Hi Harry4 - thanks for the pep talk. I absolutely DO hate being a worrier - and believe me I've talked to myself a million times - saying the same things to myself as you said in your post. But oftentimes bad habits are hard to break - my mother was a chronic worrier and it drove me crazy when I was young - now I've turned into the same thing!! Having fear/worry ingrained in you from birth is a difficult thing to overcome - at the root, I believe, of all anxiety/depression. She was the "what if" mother - always letting me know in no uncertain terms, what could happen if I did a certain thing. They'd take me on these big day trips to an amusement park and then only let me ride, reluctantly, on the merry-go-round. To this day not only will I NOT go on any rides, but I feel scared just going to an amusement park - how sad. But even though I can intellectualize all this, I can't overcome it emotionally....but I keep trying. I ended up bringing my son to the doc yesterday and even though they didn't find anything on the EKG, the doc still wants him to go to a pediatric cardiologist because he didn't like the way my son described his symptoms.....so he wants to err on the side of caution and have him totally checked out. I took the news pretty well - trying to stay positive that this was the right thing to do and didn't necessarily mean he has something serious wrong with him. So I was proud of myself for that (even though I was nervous just BEING in a doctor's office)- actually, it might sound selfish, but I worry the most about myself - health anxiety - and I think it's because we have no other family and I worry that I'll die before Wes is old enough to take care of himself.
My most recent fear is that I have a brain tumor because of the blurriness in my left eye and the faint pain I feel in the eye.....I've been thinking I have a brain tumor since I was seven years old - and I agree - what a waste of time....however, knowing and believing are two different things in the mind of a neurotic I'm afraid. So I'll take this new job I was offered, wait the thirty days to get the insurance - and then, even more reluctantly and hopefully with Xanax to calm me down, I'll go to the eye doc and find out what's going on.
Keep in mind that people like yourself can't understand worriers like me because, thankfully, you don't have the same affliction. I can assure you that I have been fighting this "worry" syndrome for about 40 years and I don't plan on stopping the quest - I did overcome my fear of the dentist, which I'm afraid took too long to save my beautiful teeth - now I go just to have a new bridge or plate made when in fact I could have had all my own teeth had I not avoided him. So I'm hoping I'll overcome the doc fear before anything serious arises. Some people's lives are a constant struggle to stay or get mentally healthy and I count myself in that group. Wish me luck on my quest! (And, yes, I have read a myriad of self-help books which seem to work in the short term but regrettably not in the long.)