I always think of how far you've already come. Weren't you scared back then, did it really change anything fearing the unknown? Or did it really just not even play out the way you imagined and here you stressed for so long over things that didn't even happen. I personally did that. I found out at 16 and when they started me on meds for some reason my body hated them and i ended up sick for a month my sophomore year of high school. So my first impression of CF was oh shit this is bad! So i cried and I read all sorts of stuff about it, even got an older boyfriend who also had CF from one of these sorts of websites. (horrible idea, i know, but young love...its never made out of good decision making) ANYWAYS over the next 5 years i dreaded the point when i'd be really sick, and here my mid 20's bf with CF is sick with things i'd never even thought about being issues prior to him so I was really freaking out OH NO THIS IS ME IN 5 YEARS!!! (He was 5 years older) and i pity partied myself and thought about how i'm gonna die young and why even waste time going to college, i'm just gonna finish, have a few good years then die. Why even bother! Then it came time to want kids, and oh no read more horrible stuff on that and cried over how i'll never get to have a baby and life sucks. . . NONE of these things happened, NOT ONE. I'm 28 and perfectly healthy, that was a good 3-7 years of tears and worries wasted. After only 6 months of trying i had a huge baby boy, no CF, and I didn't die having him or my health get incredibly bad after cause he sucked all the good stuff outta me. AND i just gave up. Gave up on Worrying. It was a waste. ALL THOSE YEARS, ALL those tears. . . . wasted. My outlook is much like those above now. It is what it is, its going to happen how its going to happen. Dreading it , and worrying about it, and fearing it does nothing but waste the precious time we do have.
Words for thought : You can literally change the way your mind goes in thoughts like these. I've read lots on it. You can train your brain to create new pathways and breakdown the ones already in place. Its proven science, but it does take some effort. First you have to come up with something you want changed, say 'everytime I think about being sick its horrible' then you have to think about where you want that thought to go. . 'everytime i think about being sick STOP. THIS WILL ONLY WASTE MY TIME, i'd rather be thinking about. . . (fill in the blank)' and EVERYTIME you start thinking about the first, STOP, and fill in the blank. And you'll think yeah but my thoughts will just keep going back to the bad, SO thats because thats what youve unintentionally trained your brain to do, so just keep reverting back to the new path. OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. Over the course of a week you will get better and better at catching yourself and correcting yourself, after awhile you wont even realize your catching yourself and you'll just revert to the positive, and then after the 23 days it takes to form a habit. BOOM. You've reprogrammed your brain.