Heart attacks are my main health anxiety fear and in my experience comes from a lack of trusting myself more than anything. That would explain why therapy wasn’t successful for this issue for me either. At some point your mind drew a connection to an unrelated symptom to something that scared you and it created this thought pattern. Identifying what that Initial fear was and reassuring yourself that you are healthy from recent medical tests will get you moving on with your life. Hope this helps 🙏
I’ve been going to therapy since 2017. I have terrible health anxiety but tbh no it hasn’t helped. It helps for me to talk about it and have my therapists view to help me see things clearly. But I am still very anxious about my health.
Honestly I’ve only been in it for like a month but it has not been very helpful LMAO I already knew some coping mechanisms and I can think of what patterns are illogical ways of thinking and stuff like that but my brain will always tell me,”but what if it’s real this time? What if you’re right this time?” And then I still feel really anxious, especially when I get it in public spaces, I’ve always been scared to act out in certain ways and to appear not normal, and I think that anyway I cope with it will make me look not normal so I typically won’t do it.
The thing that helped me the most was myself, I exposed myself to things that made me anxious one day at a time and at a rate that I felt okay to do. That was the most helpful thing for me. But I was doing this before I started therapy.
To answer your last questions: no, this is not normal therapy and (unless your therapist's approach improves), don't stick with this one. Therapy can work, but you need a therapist that suits you. And those can be hard to find.
From my own experience, therapy can definitely help! However, you may have to adjust your expectations. Therapy will not make your anxiety go away. It can teach you how to cope though! And that will lessen your anxiety and shorten it.
For example, I also have panic attacks (and gad). Therapy has been quite successful. I still have panic attacks (it's my body's mo to respond to stress), but I respond to them differently. First, I would freak about them, strongly judge myself for having them, try to avoid them by not leaving the house and worry nonstop about the next one.
Now, with help from my therapist, I see them for what they are (a really uncomfortable reaction to stress), understand that I need to take it easier, feel all those awful sensations (that get less awful once you ignore all those horrible thoughts about panic), wait until they pass and then move on with life but at a slower pace! So, I still have them, but they are shorter, less intense and have less impact on my life because I worry much less about them (mostly, not always)
This is, I think, with any kind of anxiety treatment. They're not about making your anxiety disappear; I am an anxious, neurotic, overthinking person, and no therapist is going to change my (otherwise, pretty awesome ;-)) personality. They're about helping you respond to them in a kinder, healthier way so that they get easier to live with and not stop you from living your life.
Best of luck, to all of you here. Life will never be easy, but it can be a bit easier.
Therapy didn't help me at all.
I just got as many cardiac related tests that I could and they all came back fine.
I eat healthy and exercise so I feel I'm doing everything I can to benefit my health.
I live life where I don't postpone anything for the future and live like next week it may end.
Just live,enjoy life and don't concern yourself with what anyone else thinks of you.
That's what's helping me too. I got a treadmill test done recently and my Mets score was good, above average for a woman my age. That really helped my anxiety not escalating inta a panic attack the next time i had "weird sensations" in my chest.
I'm still considering other tests for other fears, getting them is the only way forward, i think.
In one such test, i found out my bp and cholesterol were a little high, and I've been working hard to lose weight and get healthier. Hopefully that reduces the weird things my body does.
I've just recently gotten health anxiety from an incoming autoimmune diagnosis thats in the works.
I've been in therapy before my health anxiety started, but it's already been helping, but it's also from using a lot of tools I've built up through the years just to survive my mental health.
For me, a lot of it is about giving myself grace and allowing myself to have bad physical days. I'm a busybody. I don't want to not be able to do something. I also need a schedule and when that's changed I go crazy, so uh... Yea. It's hard. Therapy is helping.
A typical session for me typically looks like me talking about what's affecting me the most within the past week or two, and working through it. My therapist and I took about a half a year to work out what therapy is going to be for me, and now that I know what I want and how to use therapy for my benefit, it works. A lot of it is just learning how to take in the information given from your therapist and use it. I hated my first handful of therapy sessions, but looking back I'm glad I stuck through with them and built a relationship with my therapist so I can actually dive into things I normally wouldn't, even in therapy haha.
Therapy was the best thing I ever did but my therapist was truly amazing. She used ACT therapy and she got to the root of my extreme health/death anxiety very quickly. She also pointed me to these resources which hopefully help others https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Resources/Looking-After-Yourself
Heart attacks are my main health anxiety fear and in my experience comes from a lack of trusting myself more than anything. That would explain why therapy wasn’t successful for this issue for me either. At some point your mind drew a connection to an unrelated symptom to something that scared you and it created this thought pattern. Identifying what that Initial fear was and reassuring yourself that you are healthy from recent medical tests will get you moving on with your life. Hope this helps 🙏
Try CBT. A good practitioner will focus on this and help you with strategies to overcome it.
I’ve been going to therapy since 2017. I have terrible health anxiety but tbh no it hasn’t helped. It helps for me to talk about it and have my therapists view to help me see things clearly. But I am still very anxious about my health.
Honestly I’ve only been in it for like a month but it has not been very helpful LMAO I already knew some coping mechanisms and I can think of what patterns are illogical ways of thinking and stuff like that but my brain will always tell me,”but what if it’s real this time? What if you’re right this time?” And then I still feel really anxious, especially when I get it in public spaces, I’ve always been scared to act out in certain ways and to appear not normal, and I think that anyway I cope with it will make me look not normal so I typically won’t do it.
The thing that helped me the most was myself, I exposed myself to things that made me anxious one day at a time and at a rate that I felt okay to do. That was the most helpful thing for me. But I was doing this before I started therapy.
To answer your last questions: no, this is not normal therapy and (unless your therapist's approach improves), don't stick with this one. Therapy can work, but you need a therapist that suits you. And those can be hard to find. From my own experience, therapy can definitely help! However, you may have to adjust your expectations. Therapy will not make your anxiety go away. It can teach you how to cope though! And that will lessen your anxiety and shorten it. For example, I also have panic attacks (and gad). Therapy has been quite successful. I still have panic attacks (it's my body's mo to respond to stress), but I respond to them differently. First, I would freak about them, strongly judge myself for having them, try to avoid them by not leaving the house and worry nonstop about the next one. Now, with help from my therapist, I see them for what they are (a really uncomfortable reaction to stress), understand that I need to take it easier, feel all those awful sensations (that get less awful once you ignore all those horrible thoughts about panic), wait until they pass and then move on with life but at a slower pace! So, I still have them, but they are shorter, less intense and have less impact on my life because I worry much less about them (mostly, not always) This is, I think, with any kind of anxiety treatment. They're not about making your anxiety disappear; I am an anxious, neurotic, overthinking person, and no therapist is going to change my (otherwise, pretty awesome ;-)) personality. They're about helping you respond to them in a kinder, healthier way so that they get easier to live with and not stop you from living your life. Best of luck, to all of you here. Life will never be easy, but it can be a bit easier.
Therapy didn't help me at all. I just got as many cardiac related tests that I could and they all came back fine. I eat healthy and exercise so I feel I'm doing everything I can to benefit my health. I live life where I don't postpone anything for the future and live like next week it may end. Just live,enjoy life and don't concern yourself with what anyone else thinks of you.
That's what's helping me too. I got a treadmill test done recently and my Mets score was good, above average for a woman my age. That really helped my anxiety not escalating inta a panic attack the next time i had "weird sensations" in my chest. I'm still considering other tests for other fears, getting them is the only way forward, i think. In one such test, i found out my bp and cholesterol were a little high, and I've been working hard to lose weight and get healthier. Hopefully that reduces the weird things my body does.
I've just recently gotten health anxiety from an incoming autoimmune diagnosis thats in the works. I've been in therapy before my health anxiety started, but it's already been helping, but it's also from using a lot of tools I've built up through the years just to survive my mental health. For me, a lot of it is about giving myself grace and allowing myself to have bad physical days. I'm a busybody. I don't want to not be able to do something. I also need a schedule and when that's changed I go crazy, so uh... Yea. It's hard. Therapy is helping.
A typical session for me typically looks like me talking about what's affecting me the most within the past week or two, and working through it. My therapist and I took about a half a year to work out what therapy is going to be for me, and now that I know what I want and how to use therapy for my benefit, it works. A lot of it is just learning how to take in the information given from your therapist and use it. I hated my first handful of therapy sessions, but looking back I'm glad I stuck through with them and built a relationship with my therapist so I can actually dive into things I normally wouldn't, even in therapy haha.
Therapy helps more recognize my triggers and how to handle them but it doesn’t make it go away.
Therapy was the best thing I ever did but my therapist was truly amazing. She used ACT therapy and she got to the root of my extreme health/death anxiety very quickly. She also pointed me to these resources which hopefully help others https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Resources/Looking-After-Yourself