John,You are not alone. Many people wonder why they can't rationalize their fears away, but I don't think that it works that way. Fear is irrational. There are two different aspects to the mind, the part that thinks (rationalizes) and the part that feels. The part of the mind that feels has great influence over the part that thinks, and sometimes it could really care less what you try to rationalize. All it seems to care about is how you feel. My general practitioner and neurologist were not much help at setting my mind at ease either, despite their telling me that I absolutely had nothing sinister. The reason I think that I was not resting easy after their 'reassurance' was because although they ruled out horrible diseases and conditions, they could not tell me what BFS really was, why I developed it, or how to overcome it. All they could offer was reassurance and a prescription for some anti-depressants (even though I wasn't clinically depressed). I knew deep down that those anti-depressants were not the answer I was looking for so I declined. I really didn't know what to do at that point. I was a mess. I was unemployed and had my first baby on the way. I was terrified that I would not be around to raise her. Even if I was, what kind of world was I going to raise her into? I wasn't clinical in my depression, but I was certainly NOT HAPPY. Anxiety was my real enemy though. I was am an engineer. I was taught to always look at the worst case scenarios to plan for the worst. I am also a personality type who over analyzes everything. I also tend to get anxious at critical moments. These are common engineer traits. This type of mental attitude takes its toll on your physical body though and I believe BFS was the ultimate manifestation of my body no longer being able to take the abuse. I post a lot on the potential reliefs people can find in their symptoms by looking at their diets, particularly because of gluten intolerance. In my case I did develop a gluten intolerance at the age of 29~30 when all of this started and I didn't even realize it. Many people misunderstand though thinking that I am trying to say the gluten intolerance was the source of my BFS, which it was not. The gluten intolerance I developed was causing anxiety as a symptom, which was worsening my BFS symptoms. It really became apparent and clear later when I would eat something accidentally with gluten in it and my heart rate would noticeably elevate and the twitching would kick up. All of this would happen before I even knew I ate something, so I know it wasn't mental. I would make the connection after I would go back and investigate why my symptoms were worsening. Before the diet modifications I was never free of trigger foods long enough to ever feel better to the point that I would make a connection between what I was eating and how I was feeling. Actually being able to find answers dramatically helped me to overcome my fears. Some of my original answers unfortunately came with new questions and thus new fears though. One of which was wondering how I was going to deal with dietary restrictions and what kind of life I was going to have to live. Thankfully the ending was happy and everything worked out. It was a lot of hard work though and once you cleared one obstacle it always seemed that there was a new obstacle in the path. Persistence paid off though. Sorry this is kind of a long post but here is my advice with this background information for context. First I would seriously investigate the digestive system influence if you have not already. A recent study I read said that as many as 34% of people with neurological disorders also had a gluten intolerance. It was not a factor I could have ignored while overcoming my fears, anxiety, and BFS in general. Second I would really invest some time and research into facing and dealing with fears. They will NOT go away by themselves and you can't ignore or rationalize them away without facing them first. What I learned in my experience is that when you face your fears you often find that they are not as scary as you made them out to be. We give so much of our power away and we don't even realize it. There are tools and techniques that you can learn to help deal with your fears and anxiety. One of the tricks is to look within yourself for your source of happiness rather than looking at 'what is'. When you make your happiness contingent on 'what is' you automatically give your power away to influences outside of your control. For example, you might say I will be happy if I have no twitching. This innocent little statement gives the power of your happiness away to twitches outside of your control. Every single new twitch is a constant reminder of your unhappiness. Is it any wonder so many here are miserable? When you take that power back and tell yourself that you are happy you are alive and focus on the parts of your life that you are grateful for, the twitching is reduced in importance to a nuisance rather than an all powerful obstacle standing between you and your happiness. Over the long run you will see that this makes a BIG difference. You have to be the one to let it go though. Your happiness is a state of being. It simply is. You have to become it in order to feel it. As an example, if you look into a mirror it is silly to expect the reflection to smile first isn't it? The smile has to be yours and it has to be genuine. A frown returns a frown. A fake smile returns a fake smile. If you want to see a smile and feel a smile, you have to be genuinely smiling. How do you do this? Focus your energy and attention on things you are grateful for in life. If you don't think this is possible go and visit the kids cancer ward at a hospital. Everyone has the ability to find happiness and joy in life and you don't need a car, a house, a job, or any other material object. You don't even need perfect health to find it. Happiness is a part of your soul if you are willing to look there. The best things in life are very simple and it sometimes takes a catastrophic event in our lives to remind us of this. BFS was that catalyst event for me. It changed me for the better. I hope it does the same for you as well. Thanks and good luck.
