the past couple days i am like hyper aware of my chest and my heartbeat and i don’t know why. i don’t think anything specific triggered it. but i keep making myself think my heart isn’t beating right when i’m almost positive it’s fine and it’s just my anxiety. can something have triggered it without me even realizing it? like something i saw on social media or a tv show? does this happen to anyone else?
It happens to me and can happen out of no where. Since November 2021, my thoughts like this mentioned above have returned after losing a family member. However, I can assure you that it also tends to arrive for me when I’m stressed or it can just arrive when everything is fine. How I respond to it determines how well or fast I overcome the feeling. Checking and reassurance makes it worsen.
@AcceptUncertainty thank you for commenting. hopefully it will pass soon
@camilleshae No problem! Try to sit with the feelings and name them as anxiety symptoms rather than being sick.
It could be a new health concern OCD
Thank you for sharing what you are experiencing. Health anxiety is one of the OCD themes I have. Sometimes it comes up for me when I hear about something that somebody else has, but sometimes it just comes up out of the blue. It can be very overwhelming. Sometimes it helps me to redirect my attention and concentrate on getting something done for just the next 10 minutes. Not a big task that is too overwhelming, but something tangible. Also, taking some time for self-care can help; maybe listening to music or getting some fresh air.
I’ve experienced this hyper awareness of physical sensations, too! Sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason to the content of our obsessions, but regardless you are definitely not alone. It may be helpful to identify the underlying “core” fear that comes with the concern about your heartbeat — for example, is it that you might have a health issue, is it a fear of sudden death, or a feeling that you won’t be able to stop thinking about it? Depending on the core fear you can develop exposures and non-engagement responses that directly address your anxieties!
These past few days I was fine. Minimal intrusive thoughts ,no anxiety etc(to add I'm on medication so maybe it's starting to work although it barely is 2 weeks) and today I got a sudden wave of anxiety and it started latching on some thoughts like" what if I'm in denial and I wanna break up with my bf? And what if erp doesn't work for me because I actually wanna break up with my bf?" But they didn't really stay long usually those thoughts would make me spiral for days or so, now they lasted for some hours. And now I'm trying to trigger myself into being anxious again because if I don't it means I don't have ocd and if I don't have ocd it means I don't love my bf and if I don't love my bf it means I have to break up. Idk if it makes sense but the lack of anxiety makes me wonder if I actually have ocd or not.
It started when I became an adult, and started receiving my mental health diagnosis. I hyper fixated on each and every action I did and how it could be related to my diagnosis’s. It then lead to fixation to my physical health — making appointments and seeing every specialist I can to rule out every possibility. I currently have been suffering with obstructive sleep. I woke up the past few days with severe pain from the lack of sleep whilst believing I was oversleeping. Luckily my fit watch tracks my sleep cycle and it turns out I am not receiving any sleep. I had an extreme panic attack — bursting into tears on the phone with my mom wondering what this case might be. She told me it could be sleep apnea and that a simple sleep study could figure this out. However, knowing my family history I made appointments to every specialist I can to make sure it is nothing serious. The unknown of health can be scary to me. Watching my mother suffer with her physical health chronically since I was a child lead me to be very conscious and aware of how my body is functioning. This morning was one of the worst moments of physical pain. I should just take one step at a time with the sleep doctor instead of taking measures to see every specialist that could pertain with this issue. However, that is very hard to me. I don’t want to ever wake up in the pain I was this morning. Does anyone else suffer with health-related OCD? And if so, how do you find a sense of ease during moments like I expressed?
i’m currently experiencing a panicky anxiety attack and i don’t know why. i’ve been on edge all day because of being scared to get sick, but right now, i know i’m not going to get sick but i’m just really panicked and cannot calm down. i’m currently listening to music that helps relax me with an icepack on my neck to help, but not much is happening. my sister and mom keep coming into my room and it’s only making it worse but i don’t know why. i just don’t want to talk or be around anyone right now. these kinds of episodes are worse than any other because i don’t know why i’m so scared. it just feels like it’s never going to go away.
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