Here is how you explain to a doctor that, despite the fact that you seem OK and are not visibly dying, you do have a rare illness that requires immediate medical attention. You do it calmly, because if you reveal that you’re freaking out, then they’ll know you’re a lunatic. Panicking is intimate; it’s meant for the close friends and family, if any, that you’ve been frenetically recounting your symptoms to as they talk you down. You explain your symptoms with detailed precision: when they started, which symptoms started on which day. You point to every inkling of a physical symptom: Here’s where the rash was. Here’s where the swelling is a little bit right now, but when I’m home sometimes it’s worse. Here is where I’m feeling cold. Then, before the doctor can tell you to wait a few days to see if it gets better, you slip in a few conjectures on what you think it is, based on your careful research. You throw in an “I think it could be . . .” or a “Maybe it’s . . .” so that you don’t sound too confident, and the doctor doesn’t think you’re crazy. The doctor explains why both of your self-prescribed diagnoses are unlikely or impossible, based on your symptoms. You protest, but not too much—panic is not for the doctor, and plus, the last time you panicked at the doctor, she got stressed out, prescribed you Xanax and left the room—but the doctor sees where you’re going and lets you know, sometimes gently, that you’re OK. This reassurance should mean something, but it doesn’t. You’re back to googling, trying to find a workaround because even though you know in your head somewhere that you probably are OK, the louder part of your brain is scared of what happens if you’re not.
The first time I experienced health anxiety was in the third grade, when I told my pediatrician that I didn’t feel like my head was connected to my body. She suggested that I eat more ice cream. There was a second time somewhere around then too, when I had what I described as an unending stomachache. The time after that was in the fifth grade, after a few stray headaches convinced me I had brain cancer. I remember drinking a tall styrofoam cup full of a thick, bland liquid to prep for a CT scan. The nurse comforted me, saying, “You’re going to be OK.” I felt guilty that she didn’t know that this was just part of the rotation. She didn’t know that I was in there because I had begged my mom to take me, that I had protested against my pediatrician’s assessment that there was nothing wrong with me.
It is the uncertainty that scares me, both with COVID and general health anxiety. I’m afraid of the idea that one day, something will happen to me and I will not be prepared. It will rear its head when I’m not paying attention, which is why I always need to be paying attention. When my brain tries to convince me that this is true, I try to take a step back. Like Vas and Burnett-Zeigler both say, assessing the likelihood of a risk is important. What are the chances that I have a rare illness? Not a ton. I reasoned with myself: what would a doctor do? A doctor would tell me to wait it out to see if it gets worse. What would the ER do? Ask me why I don’t have insurance and then charge me thousands of dollars to tell me to wait it out. I waited it out. Eventually, after a few days of certainty that my head wasn’t getting worse, I relaxed. Finally, I could watch 90 Day Fiancé without wondering whether my last words would be, “Oh my god, this bitch is making a huge mistake.”
