I won't go into too much detail because it
would involve me telling a very
long-winded story, and this will already
be really long so I'll just give a breif
description of what I'm feeling and see if
any of you can give me some
opinions/advice.
I'm definitely suffering from stress,
anxiety and panic attacks. Before two
months ago I had never suffered from any
of these awful things except some moderate
levels of stress. (i.e. everyday life) I
have self-diagnosed myself with something
horrible and because of it I've been
absolutely freaking out, even though I've
followed up the self-diagnosis with at
least 6 other Dr. visits which all say I
have little to worry about and need to
calm down.
So, I've been showing a lot of
signs/symptoms of anxiety, (These all come
and go as I'm sure you're all aware -
rapid heart rate, jumpiness, lump in
throat, varied bowel movements, moderate
intermittent night sweats, head feeling
constricted, can't sleep/wake up stressed
feeling crummy, "specific localized aches"
etc...) I have a question or two about
them, especially the one in quotations.
Since this is all new to me I'm pretty
uninformed, but as I read more and more
I'm beginning to understand just how
powerful anxiety is. I'm finally starting
to accept that the tightness/dull pain
around my neck and the lump in my throat
that makes swallowing feel weird is my
anxiety and not my lymphnodes, (Which
multiple Dr's. checked and said were not
swollen). But what I haven't seemed to
grasp yet is that my mind could be doing
the exact same thing to both my underarms,
(specifically the left one) where I know
another lymphnode is. (Again, Dr's say
it's not swollen) It seems that I focus
on symptoms of what disease I believe I
possibly have and then worry so much that
I almost create the pain/feeling in the
specific area. I did this with another
part of my body but as soon as I "forget
about it" for a little while by occupying
myself with other things it goes away to
varying degrees ranging from totally gone
to very mild.
I guess my question is, and I somewhat
already know the answer but I'm looking
for some more reassurance, could my mind
really be doing this do my body in these
specific spots that I'm so worried about?
Maybe tightening the muscles or something
to make me have these dull achey feelings?
It's almost like the left over feeling
from a charliehorse in my neck, you know,
the strained muscle feeling? Which right
now seems to be totally gone as I write
this. Of course, my left underarm is
intermittently shooting with dull pain and
it's driving me crazy.
Unfortunately, despite what professionals
say after taking long looks at me, until I
have a blood test, (which I have to wait
another month to take) I won't be
satisfied with believing that my anxiety
could be causing some of these symptoms.
Hopefully some of you here with more
experience than me could try to make me
understand that it's definitely a
possibilty that my mind is triggering
these pains/feelings in me.
I know this post is ridiculously long and
I'll thank everyone in advance for reading
this far. Any advice would be much
appreciated. Even just writing this out
helped calm me down a bit. I truly feel
for everyone that has to deal with stress,
anxiety, and panic attacks. The toll it
takes on a person can be truly
devastating.
