I’ll tell you folks. I never understood how physical anxiety could be. I always assumed it was just racing thoughts and overthinking, until I started a bout with health anxiety that has gone sideways on me. I was diagnosed with an illness that would be manageable and not affect me until I was much older. I’m 35, in good shape, otherwise above average in every other health category. However the diagnosis made me confront my future, and 3 months later I’m in hell. I wake up every day with cortisol ripping through me. I’m shaky, unable to eat much, and wired for hours. Then suddenly I’m fatigued, exhausted, and weak. These things feel like symptoms of diseases that are very scary. So then I start obsessing over these symptoms which make me scared of more symptoms. Constantly on alert, I get even more sensations. These give me more anxiety and so on. So enter anxiety meds. And what do these give you? Side effects. Nausea, tingles, shakes, weakness, fatigue. All of which if you use dr Google make you even more worried. And the more worried you get the more it hurts and the more of life it steals from you. Day after day after day. I miss who I was before. I miss when I didn’t think about death everyday and my loved ones. I just want to feel better. All the Spector visits and all the reassurance doesn’t help. New pain, new terminal illness. I used to hear hypochondriac as a joke. Now I know it’s hell on earth. Here’s hoping CBT and other strategies can start to lessen the pain. Thanks for listening.