Need Advice. Trying to Figure out what is wrong with me!

[midnightwoman]

I would like to start by saying that this is my favorite forum.  I have been what you would call a lurker for a few weeks and have been lurking around many sites and forums but I always come back to this one.  What all of you share in your posts and your replies really touch my heart and brain and make me feel so much better, so first I want to say thank you. Thank you.  If you wouldn't mind I'd like to share a little about me--won't take long I promise.  And I'll even try to be funny.  Would like feedback, support, criticism, advice, etc...

I am 24 and I have been a worrier and a panic attacker for years and years.  Only lately have I considered that maybe I have hypochondria.  For seven years I smoked cigarettes and once someone told me my cough sounded like an eighty year old cancer patient.  From then on, I was Sure I was going to be the youngest person in the world to die of a smoking related illness.  Sure of it.  I had coughing attacks and shortness of breath and called my mother at work and scared her half to death making her rush me to the E.R. She was sure I was having some sort of an attack.  I was, a panic attack but I didn't know that then.  I thought I was having an actual heart attack.  I was obsessed with smoking related illnesses for years until eventually, after many years of therapy I quit smoking cigarettes.  I am five years with no smokes!

I have fainted before due to panic.  I have hyperventilated.  When I was 18, I went to a party to meet my boyfriend's friends for the first time and I was so nervous and so panicked that I locked myself in the bathroom trying to pull it together.  I turned off all the lights trying to relax and splashed cold water on my face and neck.  I breathed.  I stayed in there for what seemed like hours.  Finally I opened the door only to realize I could not walk I was in such panic.  I fainted right there in front of everyone.  Plop!  My whole body collapsed. 

I studied abroad for six months.  While I was there, I lived in a dorm.  One morning I awoke with horrible pain in my thighs and my pelvis. Horrible pain that lasted for several days.  I convinced myself that the guy across the hall probably raped me in my sleep.  I knew it.  He had either drugged me at dinner by putting something in my drink or food or had drugged me while sleeping or hell, maybe I was such a deep sleeper that such things could happen and I wouldn't even be awakened by them.  I called my mom convinced that I had been raped, gotten pregnant, gotten HIV or all of the above.  All of this by a guy that I barely said three words to ever. 

I can not drive on big roads.  Two lanes are okay but any more than that is just out of the question.  I imagine the road stopping, cutting off and my car falling off the face of the earth.  Bridges, construction zones, semi's and even the slightest curve send me into a panic that feels as if I may die, explode or simply go out of my mind.  My fingers grip everything as do my toes.  My breathing stops.  Driving at night in the rain is just out of the question unless it is a very short and familiar trip.

I get tested for HIV about five times a year.  All have been negative.  But I tell myself that it takes awhile for the positive results to show so I go again and again and again.  I am with a new partner now.  We have been together for nine months, I just got test two weeks ago, Negative.  I have done this with all my partners and tell myself that they probably cheated on me last week, got HIV, gave it to me and now I have to wait another few months to get tested again. And the cycle continues.

I have rituals before an HIV test.  I stop at certain stores, buy certain things and read certain things while I wait.  And none of these things can be deviated or I will FREAK OUT.  I have been to the clinic so many times that I am very familiar with the staff and have two favorites that have waited on me the most.  If someone new waits on me, this almost sends me into LUNACY.  I have honestly considered requesting only the two people I feel most comfortable with but am afraid they will think I am nuts.

Last month I found out I do have an STD but it is not HIV or anything close.  This has sent me into PANIC OVERDRIVE.  I constantly Google symptoms, illnesses and so on.  I have become so depressed about it that I can't even explain.  A few times I have had to leave work because of my panic and worry which is not like me.  I am an avid worker.  I am a student and work three jobs sometimes.  I work long hours and love to work.  It is very important to me not to be absent or call off or anything like that but I did because of the panic. 

Lately I can not sleep.  I lay awake for hours worrying, in a state of panic & hysteria.  I wake up after a few hours of sleep.  The other day I was up for 24 hours and when I went to sleep I couldn't because of panic.  I thought for sure I woud fall right to sleep after being up so long.  But no, and then after three hours I woke up.  Awake.  Freaked out.

I have nightmares.  Horrible ones that wake me up and scare the hell out of me, sure that these dreams are premonitions of the reality that will no doubt come.

A long time ago I read that a town about an hour away from where I live had a high populaton of HIV residents.  I hate going through that town.  And I will not eat at any restaurant in that town.  Tried once and almost got sick.

Everything is a symptom of a fatal disease.  Stuffy nose, dry skin, pain anywhere and I know, I know I am dying.
Any capatilized word that begins with an H, I think it says HIV and that it is a sign. 

The sound of fans calm me.  And the first thing I do is turn on the fans in my house no matter how cold it is outside and get extremely annoyed when people turn them off.  I hate walking into my bedroom and the fan is not on. 

A few months ago, I lost a pregnancy.  I can't even.  I have two best friends and one has a newborn and one just found out she was having a baby.  I can't talk about it.

I cry alot.  I worry alot.  I get so panicked that I curl in a ball and think such irrational thoughts.

Treatment:
 I told my OBGYN a little about all of this and she prescribed Zoloft which made me Nuts.  Side effects and not good side effects.  I went to my general practitioner and he referred me to a therapist to do some tests.  He said the tests and the therapy would better help him prescribe something that would me.  In the meantime, I am on Celexa and though it does not have the terrible side effects as Zoloft, it doesn't seem to helping much at all.

Does anyone have any advice on treatment, meds, therapy or similar experiences?. . .
Thank you for listening.  Sorry so long.

Lots of Love....