That's just typical of the NHS in this country I'm afraid.
I know what you mean about the chest pain. I have had heart palpitations for the past week and convinced myself that I was suffering from all kinds of diseases or cancers or tumours etc.
However when I do actually get my heart rate up, I realise that there's no palpitations and no pain etc. So if there was something wrong with me, why does it happen to choose times when I am not 'at risk' if I were suffering a physical heart problem...
Fear is not logical. It's irrational, which is why when we are stricken by fear we find it very hard to see the logic of the situation.
I did the same thing with headaches that I had a few weeks ago. I convinced myself that it was an aneurysm - probably because a friend of mine died of a cerebral aneurysm.
And the pain and fear is not enough - oh no. Your mind then leads on to the cheery thought of death, and what would people do, and what is after death, and how morbid the whole thing is, and what's the point of living, etc etc etc.
They are relatively normal for anxiety, but even at that - it's not good enough to 'know' that it is anxiety.
I can tell myself that 'the thing I am feeling/thinking is due to anxiety' - it doesn't make it go away.
I force myself to have good days. Unfortunately today I'm not well. I was visiting my girlfriend and her mum had a cold which she has kindly passed on. It's the first time I've been unwell since having glandular fever and having to take a trip to the A&E - and then straight to surgery to have my tonsils removed. Not a nice memory.
And the fact that I'm chest breathing makes my cold feel worse, and then I have thoughts about my breathing be linked to some sort of lung impairment.
It's tiring work just fretting about all these things...
I could literally type on... and to hell with it, I shall.
I think part of the reason why I worry so much about my breathing is because I'm a smoker (and if any of you admin tell me to join the sister site for stop smoking, I will send you all parcels of passive smoke). I don't want to rattle off my excuses for smoking, because, quite frankly, they're rubbish. Just now I don't need to stop smoking. I've got enough on my plate without that. But I digress.
The fact that I smoke makes me fear my chances of contracting some awful cancer or lung related disease is greater - however my age makes it highly improbable that I have.
It all seems to come down to the fear factor. The automatic sensation which makes us feel and act and interact irregularly. Trying to restore that feeling of regularitory (I've given up calling it normality) is difficult, but not impossible. People convert fears all the time.
I remember reading that going to a hypnotherapist for panic disorder is useless, as basically what hypnotherapy does is retrains you in to thinking a certain way about something. But panic disorder is a learned disorder. Not as irrational as fear of flying or spiders. With those fears, we have irrationally linked spiders/flying with catastrophe. With panic disorder, we have linked many things with fear. And the longer it goes on, the more fear of situations is created. Therefore we need tools to cope and get better, not a 'miracle cure' like hypnotherapists seem to offer.
One of my biggest fears is that I will never return to normal. But I'm reminded of the quote: Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. And in the same sense, life and normality is being restored while you are devising techniques and tools to cope. We are all slowly improving with every step we take.
It happens so fast. I remember like it was only last week (in fact it was over 6 months ago) that I was having 10+ panic attacks per day. For no reason. I wasn't in fear provoking situations or anything, I was just simply having massive panic attacks.
Now, I can go to shops, I 'could' go to work, I can go out for meals - I can function normally again. It's just the residue anxiety that remains.
That's why i'm sick of seeing all of these people who claim to cure your panic attacks if you give them £x. Conmen will always target those who are desperate.
The truth is there is no cure out there that someone can tell you. People can offer you tools or techniques to help you overcome your anxiety/panic - but you have to take the gigantic step towards ridding yourself of panic. It's a truly huge step.
I could go on and on, but I'll just wander around the forums for a while instead...
