After my panic attack, or whatever the heck it was, I began doing a lot of reading up on similar and related psychological disorders.
I can say that since the panic attack I have become obsessed with thinking something worse is wrong with me. When I'm distracted on work or talking to someone or watching TV, etc. I feel just fine, but when I'm alone with just myself and my hyperactive mind, I become obsessed with checking my heart rate, checking my pulse, breathing deeply and/or coughing to see if anything feels different, checking my temperature and on and on and on. The process of doing this does cause me to stress out, and my heart rate increases from normal (around 80 to 100) when I start checking all this junk to about 120 (slightly above normal resting). Once the obsessive behavior diminishes and my stress level lowers, it goes back to normal. I have actually made my pectoral muscle quite sore over the last week from constantly feeling my heartbeat.
The thing I realized in finally consciously observing this behavior in myself is that this is not an isolated incident. I have frequently self-diagnosed myself with all kinds of issues and then obsessed over them when they were in fact non existent to begin with based off of a simply muscle ache, an upset stomach, a twitch, and on and on.
I was first thinking generalized anxiety disorder seemed to cover most of my behavior, but I think hypochondriasis seems to be the top contender. I guess it might be a combination of both. Heck, for all I know that self diagnosis could be me doing the same exact thing I was describing above.
I can say however that discovering these patterns and behaviors in myself and reading up on these disorders and reading the symptoms and causes has made me breathe a huge sigh of relief that its something that can actually be identified. Reading about them kind of gave me a light bulb moment about myself.
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3 comments:
Funny that I'm in my second and last class focusing on the analysis and diagnosis of the individual, eh?
It could very well be that, at this time in your life, you meet enough criteria to be diagnosed with hypochondriasis or GAD. However, it's important to keep in mind that most people at one time or another in their lives probably qualify for a mental health diagnosis. In fact, I'm told by my professors that a strange phenomenon occurs in freshmen master's students in counseling. When they start working with the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) they start to "discover" they have many of the disorders they are reading about. This is not to say that you don't have a mental health disorder, just that symptoms of mental health disorders are quite common in every day life. They become "clinical" symptoms when they cause "significant distress or impairment in a person's daily functioning." So sure, you're a little freaked out by what happened to you and rightly so, but you aren't missing work, you aren't refusing to go out with friends or see family. Your symptoms are very much an inconvenience, but have they crossed the line into significant distress and impairment? Hard to say.
At this time I would tend to be more inclined to think that you are still adjusting from the trauma you experienced during your recent panic attack. You aren't interpreting minor symptoms as indicative of major health problems. You actually had something physically traumatic happen to you and it's natural and normal to be anxious about the possible recurrence.
Feel free to take or leave my advice, but I think it would be good to give yourself some reassurance that you are doing what you can to prevent recurrence of a panic attack. If possible, try doing some daily meditation and/or exercise routine. Start journaling about your anxiety triggers and notice any emerging patterns. You are probably already doing some or all of these things. It will likely be a little while before your body and mind completely de-stress from the panic attack and come off red alert status. Sorry my reply is probably longer than the original post. ;)
Just wanted to re-iterate that I wasn't intending to come off as a know-it-all or anything with my response. You happened upon a subject I'm pretty passionate about!
My thought on this is that I'm interested in the family dynamics behind this ordeal. The GAD is something (like Lexy said) kind of vague (generalized, drrr) and kind of all-encompassing....it's the anxiety d/o (I think) that is basically "NOS"--"Not Otherwise Specified" or something like that. Okay. So what that means is that your anxiety isn't "SOCIAL" anxiety d/o, where you're freaked out by social situations. Like Lexy said, we all experience things in our day-to-day lives that could be symptomatic of some d/o......BUT....I talked to a good friend of mine who is a psychiatrist about your plight, and she says that 1.) Reading symptoms of stuff makes us think that we have it (the phenomenon Lexy talked about)...if I listened closely enough to the TV, I would think I had testicular cancer....and 2.) When we ruminate over the physiological symptoms that we experience every day and start paying TOO MUCH attention to them....hence the sore pecs...maybe start taking your pulse in your wrist or neck...
Anyway. Since there is a history of panic disorders in your family, and definitely hypochondriasis!!!! So if I had to give one piece of advice, it would be not to sweat the small stuff. The upset stomach may just be indigestion or whatever.....don't just be alive---truly LIVE and enjoy yourself...love yourself....and GET OUT MORE!!! If you have problems being "alone" and "lonely", then find a way (like hanging out with ME!!!) to not be so damn lonely all the time. Beat this problem with a big stick. And I can help! :)
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