Heart Attack anxiety

[jlong007]

Hello all,

Every time I hear that someone died, I have to know how old they were and how they died. When I find out, I start to feel all these sensations. If someone tells me that the person died of a heart attack, even worse.

I start to feel hotness shooting up my sides and back, going up to my neck and I start to freak out. Why do I still freak out about it if my doctors have told me I'm perfectly healthy?

It drives me crazy

[kdubg]

Your really not alone. It's almost like every time I hear the word heart attack my anxiety sky rockets

[fiendwithoutaface]

Oddly, I go through this too. I knew someone younger than me recently who had a heart attack, but survived... And I went straight out and bought a treadmill thinking that would save my life. O.o

[Manpie]

I'm always thinking about stuff like this. I try to watch or listen to something funny to take my mind off it.

[Jinaiya]

This exact same thing happens to me as well. The younger the person is, the higher my anxiety.

[dazza]

I've lived with heart attack anxiety for a year now, it's taken me to hell and back on many, MANY occasions.

And, to make matters a million times worse, anxiety causes ALL the 'effing symptoms that mimic an 'effing heart attack - not least of all palpitations, eptopic beats and out-of-fucking-nowhere flippety floppety fast heart rates.

Uuuggghhhh my god, anxiety - you're a complete and utter bastard and I hate you very much indeed.

In fact... I'm gonna get my dad on you... lol

[zksmom]

This is so me. Having anxiety heightens every little twinge, pain or whatever in my body. I feel one little thing and I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack or stroke. The anxiety does mimic these diseases, which makes it hard to know whether something is really wrong or its just the anxiety. I feel like I may miss something big if I just pass the symptoms off as anxiety, rather than something serious. It's a vicious cycle. :(

[Jconley]

I completely understand what you guys are saying. I have this same issue and its a freaking curse! I hate that I am so in tune to every little feeling in my body cause it just freaks me out. It is hard to decipher in your mind what may actually be wrong with you or what is anxiety. I'm afraid that at some point I will chalk something up to anxiety and it will really be something wrong. I'm sorry you all have to go through these things cause it's hard but hang in there. I think to myself sometimes that certain people have this cause only those certain people can deal with it. It takes a strong person to deal with this stuff every day.

[dazza]

In answer to the original question:

You still freak out because:

a/ you've spent SO long freaking out that it's become somewhat of a habit

b/ your nervous system is hyper sensitized... it is this way because you have anxiety disorder & are in a constant state of panic to various degrees.
When threatened, one of the many responses is a sensitive & hyper nervous system, it is this way in order to smarten & quicken our senses.

In the case of anxiety disorder, all this does is make us feel EVERYTHING within our bodies... nerve endings are on the look out for pain and immediately send messages back to the brain.
This is just what we don't need, since the fright response actually CAUSES pains... making it a one fucked up, self-feeding bastard of a state to be in.

c/ your initial worry of a heart attack was SO real and strong - it was essentially a self-made trauma.
It takes a long time for your brain to recover from trauma.

[JayB4231981]

Oh yeas...and it really messes things up and feels like a uncontrollable mental curse! Then again I smoke and am overweight so I get extra reasons to panic over the thought lol. Every time a pain in my chest area or left arm and I assume the worst, it's a TERRIBLE habit :(