Hypochondriacs

Hypochondria is defined as abnormal (meaning unusual, odd, CRAZY) and chronic (meaning obsessive, continual, ALL CONSUMING) anxiety about imaginary ailments and symptoms. To some extent, we all are hypochondriacs, but some of us are EXPERTS at it. Give us a cold and we have pneumonia. Give us a headache and we have a brain tumor. Give us a backache and we have meningitis.

But what about people with real symptoms. Odd neurological symptoms that could be anything. Normal people would just go see a doctor and FIND out what is wrong, not forecasting doom. But a hypochondriac must make a dramatic self-diagnostic prediction: “OhmyGod, I had tingling in my hands, I might have fibromylagia, or a blood clot, or something even worse, like a BRAINCLOTSPINETUMOR. Oh, it must be a BRAINCLOTSPINETUMOR.”

Plus with the Internet—it’s easy for hypochondrias to find symptoms and self-diagnose (self-diagnosing without a medical license—that’s a crime—isn’t it? Well, then is should be!). Because ANYTHING you read in print, is gospel. To them at least! Still, while for most people the Internet is a place to do research, have a few laughs and check their email, for a hypochondriac, the Internet is a resource for DRAMATICMEDICALSELFDIAGNOSIS.

Not that you can blame them. You can kind of understand why if you’ve ever looked at some of these message boards. Take for instance this one woman (who is MS.POSTERCHILD to other’s on these sites), who relayed her symptoms of tingling in her hands and feet, headaches, itchiness, blackouts and a sore throat to her doctor, who diagnosed her a throat infection and gave her antibiotics. This cleared up her sore throat—but NOTHING else. She was looking for hope—for an answer—on the Internet—figuring, with all the people and medical resources in the world (at her fingertips), someone might have seen her rare range of symptoms. But what’s the likelihood the one person who knows what she has, in the millions of people in this world, will stumble upon her post? (Of course, maybe her doctor thought she was a hypochondriac—or knew her to be one!).

Still, the fact that so many people have so many odd symptoms and write about them on the Internet feeds right into the hypochondriac’s worldview. They think, well, since there are so many diseases without PROPER diagnosis’s, then I MIGHT have 26 things at once! OR hey, I might be that rare scientific anomaly, and get worldwide recognition for having FIBROMYALGIAHEARTDISEASEDIABETESWESTNILE. And in their, CRAZYALLCONSUMING minds, oops, I mean hypochondria, finding something (even a death sentence) is better than finding nothing, because then they aren’t hypochondrias (with CRAZYALLCONSUMING minds) they are just sick! Then on their deathbeds they can say (something we all LOVE to say), “I told you so.”