Life after Health Anxiety
Hi guys
This reddit was suggested to me and I realised that like a lot of people, I once heavily relied on threads and forums like this to keep me afloat and until it appeared on my feed today, I hadn't even thought it for months or even years. People tend to either still have issues, or fix them and never come back to say so. So I thought I'd do a little post to say that there can be a normal, healthy life after Health Anxiety. Something that at one point felt genuinely impossible to me.
A little back story a few years ago I was in my living room having a perfectly lovely day with my family. I suddenly felt very very off, but absolutely nothing like a "normal" panic attack. I was completely fine, then bam. I felt like I might pass out. It was all I could do to stay upright. I had weird numbness in my left side. I tried going for a lie down and somehow felt dizzy even lying down. I went to A and E utterly convinced I was having a TIA. They checked me over, did all manner of tests suggesting stroke, clot, MS. Everything came back clear. It happened again a few weeks later. Everything was clear. They told me I was anxious. I said absolutely not, I didn't feel anxious at all mentally, until after I felt bad physically. I realise now that my body knew I was anxious long before my mind. But honestly at the time I didn't believe it was possible. I was ill and no one was listening.
Anyway to try to trim it down, I spent months/years running back and forward to the GP. Every tiny sensation set me off. I googled diseases and illnesses and obscure stuff even most GPs have never heard of and convinced myself I had it. I manifested genuine physical symptoms and couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. It got so bad I sat in either my GP surgery or A and E waiting room (not registered, not using resources just being in proximity) as these were the only places I felt safe. I had three young kids and it was a horrible horrible time as I was so honest to god sure I was physically ill.
Eventually I started just dropping my kids at school/nursery and sleeping. All day. I slept. Nothing could hurt me when I was sleeping right? I had physical symptoms of something or other, all the time. I was so terrified of illness and death that I reached a point I almost wanted to die. The very thing I was terrified of, because then at least I wouldn't fear it anymore.
Here I am today, years later. And I am genuinely OK. I have an occasional wobble. I'm very good now at knowing what's real and what isn't and what is reasonable and what isn't. It's a little sad because a part of me will never fully trust my mind or body, but I've come a long long way and I never thought I'd feel normal again. One of the most helpful things I've seen was simple. You can have absolutely every symptom of something.... And not have it. This was a groundbreaker for me as I realised I ticked every symptom list of many conditions over the time I suffered. How many of these did I have? None. Zero.
I don't suppose this will maybe help many people as there was no one thing. No magic cure. But you can recover from it and when I was in my darkest struggles, I didn't see many people come back and say... It gets better. But it can. It does. You can be OK ☺️