Scared of illness and Dying

[Topcat]

There has been so much media coverage of Jade Goody recently it has started to make me feel really depressed for her and her family and it has started to flare up all my anxieties about dying.

It has reminded me how death can creep on anyone and how 7 months ago she had no idea she had such little time left, I know it is not healthy to focus on such negative things and that it is a good reason for making the most of the time we do have but I can really feel this fear starting to get a grip of me again and I am petrified I will die and not see my children grow up (my fear of death started after my parents died both aged 51).

My b/f says we cant worry about things out of our control and to stop reading such depressing news, but it is because it is out of our control it frightens me to much.

:sad:

[shakeNtwitch]

I suffer very bad with health anxiety (hypochondria) it all started after a flippant remark made about a year ago by a friend about i could be ill and not know it. Since then i have been to the doctor pretty much every week. I've had 6/7 blood test testing everything had x-rays and scans all coming back saying there is nothing seriously wrong with me but i cant accept the results and have even seen a different doctor to have the same tests redone and they came back fine too. But i still believe i have something seriously wrong and am going to die. The stress thinking like that is huge and takes its toll and exacerbates the general feeling of being unwell. My biggest worry now is that if i stop going to the doctors and having tests or checking myself for changes i will develop something bad and not realise until its too late to do something about it. Every morning i do an inventory of my body i.e i wake up after a few restless hours sleep and go heart- racing i have a heart problem, arm numb- MS or ME, sweating- lymphoma etc etc. I always imagine the worse possible scenario. The symptoms and worries change day to day but they are always the same except they rotate depending on what i perceived was wrong with me that day. Then i will link them such as i have an immune problem which caused cancer which has spread causing lymphoma and that has put a strain on my heart. When i write it out i know it sounds ludicrous and maybe for a few hours a day i convince myself im stupid and my arm was numb because i lay on it, my heart was racing because i have anxiety, im tired because i only got a few hours sleep. I've had the tests and im fine and then my anxiety levels lower but it always returns to high level a few hours later, then i worry i have past it onto other people . Its such a miserable existence.

[Topcat]

Every morning i do an inventory of my body i.e i wake up after a few restless hours sleep and go heart- racing i have a heart problem, arm numb- MS or ME, sweating- lymphoma etc etc. I always imagine the worse possible scenario. The symptoms and worries change day to day but they are always the same except they rotate depending on what i perceived was wrong with me that day. .


This is what I was like 11 years ago after my parents died, I was at my doctors at least 3 times a week, they were fantastic and sent me for tests for all kinds of things just to prove to me that I was healthy, eventually after a couple of years the obsession of illness eased, it always flares up if I am unwell (like with a cold or something) or if anyone close to me gets ill but I have been particularly bad over the last few days and am worried I will get as bad as last time.

I sympathize with you as I know it is so hard to be like that, I hope it eases for you too as time goes by.

[cloudysky89]

For about the past 6 months i've been up and down with panic and anxiety. It started off with panic attacks but they have now eased off (thankfully!) but i now find myself obsessing over things that could be wrong with me. If i have a sore head i think that it must be something serious, if i have a stitch in my chest i automatically think the worst. I'm constantly google'ing all of these symptoms and reading up about things that i probably dont have. I'm very glad from reading this that i am not alone. For the past 4 weeks i've been speaking to a 'Community Listener' and she's slowly helping me. I've only just turned 20 and i know i have so much of my life ahead of me but i can't help but worry. Is this something that just eases with time? Does anyone have any advice on how to get over this??

[shakeNtwitch]

Googling symptoms is possibly the worst thing you could do. Once i stopped doing that i felt somewhat better, i've read on the internet of people suffering health anxiety worrying and being convinced they have something for 10-20 years. They have wasted half their lives worrying about a particular illness. I mean its usually something like cancer, after 20 years of being ok i think you would realise you do not have cancer but thats how hypochondria works. I prefer the term health anxiety as when you say hypochondria to people its a bit of a joke isnt it, no one takes you seriously. They dont realise how bloody miserable it is waking up and being convinced your are seriously ill and thinking you are going to die soon. It got so bad at one stage i wrote a goodbye letter to my family about how i was going to miss them and that i'd watch over them, i was that convinced i was going to die within days just before christmas. Now it has eased since then but it hasn't completely gone.
I take really good care of myself i workout about an hour a day 6 days a week, eat healthily and dont smoke or drink my blood pressure is fine my bloods are fine so why cant i shake that feeling?

[Topcat]

I take really good care of myself i workout about an hour a day 6 days a week, eat healthily and dont smoke or drink my blood pressure is fine my bloods are fine so why cant i shake that feeling?


Probably for the same reason I worry so much about it, its out of our control and we cant see inside out bodies so dont know whats going on until its too late. My dad passed a medical six weeks before he died and the doctor told him that he was "extremely healthy" for a man of his age !!

I watched an interview with Sharon Osborn last night and they talked about when she had bowel cancer and so today I am even more freaked out its starting to annoy me that its taking control of me again :cry:

[shakeNtwitch]

yeah i watched that interview too and my heart started to pound, i hate hearing all this bad stuff on the news. I was at the hospital today getting some results and while waiting everywhere on the walls was about cancer and symptoms and what to look out for just made my anxiety alot worse

[Topcat]

yeah i watched that interview too and my heart started to pound, i hate hearing all this bad stuff on the news. I was at the hospital today getting some results and while waiting everywhere on the walls was about cancer and symptoms and what to look out for just made my anxiety alot worse

Its crazy isnt it, so much wasted energy worrying about what might happen, I worry so much about getting cancer and needing to have chemo because of my phobia of vomiting, I have a bad hip at the moment and wont even take the strong pain killers prescribed in case they make me vomit and I keep worrying its cancer in my bone even though I know in reality its a pulled tendon!!

My mum was 49 when she got breast cancer and now I am 42 I keep thinking I might not have long left even though my grandparents lived to their 80s then I feel guilty for thinking this way as there are so many people with genuine illness who just get on with it.

[fillyjonk]

Please don't forget how the media love to play on the bad, rarely on the good news and for them, the more gruesome, the better. Don't buy the newspapers. Yes, people do get ill and die - it does happen but how the media are using Jade's story is shameful. Yes, is is sad, whoever the person is BUT what is more shameful is the people who buy these papers and pour over stranger's lives. I have seen her face on the newspapers everday for the last few weeks. You could argue that jade was in the public eye anyway but the media make me sick all the same. I just choose not to support tabloids in any way - they are a disgrace to the UK in my opinion. Our society is obsessed with celeb culture. A lot of people care more about reading crap about celebs yet they don't know their own neighbours! Sorry - I'm ranting now and slightly going off at a tangent.

If you have problems with anxiety/panic and hearing bad news affects you - I do experience this too by the way. I try to tell myself that the media has changed very much over the years and often it is not what they report but HOW they report it that is the increasing problem. The media is very manipulative so try to keep it in perspective. Hearing bad news affects my anxiety levels too but I now try to focus on the more positive - I know this is hard when you turn on the radio or TV (try getting rid of your TV - I've not had one for over ten years but I can well imagine what the images are like on the news - they go too far these days)

[Topcat]

Don't buy the newspapers.

I know this is hard when you turn on the radio or TV (try getting rid of your TV


I dont buy newspapers I havent done for years they are far too depressing but I do hear it ont he radio and TV and there is no way I can live without my TV lol
:eek: