HA through the roof

Diddlina,

Forgive my ignorance, but I assume HA is acrimonious for health anxiety. :)

Work can help, but work stinks. Video games. To be honest, I look forward to appointments because I may get to figure out what's up. Usually it's nothing, so all the worry is for nothing. Try to turn it into a positive and take solace in the fact you are taking responsibility for your health and you are staying on top of it.

I'm sorry you are stressing over your appointment. I'm stressing over one on Tuesday too. The sad thing is that I won't have any real answers that day, because the appt. is for an ultrasound to see how large my "large mass" is, and what it's connected to. :/

I hope that your appt. goes well, and that you can feel more relaxed afterward.

Edited to add:

I do a lot of crafts. My husband is self employed as a cabinet/furniture maker. I am working on home décor type things. I've been making a lot of things lately. My only problem is staying focused on one project until it's finished. Especially when it involves painting, because if I have to let coats of paint dry in between, I want to start something else. lol

Post Edited (Jake'sMom) : 6/14/2015 3:08:53 PM (GMT-6)

Hello and welcome!

Health anxiety and dr.s appointments are big triggers for me as well.

Postive mantras and visualization are key for me.

Let me know if you'd like more details on these..as well as some great links for self hep with health anxiety challenges! I'll be happy to share with you.:)

Talk to you soon,

Scaredy Cat

Most of us have dealt with HA at some point or another.

I've personally dragged myself through hell thinking I had all kinds of crazy and rare diseases, along with the common stuff.

The average person can have anywhere between 12,000-80,000 thoughts a day, and not all of them are going to be nice, and a lot of them will just pop up without any incentive from yourself. It's how we respond to those thoughts that matters and it's why CBT is so highly recommended with anxiety disorders.

Everyone who has posted has made good suggestions on how to keep busy, but sometimes those thoughts are paralyzing and steal your attention. Mindfulness is a way of acknowledging the thought's existence and then moving on.

Personally, meditation did not work well for me. I'm very much a "doing" kind of person - I have to be watching something, reading, playing, talking, whatever. I found it ridiculously difficult to just let the thoughts go when I was trying it. However, I have adapted the logic behind mindfulness into my own personal technique that has been quite useful for me. If I have an uncomfortable anxious thought or feeling, I have a clicking tally counter which I'll click whenever one occurs. That way, I've acknowledged the thought or feeling's existence by actually doing something, then I find it a lot easier to get back to whatever I was doing.

I hope your appointment with the doctor goes well.