Hey everyone, I'm just posting a poll about how much all of you worry about your health concerns and to what extent.
If the answers don't fit with your personal experience, please share them. Actually, sharing either way is encouraged.
Mostly I'm posting this because I've been pretty much anxiety and DP free for at least 6 months, if not longer, but then out of nowhere in the last 3 days I've had a pretty intense panic attack every day, and it's been over my physical health just about every time. I just start suddenly feeling like there must be something wrong with my body... like I must be experiencing heart failure, or a blood pressure emergency (don't even know if too high or too low), a blood sugar emergency, or I can't deliver enough oxygen to my blood with my breathing, etc. - And then I'll start trembling and hyperventilating and being very freaked out that there is definitely soething wrong with my body and I have to go to the hospital. I will feel like my body is going to shut down and that it really -needs- something but I don't even know what that is, I just feel so much fear that something is wrong and my life is in danger. So far, every time I've had to take xanax and every time it stopped between 30 to 60 minutes after it started. Everything about it looks like a panic attack, but I still can't stop worrying that maybe something really is wrong with me. It can be so hard to believe it's just anxiety in the moment, because it really feels so much like I could be dying. When I'm back to my normal state though, I'm 99% certain it was a panic attack, because nothing else makes sense - if it was something else, it wouldn't have been "fixed" by xanax, I would have had some prior indication that something was wrong, and I wouldn't feel completely fine when it was over.
Anyway, just sharing because I thought maybe having some reassurement that I'm not alone in this experience would make me feel better, and make some of you feel better who are suffering from the same thing, as I'm sure some people in this community are.
I'm feeling alright today, and I have taken xanax again today because I was feeling very on edge, but I haven't had a full out panic attack yet - if I can get through one day without one, then the next few days should get easier.