I had a sudden bout of severe anxiety back in November and after about a month, I've managed to be 98% anxiety free. I don't have health anxiety, and I'm not sure there's a term for exactly what kind of anxiety I have (life/stress anxiety) but I had a variety of physical symptoms, intrusive thoughts, the works.
I have found myself checking in with how I feel, mostly at home with my family because at work I'm super busy. Even though I don't feel anxious and when I check in I feel fine, I've found that I feel guilty. I feel guilty for having not been a stronger person, not having taken better care of myself, or had better stress management, and for having intrusive thoughts which I know are a normal symptom.
I've always been a strong and very logical person so even though I've worked to manage anxiety and have almost no symptoms, the guilt I feel is the hardest for me.
You are a strong person, you made it out of that severe anxiety! I'm curious to how you've gotten rid of almost all of your anxiety?? And listen, intrusive thoughts are not actions. I've had them too when I was at my worst, they drove me crazy. But they have nothing to do with what you actually feel. Remember that!
Thank you! I couldn't understand why all of a sudden it hit me. I didn't even know how stressed I was for years even though my mom had been telling me I needed to rest. I did a lot of research on anxiety and stress management and had full medical workup done from my GP, gynocologist, and psychiatrist. I accepted it was anxiety, and reached out to a lot of friends and family for support. Come to find out, many of them had similar experiences. I stopped fighting the anxious feelings and slowly they wentnaway.
Same with intrusive thoughts, I didn't try to stop them and they eventually went away. But because they involved my family, I have enormous guilt.