Life, Truth, Mental Health – LET'S TALK!

**I am not a doctor, these are just my experiences & opinions**

So I have struggled with health anxiety, this is where everything kind of stemmed from. Or this may have been the starting point. 

I’ve always been a worrier. I was always the one friend to not really take risks or see the worse in a situation. And I can remember being younger and I suffered quite bad from asthma when I was younger and then I’d have panic attacks of not being able to breathe but thinking I was having an asthma attack. The mind is SO powerful and sometimes that’s a good and bad thing. 

I had to go see a breathing specialist to help me become calm and to teach me to breathe properly. She told me that I breathe more with my chest than from my lungs & tummy. Every time I was going to start panicking she told me to sit in a chair and take long deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth. This has stuck with me until now and probably will do for the rest of my life. 

I’d then see people dying on the news from diseases, and immediately think that I’m going to get it and die. Also with people talking about different things I’d look for symptoms and immediately think I’ve got it and I wouldn’t survive. It’s horrible because once you start you can’t get out. I would constantly check my body, keep going to the doctors for reassurance really. 

Some people would say I was silly but I couldn’t help my brain from over thinking everything. And I’d then do the worse thing and start googling!!! 

I then started getting pains in my lower tummy, (obviously thinking the worst) and turns out it’s a physical pain for anxiety. I never knew that before, but I was thinking about the pain that much I then would get more pain and it would be my mind overriding and then I’d be in another situation. I even went to the hospital with that and had tests, etc and everything was clear. 

Its horrible, I then went to counselling for it because I was in tears and breaking down worrying that I had something life threatening. I saw a therapist and she did help me in small amounts, and she’d say write a list of the positive things you have going for you, such as; Young, healthy, no hereditary diseases and so on. And then I finished that and it has helped me afterwards because I think my head just goes from 1 to panic and that’s all I can think about.

If you are dealing with this, I’m here to talk to. Never be ashamed!! 

Thank you for listening. 

Sammy 

x

– lifetruthmentalhealth