hello everyone my name is darren. i am new to this discussion forum so please bare with me. i have a very bad fear of becoming ill especially contracting cancer. this scares me so much that for the past 3 years i become a obsevive symptom checker especially checking my weight for unintentional weight loss and checking of stools( i wont go much into that one but you see what i mean). it is a constant daily battle as i am only focussing on myself instead of my children and family life. the anxiety has been terrible for 3 years. constant gp apps and hospital investigations always come back clear exept an elevated liver function which scares me. my biggest concern has always been about cancer and getting it. i am a constant weight checker and stand on the scales atleast 20 times a day. i was taking fluoxitine for this but have now been put on 50mg of sertraline. i have heard mixed reviews on this and have become scared to start the course because one of the rare side effects is cancer. have any of you guys and girls taken this treatment?.
any advice or reviews i would be extremely grateful for.
Darren, I completely understand how healthy anxiety feels and I’m sorry you are going through it.
I can honestly tell you I worried for over 30 years about getting cancer or some other horrible disease. I wasted all those years living in fear and anxiety and nothing bad ever happened.
. I cannot get back even one of those days! I could have been enjoying my family especially my children and they also lost out.
If there is anyway you can get counseling for this, please get it! Don’t rob your kids of you. you want them to have wonderful memories of being with you happy.
I finally stopped thinking that way and life is much more enjoyable! My attitude is if anything were to go wrong with my health then I will deal with it at that time. No more fear controlling my life.
I learned that fear is a useless emotion. Worrying about the future really doesn’t make any sense because it won’t add one single day to your life. But it can make you ill.
Life goes by way too fast and you will turn around and your kids will be grown up. Don’t waste a single day!
Instead, every morning when I wake up the first thing I do is acknowledge what I am grateful for. I am grateful for my life. I am grateful for my children. I am grateful for enjoying my family. I’m grateful for the beauty of nature, etc. focus on the positive!
There is a book called mindfulness that many people are reading and it has also taught all around the world. It helps you gain control over fear and it’s definitely worth reading. It is a white book with a ball of string on the cover . Listen to some mindfulness meditations on YouTube for fear, anxiety, etc.
You are most likely very healthy so enjoy your family! Create some fun and happy. memories! They miss you. ❤️❤️❤️👨👩👧👦
thankyou for your wonderful words. ive ordered this book that you speak of and i can not wait to read it. what you said about my children needing me to be happy made me tearfull because i know the truth you speak. what i am experiencing is very severe and i really hope one day this will all end and i can enjoy being the father i started out as. i have been reading the stories on this forum and there are so many people like me. im not happy im the only one but it feels good to see there is people out there who understand.
You are so welcome! I can tell that you love your family very much.
during the healing process, some days will be better than others but never give up.! One thing I learned was when you get a negative or a scary thought, don’t try to fight it off because that creates more anxiety. One approach is to allow that scary thought for a few seconds as though you were observing it, and then imagine it floating off and dissolving. Another way is to say to yourself “delete”. And that is an instant way of deleting that thought. Different ways work for different people.
as soon as you do one of these approaches, then you immediately do something enjoyable or think of something happy. The more you do this the stronger your mind will become to fight off the negative thoughts ❤️🙂