last November. I vividily remember a few people from back then who were posting 5 plus times a day. I know two of them of recovered and are feeling almost normal again.

My opinion, I don't come here to seek reassurance. I come here to learn what has helped others heal and offer whatever I've learned in going thru this process. I'll also be honest and tell you that I don't have any ideas to come here once I've overcome my anxiety 100%!

good point.   and you are right.   

[jonnyUW]

This is something that has been on my mind recently, and I've even thought about calling it quits and not visiting the board anymore.  Everything said so far has been true.  I too remember people when I first joined (end of last year, so not even that long ago) and those people were posting 5 to 10 times a day have stopped, to bring on another wave of new anxiety members with nearly the same old concerns, and doing the same thing.

I don't know for sure if it's just because they have overcome anxiety, or at least have accepted that their symptoms are just anxiety, and have learned to cope.  Maybe I'm just so fed up with feeling the way I do, and I myself need to move on.  Maybe a new doctor, therapist, or medication, something...

I don't want to come across as a downer, or seem depressed, but sometimes reading other post makes me feel that way, and it isn't helping me like it used to.  Maybe I'm finally getting over my "crack" addiction.  I hope so.

[grateful]

I have wondered about this myself. The more time I spend focusing on how to fix my anxiety and that I have anxiety the more anxiety I have. And this site just reaffirms that everytime you log on. Very good point! How did I get through the first 33 years of my life without this thought process in overdrive? Cuz I was living!

[fairytale81101]

In 2007, I found this sight and it literally changed my life.  I had convinced myself that i had MS and/or ALS.  I did not realize that these were symptoms of my anxiety.  I had never told anyone that I even had anxiety or problems in my life.  After I talked to members on here about my symptoms, I had a better understanding of my issues.  Slowly, I regained my life.  I literally was consumed with thinking I was dying. I have been better for 3 years.  I have relapsed (just a tad) because I am pregnant and bleeding.  I am scared I may lose the baby so I am reaching out for other preggos on the website that helped me before.  I am grateful to have had this website.  thank you

[Xalatimo]

Yes, it can, but it depends on how you use it.

[Conspiracy Bird]

Indeed it depends entirely on how you use it. If you ask for reassurance and use it as such, then it can be very helpful, along with making you aware of the fact that you are not alone. However, if used like google to try and find symptoms and calculate risks, it is not going to be of much help.

[gridder]

I think the reassurance thing is the most insidious -- and people don't realize it. This is not a perfect analogy, but if you have a tire that keeps leaking air, and you keep going and pumping it up, pumping it up, pumping it up, but never fix the underlying problem, then you are headed for problems. It is the same for HA -- some people can come and get reassurance once or twice and be ok, but often the reassurance is part of the OCD cycle, which just makes the anxiety worse in the long run, and doesn't fix the underlying issue.

[loveya14]

FareyTale, I also had that happen at the begining of my pregnancy and it went on for awhile , I was worried SICK over it . But everything was fine.

[Sandra01]

I am still with you guys. I started coming here like two months ago. All of my questions were answered by the forum members. My anxiety is still the same. It didn't go away.


But I don't worry too much anymore about gyn cancers. Now I worry about Eary ONSET OF  Alzheimer. I don't find a lot of people who worry about the same thing and that worries me  thinking something must be really wrong with me. So I try not to check constantly  which leads to less posts from me.

Also I found that all over sudden I get worried about other peoples symptoms. I never heard of ALS until I came here. The more illnesses I ad to my worry catalog the worst I feel which causes me to come less.

Even people come and go here it seems that posts and symptoms repeats themselves and sometimes it feels like I have already answered them even so that their are new people.

And sometimes I feel paralyzed coming here thinking wow this is a dark place since we all worry about dying.

Being reminded of that doesn't neccessary increase my anxiety but does increase my depression.

If everyone is hopeless it makes me hopeless too.

I hope nobody is mad at me with that post.

[JunoX]

I think it depends on how you use the forum. Like everything in life, it can be made into a positive or a negative. If you come here to try and feel better with reasurrance, your anxiety can get worse. Reassurance never works. It works for the short term but soon the anxiety monster will return and demand more rassurance. You start getting caught in a vicious cycle that keeps feeding off of itself. Reassurance breeds more anxiety so you can get more reassurance

It you use the forum to find things to worry about, then your anxiety will get worse. Some people use the forum in the same way they use Google. They find things to be scared of, symptoms and diseases that they havent thought about before.

Basically this forum should be used as a means of support. Sharing with other people your experiences and seeing that they go through it too, helps you feel like your not alone. Also knowing that others have felt the same symptoms as you, helps you understand that most the majority of the time, all of this is caused by anxiety rather than some rare and deadly disease. Another good thing about this forum is perspective. Sometimes sharing the thoughts that are going on in your mind with others, can put them in perspective for you and make you realize that there are other ways of thinking about whats happening to you. Theres nothing worse than living with your own anxious thoughts and never letting them out of your mind. They will just grow there and fester. Nothing is better than expressing what your feeling and talking about your fears.

[jenny649]

it certainly can. when i first came on here in 2006, i was so relieved that i found this website. i was sure i had ms or a brain tumor and didnt realize that there were other people who worried about those things. when i thought of hypochondriacs i certainly never thought of people having neurological disorders. but as time went on, i would ask for reassurance and not get what i wanted..it wasnt enough. eventually i realized that coming on this board for reassurance was just a temporary fix and i needed a more permanent one, so i went on to medication and therapy and the like. now i still have health anxiety a bit, but ive gotten a lot better with it too, and i mostly just use this board to come on and try to help people suffering from the same thing ive suffered from and also to take comfort in the fact that im not alone in worrying about my health. really, i think this forum is great for discovering more about how anxiety can manifest physically and getting/giving support, but eventually you are going to need to deal with your anxiety by yourself...whether it be by therapy, medication, or just a change in mindset. and this board can help you do that, but i think the way this board can make you more anxious is if you try to use it in place of that. sorry for the rambling.

[Whiskas]

I come here for a reality check. I find that I over-think things to such an extent that reality gets blurred. I don't like to talk to my partner about  H/A too much-he has a genuine medical condition and lives one of the happiest, fullest lives of anybody I know- makes me feel a fraud. I know what yoou mean about 'finding new diseases', but it can also be reassuring to see the opposite of Google- people with your symptoms who haven't got cancer, MS and so on.

It's a fantastic site and has (I say without exaggeration) preserved my sanity on several occasions.

[Jorden_M]

For me...it goes back and forth. yes occassionally it makes it worse cause i see something that i cant help but read....(im a heart worrier) then my anxiety goes through the roof. i keep thinking "omg...did i have my cholesterol checked?"  "i think my bp is getting high... omg now i think its low..omg i think it goes back and forth!!"....then yes...i tend to dwell on it. i have severe HA. (obviously) But other times this site is actually quite helpful and calms me down quite a bit. I noticed a pattern though. the more frequently i came on here the worse it made my anxiety. why? because THAT was when i started using it like google. i would look for the posts that i KNEW would scare me when yes, i knew better. i kept telling myself.."oh it'll calm me down"....ohhh no...it did the opposite. then i'd end up posting 80 million times a day. so i limit myself now.

[allyboo2]

For me, it's been a great help.  I've dealt with HA for nearly 20 years but haven't slowly gotten better.  I have years without a worry then when some other area of my life causes anxiety, the health fears rear up again although each time they seem to be weaker than before. 

One thing that used to bother me was when people would list all the symptoms they were having and how they read that "x,y,z" was a sign of a deadly disease.  That's why I try to be considerate to those who are just coming on board and not list symptoms on the same post with a disease name. 

My view is that we've all been at that starting point where we were absolutely petrified.  We need to be patient with those people.  As they start to see others struggle and overcome the same anxiety, they'll start to feel better.  I think for some it's just a quicker process than others.

Blessings!

[allyboo2]

Oops!  That should have read "HAVE slowly gotten better!" ;)