Fear of the anxious feeling

I feel like I live in the constant fear that I am about to die from something medically. Like every bodily feeling is something serious that’s about to kill me. I’m extremely healthy, and all my doctors tell me I’m healthy. But the anxious feeling kills me. It makes me feel like I want to run out of my body. A lot of the times I feel anxious that I’m going to have an anxiety attack, and in turn that makes me have an anxiety attack. I feel like I have no peace or calmness in life anymore. I had my first anxiety attack 5 years ago when i thought I was dying (literally only from a clogged nostril) but ever since i know that anxiety attacks were possible, I have them all the time. Every day.

Anonymous

Date posted: 6d

That’s my biggest hurdle too. I live a pretty healthy lifestyle and I get check ups regularly but I still get so anxious about my health constantly and I am super hyper aware of my bodily sensations. One thing that has helped those racing anxious thoughts every time I feel a bodily sensation is to set a timer for 5 minutes, tell myself “I’ll worry about it in 5 mins”, I’ll go do something else. Then if it’s still happening in 5 minutes and it hasn’t decreased at all then I’ll go through my list of things it could be: am I dehydrated, am I hungry, do I need a nap… once I’ve tried everything on my list and if I still don’t feel better then I can worry about it.

alan87

Date posted: 6d

@Anonymous I would love to try this, but the only thing is I would be thinking about that 5 mins while doing something else.

kwilliam64

Date posted: 6d

@Anonymous Do you ever get the feeling I described as “running out of my body”? Like movement maybe isn’t just enough, I need to escape this. Almost like a complete sensation

Anonymous

Date posted: 6d

@alan87 For me I’ve been practicing simple meditation techniques for years which over time made it easier for me to be able to “move on” from a thought but it took a really long time time of diligent practice to get there.

Anonymous

Date posted: 6d

@kwilliam64 Yes! I get that feeling sometimes too. Sometimes I literally run out of my house and just pace around on the front porch. I think the change in temperature really helps my body kind of snap out of it. I actually had this feeling really badly and intensely when I took an SSRI for the first time a few months ago. The best way I could describe it was my internal body and thoughts were going wayyyy too fast for my external body. I felt like I just wanted to jump out of my skin. It was so bad, I paced around my house the entire night while uncontrollably shaking and at 3am ended up going to the emergency room because I genuinely thought I was dying or something was wrong with me.

alan87

Date posted: 6d

@Anonymous What are some simple techniques to try for a beginner?

Anonymous

Date posted: 5d

@alan87 I really like using the Calm app! It has a lot of really quick and simple meditations :) I also use it to help me fall asleep

Anonymous

Date posted: 6d

Sadly I’ve got no advice or methods to not feel that way. The only thing I can say is that eventually it stops.

XwitnessX

Date posted: 13h

Health ocd is such a drag. Something I’ve felt my whole life not knowing it was different from anyone else! But my fear and avoidance has kept me from actually doing anything about it and knowing anything for sure. So not only am I scared and convinced there’s this, this and this wrong, I’ll also never know for sure! 🙃

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