Your most embarrassing Health Anxiety moment

[skippy66]

Here's mine (from my book). Simply thinking about how bad I was makes me want the ground to open up and swallow me whole...

Look forward to reading YOUR embarrassing HA stories!

DON'T JUDGE ME TOO HARSHLY PLEASE...



I would rate this episode as the very lowest point of my health anxiety, and one of the most embarrassing moments in my life.

I had been suffering stomach problems for a few days. I believe that stomach problems and health anxiety go hand in hand. My stomach in particular is very sensitive to any kind of stress. I had been experiencing stomach pains and aches which were getting steadily worse. Every day I would wake up with stomach cramps and they would last all day. I was particularly stressed as I had just been through several heart tests due to frequent palpitations and I was still awaiting some results from those.

With the help of Google I quickly managed to diagnose my stomach cramps as bowel cancer. It seemed the only possible diagnosis in my warped thinking. I was losing weight and any search related to weight loss with pain usually points to cancer.

One of the other symptoms to look for with bowel cancer is blood in your stools. So I started checking them. This was as unpleasant as it sounds. One day I was checking my stools as usual when I saw a dark red patch. I panicked. I found more dark red patches. In this brief moment I absolutely 100% convinced myself I had bowel cancer - this blood was all the confirmation I needed. I don’t cry much but I started to weep uncontrollably. My daughter was about to be born and I wouldn’t be around to watch her grow up.

Suddenly I heard the front door open - it was my wife. She called for me, then came upstairs as she could hear me sobbing. “What’s wrong?” she asked as I walked out of the bathroom to meet here. “I have got cancer” I said “I’ve just found blood in my poo. It’s not piles because it’s not bright red blood (I had done my research on piles). It must be cancer”.
“I’m sure it’s fine” she said and tried to console me.

Then for some reason which I still can’t understand, and which makes me cringe in the extreme to this day, I said: “Can you have a look?”

I had just asked my wife to look at my poo. There it was, on a piece of toilet paper, delicately balanced on the rim. For some reason she said she would, probably taking pity on my extreme distress.

“Are you sure that’s blood?” she said doubtingly. “Yes” I replied as I picked through it with a cocktail stick to show her. All of a sudden she started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” I asked crossly.
“Do you remember what we had for tea yesterday?”
“Erm...oh yeah, we had that chili con carne”
“That’s not blood, it’s kidney beans”

A wave of both relief and abject humiliation swept through me and I wanted the earth to swallow me up. I had mistaken partially digested kidney beans for blood in my stools. My stomach pains cleared up a couple of days later to be replaced by the next symptom. When I look back at this episode I’m amazed that my wife is still with me...

[robin321]

I am constantly checking my son (2yrs old) lymph node, as if it is going to change dramatically in one day.... whenever he tells me to stop (which is always) I feel shame (stronger than embarrassment)

[Fishmanpa]

Hi Skippy,

You know how when a cat poos in it's box and then comes bolting out, running as fast as it can away from it?... That's how I am! I literally can't stand myself! Let alone stay in there and poke through it! ~lol~

I'm sorry, I truly don't mean to make light of your "past" fear and story but I did get a giggle from that. I have to say that the poo threads still confound me to this day.

Positive thoughts

[skippy66]

Fishmanpa, I look back now and shudder at how bad I actually was. I can laugh about stuff like this now, but there's a sadness that I spent much of my twenties like that.

[Catherine S]

I was on holiday in Spain some years ago with a friend and we were sitting on a local bus on our way to a market. The bus stopped loads of times and more and more people got on and I could feel myself starting to panic, and they kept on coming so I stood up and screamed so loudly at the driver to let me off...in the little Spanish I know...and battled my way through the crowd to get off. My friend was embarrassed and not amused as we were then stranded in a small town we didn't know and walked for ages looking for a taxi to get back to out hotel, which cost us a fortune!

Ive had many incidents like this over the years but this one in particular sticks with me...the crowd of mostly Spanish people went completely silent after my scream of terror... 'the crazy English woman' lol!

[luc]

I laugh at myself all the time (see posts) and hopefully and I really mean hopefully when that woman who I mentioned in my last 'response' post sees the footage of herself with the weepy bin along with her sadness she may well be able to have a giggle. There's nowt stranger than folks

[RVP]

This isn't that long ago.. maybe 5 months ago I thought I had mouth cancer OR melanoma in the mouth.
I brushed my teeth and where my bottom wisdom tooth is coming through it's mostly skin, so I must have brushed too hard and the skin slightly peeled off so it was quite reddish (I am colour blind) so at the time I didn't really know what colour it was either red or black. I took a picture of it too and sent it to my mum, and I'm pretty sure I posted it on here too..
I rang the dentist immediately and told them I found a mole on my gum and need an emergency appointment, the next day it was gone.
This was the time I was mostly obsessing about moles on my body.

[MRS STRESS ED]

My most embrassing moment I washed my hair and wrapped a towel around my head and I thought I will have my breakfast first then I would dry my hair lol ,I finished my breakfast and took the towel off my head omg omg it was all red the towel I ran round screaming arggghhhh im blieeding im bleeding ,Then I remembered no im not I had dyed my hair red the week before I felt so stupid xx

[Tanner40]

Skippy, your post made me laugh outbloud for sure. I did almost the exact same thing many years ago. I bolted from the toilet, shaking like a leaf, sure that I was dying. Blood everywhere! I was so panicked that I could barely speak. I'm a very private person but, like you, asked my partner to look at my "poo". I thought that she would fall on the floor, she was laughing so hard. The night before was the first time that I had ever had fresh cooked beets for dinner. I felt like such an idiot. I'm sitting here shaking my head as I write this.

[bingjam]

Hi Skippy,

You know how when a cat poos in it's box and then comes bolting out, running as fast as it can away from it?... That's how I am! I literally can't stand myself! Let alone stay in there and poke through it! ~lol~

I'm sorry, I truly don't mean to make light of your "past" fear and story but I did get a giggle from that. I have to say that the poo threads still confound me to this day.

Positive thoughts

Im really sorry but this reply has made my night!!