So I'm what you might call a resting self-harmer and quite a naturally anxious person - massively prone to overthinking and catastrophising.
The Saturday before last we made some potted meat to a recipe in one of those Country Kitchen cookbooks from the 1980s, it says store it in a cool dry place not the fridge. We have a pantry so this is what I did.
This Saturday we had it on toast. Cue me then looking up a method for bottling fruit and lo and behold, I have now decided I've given me and DH botulism and we're going to die of it.
Saturday afternoon I made myself sick because OMG THE SPORES.
I've deliberately deleted it from my search history so I can't keep going back and researching the symptoms. Last night I couldn't sleep for thinking what if DS comes into our bedroom and we're both dead, what will happen....
IABU. IABVVU. I know it.
I've spoken the GP about it but am v reluctant to start medication because (this sounds counter-intuitive but it's how I roll) it would legitimise it for me: I'd start to be anxious about anxiety, and worrying about side-effects and is it just anxiety or is it going to develop into something worse and blah.... I was like this when I was pregnant. My midwife gave me an internet ban and told me to take up cross-stitch :-D
How do I manage this before it becomes something that does need intervention?