Obsessively googling?

[Ssmith]

When you are at your lowest, do you obsessively Google? I've found i always do this. I mainly google for success stories as i believe it impossible to overcome my longterm depression and anxiety. I get temporary relief from reading these stories, then start doubting them and think that I'm the odd one out and i won't recover. Then i have to Google again and it starts the whole pattern. It's doing my head in doing this but it's so hard to control!

[AFin26]

That's the staple cause of pretty much everyone's Health Anxiety (HA). Its my main catalyst and I'm stuck in a cycle of Get up Feel Fine --> Worry about feeling fine --> Start to feel sick --> Google --> Pain Increases --> Repeat

If you haven't already, I would strongly advise you see your doctor regarding therapy if you can't get the self control needed to stop yourself Googling.

I am terrible for it!

[Ssmith]

I'm currently on a waiting list for CBT (been on it 3 months so far) and i see a counsellor every week. I worry that if i try to restrain myself from googling, I'll go crazy or my symptoms will get worse

[Fishmanpa]

It's one of the most prevalent behaviors of sufferers I've seen. How else do everyday non-medical people know about the rarest of diseases to obsess over? Not only that but posts with C&Ps from medical sites etc. I believe there are many here with a degree from Google U.

I use Google all the time but not for medical issues. It's great for recipes, finding lyrics to songs and a plethora of very useful aspects but using it to diagnose yourself? It's a very slippery slope and a habit, from what I've seen, that's as difficult to break as smoking IMO.

Positive thoughts

[AFin26]

I had private CBT therapy and now I'm get NHS.

Have you got a good doctor? My doctor has been absolutely instrumental to my development.

I would advise you to do distraction things to get you off Google. You might be amazed that certain pains and aches subside when you don't think about them!

[Ssmith]

I've been pushing for CBT on the NHS for years and only finally have i been referred for it. I see a different doctor everytime as it's incredibly hard to see the same one without a huge delay. I find i do the obsessively googling for reassurance that i can get better but it doesn't last long before i have to do it again :s

[darinfan]

I've been having CBT on the NHS, but the problem is that you're only allowed 7 sessions. So, whether your work on improving your problem is finished or not, you're out on your ear again after those 7 sessions. So much for the same respect being given to mental health conditions as physical ones. You can just imagine someone with a physical condition being told that if they're not cured after 7 doses, they can't be helped any more.

On the subject of googling, I have bipolar, and I find that I worry more about health during a "manic" phase than a depressive one. My thinking here is that a manic phase finds your brain working overtime, never resting, and so you can't switch off. So, instead of just noting a lump or bump as you would normally, your brain obsesses over it and won't let go. So, in a sense, my hypochondria is a symptom of bipolar - and I wonder how many other people aren't properly diagnosed when it comes to these kinds of conditions. Is hypochondria the illness or the symptom of something else?

[MyNameIsTerry]

I think your post has been misread as you are not talking about the traditional Dr Google issue of using Google to diagnose, you are using it to find positive evidence to give you hope but you find it shortlived because the doubts seap back in. Thats a different issue BUT it does have one of the Dr Google themes in there, the shortlived reassurance issue BUT it's not the same as you haven't looked up your symptoms to scare the life out of yourself with the worst things and ignored the many innocent or easily treated ones.

Reading success stores is a good thing, we have a board on here for it for a start, but you have a problem with it and it has become obsessive. What you are unable to do is hold onto those stories as positive evidence that you can recover because you allow the doubts to defeat them. Thats a classic challenge with an obsessive disorder. If you learnt to tackle that you would have less of an issue and you would find you would stop Googling them anyway as you would trust in yourself more.

Healthy behaviours become negative unhealthy behaviours if they become obsessive. I know this, I started walking and ended up not being able to stop everyday, just like people who obsessively exercise. It's about not being able to face the situation it papers over or purposely using it to seek out something to neutralise your fear. The latter is an OCD trait and I'm very familiar with it.

If you stop yourself Googling them, it will be exposure. In ERP they would look towards reducing what you were doing until it was extinct but this is a process that involves increased anxiety because you are using them as safty behaviours or possibly even compulsions (do you have OCD? If so, it's a compulsion). It will cause anxiety so a structure like ERP, an element of CBT, will help you work towards it without stopping completely which is "flooding" and not as successful as ERP. If you can't stop right now, don't worry about that because you can tackle it in therapy. But you will need to break this reassurance seeking cycle or it will reinforce your need for it and keep you trapped with anxiety. Such cycles are how OCD works.

---------- Post added at 05:08 ---------- Previous post was at 05:00 ----------


I've been having CBT on the NHS, but the problem is that you're only allowed 7 sessions. So, whether your work on improving your problem is finished or not, you're out on your ear again after those 7 sessions. So much for the same respect being given to mental health conditions as physical ones. You can just imagine someone with a physical condition being told that if they're not cured after 7 doses, they can't be helped any more.

On the subject of googling, I have bipolar, and I find that I worry more about health during a "manic" phase than a depressive one. My thinking here is that a manic phase finds your brain working overtime, never resting, and so you can't switch off. So, instead of just noting a lump or bump as you would normally, your brain obsesses over it and won't let go. So, in a sense, my hypochondria is a symptom of bipolar - and I wonder how many other people aren't properly diagnosed when it comes to these kinds of conditions. Is hypochondria the illness or the symptom of something else?

Darinfan,

I had CBT and it was 12 sessions. I went with IAPT. IAPT are mandated to follow NICE guidelines. NICE recommendations for CBT are not a limit of 7 sessions. For GAD it is 12-15 normally and OCD is a bit different as it's all about minimums as opposed to a maximum range.

I suspect, if you have gone via IAPT, that you either had a Level 2 service (which is not delivered by a trained CBT therapist but a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner and is "CBT based" not CBT as a course of therapy) or you had Level 3 and your IAPT servce provider is possibly not conforming to NICE guidelines, most likely due to demand and/or financial reasons. Have you checked out the NICE guidelines? If you had it for HA though, there are none so it's a mystery which they will follow, GAD or OCD but both are better than 7 sessions. (England & Wales with it being IAPT & NICE, no idea about Scotland as they have their own versionof NICE and they have no guidelines on anxiety disorders as of when I looked months ago but may institute NICE ones as they are sent a copy)

On your last point I can say I have found some of this myself. The manic phase is associated with high levels of productivity and overthinking isn't it? I have problems with my med which has had me questioning whether I am bipolar but it's all about increased adrenaline for me and any manic phase would certainly be slight compared to someone with bipolar and I never had it before this med. When I'm in these phases I will want to do a hell of a lot more. Adrenaline is an excitory neurotransmitter so it makes sense but in your case it's more complicated and I haven't read about which excitory neurotransmitters are in play. Maybe glutamate? That one getsthe mind racing.

[GingerFish]

Yes I am bad for this, not as bad as I was in the past but still have my moments. When my OCD became unbearable this year, I kept reading up on Google and it made me fear I had something like schizophrenia instead even though I had been diagnosed with severe OCD repeatly and that just made my anxiety worse and it made me google even more in the hope I would find some relief but I never did. I also done the same for any health related fear I had.