newtothis
12-07-2007, 12:16 PM
So I've recently been diagnosed by a therapist as having GAD. I just graduated from college a few months ago, moved to a new apt., etc. and i thought i was handling it all well. Well, i had a panic attack a few months ago, and it was about a month after that that i really began experiencing some full on anxiety symptoms. After graduation, i started a new job. One day at lunch a coworker and i were talkign and getting to know one another, when he mentioned that his first wife had passed away from a brain tumor. He said she was feeling perfectly healthy and went to the optometrist for a regular eye exam and was found that she had a swollen optic nerve, and after doing an MRI, foudn she had a brain tumor and passed away a year later. After he told me this, the story always kind of stayed in the back of my head as something terrifying, that one day someone could be so healthy and then the next find out they have a brain tumor. Anyway, a couple months passed, and some of my coworkers were talking about it at lunch one day. That week i had been experiencing eye fatigue ( i think now that was from staring at my computer all day) and being the worrier that i am, i immediately convinced myself that i also, in fact, had a brain tumor. I know it sounds so ridiculous and family and friends would look at me like I had two heads when i told them what i was worried about. Anyway, i ended up going to two optometrists and two regular primary care physicians and they all said i was fine. However, for the past THREE months my vision has been so weird. Nothings blurry, my eye doctor said my prescription is still the same ( i wear glasses), he even did this new test that checks ones peripheral vision that can be lost due to brain tumors. And i agree- nothing is blurry, but something just seems not right. Almost like I can't focus, sometimes like the ground is moving. Very odd, and VERY hard to explain. I also get floaters occasionally, dark spots in my vision, particularly after looking at a light, and bright lights are tough. Also i noticed it only happens on certain parts of my day, like when i'm walkign to work in the morning, when i'm walking to the metro on my way home, and then sometimes at work- looking at a computer is torture for me. I've never had anxiety like this before in my life, so thats why it scares me that it's not anxiety and it's something else. Should i go get a third (or fifth, if you include all the doctors) opinion? I've also been sleeping terribly, waking up in the middle of the night, can't concentrate on anything, reading has even become somewhat difficult, and DEFINITELY have had some derealisation/depersonalization, which is the scariest. I also have found that i go on Google/internet for hours upon hours reading up on brain tumors and whether or not i have "the symptoms." Not surprisingly, i'll read about a "symptom" of a brain tumor and then a few days later I'll oddly develop it, i.e. headaches. I'm so exhausted from all of this. How can i get over this????? :unsure: