One of the many phobia's that I've developed since having panic disorder and agoraphobia is a phobia to exercise. The reason for this is due to the fact that my anxiety causes me to believe that I have a heart problem so in my mind if I exercise, it will put a strain on my heart and basically I'll collapse and die. So I avoid exercise at all cost - actually I avoid anything that makes my heart race or anything that could put a strain on my heart.
I can't remember when I developed this phobia. I do remember at one point reading in the news about a lot of young people collapsing and dying from heart problems (SAD) while exercising and I suppose my brain picked up on this. Since I've had the phobia there have been two young people that my Dad knows who have died from this, one was 20 and the other 19, both appeared to be in perfect health but one day just collapsed and that was it. I my head I just thought it could happen to me. For it supposedly being so rare what are the odds of hearing about 2 people it has happened to? I worry about my heart almost all the time and I find it scary how quickly someone can go from being healthy to dead.
When I was 15 my doctor was concerned that I had a fast heart rate and wanted to investigate it - at this point my anxiety wasn't that bad so I thought it would be nothing - so I was sent to have an ECG. The results weren't explained to me I was just told that everything seemed ok and that was it. Two years ago I was sent for another ECG because of the fast heart rate again and also because I was having palpitations. Again I was told everything seemed fine my heart rate was just fast but it was in a steady rhythm. My worry is, how reliable is an ECG? Surely nothing will show up unless I'm actually having palpitations at the time. This fear has caused me to live and behave like I do have a heart problem.
Yesterday I decided that enough was enough. I've been behaving like this for almost 7 years! If I ever want to get better I'm going to have to work through my fears and I'm starting with exercise. I do own my own exercise equipment so that's good I can start off in the house and build my confidence and eventually I hope to be able to go to the gym so that not everything is centered around staying indoors. I own a treadmill, exercise bike and dumbbells etc. Quite a lot of rubbish actually for someone who is phobic exercise but I always thought that if I could get into a regular exercise routine my anxiety would lessen a lot. So much like the same way as you would undergo exposure therapy when going outside, I'm going to gradually expose myself to exercise. So today I started with the exercise bike. I managed 5 mins and 32 secs before I started to get uncomfortable so I stopped before it escalated into panic. I now have something to build on. It's going to take a huge effort to keep it up I'm rubbish at sticking to things. I guess I just need to remind myself of how much I want to get better and that, depressingly, I'm not getting any younger and there's so much I want to do.
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