Does anyone else struggle with hypochondria or health anxiety? Do you imagine every unexplainable pain, lump, bump, and other symptom is some terrible, scary disease? How do you deal with it?
One of the tenets of stoicism is about anxiety in general: Don’t Suffer Imagined Troubles
There are more things … likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality. – Seneca
Remembering this and combining with radical acceptance of the health problems i have helps me stay grounded in the reality of my situation
Yes, yes and I'd love some additional coping strategies too. Sadly, I HAD some scary health issues 6 years ago, which hasn't helped. But my recent annual scans/tests were all fine, despite all my worrying. They call that scanxiety.
What helps me is to take a sort of IIWII/Destiny approach. I'm not religious, so that works for me. What will be, will be. I also try to focus on the things I can control, like diet, exercise, stress reduction, etc. As much as any of us can control some of those things (I love food).
For those who are religious, a great saying I've heard is "If you're going to pray, don't worry. If you're going to worry, don't pray."
And lastly... Stay away from The Google. The Google is bad for those is us with health anxiety. The Google will mess us up. Maps=Good. Search=Bad.
I have chronic pain issues.
The worries my mind makes up can get in line, and then go take a flying leap...
Not really, no.
Health anxiety is one thing I don’t usually have. I have a very high tolerance to pain and I had both knees bone on bone and lost an inch and a half of height until I got my knees replaced. I seem to have a lot of health issues, but I don’t let them slow me down, nor do I worry where all end up. Which is supposedly the exact opposite of being Italian from what my mind used to tell me. Dad used to always worry if you asked him how he was feeling because then he would wonder if he was OK. Mom said never ask him to tell YouMail if they have a cold because if they don’t, they have one now .
Woof. I have general anxiety, but I have friends and a family member who have health anxieties. I've noticed as I am aging I am more wary about my body's ability to function, so I wouldn't be surprised if I start developing hypochondriac thoughts in the near future.
And honestly, given that the U.S. is the one of the few, if not only, developed countries with no universal healthcare for their citizens, it's an extremely valid anxiety. None of my European friends have these anxieties.
For me, when I have I have a spike in anxiety, I personally jog to physically tire myself or practice mindfulness, whether that is yoga or just trying to focus on the present. My meds also help, too, with my anxiety.
I am an outlier. I recently turned 57 with zero prescriptions, zero aches and pains, and a lot more energy & endurance than when I was in my 30s. I’ve learned how to optimize my physical health and manage stress so no health anxiety here.
@JohnR1972 you don’t need to have health issues to have health anxiety. The first time I had health anxiety was as a child watching the st judes cancer commercials. I was fully convinced that if I went to the doctor I would end up bald. Most of my hypochondria is caused by psychosomatic symptoms, or symptoms of what turns out to be very benign issue.
@xandriarain - I just meant in my case, the lack of health problems and my stress management strategies seem to prevent any health anxieties.
@xandriarain I am sorry that you also have this suffering. I have extreme hypochondria. Some week it is worse and some week it is somewhat manageable if I am very busy with work. It's been going forever for me. I had two tragic incidents happened in my life within very short time. I lost my teenage sister who was just a few years older than me in 2003 due to cancer. She was was very healthy and sweetest person I will ever get to know. Than I lost my father in 2006 due to sudden cardiac failure. And that's when I get this forever monster with me. It affects me so much that I feel like I will die soon. My academic life, professional life is hampered immensely. I tried many ways to cope with this, medically, spiritually. But does not help. I am terrified of the death process. After all these years, I just now try to be little positive about death and disease phobia thinking that there are unfortunately many children also who die due to various reasons. I tend to feel lucky that at least I get to live some thirty plus years. I don't know how exactly I can be free from this suffering. I am sending you wish and positive vibes towards you!
So, for a bit of context, health anxiety is a bit of an inherited trait in my family both from predisposition to several mental health conditions plus the way generations have passed on their trauma to the next. To top it off, I do actually have confirmed chronic health issues (also inherited) - including a rare disease that didn't get diagnosed until I was 30 because it's so rare doctors didn't recognize it until the right doctor managed to see the pattern.
There is such a fine line between knowing something is wrong in the face of medical stigma, having to advocate for yourself over and over again, being gaslit and told "it's all in you're head", trying to ignore your body screaming at you.... and genuine health anxiety, where you hyperfixate or obsess on normal/healthy body functions and sensations and allow worst case scenarios to play out in your mind or convince yourself that something is wrong simply because your brain cannot tune out the negative thought. Having chronic illness and/or medical trauma practically hands health anxiety to you on a platter - you learn to become so attuned to your body and symptoms because you must, but that awareness becomes a double edged sword.
Health anxiety is also more common in people who have greater knowledge of the body/health/medical system in general (so people who work in healthcare, therapists, caregivers, etc.), people who already are highly anxious (whether diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or not), people with OCD or other obsessive thought disorders, and people with ADHD (I also have this last one - helllllllloooo hyperfocusing on a particular symptom every minute for days on end because my brain just. won't. stop.).
I happen to be painfully aware of how tough health anxiety is, both from battling it myself (to a lesser degree) and helping my family members through it (my sister in particular has it much more severely). For 20ish years we were told I was a hypochondriac, that my symptoms were all in my head, that there was nothing wrong with me, that I was "just a little sickly" despite literally being sick with a cold/flu/bronchitis/pneumonia with increasing rate the older I got. It was definitely more than enough to actually give me health anxiety. That is, until a more educated and observant doctor and a simple blood test diagnosed me with a primary immunodeficiency - I don't make enough antibodies to fight off infections 😂🙃
My best advice:
Adding on to my advice about having an anchor person to call -
My "sanity buddy" also acts as my check-in person for when I'm suffering with rejection sensitivity dysphoria (a lovely part of ADHD). He also has ADHD, so he gets the RSD struggle, but overall he's more logical and has less anxiety than me.
We came up with a few coded/scripted phrases to use that help when one of us is spiraling and the other needs to cut through all the "but....."s: