Health anxiety...where did i get this doom and gloom mindset?

[ssd]

Ive realised how different my thinking is to dh and my friends. I genuinely dont know anyone who worries like me. Its like a lose all sense and perspective. I feel im generally an upbeat, happy person, but when health anxiety grips me i totally spiral and i cant see the wood for the trees. My dad worried about his health and i think ive taken on his worries. Ive tried many things and nothing yet has clicked eg. Changed my mindset. Cbt was useless. Ive had therapy in various forms.

My dh doesn't understand it. That makes me feel lonelier, its like an embarrassing shame I have to keep to myself. He keeps telling me to talk to someone. He doesn't know the things ive tried to get rid of this.
Its like a default setting in my head i cant switch off.

I dont know what to do.

Has anything helped anyone similar?

Thank you

My dad worried about his health and i think ive taken on his worries.

Not so much as taken on his worries but learnt that worrying about health is a normal and acceptable thing to do. When you were younger - before you had the ability to think rationally (so from birth to about 9yrs old) - you simply took in everything you learnt, saw, absorbed and understood as true, especially from parents. This information then becomes part of your core beliefs - what you think about yourself, others and the wider world - and even if later information show it to be untrue, or unhelpful, your earlier learning will override it.

The good news is that it is possible to change those deep seated beliefs but you have to go to the origin - CBT/talking therapy can show the weeds in your mental garden and how to prune them; remedial hypnosis and (so I understand) EMDR can rip them out by the roots!

Thank you @Eyesopenwideawake , this makes total sense. It does feel totally normal for me to worry/panic about my health, to the extent i genuinely don't understand people who dont do this. I remember watching a tv programme about getting older with Kathy Burke...beforehand i thought she would be discussing the possibility of getting a bad illness, facing traumatic diagnosis, naturally worrying about our health as we get older...etc etc....She didnt mention health once, not once, when it was all i thought about getting old. It was one if those moments when you realise your thinking is very off..

Anything/everything we grow up experiencing is our 'normal' - it can't be anything else - so once we begin to realise that other people think differently it can be very unsettling (and we can often deny that others realities even happened). One of the wonders of being human is curiosity - being interested and intrigued by ideas and thoughts we didn't know existed and using our intellect to find out how and why we think, feel and behave the way we do.

Forever fascinating (to me!).

I suffer from health anxiety ... mine started when my hubby had a heart attack and a TIA . I took on his anxiety for some reason

I've had every Therapy going over 30 years.. CBT... mindfulness... EMDR....even ECT during my times in psychiatric hospitals.
You might beable to read my past trauma on here.
Last year l had CAT Therapy.. 24 weeks.
I'd never heard of it before ( thought it was being with cats and stroking them lol).
I've put a link.
It's changed my life.
( Basically l was drugged ganged raped... thrown under a bus by and ex .. left physically and mentally dissbled) he got jailed for attempted murder .
CAT Therapy has been my magic pill.
Find a good Therapist.
Not a counsellor.. that's for the here and now..
Good luck.
Message me if you want any more information.
Link below.

https://www.acat.me.uk/page/about+cat

I'm not surprised. Are you?

No I'm not tbh although he doesn't stress about it at all 🤷🏽‍♀️

I don't know that it's as simple as you learnt it from your dad. My MIL is like this and her brother/parents/DC weren't. One of my sons is like this but none of us are. There may be inherited tendencies towards anxieties that affect some and not others. It's a blessing for those who don't have it and a trial for those who do, and for those around them who have to listen to the worries. It's a kind of illness in itself, much more than the feared illnesses which are generally unfounded. I'm more patient/understanding with my DS than with my MIL, but it's very wearing for everyone including them having the manage it. It sounds awful but there's honestly nothing more tedious than hearing about someone's imagined health issues, especially when people with real health issues often manage it stoically. But as I say, it's its own condition and if you can get any kind of help for it then that would be a relief for you and your DH. That's probably what he's nudging you towards, albeit insensitively. Have you seen your GP about your anxiety? My DS sees a therapist on and off and that can be helpful in managing it. He also takes an anti-histamine every day which can be helpful for anxiety (can't quote studies, but was told this by a medic friend and it does seem to help). Hope you can get support and that the doom and gloom lifts so you can feel like yourself without having this negativity weighing on you both so much.

I hardly tell dh..we hardly discuss it...I've been to the Dr's and even hospital appointments and never told him...im sort of embarrassed and ashamed to be like this