Can’t get over my anxiety

I know it's not much help right now but things will improve with time.  The early stages of diagnosis and treatment are awful (what's a better word than awful that's not 4 letters?).  As time passes you get answers to questions about staging and treatment but you also get used to the fact of melanoma.

In the meantime give yourself freedom to cry, to yell at the world – acknowledge that this will be tough.  What do you usually do in stressful times?  Could those strategies help?  Force yourself to do healthy things like walking, going outside.  Spend time with friends, lean on them.  Keep a journal.  Writing itself helps but you can also see how far you've come.    Good luck.

Fen

You have not been diagnosed yet. Please try not to let this take over your life. You don't know you have melanoma, you are only assuming the worst, which is not good for you or your daughter. You need to keep busy and keep off melanoma related internet.

Firstly there are black dry raised moles that can look really nasty but be totally benign. I am the proud wearer of a few of them. And if your anxiety is out of control don't be too proud not to ask your GP or primary care physician for temporary help. My wife used Zanax for a while when being treated for breast cancer. I used Vallium for a few months while being treated for an internal cancer not related to the skin. Its really no different than a pain pill or anti-inflamatory if taken during an extremely stressful event. Often times a minimum dosage is all it takes to really help and does not result in dependency if used wisely.

I just want to point out that you have not been diagnosed.  And no matter of self diagnosis matters.  Posts like yours happen all the time and most of those same people never return to say — it was benign and I went through all this self imposed anxiety for nothing.  They convinced themselves there was a problem but pathology said otherwise.  Don't assume you know – from the appearance only – what a lesion is.  Doctors are constantly wrong from diagnosing by appearance only.  Pathology is the only method and diagnosing before then is pointless.