Escape Disappointment

Written by Andi Bazaar | Oct 14, 2022

Just because someone isn’t outright stigmatizing doesn’t mean that they are not, dismissing people with mental illness even within the same household is so common. People with mental health issues aren’t suddenly less smart or less capable.

Let’s talk about health anxiety, these past few years have put so much emphasis on heath, illness and constantly worrying about our environment for fear of catching the virus. Health anxiety has increased so much and for those who already had it, it became worse.

It is important to note before we dive deeper into this that it is always a good idea to have physical check ups or second opinions if we felt dismissed by the first doctor we went to see, we cannot reach a conclusion of health anxiety without first ruling out anything physical.

So at its core, what is health anxiety? It is an intense internal fear that we are or may be getting very ill and that it is all but a certainty that it will happen despite no logical evidence indicating that. Due to the intensity of that fear, we believe it wholeheartedly.

Given that this fear is nearly always present, we find ourselves constantly scanning our bodies for any form of pain or slight change. Because of that hyper vigilance and anxiety, we may start to experience physical manifestations of anxiety and further increasing the fear.

For example, we may get very anxious and because of the brain or gut highway, we start to feel stomach pain, bloating, diarrhea, acid be reflux, we are convinced something is wrong with our body. We may go to a doctor and do a bunch of tests only for them to come back negative.

Rather than be satisfied with those results, we may start to worry that we may have some obscure illness that cannot be noticed. Any validation that our health is going well is only temporary before that anxiety overtakes us or we notice some pain in another part of our body.

• we catastrophize every single thing that happens, there may be a pain or ache that we wouldn’t normally feel but because of that hyper vigilance in our body.
• we feel it more acutely, thereby confirming that our bodies are not doing well. It is truly a vicious cycle.
• we may find ourselves repeatedly going to doctors and wondering why they can’t find what we have and not realizing that the anxiety itself can create those symptoms.

GIVEN HOW BAD THIS CYCLE CAN BE, HOW DO WE BREAK IT? THERE ARE TWO MAIN WAYS

We can break it from the cognitive (aka brain) and we can break it from the behavioural side (aka behaviours) for example, to start breaking the cycle cognitively, we may start going to therapy or taking medications to reduce the strength of the fear we are experiencing.

Learning tools we can implement to reduce that fear is going to play a huge role in slowing down and eventually eliminating that fear, the behavioural side is also important. For example, let’s say we went 10 times to a doctor in the last year and everything came back clear.

Now, rather than reacting to that fear and going right away to the doctor or start scanning our symptoms we will stay put. We won’t give that fear any validation and once it subsides, we realize that the fear can go away without us rushing to confirm whether it was right or not

We are no longer going to believe that the fear means that something is really happening or that we can manifest physical problems because we think about them, it may take some time and practice because we are so used to that fear dictating our behaviours overall.

The more weight we give it, the more likely it is for that fear to grow and destroy our quality of life, whereas if we don’t act on it we are more likely to reduce it because it is not having as big of a hold on us.

We can do that by starting with some distractions, deep breathing to slow down our heart rate, reconnecting with our environment by using our 5 senses, etc. There are so many grounding exercises that takes us out of our mind and help us reduce that fear response temporarily.

Ideally, we want to tackle the issue from both sides at the same time for optimal results. Going to therapy or taking meds to reduce the cognitive side and at the same time reducing the behavioural response, let’s also challenge our thoughts.

• what is the logical evidence that our fear is correct?
• what is the logical evidence against?
• is our fear grounded in any form of reality?
• was it refuted through accurate tests or not?
• what triggered this episode?

WE CAN START TO WRITE THESE DOWN IN OUR JOURNAL

If for example, we open our social media and see a health post or someone going through a physical illness and we are triggered to the point of a panic attack then we may need to stay away from social media for a while. If we obsessively look for any symptom all day, hat may be triggering. There are so many triggers we could go through without realizing it.

“being mindful of them and implementing those changes can be so helpful to start with, health anxiety isn’t easy to go through or even escape but there are many solutions for recovery.”

I want to revisit a topic I get asked about almost everyday, physical symptoms in mental health. They are so scary and can be so hard to believe that something like anxiety can cause such devastating symptoms, let’s break it down and see how that happens.

Generally speaking, mental health symptoms are divided into 3 distinct categories: physical, psychological and social.

Psychological would be racing thoughts, intrusive thoughts. Social is withdrawal from loved ones and other social symptoms.

Physical symptoms are definitely those that feel that we notice the most because they can look like potentially dangerous illnesses. Usually, we experience those symptoms go to the emergency room and the doctors can’t find anything. It leaves us feeling puzzled and wondering what’s happening, what happens is that our mind identifies some type of danger.

After that, it is time for the endocrine system to start working, it releases hormones that send signals to our body.

These hormones (cortisone, adrenaline) tell our body to prepare to fight or run away. Blood goes to our muscles, meaning our brain doesn’t have enough blood pumping. That’s why we feel that brain fog, racing thoughts, tunnel vision and we get that burst of energy.

We hyperventilate to get oxygen quickly so it becomes harder to take deeper breaths, we start to feel short of breath. Our heart is pumping in preparation for that danger ahead, we may feel palpitations and even some chest tightness and our muscles contract a lot.

That means that we will get very sore or pain in our muscles from repeated panic attacks, these symptoms all combine to create a big monster that makes us panic even more. "So how do we break this pattern?"

Deep breaths:
I mentioned the hyperventilating above, we need to cut it at the source. By forcing ourselves to take deep belly breaths, our heart rate goes down and the shortness of breath slowly goes away. Then, it is about releasing that energy.

Given that adrenaline and cortisone create a lot of energy to prepare for that danger, we are left feeling restless. Taking a small walk or run after the panic attack is done allows us to get rid of some of that jittery energy.

It is important to remember that panic attacks rely on us fearing the next one, as long as we fear them they will keep coming back. When we understand why they are happening and how we can control them a bit more, we slowly lose that fear.

That means they won’t come back as often, furthermore we often associate physical symptoms with mental health problems but actually any strong emotion can trigger physical symptoms. When we feel overly happy, angry, in love, we have physical symptoms as well.

The interconnected nature of the body and mind doesn’t happen just in mental illness but also when we are feel overly happy or excited. It is just that we don’t pay as much attention to it when we are happy.

The excitement of opening a gift we have been waiting for, a first kiss, etc also leave us having a strong heart rate, hyperventilating and similar symptoms to panic attacks. Hope that helps a little with that connection and how we can manage it a little.

There are many behaviours that people use to make you feel that you are a lesser person, from body language like stares, making types of faces, ignoring or using condescending tones. I have seen that happen against people who have mental health issues.

“just because someone isn’t outright stigmatizing doesn’t mean that they are not, dismissing people with mental illness even within the same household is so common. People with mental health issues aren’t suddenly less smart or less capable.”

I hope that this article was informative and that you can take something from it that you can implement in your life, hope you are all having an amazing weekend x

A SPECIAL THANKS TO:

• Dr Oliver Schofield, MD (Consulting)
• Dr Seth Gryffen, MD (Consulting)
• Clayton Euridicé Schofield (Editor/Journalist)
• Henrie Louis Friedrich (Analyst)
• Timothée Freimann schofield (Publisher)
• Shot at GQ’s Studios by José Schenkkan and Benjamin Schenkkan Joseph