I went to see a doctor about my anxiety and he referred me to a psychologist (which I won't be able to see until after the Christmas break). I then had a blood test the next day to see if anything else was going on inside of me to cause this. I will get the results back in 5 days. Since I started to specifically worry about brain tumors, I've noticed an onset of pretty constant headache and well ever since this episode of anxiety begun, I've been experiencing nausea when it gets particularly bad. I was able to calm myself by distracting myself. However, this solution is quickly wearing thin, I am always down in the dumps when I'm over at others houses and I can tell my parents are quickly getting sick of my constant sadness and anxiety (so am I!!) On more than one occasion I've gotten myself so worried that I have vision problems and when I am allowed to ruminate for a long time, I start to feel sore on one side of my face, particularly stiff in the jaw. On top of this, I think that one side of the back of my head is bigger than the other side and this has been confirmed by my parents, but quickly dismissed as "something your father has as well". I had neck pain a few days ago and I kept rubbing at my neck to see if anything was there and I think I made it worse. Now I've moved up to constantly rubbing the back of my head and I think that I'm making it sore from doing that as well. I normally am struck with anxiety when I decide to observe my vision and cognition and it feels like every mishap I have points more to my "diagnosis" It feels like the more I confirm my "symptoms" of brain tumor the more that I feel the "symptoms" and the more that I continue to validate my irrational behaviour. I feel like I almost want to have seizures and almost want some certainty, I think I would rather be told I have a brain tumor than live in this uncertainty. Thusly, I'm terrified of the results of my blood test (which aren't testing for brain tumor specifically, infact I don't think they would show up at all on these tests). My appointment to review the results is in 5 days and I keep thinking about what could happen and catastrophising. I think I am going to ask my doctor to feel my head and give me an eye test to try and see if I should be worried about anything, hopefully this should set me to some ease.
I'm worried that this has all come on so suddenly, every day is worse than the next and I look to this as "proof" of my impending death to a brain tumor. Now every thought of my day is related to my worry about brain tumors and it feels like it has been going on longer than it actually has. I'm hoping that it will go away by the same token and that some people here can find some common ground and reassure me a bit. I've normally been a happy person, with a tendency to worry every now and again, but never to a snowballing or debilitating sense as it is now. I'm really trying to enjoy my Summer break (I'm from Australia) but the last week has been a struggle to continue to the next day and I won't have the luxury of CBT/IPT probably for a good 3 weeks and so I was hoping that I could be offered some coping strategies and reassuring words. I don't want to take the measure of going and getting an MRI and my parents are vehemently against indulging my hypochondria like this but I feel like this would really set me to ease.
I know this is an irrational fear but it seems so real to me - it happens to regular people, cancer does. It's indiscriminate! I lost my beautiful grandmother to metastatic stomach cancer, which hit me hard but I bounced back from it. I know that most of what I'm feeling can be explained perfectly by some people here as nothing but side-effects of worrying far too much, but its the "what ifs" and uncertainties that are worrying me.
Thanks for dealing with my rambling and I await some logical explanations and helpful reassurances
