Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
I have suffered with hypochondriasis (health-related anxiety) since I was around 8. I will be 30 in November, and somehow I have indeed survived all of my "made up" disorders. I also see a therapist a few times and year, and ironically, I am graduating with my degree in marriage and family therapy in the spring. I joke with my family and tell them I can do relationships, but not psychotherapy! It is quite difficult for me to share this private part of my life with too many people. My husband and family are totally aware I struggle, but they really cannot relate. Hypochondriasis is a very difficult disorder to treat and support is often needed, so thanks in advance to anyone who is here for me and "gets it". Also, bless your heart for the weary journey you've likely been on as well.
I developed a rash on both shins a few weeks ago. Never having any prior skin issues, it got my attention. I did what we all do and decided I was going to Google my way to the solution. We all probably know by now, this is a slippery slope to a panic attack and obsessive scary thougthts. I found lots of stuff on shin rashes signifying a "systemic issue". I saw a dermatologist who told me it looked to be eczema. Weird. I've never had that in all my life.
So then I decide I'm going to poke around and do my routine lump and bump check. I noticed some little lumpy-feeling things, like squishy balls (haha) in my left groin. They are smaller than a pea, but only on the one side. The red rash is also predominantly on the left shin. I have worked myself into a complete health-crisis--frenzy over this. I cannot stop touching the squishy balls and Googling more and more questions framed in different ways! Everything of course comes up "lymphoma". Does anyone know if you can normally feel your lymph nodes, especially in the groin area? Or could the squishy balls be like fatty deposits?
Does anyone else have a lumpy groin!? :) Help
Hypochondriac since 8 years old? That's a very long time. I hope you find the road to recovery soon.
About 2 months after my first bout of anxiety, I started running 3 times a week. And then, I started feeling pain in both my shins. I initially thought I had fractured bones. I sleep on the couch some days and sometimes I catch myself resting one of my feet on the other's shin. This made me stop running. Before I went in to get an x-ray, I decided to google my condition.
I'm actually an optimistic person, how I got anxiety is one of the mysteries of my life. People always find the worst cases when they google their symptoms, but when I did my research, I learned about shin splints. Basically, it's when the muscles around your shin gets inflamed because of a sudden increase in work load. Perhaps you suddenly decided you'll run a marathon after years of not running. Knowing this gave me a paradigm shift. Instead of telling myself my shins are going to give out the next time I apply pressure on it, I started telling myself it's just shin splints. Worked wonders for me. I rested for a while, actually a month, shin splints take 3-4 weeks to completely heal, then I started running again. No more pain. My body has adapted.
I think it is important to realize our bodies are amazing "machines". It won't breakdown very easily, IF you are taking care of it. Actually even under a lot of abuse, the body is still very resilient. Trust your bodies more. If you're not living healthy, start changing your lifestyle. When you know you're doing something wrong to your body, every single scratch or bruise gets your brain worked up and imagining all sorts of incurable decease,
The brain is sort of a scumbag though. You try to tell it everything is fine, but sometimes it just wont listen. Such is the case with hypochondria. It just rears it's ugly head from time to time, out of the blue, and doesn't like to be told.
I think we should make baby steps towards living a healthy lifestyle. As we do, our confidence in our bodies increase, to the point when we can say to ourselves, when we feel there's something wrong, "this is nothing serious, I'm healthy."
I was able to fight back the last few anxiety attacks I've had. Hopefully my success continues. This is a hard battle but certainly something something we can win over.