The last time I posted was about a month ago. In the last month I’ve made a lot of progress towards eating normally again, I think partially because some stuff came up that gave me something else to focus my anxiety on. But when I wrote my last post it was near impossible for me to eat anything, and if I ate something when I was by myself, there was a high likelihood I would have a panic attack. I’m happy to say that now I am not as hesitant to eat food in general, although I am still somewhat afraid to eat nuts again or other things that a lot of people are allergic to, which is something I will just have to deal with in time.
I wish I could say exactly how I have started to “get over it” in case anyone else is dealing with the same thing, but ultimately I think it’s because my brain tries to focus my general anxiety that I feel on a daily basis into something tangible and something that COULD be a threat instead of just accepting that sometimes anxiety has no cause. Also, my actual seasonal allergies have started up, and while it’s been pretty miserable, it kind of flipped a switch in my brain that let me know “hey, if you eat something and your throat feels how it does now, you might be allergic”. and then I realized that I’ve never eaten anything that has made me feel as bad as the air outside does right now, and I’m still alive. haha
So, I’ve kind of realized that the health anxiety I deal with on and off to varying degrees is caused by my own mind trying to frantically find why I just live at a higher state of anxiety. For me, this is probably because I have a need to know everything in order to feel ‘in control’. Understanding this has really helped me to start making steps toward being healthy again.
For anyone who is dealing with this fear of allergies right now, all I can say is to keep eating. Try one ‘new’ food at a time, and if you need to wait until someone you trust is around, then that’s absolutely okay. I think this is just one of those things that will go away with time, as much as it sucks to deal with in the meantime.
Congrats on the improvement! And the words of encouragement are great as well. Anxiety in general can really limit your life and realizing how to live with it really helps
I’m so glad you are feeling better and are now able to eat more normally again. You are absolutely right: sometimes anxiety don’t have an obvious reason, especially when we struggle with a generalized anxiety. I personally know that I have specific situations that will make my anxiety turn my world upside down, but there’s also this anxiety that seems more silent, like a shadow or a heavy fog that follows me everywhere. Some days I really feel like it’s there, and it generally gets hard to wrap my head around a possible reason for why I feel that vulnerable at the moment.
The good thing though, is that even if we don’t necessarily why it happens sometimes, we are still able to deal with how it affects us and try to take some small steps to improve the situation. That’s what you did. Even if you looked after a reason and tried to understand, you also didn’t give up no the possibility to manage this manifestation and your anxiety just as it was at the moment. The process itself of seeking answers puts you in a position of trying to help yourself. Even if the result is not conclusive because your questions remain mostly unanswered, you were still in this dynamic of seeking help and healing, of trying, experimenting and seeing how it goes. That alone is, I believe, a huge part of helping ourselves when things seem out of our control. Change doesn’t happen instantly, but still through this perseverance, day by day, you’ve set an intention of healing and were certainly working for it more actively than you acknowledged at the moment.
Thank you so much for sharing your progress and also being so thoughtful in your willingness to help others as well. You’ve set an intention of healing, and that is something that will keep helping you to move forward, even if there are times when it feels like walking in the dark, not knowing where we go.
