So, I feel like I try really hard to be honest with you guys. (I mean, I told you when I was swearing and screaming at my children, and that's pretty real, right?) But I don't feel like I've been 100% honest about my anxiety. I will mention it here & there, and I feel like you know I am a worrier, but the truth is that I have severe health anxiety. I am constantly monitoring my body for symptoms and self diagnosing life threatening diseases.
I don't flippantly think I have cancer, I convince myself that the chills and exhaustion I'm feeling, coupled with my itchiness are from non-hodgkins lymphoma, which I discovered via medical googling. Most of the time, I am strong enough to combat the desire to medical google. When I feel like medical googling, I will call my mom instead. But other times (like last weekend) I medical google until I am lost in cancer forums, convincing myself that my shortness of breath (a sure sign of a panic attack) is from the swollen lymph nodes in my chest, thanks to the rapidly expanding cancer cells that are overtaking my body.
There will be periods of time where I live normally, dismissing everyday aches and pains, and those times are pure bliss. I find the absence of panic to be so very soothing. Especially after a bad episode. But it's always lurking under the surface.
After dealing with hypochondria (defined as "abnormal anxiety about one's health, especially with an unwarranted fear that one has a serious disease") for the last four years, I have learned a lot about the disorder. For me, a bad health anxiety episode usually follows a traumatic or stressful event. After moving back to Alaska one summer post-wisdom-tooth-removal, I convinced myself I had C.diff (don't medical google it, just know it's awful); following our move to central Washington last year & the purchasing of our first home, I convinced myself I had breast cancer; and this last bout was preceded by Logan's most recent seizure. Basically when life gets out of control, my body responds by super-focusing on physical symptoms, which leads to medical googling, self diagnosing and a belief in my imminent demise.
Knowing these are the steps allows me to shorten the length of time a usual episode lasts, which is a huge relief, but I would like to avoid an episode altogether.
So today I ordered two books that I found on Amazon during a "hypochondria treatment" search. The first is called Phantom Illness by Carla Cantor, and the second is called Stop Worrying About Your Health by James Umber. In the past, books have helped me come to better understand depression, panic and OCD. (*afilliate links) So I am hopeful that these new books will help me better understand my issues and will enable me to fight them more successfully.
I don't know if this is true, but I feel like my health anxiety is also related to a sense of guilt I have for being healthy. I know that so many moms die and leave their children, and between my utter fear of it happening to me, and my overwhelming guilt that it hasn't happened to me, I end up thinking I am going to die after all.
A new connection I learned from this last episode thinking I have lymphoma is that I can't help that other people have bad circumstances, but I can be grateful for my truly good and blessed circumstances. Gratitude is the difference between living a full life, and living a fearful life.
This quote from One Thousand Gifts sums up my thoughts perfectly:
"The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest light to all the world."
-Ann Voskamp
***
And then today I happened upon Oprah's Super Soul Conversations on my Apple Podcasts app, and I listened to the one she had with Nate Berkus, who lost his partner in the tsunami in 2004. The entire discussion (which is only 30 minutes) is full of aha moments, but what stuck out for me were these three (summarized) quotes from Oprah & Nate:
"When the soul gets what it came for, it goes."
Which for me is comfort that I won't go until it's my time to go.
"All death is a reminder to turn up the volume on life."
Which goes hand in hand with what I kind of figured out on Sunday after days of freaking out about my body and death: how do you beat death? You live. Every moment, making it the best you can.
And finally,
"Why you survived is every little moment stitched together."
There doesn't have to be a BIG reason why I'm living and other moms aren't. It can simply mean I get to carry on. I have that privilege. It can just be the little things, the way I love my family and my friends, that make my life monumental. (I am doing a terrible job at explaining what those quotes meant, but if you go listen to the podcast, I know you'll walk away enlightened, too!)
So in addition to reading those books, and being brutally honest with Josh about my mental health status, I am going to really focus on gratitude and living this one life I've been given to the fullest.
Thanks for listening.
Hugs.
Shelly, I appreciate your honesty with your anxiety and worry about illness. I am the youngest of 6 siblings. Two sisters and one of my brothers have passed away. Two from cancer, the other from prescription med addiction. My mom died of cancer too. I was convinced after my siblings deaths, I was going to get cancer. I found that while the Internet can be helpful, it can also create an unbelievable amount of anxiety if you already a worrier like me. It was hard but I quit googling things. I learned to enjoy each day I was healthy. Good health is a gift and I started focusing more on wellness and good nutrition. And, if I felt something wasn't right with my body, I went to the doctor and stayed away from the Internet. I am now in my late 50s and have been anxiety free from health concerns for the past several years. Sure I still worry especially since I'm getting older but not like I did when my siblings passed away. My daughter is a nurse practioner...she always tells me to stay away from googling medical issues as it will make you think you're terminally ill...too much bad stuff and as humans we let our imagination run away with itself. Good luck...love hearing about your family! Love and hugs!
ReplyDelete"Gratitude is the difference between living a full life, and living a fearful life." This is SO true. My anxiety manifests itself a bit differently, but I've found this to be true in my life too. When I focus on all the GOOD that is in my life (which sometimes has to be really intentional - writing it all down even when I don't want to) there's a lot less room for fear. Prayers for you, friend. xo
ReplyDeleteDr Google is not a friend but I will admit I do it more than I admit to. It started when my sister had stage 4 Non- hodgkins. She was given a 5% chance of living. That was in 2000. She is blessed as there was a kind and generous unknown person (at the time) who donated bone marrow (being one of 7 siblings you would have thought that someone would have matched--no one matched her and actually now I know that no one matches me--but the other 5 have a match).
ReplyDeleteAt the time she was going thru that I was meeting a health challenge myself--DVT. I have met other challenges as well since then. It seems though that and other family members having serious health issues has just made the health anxiety become more prominent.
In a few days it will be 2 yrs since the passing of my father. He was 89 but still any age you lose a parent is hard. He had had a heart attack while out of the country and then a year and a half later he had a stroke. Those health issues were not what caused his passing it was melanoma skin cancer that he had been fighting for over 30-40yrs.
I think between these things and an extremely serious health issue my mother has been dealing with for 7 yrs has caused me to be so cautious and worry about every LITTLE thing.
So the health anxiety and the GAD are a treat that I live with but I am trying to deal with them and know that after the rain the sun must shine .
You are so brave to put it out there for others to know that there are others that are going thru the same thing. Thank you.