why do you think you have health anxiety?

[ssd]

I know there's a health anxiety topic, but I'n trying to get to the bottom of why I think I've got it.

I feel I've got it as I've got absolutely no support outside me and dh with the kids and I'm terrified something happens to us.

Its got worse since my mum died, she was the last of my close family.

Its just me dh and the kids now and absolutely no one else.

Leaving my kids before they grow up utterly utterly terrifies me and I check every lump and bump and expect the worst at all time. Theres something terrifying me just now but I cant even write it down incase someone comes on and says I had this and it led to C....

I honestly feel my health anxiety is out of control, I need to try to get to the bottom of it.'

Mine was triggered by my sister in law dying very suddenly from a blood clot it's almost as if a switch went off But I had no idea it happened , I've since obsessed about :
Blood clots (x3 times)
Skin cancer (x2 times)
Rectal cancer ( lost count of times)
Cervical cancer
Ovarian cancer
Stomache cancer
Breast cancer
Tonsil cancer
Thyroid cancer
& most recently in between the last two mentioned.

Also have been obsessed with brain tumours & dying in child birth
All of this within around 15 months.
It is exhausting.

I had a lot of some months of one-to-one therapy with a psychologist through my GP because I had panic attacks. I found it very painful and not necessarily helpful to for my anxiety, I was not able to move forward through it. I now suffer from health anxiety.

Anyway, therapist suggested that my anxiety came out of the fact that my parents (and to a lesser extent) older sister didn't take my fears and anxieties,which I'd suffered as long as I remember, seriously and led me to internalise. It's true that when I woke up with nightmares when I was little my parents pretty much told me to shut up and go to bed!

I've had it since I was a young child. I used to read medical encyclopaedias at the age of 6/7 so became aware of all these illnesses. My dad also suffers from HA, but bizarrely has been better since he had cancer 20 years ago. I had CBT for it a few years ago but am still very anxious much of the time. I am slightly different as I don't seek reassurance from medical professionals because I have a phobia of Drs / hospitals.

I internalise my fears too, I feel if I say it out loud or write it down it will become real.

I was always the one in the family who worried and told you worry too much, sort of mockingly, so I keep it in now.

Does anyone else have a drawer full of tablets in their kitchen? I've got enough stuff to open a chemist, I think my dad was like that too, he worried like me.