Hi worried sick
I have the lump sensation too, it is a very common symptom of gerd so try to take some comfort that probably over half the people on this board have the same symptom as you, and none of us have cancer.
As someone who has suffered from anxiety pretty severely in the past I understand how difficult it is. Your mind will not allow you to focus on anything else, and breaking that cycle is hard work, and its a GRADUAL process, but believe me it is possible. I have done it, and if I can do it then anyone can. Ask your doctor about
cognitive behaviour
therapy, which will take you through and explain how to break the cycles you get yourself into. Anti-depressents will help to keep you calm but you should also try relaxation exercises several times a day, I still do these as they help with a whole range of mental and physical conditions.
The biggest advice I can give is dont try to ignore or fight your anxiety. It wont let you. Your brain is instinctly designed to survive and it perceives (correctly) that there is something wrong.
What you need to learn is how to regain control of the anxiety. Even embrace the anxiety, remember that its just trying to help you but you need to reassure it that you are taking steps to deal with what its worried about
(I found it helped to personify my anxetiy :p)
That means you acknowledge when an anxious thought comes to your head, you plan out how you are going to deal with the problem (e.g. go to the doctor, or wait for the result of this test etc) and then let it go. Your mind will want to obsess about
it, but you just remind yourself of that short term step you are taking to address it and then refocus your attention on something else.
Initially you will find it very hard to concentrate and even enjoy things. Thats normal, and it only gets better gradually. You just need to carry on with your life, almost forcing yourself to (within reason) and you gradually start to get back into it. Start by inviting a friend around for a drink, and ask them to ignore you if you start to talk about
your medical conditions and change the subject. You should feel a little better afterwards and you may even find for split seconds you forget all about
your anxiety. Initially you will get anxious that you have not been worrying! thats normal, remember your mind WANTS to worry, it is your survival instinct, worrying makes us prepared, helps us avoid danger, it is essential to survival. But often it can take over our life and thats when we need to take back control of it.
I used to have a worry time every morning, that is when I would allow myself to worry as much as I wanted to. I would write down all the things I was worried about
, and then what (if anything) I could do about
it. Id then plan in when I was going to do it. Then for the rest of the day when these worries came to my mind, I would remind myself of what I was doing to address them and let them go. Its really hard at first but it does get easier.
Also anti-depressents take a long time to build up in your system, I only noticed any sort of improvement from them after about
1-2 months, and it was several months before I felt like 'wow these really do help'. So dont expect miracles from them, but they do help so keep taking them. Side effects are minimal especially long term. I dont think Ill ever want to come off them.
Post Edited (Andy1986) : 5/22/2013 3:29:42 AM (GMT-6)