Dealing with Health Anxiety: Seeking Support and Understanding

I can completely relate. I have had health anxiety since a child.

Suffering with high anxiety too at the min, due to migraines made worse by being peri menopausal

I suffer from this and am going through a really bad patch of constant anxiety triggered by blood test results last week. You arent alone

It's definitely not just you. I deal with the same thing and it's so debilitating. Some YouTube videos on the topic have helped me out. The channel "OCD and Anxiety" has some good ones about health anxiety. For the most part though I just try to remind myself that I've survived similar symptoms before and I'm still around. I do have some chronic illnesses which can make things messy because then I start overthinking about how much of what I'm feeling is "real" vs. anxiety. But try not to catastrophize (way easier said than done, I know). Just because your mind is jumping to the worst case scenarios doesn't mean that they'll come true. Keep your mind busy. Some things that personally help me are watching light-hearted shows (definitely no medical dramas), writing (both creative writing and journaling), coloring, watching funny YouTube videos, and listening to guided meditation audios and ASMR. Also when I'm outside of the house I'm less focused on health anxiety and it gives me a break from my thoughts. See if you can give yourself a short break every so often like a walk to the park or any other place you like. Health anxiety is tough but it's definitely something you can tackle. I've gone through times when it's been horrible and other times when I haven't thought about it. Right now I'm somewhere in between but I'd say that overall I'm doing better than last month and have hope that I'll keep doing better with some of the strategies I've picked up. Just remind yourself of all the bad days you've survived. You're strong enough to keep surviving your anxiety. Sending lots of encouragement and kind thoughts your way.

You most definitely are NOT the only one going through that! I have a lot of health anxiety too and it’s so consuming. For me, whenever I realize I have some sort of symptom of anything I have to immediately have to start researching what it could be. And the anxiety doesn’t subside till I figure out what it is. I just try to remind myself that anxiety will make my symptoms worse.