realization

[gridder]

I was just reading someone's "all clear" from their last HA fear and something occured to me.  In every life there are going to be disasters, or times where our hearts break -- when someone we love dies, or a friend is in a terrible accident. Those moments in time are horrible, and sometimes when we have the first one, we get caught up in predicting when the next one will happen. Luckily, these times are very few in most of our lives.

When we aren't in crisis mode, we should pretty much go about our daily lives dealing with rather mundane things -- whose turn is it to take the garbage out? What do we want for dinner? Unfortunately, with HA, we get caught up in this long-term dread of these moments that we can't control, and we allow the fear of them to dominate our attention. Instead of having 5 or 6 awful things in our lives, we in a sense stretch these things out over  our life (mind you, they are false, making it even worse) by coming up with illnesses to fear and ways to try to control the future. The reality is, that the disasters are so bad because the aren't knowable in advance, so trying to predict them is futile. Bad stuff is going to happen to us and there is not a damn thing we can do about it. In a way, I think we have to be at peace with that.

Finally, I think that trying to extrapolate a disease from a symptom or two on our part is a silly and futile exercise. See the sticky from the neurologist for more information. We are flooded with sensations every day, and nearly every person on this board has stress induced muscle tension that is causing most of their issues. I am going to try to remember this myself.

[angelicmegan]

I think this is a very good assessment. I firmly believe that most health anxiety isn't really about "health" at all. I think we use it as a "coping" (when I say coping I don't mean comforting) mechanism. For some of us its a way we think we can exercise control over things in our lives that we can't, for others it could be something completely different.

I have been doing Cognitive Behavior Therapy for the past two months to figure this out.... I have not gotten there yet, but I am closer than I ever have been before. I think its totally worth it to do some therapy, if you can.

[crazygirl1]

Gridder, you're so very right. Although I realize all these things, I have yet to figure out how to just live...just live without this constant fear. Maybe therapy would help me figure that out but I don't have the $ for it now. I'm afraid ( as usual LOL) that I'm gonna have to live this way..until I finally get the dreaded dignosis I am "sure" I will get....sad huh? How can I raise a happy healthy little girl if I'm like this?

[angelicmegan]

crazygirl,

I know this is going to sound lame, but you may check out this book called Feeling Good (http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-Therapy-Revised-Updated/dp/0380810336). Its a book about how to tackle anxiety (no matter what kind you have). My therapist uses A LOT of this guys stuff, and I read this in between appointments. It helps a lot I think. The thing about doing therapy, self administered or professional, is that you have to be persistent with the exercises. They don't work the first 50 times you do them, but you have to KEEP DOING THEM. Eventually they will work. If you think it might help you should pick up this book.

Megan

[marc]

I think you are correct overall. However, it is important not to ignore persistent new or severe symptoms.
I once had a basal cell carcinoma on my nose a few years ago. When I saw it, it did not quite look
right. I called my dermatologist and he confirmed the diagnosis. Luckily, basal cell carcinoma typically
does not spread and is usually cured. The dermatologist sent me to a Moh's surgeon who are very
specialized surgeons for skin cancers. He removed it and I was fine. I had him look at some other skin
items and he said they all looked OK. I apologized to him for seeming a little paranoid asking him to look at
other skin items. What he said to me next, I will never forget. He said to me you are not being paranoid and
sometimes a little paranoia is good as it may someday save your life.

[Marathoner]

I worry mostly about how I will respond to an actual physical illness if/when it happens.  Most of us, at some point in our lives, will get sick and have to deal with it.  That's a fact.  My principal fear is that I will become unable to function on a day-to-day basis and morph into the Anti-Lance Armstrong, in a manner of speaking. 

I realized after much soul searching that Fear is and has been the primary motivator of my life, and also underlays my HA.  Most of my major decisions have been motivated by Fear.  For example, I married the wrong person out of college for fear of having to continue playing the field.  And I was afraid to continue playing the field because I was afraid of contracting HIV.  I could provide a long list of examples.  But the bottom-line is that I have deprived myself of a number of life-experiences because of Fear. 

[Marathoner]

I think you are correct overall. However, it is important not to ignore persistent new or severe symptoms.
I once had a basal cell carcinoma on my nose a few years ago. When I saw it, it did not quite look
right. I called my dermatologist and he confirmed the diagnosis. Luckily, basal cell carcinoma typically
does not spread and is usually cured. The dermatologist sent me to a Moh's surgeon who are very
specialized surgeons for skin cancers. He removed it and I was fine. I had him look at some other skin
items and he said they all looked OK. I apologized to him for seeming a little paranoid asking him to look at
other skin items. What he said to me next, I will never forget. He said to me you are not being paranoid and
sometimes a little paranoia is good as it may someday save your life.

Not to sound argumentative, but I get new symptoms all the time.  If I visited the doctor's office for every one of these symptoms, my insurance would probably stop paying for it.  (Actually, this is what happened to me in 1996 when all this stuff started.) 

I think most of us will know the difference between HA and a potential problem.  For me, my symptoms are the obsession, but the compulsion is the need for constant reassurance, which is equally destructive - even though it feels great when we receive it.  A clean bill of health from the doctor's office, for me, is the ultimate reassurance and is highly addictive.   

My psychiatrist told me once that unless I was actually dying, stay away from the GP in order to break the HA/OCD cycle. 

[crazygirl1]

Hmmm..this is a great conversation going here. I am confused, however, still LOL Is what I have/feel-- HA??? I don't seem to have a ton of symptoms...for me it is more like...here's my perfect example. I have moles, suspicious looking moles & I am sure I will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in my life when my daughter needs me. I will then become unbearably sick with the disease and treatment that I will become unable to work ( disability is only 60% of pay, so since i work only part time--it would be bad) and we would therefore lose our house, our dogs, create incurable panic/anxiety in our daughter ( because children pick up on things) and my husband will have to struggle to maintain ANYthing at all until I am gone. When i am gone, our daughter will grow up without her mother and that alone will hurt her for her entire life, as will the memories of me being sick & dying. Is this HA?

[angelicmegan]

crazygirl,

I don't have children, but I think we have similar fears. When I talk to my therapist, whenever I tell her something she always asks "And then what will happen".... and it always comes down to, I am going to die and not live the life I wanted to live (which seems ironic given the amount of unwanted worrying I do!). My biggest and most selfish fear is that I will die and that my husband will marry another woman, be happy and have children with her and the life I should have had. I know that is so selfish, but its honest.

Like I said before I think it is health anxiety, but a lot of times I think health anxiety is a coping mechanism for something else. In my case I think it is at least. The hard part is figuring out what that is and what you can do about it.

I think it is also difficult, for people with health anxiety, to determine when its appropriate to see a doctor, because we are so in tuned with our bodies. You shouldn't rush to the doctor at every symptom, but there are some things you should not ignore either. The trick is finding that normal threshold.

Megan

[Marathoner]

Hmmm..this is a great conversation going here. I am confused, however, still LOL Is what I have/feel-- HA??? I don't seem to have a ton of symptoms...for me it is more like...here's my perfect example. I have moles, suspicious looking moles & I am sure I will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in my life when my daughter needs me. I will then become unbearably sick with the disease and treatment that I will become unable to work ( disability is only 60% of pay, so since i work only part time--it would be bad) and we would therefore lose our house, our dogs, create incurable panic/anxiety in our daughter ( because children pick up on things) and my husband will have to struggle to maintain ANYthing at all until I am gone. When i am gone, our daughter will grow up without her mother and that alone will hurt her for her entire life, as will the memories of me being sick & dying. Is this HA?

It's certainly an example of what can result from HA.  I, too, am uncomfortable at the thought of how things might transpire in my absence.  It makes me sad to know that my lovely wife would be alone, at least for a while, with our Great Dane that she can't control. 

[sixpack]

   think most of us will know the difference between HA and a potential problem.  For me, my symptoms are the obsession, but the compulsion is the need for constant reassurance, which is equally destructive - even though it feels great when we receive it.  A clean bill of health from the doctor's office, for me, is the ultimate reassurance and is highly addictive.   
 

reassurance for some HA people is the same, in my estimation, as a drug addict looking for his/her next fix.  It is addictive. You do get a sort of "high" from the all clear--be it from a doctor or a person saying he/she has had such and so before, but it doesn't typically last long then you are looking for your next hit of reassurance.   Reassurance is fine IF you can take the information and use it for good--if it teaches you that your thinking is faulty thus allowing you to step back and look at how anxiety can cause all kinds of things.   

[crazygirl1]

Megan,

Wow! I remember my therapist saying that too back when I could afford to go. I was always fascinated with it because hse always had a little bit of smile " And then what will happen?" I think thats a desensitizing thing-getting us to say it out loud-our fears over & over again, describing in detail until all of a sudden we realize we're not so afraid of that anymore...
So far I'm reading "The anxiety & phobia workbook"  By Edmund J. Bourne--its on google books, and its interesting but so far not to much info on HA. "but a lot of times I think health anxiety is a coping mechanism for something else..."   I wonder if that's so and how to go about this all. Is that something your therapist has said? Hmmm...interesting...could be the start of getting somewhere maybe. Thanks so much for yoru input. Going to check out the book you mentioned...

[sixpack]

Hmmm..this is a great conversation going here. I am confused, however, still LOL Is what I have/feel-- HA??? I don't seem to have a ton of symptoms...for me it is more like...here's my perfect example. I have moles, suspicious looking moles & I am sure I will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in my life when my daughter needs me. I will then become unbearably sick with the disease and treatment that I will become unable to work ( disability is only 60% of pay, so since i work only part time--it would be bad) and we would therefore lose our house, our dogs, create incurable panic/anxiety in our daughter ( because children pick up on things) and my husband will have to struggle to maintain ANYthing at all until I am gone. When i am gone, our daughter will grow up without her mother and that alone will hurt her for her entire life, as will the memories of me being sick & dying. Is this HA?

there are those who freak out over symptoms that anxiety brings on and then move onto to their deaths.  And then there are those who perceive things, like moles, to be dire and move onto their deaths.  And then---some just think catastrophically and just fear.

In other words some have symptoms that freak them out--hence HA.   Then the others are the obsessive worriers about their health for no obvious reason.

[angelicmegan]

Crazygirl,

My therapist kind of said it... I mean, it is still health anxiety, but it definitely comes from somewhere else. Yes I have symptoms and feel things, but there is a reason why I choose to focus on them, as opposed to putting them to bed (or instead of dealing with them using something else like drugs, alcohol or something else).

That book I mentioned doesn't talk about health anxiety specifically, but a lot of the exercises are broadly applicable to all kinds of anxiety.

Megan

[sixpack]

Megan,

Wow! I remember my therapist saying that too back when I could afford to go. I was always fascinated with it because hse always had a little bit of smile " And then what will happen?" I think thats a desensitizing thing-getting us to say it out loud-our fears over & over again, describing in detail until all of a sudden we realize we're not so afraid of that anymore...
So far I'm reading "The anxiety & phobia workbook"  By Edmund J. Bourne--its on google books, and its interesting but so far not to much info on HA. "but a lot of times I think health anxiety is a coping mechanism for something else..."   I wonder if that's so and how to go about this all. Is that something your therapist has said? Hmmm...interesting...could be the start of getting somewhere maybe. Thanks so much for yoru input. Going to check out the book you mentioned...

crazy ---for the most part I think I'm a GAD person or a person who really internalizes stresses.  What happens then is I get all the symptoms of anxiety.  For me, until my last go around almost 2yrs ago, I would then start looking at all of the symptoms and think I had a disease.  It was this last go around that helped me realize that stresses and my overthinking these stresses that gets my body worked up.  I now look at it just like that----I start twitching or cramping or whatever--I look at what is going on in my life OR what was I just thinking about.  I'm at the point that I can now see, most of the time, what triggered it all.  Now that doesn't mean I don't overthink it is just I'm better at putting it into perspective.

[sixpack]

I was just reading someone's "all clear" from their last HA fear and something occured to me.  In every life there are going to be disasters, or times where our hearts break -- when someone we love dies, or a friend is in a terrible accident. Those moments in time are horrible, and sometimes when we have the first one, we get caught up in predicting when the next one will happen. Luckily, these times are very few in most of our lives.

When we aren't in crisis mode, we should pretty much go about our daily lives dealing with rather mundane things -- whose turn is it to take the garbage out? What do we want for dinner? Unfortunately, with HA, we get caught up in this long-term dread of these moments that we can't control, and we allow the fear of them to dominate our attention. Instead of having 5 or 6 awful things in our lives, we in a sense stretch these things out over  our life (mind you, they are false, making it even worse) by coming up with illnesses to fear and ways to try to control the future. The reality is, that the disasters are so bad because the aren't knowable in advance, so trying to predict them is futile. Bad stuff is going to happen to us and there is not a damn thing we can do about it. In a way, I think we have to be at peace with that.

Finally, I think that trying to extrapolate a disease from a symptom or two on our part is a silly and futile exercise. See the sticky from the neurologist for more information. We are flooded with sensations every day, and nearly every person on this board has stress induced muscle tension that is causing most of their issues. I am going to try to remember this myself.

I absolutely agree.

[janehathaway]

Hmmm..this is a great conversation going here. I am confused, however, still LOL Is what I have/feel-- HA??? I don't seem to have a ton of symptoms...for me it is more like...here's my perfect example. I have moles, suspicious looking moles & I am sure I will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in my life when my daughter needs me. I will then become unbearably sick with the disease and treatment that I will become unable to work ( disability is only 60% of pay, so since i work only part time--it would be bad) and we would therefore lose our house, our dogs, create incurable panic/anxiety in our daughter ( because children pick up on things) and my husband will have to struggle to maintain ANYthing at all until I am gone. When i am gone, our daughter will grow up without her mother and that alone will hurt her for her entire life, as will the memories of me being sick & dying. Is this HA?

Crazygirl - this is me EXACTLY.  It all comes back to my daughter.  My HA started shortly after she was born.  I think exactly the same way you do about it and it's horrible.

[janehathaway]

I love this post Gridder.  It makes so much sense.  I'll have to keep reading it.  Thank you for the words of wisdom.

[crazygirl1]

Yes Jane-I think we've met here before LOL. Do you go so far as to picture yourself in the state, not being able to really get up-having to explain to her why mommy cant play...it's aweful. I can't understand this. I just kind of feel that for me there has to be something that started it ( the obvious would be the illness & passing of my mom, but thats the obvious, so it may not be that LOL)and so therefore must be a way for me to control it...I wonder if anyone has any therapy techniques for HA. I had a few for panic attacks, which work but I have no tricks for this HA

[gridder]

Well, the words of wisdom are hard to remember and put into practice, though. I am ending a 2 week stint of single parenthood as my husband comes home today, and all I can focus on is my bladder. . . I realized last night that I had done exactly zero things for myself since he'd been gone. No night off, no massage, no reading a book by the pool -- and when a friend gave me an afternoon off by taking care of my son, I spent it cleaning and working. So -- self-care is something I still struggle with, and I think the end result is a high level of anxiety and tension that manifests in irritating physical symptoms.

I love this discussion. There is so much wisdom here in this group!