lewis_k
20-08-07, 04:10
Hi everyone,
It's been at least six months since I last posted, on the old site, and since then I have been feeling more and more that I am overcoming my hypochondria. I remember reading posts all the time like "has anyone ever gotten over it?" and responses like "I don't think so, they just learn to live with it" which was pretty scary, so I hope this can help even if I wouldn't yet consider it a "success story".
First a little of my history: I have always been pretty neurotic but my health anxiety didn't really start until March/April 2006, when the petechiae appeared on my back and looked it up on google. From then on, for about 1 year, I went through worries I had leukemia, skin, colon, and testicular cancer, HIV, lymphoma, leukemia again, to name a few, in and out of the GP's office, only went through two analyses though.
At first the doctor was enough, I would create a long list of "symptoms" and he would be patient and explain everything to me and I would leave happy, in a kind of high, only to find some new symptom the next day. Then I began doubting the doctor, went to another who was much less patient with me. Everyone told me to just not think about cancer or whatever, but I felt totally obsessed and unable to repress those thoughts. I went to a psychiatrist looking for some kind of cognitive therapy and she said that my problem was not with the negative thoughts themselves but deeper, the depression that was causing those thoughts. Of course it's a spiral, but if I attacked only the thoughts (with medication or cognitive therapy), the depression I was unwilling to confront would still be there.
It was very hard to think about depression when all I felt capable of thinking about was my lymph node or whatever. I felt, if only I knew this was benign I would be so happy and I would fix everything else in my life right then. And I felt that kind of thing every time, even though it became more and more clear that it wasn't that simple.
Since then I moved from the awful place where I had been living, I bike a lot, I try to be involved in activities that are fulfilling somehow, and the negative thoughts have decreased. They still come from time to time, and I don't try to repress them, but I no longer feel obligated to obsess over them, and it usually goes away pretty quickly.
So everyone's different, your issues may be different from my issues, but here's my advice anyway:
1. In obsessing over symptoms you are probably fooling yourself into thinking your symptoms are the problem when really the problem lies elsewhere.
2. Most importantly do something concrete to make your life better. The main thing I did was I moved, that really helped.
It's weird, maybe like a recovering drug-addict might miss those highs amidst all the vomiting and seizures, sometimes I almost miss some of my hypochondria moments... endless nights with a thermometer in my mouth, recording my temperature every few minutes... In a way things are very simple, almost like having a second much less pleasant childhood. Now of course I'm happy I don't have to do that anymore, and I am trying to build my life from where I left off.
So wish me luck and I hope all of you are as lucky as I am,
Lewis
It's been at least six months since I last posted, on the old site, and since then I have been feeling more and more that I am overcoming my hypochondria. I remember reading posts all the time like "has anyone ever gotten over it?" and responses like "I don't think so, they just learn to live with it" which was pretty scary, so I hope this can help even if I wouldn't yet consider it a "success story".
First a little of my history: I have always been pretty neurotic but my health anxiety didn't really start until March/April 2006, when the petechiae appeared on my back and looked it up on google. From then on, for about 1 year, I went through worries I had leukemia, skin, colon, and testicular cancer, HIV, lymphoma, leukemia again, to name a few, in and out of the GP's office, only went through two analyses though.
At first the doctor was enough, I would create a long list of "symptoms" and he would be patient and explain everything to me and I would leave happy, in a kind of high, only to find some new symptom the next day. Then I began doubting the doctor, went to another who was much less patient with me. Everyone told me to just not think about cancer or whatever, but I felt totally obsessed and unable to repress those thoughts. I went to a psychiatrist looking for some kind of cognitive therapy and she said that my problem was not with the negative thoughts themselves but deeper, the depression that was causing those thoughts. Of course it's a spiral, but if I attacked only the thoughts (with medication or cognitive therapy), the depression I was unwilling to confront would still be there.
It was very hard to think about depression when all I felt capable of thinking about was my lymph node or whatever. I felt, if only I knew this was benign I would be so happy and I would fix everything else in my life right then. And I felt that kind of thing every time, even though it became more and more clear that it wasn't that simple.
Since then I moved from the awful place where I had been living, I bike a lot, I try to be involved in activities that are fulfilling somehow, and the negative thoughts have decreased. They still come from time to time, and I don't try to repress them, but I no longer feel obligated to obsess over them, and it usually goes away pretty quickly.
So everyone's different, your issues may be different from my issues, but here's my advice anyway:
1. In obsessing over symptoms you are probably fooling yourself into thinking your symptoms are the problem when really the problem lies elsewhere.
2. Most importantly do something concrete to make your life better. The main thing I did was I moved, that really helped.
It's weird, maybe like a recovering drug-addict might miss those highs amidst all the vomiting and seizures, sometimes I almost miss some of my hypochondria moments... endless nights with a thermometer in my mouth, recording my temperature every few minutes... In a way things are very simple, almost like having a second much less pleasant childhood. Now of course I'm happy I don't have to do that anymore, and I am trying to build my life from where I left off.
So wish me luck and I hope all of you are as lucky as I am,
Lewis