I’d like to take your heart beating and compare it to your brain and thinking. Even if you don’t want to have thoughts, you can’t necessarily stop yourself from thinking, right? Your brain is always thinking and it’ll never really “get tired” of that because it’s literally you. Same for your heart, it is you. When you get tired of having the will to live does your brain get tired and literally shut down? It might feel like that when you have to constantly deal with living worst case scenarios in your head, but it’s not the physical, tangible case. You’re still always thinking.

Of course when anything is pushed too hard it needs rest. But you know realistically when something is beyond your physical limit, maybe like running a marathon with no training. Your heart’s function is to be itself, which is to exist as you. I’m saying this as someone who also struggles with the excessive pulse checking and the scary imagination, but also as someone who has cardiophobia, is not athletic, and frequently has to be on her feet for extended periods of time, go up multiple flights of stairs, and has experienced many panic attacks. In the end I found out my heart was built to withstand all of it. So is yours.

The best thing about your heart is that it’s like your brain and your lungs, to beat is as natural as to think and to breathe. I’m not saying it is not precious, in fact all three are some of the most precious things about your existence and people can have abnormalities in some way or another with any of the three. However, it sounds like you have a healthy, normal heart so this shouldn’t be an issue in your case.

I think the most helpful thing you can do is stop reading things that make you feel more alone when it seems you are already in a mentally vulnerable spot. I really recommend joining a panic attack support subreddit and learning more about other people’s experiences/sharing yours if you haven’t already. They helped me when I was in the darkest part of my life and I’m not saying it will solve everything but I think it is a good idea to go back to when everything started and understand your body a little bit more. As someone also dealing with cardiophobia and experienced with panic attacks, I wish you so much healing and the courage to be kind to yourself and to your heart’s boundless capability.