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I Am a Hypochondriac

I've Been This Way For A While Now.

By: Kaykay1293
Written on June 11th, 2012
I'm 18 years old and I am a hypochondriac. I started noticing I was worrying around 15 when I first discovered razor bumps. I thought I contracted genital herpes from my first. I didn't. Then it moved on to smaller things like "I'm feeling a little hot today, do I have a fever?" I started looking up my symptoms on google and I feel like that was the end of it all. Everyday if I have a little ache or a little pain, I'm worrying about my life. I start to think things like "What if I'm crazy and not a hypochondriac?" It's controlling my life, I'm constantly thinking aboutwhat I would do if I had some horrible disease. It goes beond illness. It's as far as seeing on the news that someone was beaten and raped, I think the very next day I will be beaten and raped. If I'm in a unfamiliar place, I think that people are going to break into the house and kill me and whoever is there too. I waste money at the doctor each time I feel like there's something seriously wrong with me. I don't think I can take this any longer. I'm driving myself insane. All I do is worry, I can't stop. I don't low what to do or how to act. It's hard getting through the day sometimes. I need help, but so far nothing has helped. Nothing is working.
By: Kaykay1293
Age: 18-21
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2 responses
  • Adadastralgi
    Adadastralgi

    I'm not an expert but here are some tips:

    1) stop looking stuff up on Google. When you're seriously freaked out or it's late at night or anything, looking stuff up is bad. It'll just give you a name for whatever strange thing you are feeling.

    2) think through it logically. Does it make sense everyone is trying to kill you? What would they gain by it? How you have gotten smallpox?

    3) Don't go to the doctor until you've asked a friend or family member's opinion about it. If they say it's nothing, go with it. If they seem concerned, it might be important. They don't suffer from hypochondria so when you explain symptoms to them, they won't react the same way you would.

    4) Don't become a doctor. Knowing more diseases will not help.

    5) Create a sort of phrase you can repeat if you're worried, something that sums up all the reasons why you've not contracted whatever you think you have. Keep in mind past experiences that have been red herrings.

    6) Never look up lists of symptoms. It's really easy to have a head ache, decide it's a tumor, look up the symptoms of tumors and psychosomatically give yourself the other symptoms. That would be counterproductive.



    I know it's not easy. I suffer from anxiety and OCD as well as this, which is why I didn't throw in the usual 'it's only in your head.' Clearly, this has become more than that.

    Jun 11, 2012
    1 like
    • tspiggy
      tspiggy

      All excellent tips that I'm going to try. Googling symptoms was my downfall. Every one of the doctors I saw strongly advised me against it, as did my therapist. Thanks for the reminder.

      Jun 12, 2012
      1 like