I thought I knew hypochondria. I thought I had it measured fairly early on. When I was about 10, I saw a close family member fall into depression because she thought she had cancer. No number of visits to the GP would convince her that it wasn’t cancer. One day, she woke up, and she was fine. Until a couple of years later, when the bout started again. It took a psychiatrist to convince her, and the relief was clear as crystal. To me, she had finally stopped being selfish. Finally, she would stop turning each conversation to a symptom that may or may not be a sign sickness, made up or not. Finally I could go on the computer and not see the last website still open, the NHS symptoms of cancer. If it were paper, it would have been battered with use and crumpling. I also had a friend, who in what was to me an amusing state of panic thought her gums were shrivelled and her belly button was falling out.
Back in November, I found a non-cancerous lump. Had it checked out, nothing to worry about. I could move on. I moved out, carried on working, focused on a few projects. The freeing relief I felt after a week of absolute panic was indescribable. I had nothing to worry about.
But then, the niggling doubts started. My experience from the outside with my family members and my friends was only a snippet of the story. Now, I had to contend with the inside. Some of the thoughts that would bubble up from nowhere were just… stabilising. I pride myself as a logical person, but I now know logical doesn’t mean anything to hypochondria. Logic might actually be your enemy, sometimes. I’d be typing away at my desk at 1 in the afternoon when bam; what if she’s a new doctor? What if she had no experience? What if they told me if was nothing to worry about because we’re in a pandemic, and cancer can wait? What if they haven’t got enough beds for one more, what if they only said nice things because they saw how scared I was, because my mum was there? What if what if what if. Everything is what if. Of course, Internet searches only made news outlets present me with articles of women who found a lump, and were diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. The fact that 80% of breast lumps have another, more innocuous explanation means nothing when you’re thinking that sounds like me. The fact that I had no risk factors whatsoever meant nothing to me.
This is when talking matters. Back when this started, I told my mum, and suddenly I felt like this weight had lifted. What I’d built up in my mind became nothing more than a little worm of panic that had no place in my mind. That doesn’t mean to say that it won’t stay there, dormant and waiting until the next doubt forms itself. But it’s those moments of clarity you need to hang on to.
Paint a Mental Picture 