please help me anxiety is destroying my life

[homeusburger]

nc for this as am a regular. sorry for the inevitable long post but I just can't take it any more and I don't know who else to talk to.

I have suffered anxiety my whole life (in my mid twenties now), ever since I was a tiny child I can remember feeling worried. When I was a kid it was about bad things happening to my mum, my mum getting ill, my mum dying etc. When I got older I still worried about my mum but also added my boyfriend(s) into the mix and also suffer massive bouts of health anxiety where I am convinced I have cancer or some other incurable horrible disease.

I have a good life for all intents and purposes: good job, nice flat (rented), live with my lovely DP and we are saving up for a deposit on a house and will ttc our first baby soon. Have had a few problems with family (parents split up many years ago and mum has been struggling with an abusive relationship, but we are all very close) but nothing that others don't go through.

Health anxiety is the main one at the moment. for example I am convinced I might have CJD, ALS, breast cancer, bone cancer, colon cancer. If I read about someone who has died of a disease, particularly at a young age, I become convinced I have that disease. I also worry excessively about the health of my mum and my DP.

I hear so many stories of people losing loved ones to horrible illnesses and they all seem to be so strong and deal with it and I just think I couldn't do that. If my DP or my mum died I would just fall apart. Even if they just got sick. I would just want to die. It makes me feel like such a failure and such a shit person that I can't even be strong for other people, like I'm so self centred all I can think about is myself.

I have have CBT and it didn't work for me. I have taken pills and they didn't work for me.

I am terrified of dying. I feel like I am trapped by being alive as I have to live knowing I will die, and not knowing when, and yet I am too scared to die to think about suicide or anything like that. I am a joke of a person.

I'm sorry for the long confused post, I just needed to get it out. I feel like I am a complete waste of space.

You are not a waste of space or non person. You have an illness. Fortunately it can be managed and minimised you just need to muster the strength to find out which combination of treatments work for you.

There are lots of medications available. Some seam to numb you, some can be used for a shorter space of time when things are particularly bad, some are a lighter course that take the edge of but certainly don't stop all anxiety. Some have side effects but its worth pursuing to find something that takes the edge off to enable you to develop the mind management skills that'll help you longer term.

We need anxiety to not step out infront of cars, to safeguard ourselves so curing all anxiety isn't the desire.

Different CBT practitioners work in different ways. I also think that if you're in a bad anxiety phase its a bad time to do CBT (not professional but personal opinion). Mindfullness is another thing that works for some and hypnotherapy to learn relaxation techniques can be very effective.

My DH has health anxiety under control. His big one was aids, but cancer was a big worry too. He's been tested so many times for so many things.

His rules now are no medical googling, no medical conversations, no medical type programmes on TV, no seeking any reassurance for any new suspected symptoms. No visits to GP unless he's made a weekly diary note of same symptoms for three months consistently - without checking back what he's written in previous entries.

Actually any discussion on the actual anxiety are an absolute no no in my book. We have a small dog - brought in part to help DH get out and about when he's in a locked down mode. If he starts getting in an anxiety loop the dog goes on her lead, gets very excited and he's sent out the house - day or night.

You can find a way forward. Do you think you could face revisiting your GP?

Hello homeusburger. There's a health anxiety thread if you'd like to join.

I know how you feel, although I've only been suffering with health anxiety for the past few months. I imagine it must be very hard to have had to deal with it for such a long time. Please don't give up on recovery though.