still struggling but trying to do something to help

[bingobabs2000]

HI there,
I have suffered from health anxieties for around four years. It started out of the blue and was pretty severe, I put myself in hospital a number of times because of panic attacks in which I was sure I was dying. I had numerous tests for heart defects/brain tumours/MS/colon cancer/ovarian cancer. You name it I could have had it. Luckily I had support around me and my mum found me a Cognitive behaviour Therapist who I saw intensively for two years. During that treatment I had to work really hard on changing my thought processes and behaviour patterns. It really helped me a lot but is incredibly hard. I don’t need to describe to you the level of dispair and desperation that I have felt at points. However I never took any medicaton and managed to gain some control and normality over my life through Cognitive behaviour therapy. I have found it really hard to get here but I am at last in my final year of a design degree in London, at times of stress or change in my life, like now for instance the anxiety is triggered, but i do know there are ways i can fight it and the more that happens the better equipped i will be to deal with it. For my degree project I’m designing a prototype for a facility that would be used in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy specifically for graded exposure therapy, i'm looking to build up a collection of video imagery and sound that shows the type of images, places, situations that trigger anxiety for people. Exposure therapy is just one method used in CBT, with a therapist you identify ways that you can face your anxiety and bring on feelings of panic in a controlled way. You focus on the anxiety and face the fear, if you do this regularly it will desensitise you to the fear. It’s pretty tough but is proven to work. This is an example of a type of exposure I did. I was certain I had a heart defect and would avoid doing anything strenuous, I ended up pretty much house bound. With my therapist present I ran up and down her stairs until my heart was beating really fast, she then encouraged me to focus on how I was feeling and tell her. I had to stay with these feelings of panic and not avoid the thoughts that I was having a heart attack. Eventually your anxiety comes down as it can only be maintained at this intense level for a period of time. I had to do this every day at home, within a week I wasn’t scared of heart attack any more. In this instance exposure worked really well. For other health worries like cancer for instance it is not as easy to do such a direct exposure. However I am trying to build up an idea of the sorts of imagery, situations and places that people find taps into their anxiety, for instance hospitals (what is it that is particularly scary- seeing people who are ill, the feel of the space being clinical, cold, unfamiliar)
It would be so helpful for me if some people would share with me some of the situations, places, images that cause them anxiety and think would act as exposure for them. Also if anyone has been doing this sort of treatment, do you think that it would be beneficial for you to have a way to be immersed in this imagery through the use of video instead of doing the visualisations in your head. I wouldn’t suggest trying to do exposure work unless you have fully discussed it with a therapist and come up with a programme for yourself, as it needs to be done in a controlled and thought out way. I’d really appreciate it if anyone could help me out. Thanks so much.