The Hypochondriac @hypochondriacs-anonymous - Tumblr Blog

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Please tell me I'm not alone. This weekend it's paranoia about multiple sclerosis- it's so bad that I'm in a near constant state of panic despite reassurance from doctors. Please tell me it gets better because I can't take much more of this

You are not alone, I know what you are experiencing, and how alone anxiety can make you feel. But you are certainly not alone.

It will get better, because I myself am already better. A few months ago, I was convinced that I was dying of a terminal illness, and now I am slowly on the mend. If I was you, I would address the health anxiety first. You need to see a healthcare professional, and explain your current anxieties and worries. Trust me, once you address the real health problem (which is the anxiety) you are on the road to recovery.

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Though I love that people are trying to be proactive about their health, WebMD is turning us into a culture of self-diagnosing hypochondriacs.

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Having hypochondria and having real symptoms is like being swallowed up into a tornado, with no one to pull you back.

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Hypochondria is the incapability of accepting that one could walk out of this life without a terminal illness.

I went a few months totally fine, and yet I find myself plagued with health anxiety again. This time it is ovarian cancer. I have organised an ultrasound for this wednesday. But my anxiety tells me that this is the one. I am sure this happens with every new health concern I have, but my brain tells me that this scare is the final one.

The hardest part of health anxiety is the lack of understanding that many people have. My family, friends, and partner cannot fathom how my own brain manages to convince me that I am dying of a phantom illness. I suppose this makes the battle of health anxiety even more difficult. Even writing this post is hard for me, as my anxiety tells me that I am going to look a fool when the ultrasound results come back and prove that i am actually sick. My anxiety is in a way is telling me that by writing this post, I am jinxing my odds.

My mum just said to me after expressing my recent concerns, "I am done with you at the moment", and I understand the gravity of what she is saying, yet I feel numb. Health anxiety has quite literally numbed everything else that is important to me, because at the forefront of my mind is fear of being diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

I also find health anxiety deliberating, obviously it consumes and drains you, but i also feel guilty. I feel guilty because there are people out there who actually have cancer, or a terminal illness. Yet, here i am complaining about imagined symptoms and demanding scans and tests to ease my own mind. I feel foolish every time I visit my doctor (these past 2 weeks I have seen my doctor three times), and I can see that he thinks i am stupid, and pathetic. Perhaps he doesn't, but again, my anxiety tells me otherwise.

If you can relate to my experience of health anxiety, and need someone to talk to. Please contact me. I know that your message will help others, and me.

#healthanxiety #health anxiety #hypochondria #hypochonriac #anxiety #mental health #mental illness #scared

I've gone a few months without health anxiety, and in the past month it has started to crawl back. I had a horrible panic attack this morning after reading an article on cervical cancer, the only way I can describe the panic is as a huge "woooooooosh" over your body. And everything surrounding you seems to close in, and suffocate you.

Why did you have to come back?!

youre not alone, i also dont believe doctors when they tell me i fine :(

I hope you're coping okay with this, it is really difficult and consuming, but you will be fine.

Hi, I'm almost 14 in two weeks. I have been a hypochondriac my whole life, but it hasn't been that agonizing until a few months ago. Anyway, last week I looked at one of my moles, I have tons of them. Well it was obviously bigger and raised more than normal, so me being the insane hypochondriac that I am, looked it up. Signs of melanoma are itchiness, change in shape, or bleeding. So of course, my mole started to get itchier and itchier. I've been getting an alarming amount of new freckles too.

Hello dear, sorry for the late reply. It's funny you mention this, because I noticed the exact same thing with one of my moles. But what you're experiencing right now is all in your mind, the itchy-ness, believe it or not, is actually caused by your brain. You've read the symptoms of melanoma online, and it has raised your anxiety, meaning it has consumed your mind entirely. So now your body actually mimics the symptoms you've just read, and feel worried about. But I know for certain that is what you're experiencing.

I hope you're okay

Oh my gosh your blog is so wonderful.. i just want to say thankyou

Hi there, thank you so much. I hope you're all good.

So.. I have hypochondria too and all i do is cry, i think i have bone and skin cancer and a brain tumor :( i can't go to the doctor because i'm stuck in another country and idk what to do

Hello, and I am incredibly sorry for the late reply my friend. I hope that you're coping okay. Believe me when I say this, you will make it through this.

It's me again! I got my test done and I'm HIV negative :) thanks for helping me out!!

I knew it would be the case, but I'm happy for you regardless. No worries, and take care of yourself x

(This is the girl anxious about HIV) thanks for your response! It's nice to hear I'm not the only one, even though it's not great that other people have felt like this. I seem to have convinced myself because he got tonsillitis twice in the same year and I know he's slept with other people before me, although he said that he was always careful. I never got the flu like illness that people get when they contract it and the risk is fairly low but the fact that there is a risk always gets me!

Amongst tonsillitis, you're ex would also have a huge list of other symptoms. Like huge. Things that are noticeable as well, so they can't hide under the radar. The good thing is that you're receiving your results soon, so thankfully once you have them back, you can move on. In the meantime, stay well away from google and looking at symptoms. Because that has been my downfall in the past. I understand how you're feeling, so me telling you that you're fine might work for a couple of minutes, but then the anxiety will creep back in and tell you otherwise. But you're fine, and these results will reflect that too. I can say that so confidently, because like you said, you are so low risk and haven't experienced any of the symptoms.

If it is any consolation, I watched this documentary once and it's about sexual health clinics, and it follows the young people who are having check ups. OKay, so this one man wanted to become a woman, and in order to get her operation done, she needed a clear sexual health record. Now this man, was unbelievably high risk for contracting HIV. They had engaged in sexual activities with men from Africa, whilst in prison. They had injected themselves with certain drugs, and used dirty needles. And this person had engaged in 62 sexual relations within the one month. This person was HIV negative, in fact, they didn't have anything. Just goes to show eh.

That for me put it all in perspective. HIV is hard to contract. If you're ex caught it from one of his previous partners, meaning it would have had long enough to develop and show warning signs in his body...he would know about it by now.

You're going to be fine, hope this has helped you a little bit. Please let me know how you are with the results etc. Because I'm here for you.

But I'm reluctant to call myself a hypochondriac because once I get over it, I feel fine? Like my mental state seems fine, my grades, relationships, general happiness isn't greatly affected. I've only ever had three or four panic attacks, and I'm not even sure if they really were panic attacks even? (I hope you don't mind that I keep messaging you about things you've probably heard before- just let me know if you do!) you're awesome and lovely and thanks for doing this it really helps ease my m

Most people are reluctant to associate themselves as a hypochondriac, because of the stigma attached to the term. I have my moments of being a hypochondriac, and other moments where i am a 100% rational person. It just comes and goes. Thankfully, whist I am back at uni and I am kept busy, I literally have no time to invest in anxious thoughts. So I would also recommend keeping yourself busy, if you decide to go to the doctor and talk things over with him/her, I would make a promise to yourself to take the step forward..which is dealing with the anxiety. There so many ways to cope with anxiety, just depends on what works for you. Like i said, keeping myself busy seems to work wonders for me. Dive into your studies, relationships and invest all your time into them.

I sent you another message, but I think it didn't send properly? Anyways, I still haven't gone to the doctor because I rationalized myself out of it, but just now just hearing the word disease made me panic and worry about it all over again and I want to see the doctor now, but I know tomorrow I'll just convince myself out of it again. Ugh. I can't take this constant on and off, should I just get it over with and go to the doctor so I don't have to worry about it anymore? I feel so silly bringin

I would go to the doctor, because it would provide you with the chance to discuss the anxiety. If you decide to book the appointment, what is the worse that could happen? You go in, speak to a medical professional, and have a formal examination. You will gain some reassurance and clarification. Once you have been told you're fine, which is highly probable, you can bring up where this has come from, and that is the anxiety. Let me know how you get on, good luck.

(Part 1) Thanks for your advice, that helps quite a bit! I've mentioned it to my dad now - he tends to take health related concerns more seriously than the rest of my family, and he said I could make an appointment if I really wanted to! I still haven't mentioned my health anxiety yet- I don't really know how to bring it up without them thinking I'm being ridiculous? like you, it comes in waves and from what I've heard of other people's experiences, mine really isn't too bad. Like I've kinda cal

Hi, sorry i did receive your messages but I have been swamped with assignments. If I was you, i would make this appointment with your doctor and speak to him honestly about how you're feeling. Ask him to check the skin issue you're concerned about, and once he has clarified you're okay, move onto the anxiety issue. Because ultimately, that is the only thing you have. Fortunately, you don't suffer with severe anxiety and you are able to gain some relief from it, as it comes in waves. However, anxiety is anxiety at the end of the day, so you need to confront it head on now, rather than let it grow as you yourself grow.

If you want to discuss this with your parents, which I would recommend doing, you need to articulate your emotions strongly. Because unfortunately, lots of people don't understand health anxiety and consider it attention seeking. If only it was that easy! I would love nothing more than to just switch it off, but we can't. But we can gain positive coping mechanisms to battle the anxiety when it does rear its ugly head. You can't let it bottle up inside of you, hence why I recommend telling someone you trust about it.

I have health anxiety.... I think that I have something and then worry about it constantly until a dr tells me I don't! Right now, I am convinced that my ex bf has given me HIV even though at the time when I was with him he said that he always used a condom with other people, so it's a low risk. He's not around to reassure me anymore so I have room to doubt it! My test is in 4 days and I don't know how to cope, I can't stop worrying about getting a positive result.

I managed to convince myself that I had HIV at one stage in my anxiety. I made the doctor give me 2 tests to make sure I wasn't actually positive. So I know exactly how you're feeling right now. But I had doctors telling me I might be positive, because I had shingles, despite being extremely low risk. So that is where my anxiety started. Once you receive the results from this test, which by the sounds of things will definitely be negative anyways. You need to address the source of this, and find some help for the anxiety. Because anxiety is the only thing you actually have, nothing else. Your ex boyfriend's reassurance was only a short-term fix anyways, and that is something that I have learn't when battling my own health anxiety.

If you're ex boyfriend had HIV, you would know about it. Don't let your mind trick you into thinking you have this, because you don't. Let me know how you get on with your results, and I will be thinking about you. If you need any support before the results, I'm here. Trust me, I've been through this myself.

One question - how do you deal with things that quite possibly could be symptoms of something serious (nothing vague, like a head ache, more specific- I want to say unmistakable, but they're not really unmistakable per se- symptoms)? Do you worry about it until you get them checked out by the doctor? Do you rationalize to yourself that they're probably nothing? I do that a lot, but I always feel as if the one time I don't take it seriously, it will actually be something. Thanks again for your h

No worries dear, this is why i set the blog up in the first place.

A lot of the time what you're experiencing is psychosomatic, meaning you will feel physical symptoms developed from anxiety. For example, I was convinced I had stomach cancer at one point. I read the symptoms of stomach cancer, and almost miraculously my body starts experiencing similar symptoms to what I read.

One thing you have to remember is that if your body was seriously sick, you would know about it. Your body would make sure you knew it was ill. So the odd headache, stomach pain etc is nothing. There have been times when I simply can't rationalise physical symptoms from anxiety, and I have to see a doctor. So I know what you mean when you said that sometimes you feel like you're ignoring something that might be potentially serious. But always remember that you're body would tell you if you're really sick. I think that helps me to rationalise things more.

My anxiety comes in waves too, and at the moment I'm quite good. But i think the best thing you could do is see your doctor and discuss your anxiety with him/her. See your doctor about the patch that is concerning you, but just also mention the anxiety it has caused you, which has lead you to think you might have health related anxiety. Just go from there.

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