See setbacks as a challenge!

I give a lot of advice on this forum, but I am still one of you guys who deals with anxiety daily, it’s literally been maybe 2 years I’ve been dealing with health anxiety and 1 year of that knowing the answer to how to fix my health anxiety.

I just want you to know don’t let setbacks make you think your not making progress, it’s 100% expected to still have daily anxiety about your health, sometimes you fix yourself and your health anxiety transfers to loved ones like worrying about their health and etc when your trying to fix the problem.

I had a slight pain on the right side of my tummy last night and my anxious mind immediately jumped to “Appendicitis”... Instead of trying to avoid the thought which only makes it worse, I entertained the idea, I said to myself it could be appendicitis or it could not be, if it is I’ll go to the hospital, simple! And guess what? Eventually the pain went away and I didn’t realize it went until the next morning, I didn’t feed into the thought so my body stopped trying to “warn” me about this false medical emergency.

I don’t really know whats the point of this post but just wanted to remind everyone a setback doesn’t have to be discouraging, it’s actually a chance to put what your learning into action and work towards getting better until you don’t really have to anymore. Gosh it felt good to not be thrown into a panic after feeling a random pain, this only encouraged me to work harder.

The problem isn’t the anxiety itself believe it or not, it’s YOU, it’s YOUR RESPONSE to the anxiety that determines if you get caught into the loop! Everyone on this planet has had random bodily pains and what determines if they develop health anxiety is the initial response to the pain, it determines who gets caught into it and who doesn’t.

Now this doesn’t mean ignore your body and never get things checked up on, but “normal” people don’t dwell on the thought of cancer or a fatal disease, they make an appointment and live regularly until the appointment, maybe thinking of what it could be occasionally but their not stressing themselves too much until the appointment and until they get their answers.

I had an interesting 2 weeks recently thinking for sure I had an ear infection, I got caught back into the loop because of my reaction to the possibility of having a ear infection going untreated and developing a more serious infection, I was getting ear pressure, dizziness, feelings of dread and doom , convinced I let the ear infection go on too long, well, turns out no infection at all, nothing wrong with my ears! Anxiety can pull you back in at any point no matter how long you’ve been working on recovering, so when setbacks happen take it on as a challenge to put what you’ve learned into action (: ok long winded post but I wish everyone here the best 🎀

[Hidden]

Really good post, also the meme made me cry laughing

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

I know right! Like it’s so ridiculous it’s funny but that’s just what health anxiety is, it can be HELL... BUT it’s good to laugh @ yourself sometimes lol

[Damian]

A while ago I was worrying constantly about a bump on my skin, thinking it was cancer. After a while my anxiety moved on to other things as it tends to (for me at least). Nothing about the bump had changed but I was worrying about different things and largely forgot about it.

Months later I realised the bump had gone. It was so weird, I'd spent so much time worrying about it, and it just vanished by itself!