- Date posted
- 4y
- Date posted
- 4y
Hey bud. This is me in a nutshell. In the past two weeks I’ve had a brain tumor, gastric cancer, leukemia, celiac disease, and multiple sclerosis. I perceive symptoms but because of the whole “uncertainty” bit, I become too afraid of what a doctor will tell me. I think this is one of the hardest subtypes of OCD because it’s difficult to know what’s real and what’s OCD. What I will say is that distraction/not engaging with those thoughts is super crucial. I find I fare better when I tell someone I am spiraling and we need to talk about something completely unrelated. Know you’re not alone ❤️ I am definitely right there with you
- Date posted
- 4y
I’ve also been trying to tell myself that my body will tell me when something is wrong. My OCD doesn’t know shit. But the wires get crossed because anxiety causes physical symptoms…it’s all so confusing. But I know that we’ve got this, and we’ll overcome this. 🙏🏼
- Date posted
- 4y
I saw my uncle pass from ALS. A year later, I had muscle twitching and for the last 4 years, I have been thinking I have it and am going to die. Same leg pain. Same twitches. I made the mistake of googling symptoms when it fist happened. It pointed to ALS. Despite 5 neurologists and multiple tests saying things are healthy today, I cannot convince myself I am ok.
- Date posted
- 4y
It’s so confusing because my anxiety makes me shake, muscle twitches, all that fun stuff. Anxiety produces really bodily responses, so to not go all OCD about it is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with. I need to make my avatar a female, because I’m a girl, lol!
- Date posted
- 4y
LOL oops. Anyway I understand what you’re saying, I have the same issues. The worst thing we can do for ourselves is hop on Google and try to figure it out though – the important thing to remember is that those Google searches lack context. We don’t know the nuances of medicine. We just simply make everything the worst-case scenario. I watched a video about how the nervous system plays a role in chronic pain (and by proxy, other fun symptoms). It helped me understand the mechanism of it, and what to do to calm down. Here’s a link: https://youtu.be/QFn_z_1lMWU Hopefully this helps you understand what the body does to us under stress. I’ve been diagnosed with IBS and fibromyalgia BECAUSE I live in a constant state of stress. Not the other way around. That channel also has another video talking about how to calm your nervous system with special techniques that I have found to be somewhat helpful. I hope it helps you too ❤️
- Date posted
- 4y
Thank you. I also have the IBS and other crazy stuff. I thank you for your support.
- Date posted
- 4y
It’s crazy what stress does to us!
- Date posted
- 4y
I meant “real” bodily responses
- Date posted
- 4y
Anxiety does it all...
Related posts
- Date posted
- 16w
I will preface by saying I am not diagnosed OCD, as I can't afford to see therapists or psychiatrists at this time. But given the things I've gone through, I'm pretty much convinced it's what I'm dealing with. I never really saw it coming. As a kid I always had health issues. Sick all the time, spent a lot of my very young years in and out of hospitals. In recent years as I've become an adult, health anxiety started creeping in. I spent my teenage years depressed, anxious and suicidal, both passively and actively. I engaged in self destructive behaviors in an attempt to end my life quicker. I left a toxic home environment and began my journey to improve my life, as I have a significant other that I want to stay on this planet for. I began lifting weights and exercising, eating better, and attempting to improve myself day by day. I didn't even realize it happening, but over time I started caring more and more about my health. Avoiding certain foods, making my diet stricter, and ensuring I did the right things. While it was good for my body in the short term, long term it seems it really affected my mental. As I started to feel better, I noticed that the times where I wasn't feeling 100% were very stressful. I'd start to worry about developing diseases. Diabetes, appendicitis, cancer, any number of rare and deadly diseases i could discover on Google. It got worse and worse as time went on. I'd spend money on things to test my body. glucose monitor, thermometer, supplements to ensure I was healthy. mental compulsions began (which i didn't know where compulsions at the time). Well, it all culminated at its peak in the last few months. Every minor bodily symptom, no matter how normal or common or frequent, became a life threatening warning. Constant googling, ruminating, checking and reassurance seeking, which at the time I didn't know was what I was doing. Then, at the end of May, I did get sick. And suddenly all of my obsessions and compulsions solidified themselves as real and premonitions that were true. I started spiraling. Avoiding social events, or anything that was outside of my room. Barely managing to go to work some days. Bringing my compulsions to work as well, sneaking them in when I could. Every day was anxiety riddled. I became exhausted. Sleeping for 10 hours, waking up still tired, coming home having no energy to do anything. It convinced me even more that I was getting sick again. I was getting suicidal again and contemplating it very often. I then noticed my Instagram feed getting filled more and more with OCD related posts and ads, I guess i was unconsciously finding and engaging with them. They described exactly what I was going through, and still am going through. I'm on day 4 of my recovery after learning some ways to help myself. I'm catching my thought patterns, learning to allow the uncertainty, and avoiding my avoidant tendencies. I removed the batteries from my compulsions and put them out of sight. I still am learning my mental compulsions and how to deal with them. I'm engaging with the things I would avoid now despite how I feel. I'm still riddled with anxiety and the OCD thoughts are very loud and frequent. But I'm feeling more in control and like I can handle the thoughts better. I'd love any advice people can give as well. I want my life back.
- Date posted
- 8w
You can laugh at the title if you want, it’s objectively pretty funny. Hi guys, this is my first time on this app and I mostly just wanted to see if anyone out there is in the same boat as me or works in health care and is dealing with this. I haven’t told anyone what’s going on. I’m in my 4th year of medical school and In the past year I’ve developed what I think is pretty bad health OCD. Now health anxiety is a really common thing for medical students to have, I know that. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that the constant lymph node checking, self diagnosing & examining and reassurance seeking could have definitely had crossed the line into compulsions. Both my parents are cancer survivors which is what originally made me want to become a doctor but now every single physical sensation I have sends me into hours or days of rumination that I or someone I love has stage 4 terminal cancer. I spent an entire vacation with my boyfriend having a silent panic attack and convincing myself that he was dying of pancreatic cancer when he just had food poisoning and was fine days later. I had a complete mental breakdown and told myself I had lymphoma for weeks when I realized I could feel some of my own perfectly normal lymph nodes in my neck. My logical brain knows this is completely ridiculous but the emotional brain will not shut the hell up. It seems cruel that I made it this far only to feel like my own damn brain is betraying my ability to think through health situations clearly. I’m determined to get my symptoms under control before I graduate in a year as I don’t want this to affect patient care. Just wanted to get this off my chest and see if anyone else out there in health care is struggling too.
- Date posted
- 7w
Anyone willing to share there health ocd story with me? I’m really struggling with mine and would like to relate to someone and maybe talk about it. Thanks in advance. I’m new here.
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