My story

[jamiebrown]

Hello everyone was just trying to think the other day if there was anything that has caused my anxiety and depression and I looked back over my life and found one big big cause when I just left school a friend of mine died of stomach cancer at the age of 16 this scared the life out of me and mate me worry and check my body for symptoms, I would start feeling stomach pains and stomach cramps this scared me.

Then I would hear story's about people having illnesses and there symptoms and I would obsesses over it and I would feel though symptoms.

A hole different side to my story was about two years ago I split from my girlfriend at the age of 21 we had been together since we where 13 this broke my heart and I started going down hill from there I lost a lot of weight and I couldn't get over her.... Moving on 2 years later I have a new girlfriend but I can't seem to forget my ex i still dream about her every night and have major night sweats and wake up feeling terrible. My symptoms have got worse because I am thinking about her a lot lately, as you can tell I have health anxiety. I was a model for a year and I even quit that because I didn't feel up to it health anxiety is now a major part of my life and I'm sick of checking google for my symptoms even though I have had 3 blood tests over the last 6 month and they have all come back ok it's still in my mind.

I have been put on anti depressants now by doc and been on them for 3 month they have help a little but I still feel horrible on a night and on a morning.

Sorry for the long story I hope some of you can help me as I just needed to tell my story to someone as even my family don't truly understand what I'm going through

[kelseyt]

I also had 2 friends die of cancer when I was young.

Looking back at it I think that didn't help my health anxiety either because watching someone go through cancer and not make it is such a scary thing.
But now I try to think that if they could speak to me they'd tell me to stop worrying and go on with my life as they don't have theirs anymore.
This helps me in a way because I know they wouldn't want me worrying over something they had and it ruined their life and they wouldn't want it to do the same to me when I don't even have it.

One thing I will say is either do not use google anymore, or anytime you google a symptom put anxiety infront of the symptom. Google is quite amazing as it can bring any symptom such as an ache in your finger back to cancer or some life threatening disease. It won't do this if you put anxiety into the search with the symptom.

On another note if you're still thinking about your ex at night is it right to be with your new girlfriend?
I always say you shouldn't be with someone unless you're 100% into it. But that's just my opinion :)

I hope this helps abit and know that you aren't alone with health anxiety. It's awful to live with but it does get better with the right thoughts. :)

[alankay]

Well any time there could be an event or trigger for anxiety it's best explored with the help of a therapist. Sometimes we have psychological defense mechanisms that stop up from fully processing these things and need professional help for help that. Many times anxiety can be resolved or greatly reduced that way. There may be more to it that just the event. I mean you might just need help exploring all this. Might help. Alankay