Am I really sick? I don't know whether I am ill (constantly) or is it just anxiety?
This has become a vicious cycle; do I feel anxious because I feel physicial symptoms, or are those symptoms originated because of my anxiety? Is anxiety so powerful to manifest physicially?
Any recommendation to deal with this? I don't want to live like this.
Written by
munrapz
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Anxiety is powerful. It can actually cause physical symptoms and sometimes you don't think that these symptoms can be caused by anxiety. Moreover, when you are concerned about a particular disease, and if you have health anxiety, you keep getting the symptoms of that particular disease, and if you get checked and get clear of any physical illness, anxiety will gove you new symptoms so that you believe that your tests were inaccurate and that you do have a serious health condition. This all happened to me several times. Try to get help for your health anxiety.
I think you’ve made a good start by recognising that there could be a link between physical symptoms and anxiety; in fact, the “flight or fight” response (which is what acute anxiety triggers) wouldn’t work unless it did produce physical symptoms!
The problem comes when the anxiety becomes chronic as that can lead to chronic physical symptoms. It took me about 20 years to realise this and, as a result, some of my chronic symptoms have reduced. They’ve not gone completely, and I do get flare-ups from time to time (as now!), but it does show that improvements are possible.
As you seem to have realised this already, I suspect you’ll start to notice improvements, but it is a gradual process, so don’t expect any quick fixes.
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