Trigger warning: health anxiety, death

Tldr; health anxiety has been really really bad this year. I'm just so incredibly stressed out, I can't function at the moment. Just really need a hug / support. And if you know any reasources for dealing with the concept of death, let me know.


I am struggling so hard this year and it has gotten so bad. I've had health anxiety / OCD since I was a kid, I'm 25 now. But wow has this year been terrible.

In the beginning of the year a neighborhood dog had jumped on me - so of course, I'm afraid of rabies for the next month. Go to multiple urgent cares, waste time and money. Ugh.

Then, I start having GI issues. Oh shit (literally!), What if it's bowel cancer?? My mom is a retired doctor and reassured me that I was fine, but that didn't help. I went to a GI specialist, and that didn't help. Finally I end up getting a colonoscopy and finally that put my bowel cancer fear to rest. 

I worried about rabies again a few times. Worried about various cancers. Went to urgent cares, doctors, all said not to worry.

Then I got a routine blood test done, and found out I have really high cholesterol and elevated liver enzymes. Now, the enzymes are due to meds likely. But the high cholesterol is familial. But damn, having actual abnormal labs is scary for me.

Then, a really bad thing happened to me that caused me to face my own mortality. I can't go into details as to what happened, because I'm not supposed to talk about it. But needless to say, I've been obsessed with my own death for like two months now. It's been a real struggle and it's making my health anxiety and OCD go into over drive.

Now I've been worried about oral cancer for the past week, and it's all I can focus on. I had a canker sore from stress, so of course I think it's cancer. It took several weeks to heal, which is longer than usual, which is why I'm worried about it being cancer. It is healing though, and the white patch on it has gone away, it's just a little swollen now. Of course, last night I was picking at the spot where it was and I caused some bleeding, which has sent me into even more panic. I haven't gone to work in several days. My mom (retired doc) says she thinks it's fine and not cancer but it's so hard for me to trust that for some reason.

I'm not looking for reassurance for my latest scare, because I know reassurance doesn't help in the long run. I am in therapy, and I've been on meds for many many years at this point. 

I guess I'm just looking for a virtual hug, some support, some cheerleading so to speak. Because it's getting to the point where I am so sick of riding these waves of panic and terror.

Also, I've started to realize that at the root cause of my health anxiety is a major fear of death. Is there anyone else here like that? Has anyone here found any good resources, philosophy, etc that has helped them reconcile with the concept of dying? I wasn't raised with any sort of religion, but my mom's side is Jewish so I've been considering looking into that, maybe that would help. Or spirituality of some kind? Idk.

Thanks for reading this. I hope that someday we'll all be in a better place mentally.