Anybody else feel that if you think too much about a certain illness you'll will it into existence? Like I'll fixate on something and then I'll get this anxious thought of if I keep thinking about this I'll make it be true and the universe'll give me whatever disease or issue I'm fixating on. And then that sends me into that anxious spiral on top of the worrying about the perceived symptoms... It ends up being this really triggering thing and just makes everything worse.

I get the health anxiety then I fixate then I fixate too much and trigger the "you'll will it into existence" thought train then I keep thinking about the fixation then I freak out cause I can't stop thinking about it and I've convinced myself it'll be real if I keep thinking about it.

Just such a vicious cycle. I can't control my obsessive anxious thoughts and my brain punishes me further by convincing me of things that obviously logically won't happen but with health anxiety, that don't matter.

Ive been dealing with health anxiety for almost 2 years now, please if anyone needs to text, i am here with open arms, i might not be the best with advice but ill try my best. text, even if its just to rant or something.

I have this website that has helped me alot, it shows every single physical symptom of anxiety, like EVERY SINGLE SYMPTOM.

https://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety-disorders/symptoms/

I (17M) signed up for therapy and i’m next on the waiting list, but i feel hopeless and that until i get my therapy im just stuck dealing and suffering with this anxiety and panic attacks. i don’t know what im supposed to do in the meantime, im aware of the breathing and grounding techniques and all of that but i dont feel like that is helping me progress in helping my anxiety. what am i supposed to do?

I was just wondering if there are any group chats or support groups for people suffering with anxiety that could talk to eachother and share help? ive gone through a lot of my journey with health anxiety alone and i think it could be helpful if i has someone to talk to that can understand

I (28M) needed to get this out and I cant find megathreads on here (if any of you could tell me how to find a current one in search, please let me know for future reference).

I work in a hospital and I think its ruining my life. I was diagnosed with GAD at a young age and I have been taking Lexapro for it for a little over a month now. While I feel mildly improvements, I am still ruminating and fixating on my health. Working at a hospital shows me all of the ways one can get sick. I see illness and death all of the time. I was burying it for years but now I think it is coming to the surface. I think I even developed fibromyalgia (which my aunt also has) from constant trauma and now I get constant physical symptoms. And when I'm going through a flare, it always feed into the panic feedback loop in my head.

I had actual medical problems I had to address like getting my gallbladder removed this year. Or that my cholesterol is high. I always convince myself there's worse things going on beneath the surface that they didnt catch. But maybe I just psych myself out cause they would've definitely found something off in the surgery bloodwork last May, or my PCP would have sent me a message if something was really alarming in my bloodwork like he did when he saw my lipid panel.

I can barely function now. I have Health anxiety every day. Ive never had it this severe. And I want to leave my job so bad but there's no where else in the area that pays as well or has as good of benefits as I have now. I know I need CBT so bad but...sometimes I just wish I could take a while off work to sort out therapy stuff. I keep trying to tell myself that I am still young, and the human body is really good at adapting and fighting abnormalities and illnesses, but sometimes I just spiral. I wouldn't wish health anxiety on my worst enemy. And the fact that it's so stigmatized makes it super hard to talk about.

I also think the reason I have health anxiety is because I have medical trauma from when I was a child. I had lots of labs and doctors appointments over potential kidney problems and have had a fear of failing health and diagnosis processes since then. I was only 12 years old, it was terrifying to live through that.

Noticed that when I have physical symptoms, I automatically fall into checking behaviors — whether it’s searching online, examining myself repeatedly, or feeling like I need a test to confirm what’s happening.also if I don't find out I feel overwhelmed that I'm not treating it or doing something about it too. Even when I know it feeds my anxiety, I struggle to stop.

I’m curious how others here manage the urge to constantly check or seek certainty. Have you found any techniques, habits, or mindset shifts that helped reduce the spiral? Help

Although it’s embarrassing to admit, i recently fell into a habit of asking chatgpt for reassuranc about a lot of my symptoms and thoughts not knowing it could affect me badly. I’ve heard that it’s bad to seek these answers, but what should i do when i am worrying about symptoms?

I’m 17 years old and i live in the uk and im starting CBT soon. a lot of people are telling me i should get on medication, but the serotonin sickness scares me a lot. my anxiety has pretty much consumed my life and i really just want to feel okay again, but i fear that i wont ever unless i take medication

I am a 17 year old male and since december 2024 my life has been changed. i had a panic attack before christmas and instantly my life has spiraled and spiraled between all different worries, mainly of medical events happening to me, and it scares me so so much. i’ve recieved a lot of advice over the time and im aware that im young and healthy but the anxiety just doesn’t stop, i still have the constant fear or something happening to me. i cant accept that i am safe for some reason. is there anything anyone could say to help my situation? i have lost my job and my relationship has suffered because of my anxiety, my life is completely different now

At some point in my teens I started to “heal” from my magical thinking on purpose, pursuing the “unattainable objectivity”. In my late twenties I was finally stripped of any superstition or religion. I deliberately stopped myself from pattern-seeking and tried to surrender to the chaos. But I never gave a proper thought if I should plant these views in a soil of anxiety disorder… And here I am: knowing, that anything can happen anytime to anyone for no obvious reason, and it fuels my health and death anxiety like crazy. Ha-ha! I was “cool” enough to acknowledge the chaos, but too much of a coward to embrace that I have no control whatsoever. Brilliant. I sometimes feel envious of the people who truly believe that nothing bad can happen to them.

Anyway. How’s your magical thinking and does it help you managing your existential dread? Or have you found the path to acceptance, and you’re okay with not having any control?

For me, it’s usually a week or so until i feel another “symptom” of something else 🙃

Okay so this might sound like a bit weird but I’m completely healthy even though I don’t think I am and often convince myself I’m not, my doctors have done every check and said I’m completely fine. However when I look at people or talk to people, in my head I’m thinking ‘I’m so jealous, your so healthy’ and I wish I was like them, even though I am as healthy as them, and don’t even know what they are going through .I can’t stop seeing through the lens of a sick person and I want to know if anyone gets this as-well, or why I get this, because it quite strange to be envious of something you have .

I know if I stopped googling then I wouldn’t have this awful anxiety, but how do you actually do that? It’s like it’s stronger than me and I feel for my own safety I need to google. Nothing good ever comes of it as it just causes more anxiety which in turn causes physical symptoms for me.

Would love if you shared your thoughts!

Sometimes I feel like it's quicker to learn about a symptom in AI than to wait for a doctor's appointment. Am I alone?

I’ve struggled with health anxiety for a while, and I know how easy it is to spiral when your body feels “off.” What’s helped me is reminding myself to focus on the most likely explanation instead of jumping straight to the worst-case scenario. I also try to avoid late-night Googling of symptoms because that never ends well, and I’ve learned to ground myself with simple things like taking a walk, stretching, or just breathing slowly until my mind calms down. It’s not perfect, but these little steps make it easier to keep health anxiety from taking over. I thought I’d share in case it helps someone else, and I’d love to hear what works for others too.

Your body is really really good at what it does. It doesn’t need your constant vigilance.

This is a just a little reassurance for myself and anyone. I struggle with health anxiety on and off, but right now I’m out of the worst of it and I have realized some things.

I know your body feels like the enemy sometimes. Like you have to constantly be vigilant or else something is going to go wrong. But the truth is your body doesn’t need you to do that. It’s already really good at what it does. It’s an incredibly advanced system and it knows what it’s doing and doesn’t need you to constantly backseat. Like any complex machine, it will have glitches and little problems, but your body knows how to deal with them. There are systems in place to repair so, so many things. I think we don’t really fully grasp just how much our bodies can deal with and come back from even with no medical intervention. your body is completely filled with systems of redundancies that kick in when threatened and can fix a wide variety of problems all on their own.

Doctors and medicines are only supplemental and even in emergencies they’re often just there to support your own body to do what it already knows how to do.

You are not alone. Your body is your best friend and your protector. It knows how to do this. You can rest.

Hey guys!! First time posting here. Life has been rough for me lately, unfortunately. As always, HA is so difficult to manage, especially when I’m suffering from anemia and GERD (</3) and I was wondering how some of you made it through your lowest of lows?

I am the opposite of many who fear going to the doc. Certainly not proud but I am in my mid 40s and besides an accident in the mid 2000s I have not been seen my a doc since a teen. I just wanted to share. I find out of sight, out of mind..but when a "symptom" pops up, I spiral.

This might not work for everyone, but it does for me sometimes and I thought maybe for some people as well.

Since I was a child, I had health anxiety, once I told my mom about it and I remember she said to me that "They're just humans like you and I". I didnt know why that time but it helped me a lot.

But now looking back, I now understood where did she come from. Lately when the anxiety comes back, I started to watch and read documentries about the ppl who has the disease that I am afraid of. Not in their extremly sufferring stage, but the ones that you to remind yourself, they're just humans. This is real, and it's just a thing in life. I think it helps me to get out of that spiral and getting touch with reality again. It's not something that "super evil spooky nightmerish concept that comes out suddenly and haunts their victims who is specifically afraid of it", or the videos on the internet who talks abt real diseases like scary stories to tell in the darkness. ARE they scary? yes. But its something that happens in the life and to livings, it IS a part of the cycle and life.

My another point is, internet has been dramatized real life health issues that real people struggles so much for the sake of shock value that, it made people getting lose touch with the reality. People started to see them as like horror concepts, and forgot what actually are they and where did they come from. I'm not talking about every person who has been experiencing health anxiety, but there's a huge crowd started devoloping anxiety with this way and even without knowing truely about the thing they are afraid of-- I saw so many people who started to stop feeling anxious once someone sat down and actually explained the disease with an educational manner without misinformation and exaggeration. And I'm not talking about "it's actually not THAT bad-" type of conversations but explaining why and how it causes properly. People are tend to be afraid of the things that they know less about, talking about prevention and information is more effective in anyways.

I just feel like writing and yapping about this for some reason, take what I said just as a personal opinion. anyways thank you for coming my ted talk !

Whenever I have a flare of my HA, it’s usually provoked by some type of physical feeling/ailment that is very real and actually happening. My brain notices the uncomfortable feeling (like I feel like any person would) and briefly thinks about it and what it could be. BUT THEN, the problem persists. For weeks, sometimes even months. But I’m really still feeling the problem. Not just worrying and obsessing over something that’s not there. In the past, I’ve gone to the doctor and had labs and imaging for various complaints. And it’s almost always been nothing. I feel funny going to the doctor over and over again but I convince myself “there’s no way this is anxiety this time, this feeling XYZ is so real”.

So what do you do? Go to the doctor every time something comes up? The whole “wait a week and if it’s still there, get it checked out” doesn’t exactly work for me because almost always my anxiety and OCD cause it to persist for a while. But I also have a hard time accepting that it’s psychosomatic and my brain is keeping it going.

As I got older, I started to really value my health and got into the habit of getting regular check-ups. I also started trying to incorporate some daily habits that would improve my health. Here are some rules that I think work for everyone:

• If you're short on vitamins and minerals, consider taking some supplements.
• Make sure you walk at least 8,000 steps a day.
• Try turning off your phone and other gadgets at least an hour before bed to help your body get ready for sleep.
• Eat a lot of greens, veggies, and legumes. Try to learn how to cook tasty and healthy food
• If you're not a fan of the gym, try finding activities that you enjoy more. For me, it was cycling.

What tips and habits for your self-esteem do you find most useful? I'd appreciate it if you could share your routines here

One thing I find myself doing fairly often is something I call “standby mode”, where I dont have anything that I’m actively stressed about but I sort of zone out and wait to feel a sensation on my body to be focused on. Lately tho I’ve started to view this as a good thing, and instead of being stressed over nothing it reminds me that their actually isn’t anything wrong, because if I have to search for it, that means nothing is actually wrong with me. So next time you’re looking for something to be wrong with yourself just remember that all that all that means is that nothing is wrong in the moment (like always lol) and just chill out.

I've been suffering from health anxiety for over a year (because I watched a video on YouTube about Boerhaave Syndrome which started this all) now which has worsened this summer. I have lots of crying spells and mood swings due to the fear of a fatal or neurodegenartive illnesses. Distractions don't help much anymore, I cannot visit the doctor often so it makes my anxiety worser. It's sometimes hard to sleep due to the fear of something happening at night or I wake up in the middle of the night for no reason at all. It causes confusion-like state aka Brain Fog often which is even worser because it sometimes reinforces the fears that something is wrong with my brain even tho I'm perfectly healthy. I either binge-eat or don't eat at all depending on what my HA has latched on to. I am looking forward into therapy honestly.

Hypochondria doesn't have any benefits in my opinion. Yes I have a lot of medical knowledge but it's only out of the fear and compulsively researching on the internet and sometimes it's hard to distinguish from a real illness or anxiety. Seeking obsessive reassurance is also very annoying because at the end, it's only going to annoy the people around you and fuel the anxiety even without noticing.

Always checking and monitoring my own body is also driving me insane a little because I just want to be in peace and not constantly worry about normal sensations or minor symptoms. It's also putting a strain on Friendships/Relationships due to isolation and constant worry.

I never had any life-threatening illnesses in my life ever, I have a strong immune system and have visited the doctor last year and everything was perfectly fine. For people with Hypochondria which doesn't seem to be imporving at all, it's better to seek therapy because it will seriously be life-changing as I'm trying to do. I wouldn't wish Hypochondria even on one of my worst enemies.

Sorry for lots of typos.

Does anyone here have a good system for organizing old health reports? I'm always concerned when I visit the doctor that they'll ask me for basic things like my Vit D levels or hormone results - it takes me a while to fish the pictures out (and sometimes it's totally lost). I’ve been thinking about setting up something to make health docs easily searchable, but not sure if others struggle with this too or have any ideas what I can do?

I’ve noticed lately that whenever I plan a trip or something to do down the line (say in a couple of months), that in my head I can’t really get excited about it because I just assume that something will kill me by then and it’s really frustrating. It’s annoying to know that in worrying about dying you forgetting just to live, and that you’re alive right now and you have been alive for a long time. The feeling sort of forces you to live in the moment and makes it difficult to plan ahead for the future. But just remember that the time will pass anyway, so whether you like it or not, you’ll reach those months down the line and you’ll realise it’s for the best that you plan ahead. And remember that being out and about, enjoying your plans is the best way to not get trapped in a mental prison of procrastination, so make plans and get out of the damn house!