Egglish
06-14-2013, 02:10 AM
Hi, I'm brand new here. I don't know if anybody is online. I never really get a chance to get online except at night while my roommate is asleep and I can borrow his computer. So I might only ever be around when everyone else is asleep.
A friend of mine posted on facebook that she has breast cancer. She's someone who I relate to, look up to, and is just a little older than I am. I immediately got obsessed with looking up lung cancer because I have had a really difficult time recently with excessive yawning. What I've found out about excessive yawning is that it's most commonly an anxiety symptom, even though it can be physiological. I've had this trouble since a relatively early age, and combined with my PTSD and other anxiety symptoms, it just seems obvious. I have a hard time letting health concerns like cancer go. I start thinking about all of my little moles (my whole family is pretty mole-y), or the weight gain of the past month or so (a friend of a friend once found a basketball-sized tumor in her stomach) and how I can't really afford to get a lot of medical tests. I've actually gone into a bit of medical debt in the recent past, trying to determine whether I had lupus. The symptoms were valid (although some, such as fatigue, could have easily been imagined). Turned out to be nothing but a harmless skin disease with no treatment needs, and cost a lot of money. Definitely don't want to go into debt checking for heart disease, cancer and who knows what else because I have "shortness of breath" symptoms that are probably anxiety.
My guess as to what has caused the anxiety tonight? Not totally sure but possibly the presence of beer. I drink often with my roommate, but it has almost always been as a coping technique to deal with anxiety that pops up when he is going to be drinking anyway. I almost can't stand it, unless I am drunk also and therefore can't notice the change in his behavior. He used to say very rude things when drunk. Could have something to do with my anxiety about it. Now he's moderately less rude, and it definitely doesn't bother me if I get drunk along with him. I also had an abusive and awful parent who had lifelong substance problems. (I'm basically just typing a lot at this point to give me something better to do than look up diseases.)
So, I convinced myself to let the cancer idea go for now, but wasn't satisfied and started looking up free online anxiety screening test sites. Back of my mind- I knew it wouldn't do any good whatsoever. Now, instead of cancer (let's not rule that out until we know for sure... right...sigh) I have OCD, PTSD, GAD, agoraphobia, and "possible" bipolar symptoms. The PTSD one has been a given for a while (as strongly affirmed by a few therapists although I'm afraid of getting a "real" diagnosis on file... god I realize how nuts that probably sounds), and I've been making pretty good progress recently actually. The high number of OCD questions which apply to me (I'm pretty sure these were legitimate questions because I recognized ALL of the PTSD ones as legitimate hah) came as a surprise though. I guess that's bothering/stressing me out now.
And finally, I ended up here. Hoping someone might talk to me. Not an emergency, but one of those nights eh?
A friend of mine posted on facebook that she has breast cancer. She's someone who I relate to, look up to, and is just a little older than I am. I immediately got obsessed with looking up lung cancer because I have had a really difficult time recently with excessive yawning. What I've found out about excessive yawning is that it's most commonly an anxiety symptom, even though it can be physiological. I've had this trouble since a relatively early age, and combined with my PTSD and other anxiety symptoms, it just seems obvious. I have a hard time letting health concerns like cancer go. I start thinking about all of my little moles (my whole family is pretty mole-y), or the weight gain of the past month or so (a friend of a friend once found a basketball-sized tumor in her stomach) and how I can't really afford to get a lot of medical tests. I've actually gone into a bit of medical debt in the recent past, trying to determine whether I had lupus. The symptoms were valid (although some, such as fatigue, could have easily been imagined). Turned out to be nothing but a harmless skin disease with no treatment needs, and cost a lot of money. Definitely don't want to go into debt checking for heart disease, cancer and who knows what else because I have "shortness of breath" symptoms that are probably anxiety.
My guess as to what has caused the anxiety tonight? Not totally sure but possibly the presence of beer. I drink often with my roommate, but it has almost always been as a coping technique to deal with anxiety that pops up when he is going to be drinking anyway. I almost can't stand it, unless I am drunk also and therefore can't notice the change in his behavior. He used to say very rude things when drunk. Could have something to do with my anxiety about it. Now he's moderately less rude, and it definitely doesn't bother me if I get drunk along with him. I also had an abusive and awful parent who had lifelong substance problems. (I'm basically just typing a lot at this point to give me something better to do than look up diseases.)
So, I convinced myself to let the cancer idea go for now, but wasn't satisfied and started looking up free online anxiety screening test sites. Back of my mind- I knew it wouldn't do any good whatsoever. Now, instead of cancer (let's not rule that out until we know for sure... right...sigh) I have OCD, PTSD, GAD, agoraphobia, and "possible" bipolar symptoms. The PTSD one has been a given for a while (as strongly affirmed by a few therapists although I'm afraid of getting a "real" diagnosis on file... god I realize how nuts that probably sounds), and I've been making pretty good progress recently actually. The high number of OCD questions which apply to me (I'm pretty sure these were legitimate questions because I recognized ALL of the PTSD ones as legitimate hah) came as a surprise though. I guess that's bothering/stressing me out now.
And finally, I ended up here. Hoping someone might talk to me. Not an emergency, but one of those nights eh?