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HEALTH ANXIETY : A THREAD
want to do a wee information thread on health anxiety for #MentalHealthAwareness to try and contribute something useful! i donât see it ever talked about under the anxiety umbrella. i was diagnosed with severe health anxiety in january and is something
want to do a wee information thread on health anxiety for #MentalHealthAwareness to try and contribute something useful! i donât see it ever talked about under the anxiety umbrella. i was diagnosed with severe health anxiety in january and is something
iâve been suffering with for years. health anxiety (hypochondria) is an obsessive or irrational worry about having a medical condition to the point where it takes over your life. it is a debilitating mental illness and is often linked to OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder).
the word âhypochondriacâ comes with massive stigma. over the years it has been adopted by comedians and is overused, stereotyped and can be insulting. it has taken away from the fact that health anxiety is a serious illness and made it into something light that everyone believes
they have if they google their symptoms once. everyone worries about health from time to time, of course! this is normal. but health anxiety interferes with daily life - it includes obsessive body checking, severe panic attacks and losing the will to go outside, socialise, go to
work or even eat certain things in fear of illness. for me, it made me want to stay home at all times so i could obsessively check my body. i was so sure i was going to die of an illness, any illness, that i stopped planning for the future and almost gave up.
the mention of any illness makes me believe i have it. i have to avoid anything medical, tv shows, hospitals, even people who are ill because if i hear a name of an illness, iâm convinced i have it. itâs equally exhausting and terrifying.
it is invalidating when the word hypochondriac is used so sparingly. it lessens the belief that it is a real illness and stigmatises the disorder even more - in public and in medicine.
all in all, health anxiety is real, terrifying and debilitating. thankfully with medicine and therapy it can be managed. if you recognise any of these symptoms please go to your gp immediately and donât let them dismiss you until they give you help. 
