View Full Version : I blame Hugh Laurie (TV, Movies and Dr. Google)
Here in the states, Hugh Laurie starred in a medical drama/comedy called House MD. For those that are not familiar, the basic premise is this brilliant but flawed diagnostic expert solves cases no other doctor can. Typically he bumps into them just as other doctors have dismissed or misdiagnosed their symptoms and notices something seemingly innocuous that triggers his interest. He gets off on solving the unsolvable. Ultimately, he saves them or gives them a terminal diagnosis.
This show, while highly entertaining, is like crack cocaine for the health anxiety sufferer. It encourages our darkest fears, validates our obsessions, and, much like Dr. Google, makes rare diseases seem far more prevalent than they actually are. Obviously I don't actually blame Mr. Laurie, as it was a terrific show and he is a fine actor. But this show and many others like it, along with sensationalized news and Dr. Google's machinations, leave us with a distorted body/worldview.
No symptom is trivial is what the overall message is. You can save your life, is what it encourages you to believe. It plays on longstanding cultural mistrust of doctors that goes back centuries in our cultural DNA, so to speak. Even non medical shows, like murder mysteries, have similar effects and binge-watching only makes our suffering more acute. So what can we do?
I am going to try switching it off: bolting shut Dr. Google's office door and pushing my TV off of a metaphorical wall. My advice, acknowledge your triggers and distance yourself from them. Maybe that, combined with therapy, mindfullness, and perhaps medication (in the broadest sense of the term) can help us find peace.
Great post. Knowing your triggers and avoiding them is essential for the anxiety sufferer, health anxiety or otherwise. This was one of the most important things my therapist helped me with. For me, my anxiety spiked postpartum and my fear was dying and leaving my daughter. I learned that any story about a mom dying was a huge trigger for me, so instead of clicking on them with morbid fascination, I learned to completely avoid. One of the worst things about the internet is that it learns your "interests" and then targets ads and articles on social media. I also had to be mindful of this and unfollow anything that triggered me and click to say "not interested' on any sponsored ads that would show up with triggering topics.
Likewise, even if I really love a TV show or movie I need to avoid it when my anxiety is high if it has a topic that triggers me. My best friend used to love Law and Order SVU, but then she was assaulted. Since then she can't watch the show at all. We need to be gentle with ourselves and learn how to preserve our mental health as much as we do our physical health.
For me, my anxiety spiked postpartum and my fear was dying and leaving my daughter. I learned that any story about a mom dying was a huge trigger for me, so instead of clicking on them with morbid fascination, I learned to completely avoid.
This is my story as well. Always a little OCD and anxious about my health, but as a parent of two young girls I am the posterboy for HA now. I have no fear of pain or death for death's sake. But leaving my wife and kids terrifies me to no end.
Going back and watching old movies I loved from before I was a parent is a whole new experience. Anything relating to fathers or kids dying reduces me to a blubbering mess.
Thanks for sharing.
paranoid-viking
26-03-17, 16:06
Yup, I avoid that TV show for that reason. I prefered Laurie when he played Prince George in Blackadder.
ChildOfTheKing
26-03-17, 16:12
I remember watching an episode as a teen where a young girl died of an undiagnosed infection and FREAKED. Could not watch it again.
Came across Dr Google years later and didn't learn my lesson as quickly.
Yup, I avoid that TV show for that reason. I prefered Laurie when he played Prince George in Blackadder.
Or good old Wooster alongside Stephen Fry as Jeeves. Not to mention when they both did a cameo on the Young Ones for the parody of University Challenge.
Going back and watching old movies I loved from before I was a parent is a whole new experience. Anything relating to fathers or kids dying reduces me to a blubbering mess.
Exactly me! Even if something was no big deal at all before I was a mother doesn't mean it's safe now. I have to really be careful. Thinking back, I realized that I think what really triggered the unmanageable anxiety I experience when my daughter was about 7 months old was the end of Mad Men, when Betty Draper died of lung cancer. My daughter's name is Sally, just like her daughter in the show, and she wrote her a goodbye letter that was just horrifically upsetting. Ultimately, lung cancer was the first thing my anxiety landed on. It took me so long to pinpoint with my therapist that this episode was the starting point of my spiral. It's easy to avoid things like House and other medical shows, but it's hard when things like that show up in totally unexpected places.
I can't watch any hospital show or anything like that. Don't even care for scrubs anymore and used to love that show.
One thing that doesn't bother me whatsoever (health anxiety wise) though, is true crime. I love watching that.
MyNameIsTerry
27-03-17, 02:26
Great post. Knowing your triggers and avoiding them is essential for the anxiety sufferer, health anxiety or otherwise. This was one of the most important things my therapist helped me with. For me, my anxiety spiked postpartum and my fear was dying and leaving my daughter. I learned that any story about a mom dying was a huge trigger for me, so instead of clicking on them with morbid fascination, I learned to completely avoid. One of the worst things about the internet is that it learns your "interests" and then targets ads and articles on social media. I also had to be mindful of this and unfollow anything that triggered me and click to say "not interested' on any sponsored ads that would show up with triggering topics.
Likewise, even if I really love a TV show or movie I need to avoid it when my anxiety is high if it has a topic that triggers me. My best friend used to love Law and Order SVU, but then she was assaulted. Since then she can't watch the show at all. We need to be gentle with ourselves and learn how to preserve our mental health as much as we do our physical health.
Avoidance may be necessary early on when it just spikes your anxiety so much you can't deal with it. However, long term avoidance just keeps you anxious and is why we do things like exposure therapy.
Avoidance may be necessary early on when it just spikes your anxiety so much you can't deal with it. However, long term avoidance just keeps you anxious and is why we do things like exposure therapy.
That's true. When my anxiety was bad I had a period when I was worried about food allergies. The only way to get past it was to stop avoiding foods that made me anxious so I could see that nothing would happen.
When it comes to movies and TV and stuff, I guess I see it differently. I still tend to avoid triggering things since the point is to be entertaining, not upset. And, if I'm scrolling through Facebook and see an article about something that will clearly upset me, I still scroll past since it's not worth the stress. But your point is a good one.
That's true. When my anxiety was bad I had a period when I was worried about food allergies. The only way to get past it was to stop avoiding foods that made me anxious so I could see that nothing would happen.
When it comes to movies and TV and stuff, I guess I see it differently. I still tend to avoid triggering things since the point is to be entertaining, not upset. And, if I'm scrolling through Facebook and see an article about something that will clearly upset me, I still scroll past since it's not worth the stress. But your point is a good one.
I have that silly allergy fear! Took me over a year to try 'mouldy' cheese again after reading some silly thing online about it and penicillin allergy. I also get nervous eating things with peanuts in even though I don't have a peanut allergy.
As for avoiding upsetting things I think it's OK to avoid some things, for example I won't watch horror movies as they scare the crap out of me, I won't watch hospital programmes as I find them extremely depressing. However I'll watch movies where somebody has a terminal illness or something because i do like a good tear inducing movie. But if it moves to full on depressing (don't think I'd watch anything with suicide in), then that's a no go for me.
MyNameIsTerry
28-03-17, 06:35
I have that silly allergy fear! Took me over a year to try 'mouldy' cheese again after reading some silly thing online about it and penicillin allergy. I also get nervous eating things with peanuts in even though I don't have a peanut allergy.
As for avoiding upsetting things I think it's OK to avoid some things, for example I won't watch horror movies as they scare the crap out of me, I won't watch hospital programmes as I find them extremely depressing. However I'll watch movies where somebody has a terminal illness or something because i do like a good tear inducing movie. But if it moves to full on depressing (don't think I'd watch anything with suicide in), then that's a no go for me.
Ah, the old penicillin allergy thing. Was that you I spoke to about that? I remember it being on here and reading about it find it was a bit more complicated, and about the FDA testing.
I don't like medical programmes. I did used to watch things like Casualty but it got so samey & dull. Then I watched ER and ended up feeling the same about that. These days I just loathe them. It's not anxiety, it's just that I'm sick to death of them.
I don't watch horror movies much. I don't really care for them.
There are obviously times when we are talking about a normal range of avoidance that any non anxiety sufferer would apply. That's seems to make sense for things like horror movies.
---------- Post added at 06:35 ---------- Previous post was at 06:30 ----------
That's true. When my anxiety was bad I had a period when I was worried about food allergies. The only way to get past it was to stop avoiding foods that made me anxious so I could see that nothing would happen.
When it comes to movies and TV and stuff, I guess I see it differently. I still tend to avoid triggering things since the point is to be entertaining, not upset. And, if I'm scrolling through Facebook and see an article about something that will clearly upset me, I still scroll past since it's not worth the stress. But your point is a good one.
It's perhaps easy for me to easily see because with not being a HAer, my avoidance would be more apparently a bad thing. For instance, a lot of my anxiety was about work but you can't avoid work forever. Or I would have to use the same fork or some unknown bad thing would happen (I had a lot of Magical Thinking in my OCD) or perhaps just my anxiety would get worse for a time. The same with changing my clothes, and at my worst I went months until I had no choice but to force myself to change.
Examples like that stick out as being illogical & unsustainable as an avoidance.
I've read before how therapists may remove the worst triggers by avoidance but then create a structure to gradually work back up to conquering them. Typical ERP really. But avoidance can also be changed to "adaptive behaviours" where you may change what you do but not out of being driven by fear, therefore you may a positive choice about it.
Yes it was me ha! I only ate it for the first time on Valentines Day this year since that post.
My health anxiety is a background issue now and that was the one thing that I was still allowing to get to me, so no more avoiding my fave cheeses!
Yeah I get what you mean. I do avoid horror movies as they scare me, but that's nothing to do with my anxiety as I've only had anxiety 4 years (was my anniversary this month), but haven't watched a horror movie since my teens, I'll read horror books though (during the day). Same with hospital programmes, I can't watch anything like that as it makes me feel disturbed, but you're right if it's not avoidance due to anxiety (which mine isn't) it's not the same.
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