Every little thing is cancer :-(

[Matildea]

I can't stand going into breakdown mode everytime something happens During the last few months ive convinced myself that my husband had melanoma, my son a brain tumour and my daughter bone cancer...and today my sister lymphoma!! These are all based on the flimsiest of evidence but at the time there seems no other conclusion. After i'd been feeling well for a few weeks, my heavily pregnant sister had a lymph node/gland just suddenly swell up in her neck this afternoon and I go into instant meltdown I totally hate being like this....it's terrifying She's just had a massive boil lanced and the logic is that it's some infection related to that....but my brain won't accept this logic.

How do others deal with thinking that loved ones are dying?? I experienced knowing my dad would die and this feels the same everytime....its so emotionally draining

Thanks for listening xx

[Agora1]

Matildea, we know too much about medical issues that drive us to pre-diagnose everyone around us including ourselves. It is emotional draining. On lesser issues, I have been right before even taking my daughter or son to hospital when they were little. That's how it all started. I began to think that I knew the symptoms and answers to their medical issues. When that happens, then you start to doubt the doctors who are qualified and trained. Not only do we do an injustice to ourselves but also our

family members by making them worry unnecessarily. The best thing we can do now is to keep our diagnosis to ourselves and pray they don't know what they possibly may be facing.

[JP1954]

I understand exactly. I have no answers to this type of anxiety. The strangest thing is that I am great having to undertake presentations, job interviews, as a stranger going to a party. But once it has anything to do with health I succum to horrendous panic anxiety. Heart pounds, can't breath, sweat. Everything people tell you Just doesn't register. This is how it is. What can you do anyway. Take each day as it comes. I am on anti depressants and beta blockers but I have now, for the first time booked to see a therapist. Will it work, I hope so. Perhaps talking through with someone outside of friends and family will help somehow. I know what the problem is - control. Health is something you cannot control and so it is something I will need come to terms with.

I am older than yourself and I do remember the times when the children were young I use to worry over every ailment. At that time we did not have the internet so in some respects we were unable to worry ourselves to death with various health sites. Could it be this, could it be that etc. I only had an old medical book for "normal" everyday symtoms, colds, measles, etc. But now it is all out there.

As I mentioned it is ever so easy for people to say "pull yourself together" but it isn't as simple as that. i have no answer but there are many, many people out there all suffering the same anxiety, panic and vulnerability as you and I. You are not alone.

[Agora1 in reply to JP1954]

Very well said. I am older too. I hate when people tell me to just relax or let's do lunch. Lunch? I'm agoraphobic, are they kidding. Even in the house I suffer anxiety. A cup of tea, putting my feet up and asking me what I'm afraid of doesn't do it. (and that was from my own mother) I now realize that I've had health anxiety most of my life, just didn't have a name for it.

You are so right in saying that the problem is control. If I don't have control over something I panic big time. Thanks for your insight...Take care.

[JP1954]

Will do, you take care as well.

By the way I have started to see a therapist and, hopefully, will see this through one day. If not then have a better outlook on this panic disorder. When the therapist asked how bad it was I told her that the tips of my fingers actually blistered and peeled. Even though she had heard of this symtom it seems I was the first person she had seen with this phenomenon.

Best regards