Hi, I've always had a propensity towards anxiety around things like socializing, my future, etc. But it's been somewhat manageable and has improved over time (including therapy for it). I've also always been a lil' bit of what some might call a germaphobe (i.e. I don't share food with people ever, I'm not the type to not care about expiration dates, etc.)

Recently, the past several weeks, I've had much much more intense anxiety about things being able to kill me, not stopping like they have before at being worried about getting sick/social fallout. For example, I read about a guy who ate lethal mushrooms by accident (he foraged and cooked them) and now I can't eat any mushrooms, and I get paranoid that I'll step on some when I go out for a walk and somehow accidentally get poisoned. I am more paranoid now even about petting my dogs since they spend a lot of time outside, and somehow that they've been contaminated by things like that. I've also had anxiety about cleaning my house because of toxic cleaners, and inadvertently poisoning myself. And of course any physical symptoms I feel, even when I know they are within the spectrum of normal, always make me think it's something deadly happening. Either way, trying to decatastrophize never works for me because the worst case is always dying.. so outside my house I'm concerned about being poisoned by something, and inside I'm worried about it too. It's.. not fun

I'm at the point where I can reason myself out of it.. kind of. The main problem I'm having is that even if I get over the immediate panic, I can't stop bringing my thoughts back to it... ALL DAY. So I can push it aside once, or twice, or ten times, but with every time it gets harder and harder and makes it difficult to even think about or do anything else. Plus because of this, I now feel like I have anxiety about not ever being able to get past this, and dreading the rest of my life being this moment to moment fear that I can never push aside. Even typing this out feels like I'm doing it just because I can't stop thinking about it.

I have an appointment to start with a therapist next week after talking to my GP about it. But I would love if anyone has any ideas on what to try to keep things at bay until then... or even just encouragement or being able to relate or whatever.

my only hope right now is that it's acute both due to pandemic circumstances and due to recently losing a family member, and that it'll naturally lessen. but my brain also is worried that maybe those things STARTED the fears, but that the fears will still stay for a long time because obviously they seem justifiable right now... :(