Health anxiety - fear of cancer and dying

[IJustWantItToStop]

I don't know what to do, I am going round in circles in my head and I just need to speak to others who may have been here

I've had health anxiety for years, 19 years to be exact, some times have been more manageable than others. Recently I got myself all caught up in following an Instagram influencer who had stage 4 cancer, I've no idea why, she was just bouncy and fun and I was curious. Anyway, she died recently and due to the algorithm or whatnot it showed me lots of others who the same had happened to. Young women, Mum's with young children etc. I've now deleted Instagram.

I'm in my late 30's and now having seen how many young people have died/are dying from cancer I am terrified. Any little symptom I am jumping on and panicking. I'm so scared of leaving my children, I'm not with their Dad and we don't have a good relationship so they'd never be encouraged to remember me. My DH is brilliant with me, so supportive and helpful.

I've done all the 'right' things, seen the Dr so many times, had CBT (I don't find it helpful), I take my medication etc etc

I just wanted to ask if anyone else feels like there's suddenly an influx of young people with cancer or is this the next thing my health anxiety has fixated on?

(So as not to drip feed I should also add that I have had two friends my age who have recently had and recovered from breast cancer, lost a close family friend suddenly to cancer (50's, very quick) and a relative fairly quickly also)

I have had breast cancer aged 48 and I haven't noticed masses of people with cancer as a proportion of population aged below 45. There are some of course and media tends to focus on those who are famous or beautiful or cases especially tragic which they may fall into that category. Most of the people at chemo were in 70s and 80s and invisible to the media world.

Its really not worth living your life in fear, cancer treatment was pretty horrific for a year but then you get your life back, obviously can come back at stage 4 at any time but you can't live you life waiting for that. You need to do things like exercise 3 to 5 hours a week to halve that risk of reoccurrence for those who have had cancer once. With breast cancer less than 5% are at stage 4 initially and then its normally people who've not had checks. If you do get cancer the one thing you will regret is wasting so much of your life worrying about it when you were healthy. I would try exercise and see if that helps. But what you are putting yourself through now is as bad as cancer treatment is mentally every day for all of your life.

What happened 19 years ago?

As the algorithm on Instagram detected that you had an interest in following this person with cancer so flagged up similar accounts your own mind is doing a similar thing. There's a part of the brain called the Reticular Activating System that filters out all the day to day stuff you don't need to think about and instead draws your attention to things your mind has decided you need to be aware of.

You say "I'm in my late 30's and now having seen how many young people have died/are dying from cancer I am terrified" That's your RAS at work. How many people do you know/know of who are not affected by cancer? (Notwithstanding unbalanced SM). How many of your children's parents, i.e. your contemporaries, are being treated for cancer? Your friends were treated and recovered - does that give you a more balanced view?

Sorry for all the questions!

Recovered (or as much as feasibly possible) severe health anxiety sufferer here 👋

I can tell you with almost certainty that this is your health anxiety rearing its ugly head.

I agree OP. I have a certain degree of fear about cancer and for me I think it's to do with me getting older and also the real ramping up of cancer awareness adverts in the media and so so many stories of people with cancer . I find the current advert about secondary breast cancer very distressing with young women talking about leaving their children behind.

This is why SM is so unhealthy - the algorithms distort your view of reality.

The healthiest thing to do is to focus only on your health - get your smear, check for breast cancer signs, know when to go to the GP for other cancer signs (these can be found on reputable health sites, don't freak yourself out though) and eat/drink healthily.

Unless you have specific family history, this is not something to devote mental resources to. We all fear cancer, on some level, I think.

Thank you for the responses

@Silkiefloof I'm so sorry you went through that, I'm glad you are recovered

@Eyesopenwideawake I was working in a job that meant I had to look at and learn about horrendous things, I think that might have been the catalyst. You're right about how many people I know who aren't affected by it, my DH says the same thing.
It's certainly a good thing that my friends have recovered and yes that does help. Thank you for explaining about RAS, that's interesting.

@humanwinginglife - I'm so glad you have recovered (as much as possible), that's fantastic news

@hattie43 yes that advert is horrible, I hate it too. I know awareness is important but that advert is so sad

@MidnightOnceMore thank you, you're right. I am starting to focus more on my health, I recently had a lumpy breast so got that checked and all was fine. The trouble is, I give myself physical symptoms with all the worry (gastro/headaches etc) and it becomes a vicious circle

Thanks again for all the replies and being so kind

I have health and death anxiety started after loosing people close to me including cancer. Ihave started to work on it with meds and councellor.

But I agree with previous poster the amount of health and cancer campaigns out there does not help. My partner even had one on the label of his new boxers shorts the other day.

I'm not someone prone to health anxiety at all, but losing my sister last year at age 44 to cancer has frightened me..

She was very unhealthy, really overweight and her cancer is one that is most found in morbidly obese people but still. She went from what we thought was a broken rib to dead in 2 weeks. Terrifying.

Now, after losing 5 family members to cancers I have kind of resigned myself to getting cancer and dying early. Accepting it, and acknowledging it would be somewhat out of my hands has almost made me more relaxed and accepting (if that's the right word). I'm careful, I exercise, I eat well, I'm not overweight, I don't drink too much etc etc. But I've accepted what I think of as my fate.

I was working in a job that meant I had to look at and learn about horrendous things, I think that might have been the catalyst.

I think you're right. Anything the mind can learn it can unlearn so whilst you can't wipe your memory of those horrendous facts and sights, you can unhook the emotional connection to them which has led to your subconscious being on constant high alert. My AMA on remedial hypnosis might be of interest.

I’ve had health anxiety for about ten years. It’s crippling. Worse recently after nursing a much loved relative through a very aggressive cancer. These things change your view forever. It’s very hard

yes and maybe older people with cancer should not be invisible to the world and that should not be accepted as sort of alright and inevitable. Oh well they have had their life.well have they?.it is assumed that somehow they do not matter and yet many have made huge contributions to the world whether partnered, childed or whatever.But as they are not pretty or young their lives are deemed less important.Of course it is awful if a young mum loses her life for her kids but there are other losses which also matter.My health anxiety is caused by feeling that as older I do not matter and when younger because I was not married.Once as a young person I had a boob scare and a nurse said'oh well at least you don't have kids'.Nice.An ex once said to me that a woman in a developing world or in the west with 8 kids would definitely matter more than me and that it was better that I got ill rather than her.Nice again. Yet people think this and doctors and nurses do too.We need to re-evaluate human worth.Some mothers are absolute. b.....s and their children are really not that special.remember also that some of this is bots and algies.Additionally there is far less dementia than we are led to believe and some of the kids I teach have started accusing their fifty something teachers of having it when they dare to discipline them.People are very very ignorant and very ageist.All these things can create health anxiety

So is cancer OK if you are in your 70s or 80s? And invisible to the media.

Well no but you have the benefit of a life fully lived, which makes it less tragic, although still sad of course