I think I have the opposite of health anxiety

[Weebo]

I definitely get anxious about my health, but I seem to be far more likely to convince myself some symptoms I’m having are in my head. I’m always scared people will think my symptoms are in my head, so I avoid mentioning them. This has gotten me into trouble. A lot of times I get spider bites and I don’t even bother mentioning them since I don’t think a bit of itchiness and swelling is a big deal. It’s even worse with hard to describe symptoms. When that happens I get panic attacks when someone says everything is fine. I get scared I’ve lost my mind.

[Weebo]

I’m starting to worry a lot more about having health anxiety/going crazy than any physical health conditions. I just get so anxious about my health. I know my anxiety is bad. I just feel like whenever people comment on my mental health they’re telling me my symptoms are all in my head. It makes me feel crazy.

I guess this is a case of black and white thinking. I either have legit health problems or I’m dealing with mental illness. Can’t be both. Now that I think about it, those two things can definitely coexist. It’s probably very common. But people imply they can’t for whatever reason. They tell me to see a psychiatrist. I do know I need help with my mental health.

If I’m not panicking about my health or lack of help for it I’ll deal with HOCD or something. Right now I’m trying a mild antidepressant to help me sleep and stop obsessing at night. It seems like people assume I’m not addressing my mental health. But everyone seems to think it’s far more important than my physical health which is wrong. I don’t think addressing mental health will cure my health symptoms. It will just make me worry less, which is still an improvement. Just not a cure. I do know it will cure crap like HOCD.

[venusbluejeans]

A lot of times I get spider bites and I don’t even bother mentioning them since I don’t think a bit of itchiness and swelling is a big deal. It’s even worse with hard to describe symptoms.


That sounds completely normal to me

[Weebo]

I think a big OCD thing about this is that I’m seeking reassurance that I have real vision problems. I do have trouble seeing fine print and get eye strain. I’m not imagining it. I don’t have poor vision in one eye and perfect in the other like a lot of people think. My health and vision symptoms aren’t caused by anxiety, but my anxiety does make me have more anxiety about those symptoms than the average person. Maybe if I addressed my anxiety people would actually care about my health instead of hyperfocusing on my mental health.

[Weebo]

Right now I’m worried I have somatoform disorder. Mainly because my change in glasses prescription came right when I was being stalked and harassed.

[Weebo]

I had a huge anxiety spike today about being a hypochondriac. I’m dying now.

[Missjensen]

So i looked up HOCD never heard about it.

I can pin point your basically afraid of “being” things, afraid of being homosexual, afraid of being a hypochondriac. this seems very complicated and I can’t offer any advice sadly.

What’s scary about being homosexual or a hypochondriac, can you put that into words ?

[Weebo]

So i looked up HOCD never heard about it.

I can pin point your basically afraid of “being” things, afraid of being homosexual, afraid of being a hypochondriac. this seems very complicated and I can’t offer any advice sadly.

What’s scary about being homosexual or a hypochondriac, can you put that into words ?

I’m terrified of not truly being something. Mainly because I don’t like the idea of imagining things or my intuition or perception being wrong. While I do have anxiety about having vision problems, I’m more anxious about imagining that I have vision problems.

I knew there was something off about my vision when I was a kid. When I got my eyes tested and they said my vision was fine I had a panic attack and went kind of crazy. Mainly because of this fear of my perception being wrong or unreliable. With my sexuality obsession, I’m scared of not actually being gay.

When I was younger I did go through the usual stage of not wanting to be gay and being in denial. When I finally kind of accepted it and tried to come out to people that’s when my OCD kicked in. At first everyone said it was just a phase. That really made me panic, so I started doing compulsions to prove it’s not a phase. A lot of the compulsions were the same compulsions regular straight OCD sufferers did, so I’m not going to get into them here. I’m terrified of being attracted to men and being forced to date a man. I really don’t want to. But at times my OCD convinces me I’m feeling attracted to men. The funny thing is, I still have some internalized homophobia. But it’s in the background and different than my sexual orientation OCD.

[Missjensen]

I’m not a therapist or anything, but to me I sounds like social anxiety rather than anything els. I can see myself in some of your prescriptions and my therapist says it’s due to underlying social anxiety, like any form of anxiety social anxiety is more complex than the usual symptoms.

And I don’t know if OCD can make you think men are sexy?? I doubt it.

Let me put it straight (pin intended) I’m mostly gay, I identify as bisexual because I sometimes find men attractive and can enjoy the sex, but I only feel intimate with lady’s, and will there for probably choose to date women and not men. And it’s fine, all my feeling are fine, you don’t have to choose! If you see a cute boy,its ok to think he’s cute!

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It’s unhealthy being so fixated on labels.

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And I have eye problems that my eye doctor could not see because it was basically a problem with the muscles and not a medical problem. It took us 16 yers to figure out, and it was a common glassware store that found out after some tests. After that I got some tools home for me to train the muscles around the eyes.

[Weebo]

I guess I should stop seeking reassurance that I’m not imagining my symptoms. That only makes my OCD worse and other people end up more likely to believe I’m imagining things.

[MyNameIsTerry]

There's a really good thread here from a gay member who went through HOCD that will be useful to you:

http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=195010

What do you fear about Somatoform Disorders? It's only another name and severity can be the same as any other really. I wonder if people think of it as something worse?

Also, there are differences in the two major manuals regarding these so ensure you are reading the correct information as there are sites out there which are years out of date talking about them when they have been reclassified multiple times since. But the APA & WHO diverge over these disorders as they do others.

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And I don’t know if OCD can make you think men are sexy?? I doubt it

No, it can't. It can't change who you are at identity level. It can't make you want to be something you don't want to be and you are fighting against it anyway to be bothered by it.

But it can cause thoughts about thinking you might or may be turning into something you fear. And it can involve stimulation of the sexual organs due to focus on them, increased blood flow, primitive reaction to stimulus, etc.

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When I was younger I did go through the usual stage of not wanting to be gay and being in denial. When I finally kind of accepted it and tried to come out to people that’s when my OCD kicked in. At first everyone said it was just a phase. That really made me panic, so I started doing compulsions to prove it’s not a phase. A lot of the compulsions were the same compulsions regular straight OCD sufferers did, so I’m not going to get into them here. I’m terrified of being attracted to men and being forced to date a man. I really don’t want to. But at times my OCD convinces me I’m feeling attracted to men. The funny thing is, I still have some internalized homophobia. But it’s in the background and different than my sexual orientation OCD.

As you will know much better than I do, as I'm straight and not active in the LGBT community, there is bigotry between the various sections of the LGBT community. Not all people in there agree with others they are put together with and there are quite valid arguments for why trans don't fit there but it's all about being stronger together until I guess these communities feel it's time to split?

I just wanted to point out that I've seen people in these communities talk about what they have faced from those within so you know it's not so unusual as I think many would assume it would be.

Compulsions are not necessarily about gender or sexual orientation anyway. For instance, covert compulsions may be identical but perhaps the theme within them is nuanced e.g. testing yourself by trying to fancy someone where the person's gender or sexuality is the only difference yet the rest of the compulsion mirrors any combination of gender/sexuality.

I wouldn't worry about that because the issue is the compulsion itself and the cycle behind it more than any of the details and that's where therapists aim to treat. Whilst you can tailor to meet a theme, treating the theme without treating the OCD cycles is really treating a symptom.