GAD & Health Anxiety
Hi,
I have been a chronic worrier pretty much since I popped out of the womb. My particular brand of quirkiness is usually severe Generalized Anxiety Disorder but I usually know my triggers and avoid them – the dark, being in buildings alone, being in my own home alone, the undead, dubious people, animals, animal bones … the list goes on from the sublime to the ridiculous. Surprisingly, despite all these fears, I have always been a cup half full type of girl, mild tempered and ambitious.
I do have a fear of flying but I somehow managed to get on a plane for a long haul flight to visit my boyfriend several times. Now, I actually live across the globe with him and we are very happy and getting married in 2020. I was petrified of dogs, but some unexpected and unavoidable exposure to older, tame dogs really helped me with this fear and now I love dogs, in fact we are thinking of getting a Mastiff! However my irrational fear of being alone especially at night and the dark is my most debilitating fear and I really struggle to overcome it … at least it was my worst fear until recently.
In January this year something changed. My boyfriend lost his niece, I never met her, but she died suddenly at 20 from an embolism to the heart. That marked the beginning of a weird thought process for me. I began to worry that I would get a blood clot and my life would be over painfully and I would not get to get married or do all the things I want to do. I am aware that no one gets out of life alive, but it would be nice to be aged like a cheese or wine when the time comes to put me out to pasture. To make matters worse, I am not yet a permanent resident so I have been paying privately for medical visits and I have medical coverage, but most clinics and the hospital don’t take third party insurance so in the event something did go terribly wrong, we would have to pay out of pocket. Doctors and hospitals don’t take beans and there is no golden money tree, so my mind races to ‘god I’m dying to, god I can’t afford to die!’ I should note, we are in the process of applying for permanent residency which is a stressful experience in itself.
To cut a long story short … (418 words later), my GAD is so out control I now have health anxiety. I check my vitals every day, spit on my hand because I think I can taste blood, strip every time I feel a pain, electric shock or see a new bluer than normal vein. I feel like every day since January 10th I have experienced a new symptom, random thoughts of nowhere, my veins look bluer than normal I must have DVT or a blood clot, god my ankles are swollen, it’s a blood clot, electric shock, blood clot, heart pounding, heart attack, sore mouth, mouth cancer. I even worried that my mind would give out and I’d become a schizophrenic and lose myself.
The weird thing is: I know it is health anxiety, the doctor has told me I am perfectly fine my anxiety is just out of control, but I still cannot calm myself down because of the 0.00001% chance it’s not an anxiety thing. Somehow I still manage to stay a cup half full girl, even though I cry a lot more and feel out of control. I can sense sometimes that I drive everyone crazy because I need constant reassurance or just that one person to say ‘wise up, you’re fine’. My mom warns me that I need to calm down or I’m going to end up in an early grave … that helps … not!
I am trying to be proactive. I have started attending yoga. I am short and overweight but I am working on that, my weight I mean - can’t do anything about my height. I take long walks around our beautiful island. Meditation and breathing helps too, I am taking it a day at time until I am in a position to be able to afford Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I am still plagued with it every day, some days are harder than others, but I won’t let this beat me, even though sometimes I feel like sleep is the only relief. Waking up the next morning is fresh start but the fear that the cycle will continue is there and thus it begins again.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. J
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
From a Quirky Irish Scaredy Cat!
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