Hi all,
This is my first post on here. I've had health anxiety for as long as I can remember now, especially emetophobia. Today I had probably one of the worst HA days in a long time. It started with a headache, which normally wouldn't worry me so much, but recently there's been an outbreak of EEE (a deadly mosquito-borne virus that makes your brain literally swell until it kills you) in my area and it has me on EDGE... I am seriously freaked out everyday worrying that somehow the right mosquito will bite me and I'll die from this virus. I made the mistake of googling and found out headaches are a symptom of EEE... I started to feel dizzy and disoriented (also symptoms of EEE - perhaps this was just totally psychosomatic though), and I thought I was going to have a seizure or something. I was spiraling to the point where I was about to call 911. But, I finally calmed down after chatting to a crisis lifeline (that's literally how bad it was.) Now, hours later I have this weird back pain. A few hours ago the pain was in my lower back and now it's somehow slowly travelled to my upper back. Maybe it's just muscle pain from the stress but I'm still not fully convinced that EEE (or some other horrible disease) isn't raging through my body and killing me. I can't sleep. Does anyone else have the weird fear that if they fall asleep with symptoms they'll die in their sleep?
This is my first post on here. I've had health anxiety for as long as I can remember now, especially emetophobia. Today I had probably one of the worst HA days in a long time. It started with a headache, which normally wouldn't worry me so much, but recently there's been an outbreak of EEE (a deadly mosquito-borne virus that makes your brain literally swell until it kills you) in my area and it has me on EDGE... I am seriously freaked out everyday worrying that somehow the right mosquito will bite me and I'll die from this virus. I made the mistake of googling and found out headaches are a symptom of EEE... I started to feel dizzy and disoriented (also symptoms of EEE - perhaps this was just totally psychosomatic though), and I thought I was going to have a seizure or something. I was spiraling to the point where I was about to call 911. But, I finally calmed down after chatting to a crisis lifeline (that's literally how bad it was.) Now, hours later I have this weird back pain. A few hours ago the pain was in my lower back and now it's somehow slowly travelled to my upper back. Maybe it's just muscle pain from the stress but I'm still not fully convinced that EEE (or some other horrible disease) isn't raging through my body and killing me. I can't sleep. Does anyone else have the weird fear that if they fall asleep with symptoms they'll die in their sleep?
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that headache is probably from anxiety and not EEE. You most likely brought on the dizziness by freaking out thinking you have this disease, which is a classic symptom of HA. And I've had plenty meltdowns in the past so i know exactly how it feels, like when I was 100% convinced I had a heart attack and was frantically pacing my room at night, convinced every single twinge in my chest were my arteries in the process of blocking. I was so tense i ended up pulling a muscle in my chest - which further intensified my anxiety - and my mother had to hold me and tell me to breathe before i eventually calmed down. Guess what?? No heart attack. Just my anxiety ridden brain playing tricks on me, and theres been plenty more incidences after that. The back pain also seems like its caused by your anxiety. And to answer your last question, literally every night i go to bed worrying I'll die in my sleep. whenever i have these thoughts though i try to push them as far away from my mind as possible, and eventually they go away. Just calm down, you're still healthy and fine.