Health Anxiety can be a huge part of OCD! These are only some of the ways it can come up. Some may struggle with getting excessive reassurance from medical professionals while others may avoid medical spaces at the cost of their own health. Does this seem familiar? Share your experience in the comments below.
Ive struggled with health anxiety ever since it became a major problem in my life. It shifts between obsessions, but an all time constant is heart health. I'm always terrified that something will happen to me one day, whether spontaneously or through a problem that wasn't caught. I'm the kind to avoid tests out of fear, and while it stops compulsive (and expensive) checking, it ironically increases my fear of not knowing. It's so hard, but i'm trying.
The good news is the fact that health anxiety, as in all themes of OCD, is truly about uncertainty and how we deal with it. Understanding that compulsions (checking and ruminating in whatever form you choose, and I have done them all) only exacerbates the uncertainty. Once you stop compulsions, life does get better.
This topic is a jerk for sure. I obsess about my own health (cancer of any type) and am a bit hypersensitive about any sensations or lumps or bumps I notice on myself. What’s been worse is the anxiety about my infant son. Any part of his body that poses uncertainty… and I’m especially hypervigilant about checking his skin for any pigmentation variations (because I read and googled about serious health conditions which can have symptoms on the skin). It’s been the effing worst!
@divyD I’ve had excessive reassurance from the children’s dermatologist yet I continue to ruminate, inspect his skin and all markings I see, plus reassurance seeking from my husband and mum, and I used to Google symptoms too. For me I tend to overly contact with health checkups.
It's so hard having a chronic illness AND health anxiety.
This one's a real jerk... it's Hep C for me, because of the lack of symptoms in most cases. I mean, it's curable, but the thought of unknowingly passing it on sends me into panic. So, brain freaks out at every red- or rust-coloured stain. And lemme tell ya, when you work in the field I do, there are a LOT of stains. I'm... a work in progress :'D
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