Struggling This Weekend

Hello, everyone, I've posted a few times before starting in late Dec. 07.  I've had anxiety and PA mainly since the death of my aunt last Sept.  After joining this forum at the start of the year and trying to attack my problem head-on, I have made a lot of progress (or so I keep thinking).  I have been trying to lower my stress, recognize triggers for my A/PA, am going to a therapist, taking better care of myself physically (which also seems to help), etc.  But then suddenly I start down that scary mental road and I am back at zero.

This weekend has presented a challenge to me because my husband went out of town on a father-son trip with my oldest son.  So I am home alone with my 2.5-year-old for four days.  I hate to be in the house alone, especially at night, so my axiety level was already increased.  I keep imagining that someone is going to try to break in (there have been recent incidences in the neighborhood), hear every bump in the night, etc. so the first night I slept lousy, like 3 hours at most. 

Then yesterday I whacked my head really hard on the corner of a kitchen cupboard door.  That really put me over the edge!  With my health anxiety as bad as it is, I am so afraid of a head injury.  It hurt so bad although I didn't feel nauseous or have any signs of concussion.  But I had and still have pain all over my scalp and of course imagined that I was developing a subdural hematoma.  So last night I slept awfullly, like maybe two hours at most, thinking that I might fall asleep and never wake up again--pretty much a panic attack that lasted the whole night.  Today I went to the "weekend service" doctor who told me my scalp is just bruised and the stiffness I feel in my neck and numbness in my arm are due to tension/jarrring caused by the accident.  But I keep thinking, what if she's wrong and I really do have a major head injury?

I really hate to spend the whole time my husband is gone, potentially valuable one-on-one time with my little boy, thinking that I could be dying.  Every minute ticks by and I don't know how I am going to get through the next.  Why do I do this to myself?!  I still have two more nights to go and don't know if I'm going to get any more sleep at all....  I can talk to my husband but I also don't want to ruin his trip (which he was really looking forward to) with our son.

Well, I don't know if some of you can relate, but I am feeling really alone and pretty desparate right now.  I have these thoughts like why is anything worth it in this world, b/c life is so short and our bodies can just give out on us at any moment.  I just can't seem to stop the anxiety flooding in.  (And btw, at this point I am still not taking any meds as my therapist said he wants to work a bit more on things before going there.)

Tessel

 

Tessel,

Hello and welcome back sweetie.  You are safe here.  If you cannot sleep and are afraid just remember you can turn on your computer and we are here.  Post your fears and know someone will be reading them soon.

Do you have a lot of problems with the health anxiety when your not home alone or was it a trigger that your hubby was going out of town?

You are not going to die from this uncomfortable disorder, it is like the other anxieties it snowballs and then we are in a bad place.

Have you ever tried the CBT  therapy?  I would be glad to post the online link for you if you want to start to work through that.  It does take work on your behalf but I feel you are stronger than you think.

Keep posting Tess and know we are here for you, we care hun and we support you.
Hugs
Kitt

I just want to thank you all for your amazing responses. Just reading them made me feel so much better, I got tears in my eyes. It's so funny how other people's relating their experiences makes you able to see that your worries are only in your mind, and this does begin to help the process of letting them go.

I did make it through the weekend okay--at least a bit better than the state I was in on Sat. night. After writing the above posting, I went to bed thinking I would never fall asleep, and ten minutes later I was out like a light. I only woke up once in the night b/c my son woke up needing me, but I returned to bed and didn't wake up until 9am (when my son did). What a blessing that was to sleep so deeply and peacefully. I guess many of you know who suffer from PA/A, sleeping deeply and peacefully the whole night through doesn't happen that often, so I was encouraged. Yesterday passed by more quickly because I did plan a few things. So doing that did make all the difference. And I slept okay last night knowing it was my last alone.

But I am still having the health anxiety, although your reassurances made me feel 75% better. To answer Kitt's question, when my general anxiety goes up, my health anxiety follows, so yes, I have it a lot of the time. I am trying to be vigilant about getting things checked out so that my rational mind can tell myself that I'm fine. I still have a lingering headache and throbbing scalp pain, and am having shoulder and back pain, weakness in one arm and tingling in one foot, but the dr. (on Sat.) told me that anything like that was probably caused by jarrig the neck, so I have made a physical therapy appt. for tomorrow (soonest they could take me) to try to sort that all out. I guess I just want to hear from him that that is all normal so I don't have to worry about it. But in the back of my mind, yes, I do keep thinking, what if I have some sort of injury in my brain that is causing this? But hearing your reassurances REALLY helped. Thank you so much!

Kitt, no, I haven't tried CBT therapy, I would really be interested in the link, thanks! And yes, it is good to hear about being positive about one's strength as a person. One of my real issues with my PA/A problem is that I have been beating myself up thinking it I were a stronger person, this wouldn't be happening to me. But I think this comes from the way I was raised, which is hard to just let go of!

Thanks again and take care, all of you,

Tessel