To have a fear of cancer

[Coolio4]

I think I have a real issue with anxiety as I am terrified of having cancer and I wouldn’t know. I am also scared that my young children will get cancer, the thought absolutely terrifies me..I don’t want to hurt anybody that is going through this (you must be so strong and brave)

I know this is just anxiety, I am going to talk to my GP

How is this affecting you day to day? Sounds like a chat with your gp is a good idea

I'm sure that it's not an uncommon fear. Is there any particular reason for your anxiety?

Constantly checking symptoms etc, it’s a bloody nightmare, always jump to the worst case. I know deep die. That if it happened I would deal with it, my uncle died last year 2 months after his diagnosis, I have really struggled since.

Hello OP, I have been the same since my first DH died of a brain tumour. Sympathies. My GP has been helpful. Sorry to hear about your uncle.

its so awful isn’t it 😢 I’m sorry you struggle too x

I totally empathise OP. I have health anxiety and cancer is my biggest preoccupation. I have always suffered anxiety to some degree but it has manifested in different ways over the years. The health anxiety started after I lost my Mum and Dad to cancer within 10 weeks of each other, nearly 10 years ago. I went through a period of two years of intense health anxiety (alongside my grief). Ironically, I was in such a state of high anxiety that the anxiety itself caused physical symptoms which I then focused on and believed to be symptoms of cancer and then I became more anxious, and so on. So I was in an awful vicious cycle for a while there. For me, it was SSRIs and talking therapy that helped me get out of that cycle.

When Covid kicked off, I fully expected my health anxiety to come back but it didn’t, much to my surprise and relief. But then recently, I’ve had another resurgence of it when I was having some gastric/digestive problems, and an old school friend died of cancer 3 months after first going to the Dr.
It seems my health anxiety is focused very much on cancer and other illnesses don’t seem to trigger it.

I know it’s pointless me telling you to resist the urge to Google symptoms or changes in the body. Pointless because you doubtless already know, and because I know it’s very hard to ignore that urge when it strikes. The thing is, almost any symptom or bodily event can be a symptom of cancer. So Googling anything health related is always going to bring up results mentioning cancer. Which doesn’t help you in any way.

For me, medication and talking therapy helped hugely. In particular, CBT is often used for this type of thing as it teaches you to stop those thoughts in their tracks and challenge them.

I really hope you can get some help with this as I know how debilitating and terrifying it can be. I can still remember the palpitations and waking with a start in the middle of the night with a feeling of terror, convinced that I had cancer and would die from it imminently. It’s awful and you have my sympathies. 💐

Posting to give you some hope.

My children lost their father to cancer, and I developed very bad Health Anxiety. It was awful, and at times I could barely function. I was petrified that I would miss something and my children would have to go through it with me too.

It then escalated into a fear of heart conditions, to the point where I would crawl up the stairs slowly in case I gave myself a heart attack.

I had CBT and I did a lot of reflection about the overwhelming responsibility I felt to keep myself alive. When I started to put that in perspective, (and did jumping jacks in my therapist's office, which did not kill me) I started to recover.

A good few years later and I now have what I would class as normal and healthy amounts of anxiety. In fact, when I actually did have BCC, I was so laid back about it. I know a few years ago I would have been a mess waiting for the surgery and results.

I remember feeling like there was no way out at the time. But there is hope and a full recovery is possible. Refer yourself to your local IAPT if you have one.

🤗

Well done for talking to your GP, I found CBT very helpful. I rejected antidepressants at first, but when they found the right one for me they were a game changer.

As an aside, I'm participating in a drug trial; the goal is to develop a blood test for several common kinds of cancer. I reckon it could be a game changer, especially if it can pick up markers early on.

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003MQLZHQ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

This is a really good book that you might find helpful.

This has really resonated with me as I have massive health anxiety surrounding cancer.
I tend to block out stressful life events by focusing on ‘symptoms’

Currently in that cycle and know I won’t be out of it until I’ve been checked out
Dont know how DH puts up with it really