Anxiety support, Hand hold or chit chat come say hi

[Fairydust26]

going through abit of a crappy time with anxiety/health anxiety at the mo so thought it would be a good idea to create this thread. I always find that when I’m feeling anxious writing it down makes me feel a little bit better so hopefully some of you might too and we can support each other through this crappy time as I know it can make you feel pretty lonely. I’m trying to not drag myself back to bed and write today off so I’ve made a cuppa put the heating on sat by the xmas tree and going to try and have a clam Saturday so come say hi

Take care Fairy of course you’re right there is hope for us, sometimes it’s just hard to see the wood for the trees.

Hi all, newish on MN and really struggling. To cut a long story short I've struggled with anxiety which I think ultimately stems from childhood trauma. Anyway... my sister had a bad brain haemorrhage last year. Then my mum was diagnosed with cancer. Then I had a cancer scare. My DH and I have been trying to conceive unsuccessfully since May last year and I feel like I'm losing my mind, currently in the 2WW. My anxiety comes out as health anxiety and I've convinced myself that I have ovarian cancer, fibroids, metastatic cancer. Everything. Can't sleep with worry. Then my anxiety about not getting pregnant flips to worrying about the health aspects of being pregnant and that freaks me out. I'm googling all sorts because I'm turning 35 in summer and TTC #1 I'm certain that I won't have the two children that I desperately want. Calm, peaceful thoughts to everyone xx

Fingers sorry to hear about the TTC troubles. Plenty of women have their first at your age, some not till 40 or beyond. It’s increasingly common these days.
You likely know this, but Dr Google is not the most reliable source of information. You’re an anxious person, so you’re kind of primed to only notice the negatives, it’s confirmation bias. I’m similar, although I don’t have health anxiety; I only notice/point out the negatives in things and ignore the positives.

Hello FingersXssd83 hand hold for you it’s understanable to have anxiety surrounding your health after what you’ve been through a lot of us on this thread can sympathise with you on that as we too suffer from it aswel. Nothing good ever comes from googling! 35 is still young my auntie didn’t have her first till she was in her forties! Sending you lots of good luck in your 2ww.

Fingers we struggled with TTC at your age too, but we did end up having two children without any fertility treatment, it just took time. I do remember the misery of month after month of nothing

This is such a supportive & helpful thread.
My health anxiety is reaching peak at the moment. I've been smelling odd things & have had a bad taste in my mouth on & off for 10 days & a mum in the playground helpfully told me that it was a sign of a brain tumour & apparently everyone has stories of friends of friends who died from one. Yay!
I'm hiding from my 5 & 9 year old in the bath trying to avoid a panic attack & trying to remember some CBT techniques. I'm often worse in the evening, especially when DH is on a night shift.
Thanks to all of you who share stories, tips etc.

Thanks for your kind words @toffee1000 @Wh0KnowsWhereTheT1meG0es @Fairydust26 I know you're all right and your comments have really helped calm me down a bit. This isn't really the kind of thing I can talk to people in my life about so it's really appreciated and going to do my best to keep away from Dr Google and MN Conception boards!

@Inmyownlittlecorner sending you calm, healing thoughts.

Inmyown - I've got that weird smell/taste thing going on too, I have a cold and am paranoid that other people can smell me. I think it's my sinuses, they don't hurt but there is a lot of mucus. We can't both have brain tumours!

The thread is helping me too, there are a few people I can talk to in real life, but they don't really get it.

Can I join the odd smell up the nose top trumps. I have a smell like a dead rat 🐀 up my nose at the moment and the Dr said that was a sinus infection I’ve just had the flu.

Inmyownlittlecorner I’m so much worser when I’m on my own too! How are you feeling today better I hope?.

Hallo everyone. I know I am not very well at the moment but I had a realisation today that makes so much sense.

I am not supposed to be here.

I know my family history because my Dad has traced them all back to the 1600s. I come from very “lowly stock”. We come from an area that was very impoverished during the industrial revolution so life expectancy was low.

I am 50. My children are adults and gone. Without sounding dramatic, my work here is done. Genetically and socially I am just waiting to die.

I have another 20 years of working life to go and am so depressed about it. Is it any wonder? I shouldn’t be here.

It sort of makes sense, doesn’t it?

Fairydust26 I'm very pressure headachey today, so I think it's a trip to the Dr to get sinuses checked. Still feel fragile though.

Undercoverbanana I've nothing helpful to say to you. I think I understand that feeling of uselessness. My children are 5 & 8 & I've struggled since the youngest started school. I can trace my anxiety pretty much to that point. Then I had health scares (nothing serious) & then my health anxiety really kicked in. I'd never had a panic attack until then.
I really hope that you can speak to somebody who can help you work through the feelings that you're having.
I also don't think that your work here is done. I think we're all a constantly evolving presence & that you are as valued, needed & important now as you have always been.

Good evening everyone

Hope everyone managed their day in some way. At the moment I don’t know wether I should feel good or not. My boss was in today again after being sick and I was scared she would be cross when she saw all my “mental health days” that I took. I was worrying about nothing, she didn’t say a thing. But then she started planning my hours for February and saw that if I worked everyday I would have 2 hours too many. I’m only allowed to work 84 hours a month and they’re very strict about it. So she says she would give me tomorrow off so my hours would be good. I however didn’t mention that I was off sick on Tuesday so my hours would be fine anyway without needing to take another day off. It was one of those moments where you’re too nervous to mention something and then it’s too late to say it because it would be awkward. Thank you social anxiety.

Anyway. Now I have tomorrow off and I can’t stop worrying about her finding out that I forgot to mention that I called in sick on Tuesday. She will only know if she see’s the mail I sent and I’m not sure if she even will. But the worrying...I feel like a little schoolgirl who lied to her teacher

Undercoverbanana have you spoken to anyone about how your feeling at all like your gp?. life isn’t just about working having children and your job being done when they’re all grown up. Like a pervious poster said we’re constantly evolving and you’ll always be important especially to your loved ones. Just know that the future can hold so many exiting and wonderful opportunities even though it may not seem like it now.

Reike that’s good that your boss hasn’t mentioned it if anything she’ll just make you work an extra day to make up the missed hours if she does notice?. I know it’s hard but try not to worry about it enjoy your day off😊.

Hi, first time posting on hear not sure weather I want some tough love or hand hold.

Going away with dh tomorrow and my anxiety is in overdrive this morning.
I've got washing, ironing, cleaning, packing, sorting last minute bits and bobs.
But I just can't seem to get motivated enough to get these things done.
Any advice?
Quite happy to have a kick up backside if needs be.

Blue - I get like this before holidays too, I'm fine once I get there but the packing and travelling I find really hard. I would suggest breaking it down into baby steps, go and put some washing on, then maybe get your bags out, have a little break, sort out something else. Leaving it all till last minute is worse and you always end up forgetting something IME.

Undercoverbanana - yes, it sort of makes sense, but really you are more important than that. I used to feel a bit that way before I had the children, what was I doing it all for, I also feel down when we reach a change of stage, such as my youngest going to secondary school recently. Obviously I don't know anything about your children, but I would imagine you are still a very important part of their lives, even if they are away from home and independent now, I grew much closer to mine again from my 30s onwards.

Reike - I hope you're ok today, it sounds as though your boss is reasonably sympathetic and will be OK even if she does figure out the hours thing. I guess these things can never be planned completely anyway because anyone could go off ill at any time, especially at this time of year with so much cold, flu type stuff going on.

Thanks for your words. I actually feel a bit more relaxed about it today.

Unfortunately there are other things that are bothering me today and I could use some advice or just hear your experience.

In the last two years my anxiety and depression got really bad. I’m overwhelmed with almost anything and trying to go to work costs me all of my energy. I got really bad with keeping in contact with friends. Most of them live far away as I moved to another city. I just can’t seem to manage texting them regularly and if they text me it seems a huge effort on my part to respond or start a conversation. I don’t have energy for socializing. Due to that I lost most of my friends. And right now my relationship is on the rocks because of that too. He lives a few hours away so it’s long distance. We rely on communicating via phone but I’m struggling so much. I mentioned that he is very understanding of my illness but I think we reached a point where he is losing his patience. This is bothering me a lot but on the other side I know that it’s not working the way it is at the moment. I don’t know how to snap out of it and sometimes would like to tell everyone to go away and stop expecting things from me. I feel like I should end the relationship because he is not getting anything out of it and I can’t be the girlfriend he needs. And then I get scared of being on my own. I feel like a failure for having almost no friends left and the only people I keep in contact with are my family. I’m at an age where other people start families and are secure in their careers yet here I am still lost. I’m scared of never finding anyone that can deal with my illness. The thought of going out to meet someone only for them to find out how difficult I am is terrifying me.

How do you cope with keeping friendships when you’re weighed down by your anxiety and depression? It all seems too much for me at the moment and I’m sick of disappointing people

Reike I know exactly how you feel sometimes people don’t get what anxiety’s & depressions like and it can be so lonely. Unfortunately I’ve had friends that have even contributed to that and have made me feel worse, alone and a failure fortunately I’m close with my family but I do very much compare myself to my peers. I’ve found that friendships that crumble in times like this show that they weren’t worth it in the first place sorry I haven’t got any advice but just know your not alone in feeling like this hugs for you x

Fairy Thank you, it’s really good to know I’m not alone. It’s really frustrating to have to explain to people again and again how mental illness works. I’m starting to feel like handing out manuals for handling me. I understand that it’s hard to see when you don’t suffer from it.

I had one friend, my best friend actually. She knew me better than anyone else. But she made my anxiety so much worse by pretending to be understanding and then throwing it practically in my face. She once said: “I don’t want to hear excuses. I work all day too and still manage to do other things” or “ you always expect me to respect your fears but you don’t care about my feelings” That showed me she knew actually nothing at all about me or anxiety. I don’t expect that people walk around eggshells around me but I need them to acknowledge my mental illness. It is there. I can’t help it. I try really hard but sometimes I struggle and need to hide from the world. I wished other people could see the battles we fight everyday.

I actually cut that friend from life after having enough. She’s currently trying to get back into my life and wants to talk about our friendship. But I just can’t deal with that now.

Sorry for ranting but this frustrates me so much!

Blue How are you getting on with your tasks? I know what that feels like. I always leave things until the last minute because they seem to overwhelm me. And then I get into a panic because I left it too late and struggle to get everything done. I’ve spent quite a few nights working through to get things done.

It’s probably useless advice but what helps me mostly is simply starting. Just a small task like setting up the ironing board or collecting what needs to be washed. I kinda get going from there and I love the feeling I get when I finished one task. I also like to put on some upbeat music, open up a bottle of some fancy drink (non alcoholic in my case) which motivates me. Though I can’t take lot of breaks between because once I rest I have trouble continuing

I also noticed that getting some new cleaning stuff for example is very motivating. Went to the shops today and spent far too much on cleaning supplies but I’m now quite excited to put them to use tomorrow

Reike I know what you mean it’s so hard to try and explain it to people and it’s not exactly something you shout from the roof tops! I had a friend like that actually and we went waaaaaay back but I just got to a point we’re I couldn’t be asked with it anymore and just cut all contact too don’t feel bad about ranting get it all out hope you feel better for doing so! X

Hi reike - don't have any great words I'm sorry but have read your post and am thinking of you.

I'm struggling. Trigger was talked about again last night, and it's all over this site with posters saying it's nothing. So although it wasn't my post I feel very down and stupid again for feeling this way about something others just deal with. I also have a week off work and I'm not great at home.I like to be busy. Xx

Hope everyone’s weekend goes well the threads gone a tad quiet hope that means everyone’s doing well? Day to myself today and I’m spending it giving the house a good old spring clean oh the joys of being an adult😆

gttia don’t be I’m very cautious about what I click on on here as something’s can defiantly set me right off in a tiz. Have you got anything nice planned for your week off? x