I'm a 24 year old male. I'm slim, exercise at least 3 times a week and am generally a healthy eater (never eat fast food, don't like sweets, no pop -- enjoy salads and fish; I eat an awful lot of chips and salsa though). I've never had a serious health problem, and haven't even had so much as a cold in probably three years. I've got no reason to worry, and yet, for the past four months at least, I've been consumed by hypochondria.
I had my first panic attack in July after going through a life transition -- heart palpitations, intense fear that I was dying, the whole gamut. Since then I've struggled with anxiety and panic attacks, for which I've been going to a therapist, and feel I've been making pretty good progress (my actual panic attacks have become fewer and further between). However, my fear of my health is only getting worse, it seems.
I'm terrified of having a heart attack. I am constantly checking my left hand/arm for ANY pain or tingling, however miniscule (guess what? the harder you look for some small pain, the likelier you are to find something!), as well as taking my pulse to make sure my heart rate is falling within the normal 60-100 bpm range and feeling my jaw -- again, to make sure there's no pain.
At various points I have also become afraid of cancer, which has led me to constantly palpate my lymph nodes on my neck (can you feel a normal one? suppose you press down really hard?!). I've also gone through a bizarre hyperthyroid fear where I was constantly checking my neck and asking friends if I could feel their "normal" neck. This has all been aided by that wonderful invention, the internet, which abounds with webMD and message boards like this that are basically catnip for hypochondriacs like me and perpetuate whatever fear I might be having.
ANYWAY, I going nuts here. For 23.5 years I was a generally happy, if a little neurotic and moody at times, fully functional human being. Since that first panic attack, I've become a constantly jittery, fearful person who has trouble enjoying life. Some days I'm fine, and those days are increasing the more I go to therapy -- my therapist is teaching me how to let go of obsessive thoughts, and I think I'm getting better at it. But I get so frustrated that I have the thoughts at all. My roommate bought a couple panzarottis (basically like giant pizza puffs, for those of you who don't know) last night, and mine is still sitting in the fridge. I'm terrified of eating it because I'm terrified that eating something so unhealthy is going to give me a heart attack. Part of me feels like I'm going to get better, like maybe this is just the last remnants of the anxiety that I've been working with my therapist to get past. But part of me is horrified that it's going to stay the same or get worse.
I feel dumb for having this problem. There are people who have actual terrible things happen to them, healthwise or otherwise, and here I am, healthy and lucky in virtually all regards, worried about something that's not happening to me. I want it to stop. I want to go back in time before any of this fear took hold of me. I want to be able to count my blessings, rather than worry about what might happen or could happen. I want to be able to feel a random ache and not have my mind automatically go to the worst possible scenario. I want to eat the panzarotti in my fridge.
My question is, for anyone out there who has dealt with this condition successfully, what did you do? How did you get past it? Any quick magic spells you can recommend would be helpful, but I'm also open to things that take a little more work. I just want to know because everyone else I talk to about this, including my therapist, has never been through it. I'm sorry for the long post, but it sort of helps to get it off your chest I guess.
-E