all of your positive thoughts are great and I pray to god everynight to help me trough this. but what you are all saying scares me so much I don't like it atll I know its the truth but I am not ready to think like that its hard when I am well I am not scared i just live day by day I am not even scared of dyeing but when I have panic I am so much i am scared to sleep if I even think about dyeing it gives me a full flowing panic attack I am sorry about my negative feed back I know its not what any of u need to here but I want to have kids some day and grow old and dye of old age and I wanna be ready to go ya know what I mean......i know this is all so negative but I have to convince myself I am going to be ok ya know

Hopeful, Your post made me cry. Thanks for the positive thoughts. Sarah

Pamela, YOU are great! You have been very positive in your posts! You're right, if we are gonna drop dead, let that last minute be the best one there was! I do try to keep that attitude and it's hard. My funny neck pain has been with me all day and now I have cramps, but I've still managed to keep a good attitude. I figure if I have neck cancer (lol) it would have to hurt more than this! I understand you searching your poo! I, too, have sometimes swapped the losing my mind for the dying thing. That's the nature of panice, once you catch onto a syptom, it has to change into something else to scare you, and it does. Speaking of the last minutes of our lives being valuable, I had a dog for 14 years that was my shadow in all I did. I loved that dog so, his name was Ollie. A year and a half ago, he was really going down hill fast, he had a heart problem all his life and lived much longer than any vet thought. There was nothing else for us to do, he would suffer and die in the next few days. The vet was on her way to our house to put him to sleep. I knew I only had 20 minutes left with him and instead of holding him and crying, which would have made him upset, I took him out to the garden and pulled weeds with him right next to me like we had done so many times. The sun was shining and Ollie watched me and was happy. It was one of the very hardest things I ever had to do. But I made it happy for him, and now when I remember him I can think of the last few minutes we spent together in the garden. We cannot waste our precious time, no matter how we feel we must try to make the best of it. I know how hard all of this it, I live it everyday. But without hope, we have nothing, so keep hoping and trying. Better to drop dead making cookies with your kids than laying in bed worrying about it! LOL!

Dear hopeful, You go girl! That's the attitude I have had to adopt also. My lowest point was this summer when I was digging around in the toilet after I had a bowel movement looking for blood because I was convinced I had colon cancer and wasn't going to be able to raise my children. I know that story is gross but I said it just to show everyone on here how you can be that far over the edge and come back and have the attitude that hopeful has. I live with anxiety everyday my main fear now is losing my mind. I left the death fear behind and adopted another one. But I have to look at it the same way if I'm gonna go crazy I might as well enjoy my time right now and live in the moment. Where I am it's 65 degrees and the sun is shining all of my children are out of school for the holidays and they are so excited about christmas. We are going to bake cookies for santa and if I happen to go insane then at least my last sane day will be a great one. God Bless all of you and I will include you in my prayers tonight.

I, too, understand the fear of dying. I used to have that very bad. I thought that every little pain was something serious. I never got to the point of going to the doctor about everything as we never had insurance and couldn't afford it. But I wasted many precious days of my life worrying about things like that. Then I would get angry and disgusted with myself about wasting time worrying. So all my time was spent worrying or being mad at myself, I was really never living. A few years ago I decided that I couldn't keep on like that and slowly I changed my was of thinking about it. I decided that I would try to enjoy each day like it could be my last, and put the worry aside. It was very hard to do, still to this day I am very sensitive to each pain and twinge that my body feels. It's always like "what's that pain in my neck, side, foot, etc!" The worry still wants to come, but after all the practice that I've put in with this, the fear of dying is gone. Like just now I woke up with a funny feeling in my neck, it scared me to death, but I sat down and did something else and told myself that it would probably be gone in a few hours. I fear the phyiscal symptoms themselves now, not that they are something serious that's going to kill me. I hope that makes sense. I want the pain in my neck to go way right now, but I don't sit and imagine that's it's neck cancer and I'm gonna die. This has helped me alot, I have also decided that I will trust God about my body. He made it, He can take it home when He wants to. Trusting God has taken alot of work on my part as not being in control is very very difficult for me. That seems to be the root of my panic, having to be in control. Giving control to God has helped in many ways. It's teaching me that I can leave things in His hands, that I can go on whether I'm in control or not, and it has taught me patience. I work on this everyday, but I want you all to know that you can get past the fear of dying, if I did, so can you! Pamela the story about your aunt is a wonderful example of how a bad thing can have a silver lining. It's great of you to be able to see it that way. God is giving your precious aunt time on earth to be free of worry and enjoy the wonderful things that He's put all around us! Yes,

Ann if u have MSN her is my address mainy_2@hotmail.com I figure that if experience the exact same thing thenit would be good to chat with on another when were going through it cause then u feel tha your not alone and it helps it makes u realize your not alone and if other people feel the same thing then I will probably be ok

I just wanted to post a story about my aunt. She was always a worrying kind of person. She suffered from alot of anxiety and panic and was always convinced she was going to die. If you came to visit her and had a cold or some kind of "bug" she would ask you symptom by symptom how you felt and sure enough within hours she was sick too or so she thought. If she heard that someone had cancer she would convince herself she had it too. To make a long story short my aunt is now almost 80 and in the last few years her health has really began to decline but along with her health decling so has her mind. She still knows who everyone is and can carry on conversations but she behaves like a 12 year old. she tells jokes wants to eat ice cream all of the time loves to watch good looking men on t.v. and basically is enjoying herself for the first time since she was a kid. The moral of the story is that God is in control of our destiny and he was fully aware of the fact that she feared death and suffering and because she believed in him he promised her (It says so in the bible)that he would suppy her with all of her needs and comfort and care for her. So he had in his plan all along to allow her mind to deteriorate just enough so that she doesn't have the ability to worry and be scared. If we can only learn from her life and while we are still young and healthy put our faith in the Lord and know that he has everything under control. Let's just live and love and have fun. We have got to stop wasting time on unnecessary things.

hun, if you psychologist isn't helpful then maybe you should see another one, he should really be helping you. i have the same thoughts, i keep thinking that i will die before x-mas na dit is driving me nuts, i can't get it out of my head. i try to just let go and know that x-mas isn't that far to go and try to stay busy. i too feel that there must be a way out of this madness. each tinge i feel i think is a sign of death. why do we have to go through this, it seems like there are enough of us that suffer from this horrid way of life and yet there still is no solution????? why the hell not??? i'm doing psychology a level and i have found it a little help, but the internet has been more helpful. this group, and information. i have gone down the spiritual road. doing medication i have found it a little help. i think though that hardest thing is knowing what is going on, i know that i just need to take back the control and realise that i have the power of my life, and that my death is not my responcibility, so i have to stop worryong abou tit as there is nothing that i can do so live, or i could be 70 and saying, ummm, i've spent my life worry about some thing which is not my reponcibility!! i know it's easy to say or think but putting it into action is so hard. hang in there you are not anlone. are the tapes that you are doing hypnosis??? as your fear could be that you ar going to further lose control?? that was the trouble that i had dong them. i found it helpful to do self meditation as you always feel in control. there are sites that help, i will find some for you and post them here. the thing that i do when i can't relax at night, is to imagin a ball, heavy, starting at my foot and then slowly rolling around my body making each part feel heavy. once i reach my head then i roll the ball to the centre of myself and then imagin the ball expolding into feathers, i then feel light and take myself some where i like, the beach or a quite forest, i then tell myself that i am safe and no harm can come to me in this place. that God has helped me go there, that his peace and light is surronding me. i like that feeling of being there. if you want to take this further, then pinch your hand and tell yourself that when you feel scared or panicy then when

Ann, I experience the exact same thing I KNOW I have panic attacks but its doesn't help I still feel the same I am soooooooooooo scared now I think I am dyeing right now but I am not I hope its hard to cinvince yourself your going to be ok i find what helps is u get someone u love and loves u and talk to them about chances are they know your ok and they will tell your going to be just fine it helps tremandously trust me you will be ok I am having a real hard time trying to convince myself right now it sux ass. I am on paxil 20mg and I find it helps alot eventually it takes them totally away I recommand it and when your panic faids you realize how ridiculous were all being its just hard to see it now because we have all convinced oursleves that its going to happen to us

It's so sad that we have to turn to medication now a day; otherwise it takes years of effort and time to over come this panic attacks... I understand were your coming from and for a long time I thought I was alone for some odd reason but as I grew older and met more and more people I learned that allot of people had them some worse then others but 1 out of five people I know have them, it's kind of funny now and it makes my life allot easier to live cause I have someone to talk to about different things that are bothering me. You would be surprised as to how many people have them if you just opened up and asked around. I did and it's almost a laugh sometimes to have three of my good friends over from high school and we all have them... It helps me allot knowing that I'm not alone and either are you :) Good luck