Severe anxiety causing manic paranoia regarding radiation

[john_33]

I suffer from extreme hypochondria which is acting up...

I did something really stupid. 2 weeks ago I found an unopened pack of cigarettes on the floor....ive never smoked before ever so i took em...today i finally decided to smoke it...i took a few puffs and threw it away...now im reading some russian spy got radiation poisoning from a cigarette and died...could i have smoked a radioactive cigarette.

What are the chances of...

1) Spies finding nuclear poison.
2) Finding a pack of cigs and coating the cigs with the poison in order to test it on people.
3) They some how make the cig pack look unopen.
4) Its been about a week and I have no symptoms.
5) The russian spy wasnt poisoned by cigs. The poison was placed in a tea cup.
6) why would they pick a quiet street in woodside queens nyc?
7) How could I ingest radioactive poison from cig?

[ohokay]

I'm not going to answer all of those questions.
Not because I think you're crazy, I think the SAME things, so don't freak. You would know if there was anything. Maybe not if it was something you swallowed, but smoked? You'd definatly not be able to do things like type if you had some kind of "poisening" from a cigarette
Dont worry, and don't ever smoke again! That makes hypochondria act up big time

[islander1]

LOL!! well look at you now man, its been 2 weeks and your fine, if it was poison, you would have died already.


remember, its all in your head. What you have to do is say to yourself " I have this illness, so its normal to think irrational things"

That way youl realize that YOU ARE ALLOWED TO THINK LIKE THAT BECAUSE OF THE CONDITION YOU HAVE, and you are not crazy or whatever. Its just how it is.

ya get my drift? Anyway cigarettes have over A THOUSAND CHEMICLES in them. So in a way you are poisining yourself, just in a very slow form.

peace out

[Robbed]

'Manic paranoia'? No, just obsessive worrying. Realize that this is just a symptom of anxiety, and don't engage the thought. Just try your best to let it pass and go on with what you are doing.

[joey9]

I get this kind of excessive worry all the time and its totally driving me crazy. Because as soon as an anxiety episode is over I can look back and realise how bizarre it was but at the time it feels totally and absolutely real. And I make things so real in my head that i start acting crazy with people around me as if the crazy worry were actually true. Here is something to try that I have just read in a book about GAD and worry. Apparantly worry is verbal - i have realised this is definately true in my case - i always worry in words (really fast ones that don't stop coming). This is apparantly a strategy to avoid having to visualise what you are worrying about because we fear it so much. So you need to desensitise to this fear by getting past the verbal worry and actually letting ourselves visualise the fearsome ending to our worries. It recommends writing this down in explicit detail, without in any way trying to make yourself feel any better by rationalising anything. Just go full on pouring it all out in all its gorey detail. Then, spend 30 minutes per day reading through what you have written, again, not trying to make yourself feel any better. Gradually reading it will become less and less scarey. I don't really know what is supposed to happen next - I guess that once you can stop suppressing the vision with 'worry' it doesn't provoke such a fearful reaction and you can let the thought pass like a normal person would (We all know it would be hideous to have radiation poisoning but we don't all spend hours worrying about it). Anyway, it seems to make sense but I just finished the book so haven't tried it yet - perhaps I will try it tonight with my current worry - that the man that my husband had a minor driving altercation with last week will track us down through a crooked police contact and come and stalk us and then firebomb the house.

[Robbed]

Here's something else to consider. Smoking is a trap that MANY depression/anxiety sufferers find themselves mired in. Don't let this happen to you. Because cigarettes are dangerous enough without radioactive contamination, not to mention VERY addictive.