Does Asymmetry and Lighting Drive you Crazy!?

I had somewhat control over my anxiety for like a week or two. Not total control, I still did my daily checking, but I was getting more and more comfortable looking in the mirror, kinda. Less terrified, at least. The best thing was looking in my car's rear-view window at my throat before driving to work, because it was in full sunlight and would give me a lot of peace of mind that it looked ok. I said to myself, "Would my mom be worried if she saw this?" Every time the answer was no, which made me feel good. I told myself, "Since it looks good now, you are not allowed to freak out until tomorrow morning." I get more anxious at night, for some reason. Never look in the mirror at night. Always stick to daylight.

Well, ok, that was kinda working out. I mean I would still freak out at night slightly but I just told myself to ignore it because I'll get to it in the morning. It was working. Then tonight came. Ugh. I have this really annoying little pinch that is really small and probably most people would ignore it (I dunno) but it drives me nuts! Because it's on the same side of my throat as my thyroid nodle and almost on it, to where I would think it comes from there, but then it's not quite, it's just a little bit off, so I have to rationalize it to think, ok, maybe my swollen thyroid is just catching on the bone (or cartilage, whatever) just above it, causing a little pinching, but then I can't help to think, what if it's not? What if it's a dangerous problem? I also kinda feel it in my ear, so I'm like, does it have something to do with a nerve or tendon or something that goes to the ear? I don't know! It drives me crazy.

So tonight I was trying to relax with a beer and I was texting a friend. I turned my phone camera to myself to take a picture to show him what beer I had, and I accidentally caught myself in the camera, and due to the lighting in the room, a huge shadow was cast on my throat making it look like, so crazy, like a huge H-shaped lump was spread all across my throat. I totally freaked out. I was like, "Omg, is that my thyroid, how has it gotten so swollen in just a few hours!?" But I also considered it might be the light, so I went to the bathroom to turn on the light and look in the mirror. Of course, in the bright bathroom light rather than the dim lamp of my bedroom, the shadows I saw were all gone and my throat looked "normal" again. But, here is the thing, I saw this little shape/shadow on the side of my throat, above where I get the little pinching feeling and also of course on the same side as the bump on my thyroid. It looked like a little bump, so of course I freaked out again, and was feeling and squeezing my throat all up and down. No amount of feeling and prodding could make me feel a lump. To my fingers, my neck felt normal. But to my eyes, I saw a little bump, and I kept seeing it.

It's driving me nuts! I know that I should trust my fingers more than my eyes. The eyes can lie, especially in different qualities of light, and at night where shadows are. And I know human bodies are not meant to be perfectly symmetrical. I know that each and every bone in the front of my neck can be slightly thicker on one side, veer slightly to one side, have these little minute differences. I know that the key is just to learn your own unique body and look for changes, not to expect to have some unrealistic mannequin poster body with no imperfections. I know, I know, I know. But still. It doesn't help me from sitting there shaking and thinking about tumors all over again when I had been being so good, and I feel ridiculous being that my own hands, my own sense of touch, basically told me there's nothing there, but because I SAW something, I can't get the image out of my head. *sigh* And I missed calling my dad tonight because of all this. -_-

Does anyone else suffer from this kind of thing? Taking minor imperfections in your body to be HUGE problems, and not even trusting your own sense of touch while examining yourself, because you are just so SO sure that something has to be wrong with you?

I really really want to go to the doctor, which is so weird and complex for me because I'm also scared of going to the doctor (to a degree) but at the same time I crave it because he's the only one who can really give me any kind of confirmation. But I can't go to him because of corona virus. I gotta wait at least until the end of this year or the beginning of next year when I'm due for another adult checkup. I don't want to be labelled a "frequent flyer" or something, or worse be seen as selfish and have the doctor hate me. The whole mixture of everything just makes me wanna puke. One thing is for sure though, when I finally do get to the doctor, I swear I'm gonna tell him that my anxiety is eating me alive, and see what he says to that.