About Me

Hello, I'm Amelia Appleby- I'm a thirty something girl living and working in London. I've also been living with health anxiety for most of my life and it goes up and down like an ECG. There have been times when my anxiety has been unbearable. I don't accept that it has to be like this but I do accept that health anxiety is a part of my life which I can ultimately control. Writing has always been a fruitful outlet for me in understanding and controlling my symptoms and emotional feelings. Then one day, completely randomly I started this blog. I really hope that my posts will resonate with any one of you with any type of anxiety or phobia. I'm not an expert on these issues but what I can do is share my experiences with a touch of optimistic sparkle. I would love to hear about your experiences or thoughts, so please leave a comment. If you would like to contact me personally then please do so via teapotnotes@gmail.com

Wednesday, 20 July 2011

Scaredy Cats should get the cream too...

Its not simple- I want to change my life. I've been drowning in a tanker of darkness, stagnancy and negativity for the last two years and I won't have it any more.

I want to do an experiment- I want to see if someone like me - who suffers from severe health anxiety and is completely petrified of the unknown, the future, pretty much everything can turn this around, knock it on the head and say cheerio to my demons.

This is somewhat of a challenge considering my brain is hardwired to think of the worst- so in this case it has to be 'I am doomed to fail this'. But am I? I don’t have a clue but in the spirit of the part of my brain who is a nice chap - I am completely curious to find out.

You may think oh that’s easy - just make a plan and stick to it. But the thing is I have a huge obstacle - pretty much every minute of the day I think there is something physically wrong with me - Ive been through an amazing array of diseases and conditions, which if anyone has suffered or is suffering from health anxiety will be familiar with. So far I have been convinced that I have:

  • Multiple Sclerosis
  • Brain tumour
  • Motor Neuron Disease
  • Diabetes
  • Lupus
  • Blindness
  • Ovarian cancer
  • Womb cancer
  • Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma
  • Every other cancer
  • Rare neurological or muscle wasting diseases

I could go on but that would be immodest of me.


Anyway to get back to the point - thinking I have all these really does put a dampener on me bringing change to my life. You see I think I have these because the symptoms you get with anxiety replicate the symptoms of almost if not all of the above conditions. And boy have a I had a plethora of symptoms since time began. I've had tingling, numbness, skin sensitivity, weird vision, weird hearing, stomach problems, headaches which go on for days, chronic shoulder pain and back ache.

I just can't seem to move on and do something different because I always have some ailment that crops out of the woodwork and makes me feel panicky and a feeling hits you which closely resembles walking around with a plastic bag over your head…gasping for a way out.

Present day- I'm going to see what happens if I ignore all ailments and make changes in my life, beginning today: Here are some realistic changes:
  1.  Decorate my flat- it should be fun but I can't seem to make the first step.
  2.  Socialise- I need to go out socially more in a larger group without fear that I'm going to get ill while I'm there.
  3.  Holiday- I need to book a holiday (none for 3 years) and get on a plane without fear of getting ill and being away from home.
  4.  Dating- I need to think about a future with someone and actually start dating again.
This blog isn't all about anxiety- its merely a thought outlet for whatever we find strange, disappointing, brilliant, beautiful, ugly- in the world as we know it right now. Any topic is acceptable.
Speak to you all next week
Love Amelia

2 comments:

  1. Amelia

    Your blog is really refreshing- I suffer from anxiety too and whilst its not health related- this post really impacted on me in terms of my own symptoms of anxiety and really wanting change. Please don't stop writing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'd love to see how you're getting on with your experiment!!

    ReplyDelete