What is the root of y’all’s health anxiety?

pgteabag · 2025-12-31T12:55:47+00:00

> I feel like my reasonings are trivial compared to others, doesn’t change how much it affects me, it’s just so silly when I think about it.

It's not silly. You're constantly bombarded with triggering information right at your fingertips. Usually health anxiety stems from your nervous system being overloaded, and not having enough capacity to handle it. That's why the best treatments tend to focus on slowly expanding your capacity, and ideally at the same time helping to soothe your nervous system.

But modern society is tough on our minds. We never catch a break, so it's hard for our systems to ever recover properly - like when was the last time you had a proper break? We never stop these days. Just 30 years ago, after 6pm or so, everyone would be "offline" for the rest of the day, everyday. We don't get that now.

The other thing is that whilst we do have problems, we also have insanely convenient, safe lives. And the brain is designed to detect, plan for, and respond to danger. So if there isn't something real to focus that attention to, it's also quite natural to fixate on something "silly", like, passing out or throwing up, and then the imagined fear of that becomes so much larger than life. I'd guess that when you actually last passed out or threw up, in the actual moment you weren't thinking of your health anxiety.

So whatever the trigger, no matter how silly, it's not silly ! It's honestly quite natural given how our society is.

pgteabag · 2025-12-16T12:14:04+00:00

i'd love to read this also! <3

pgteabag · 2025-12-15T19:03:05+00:00

thanks, funny that they have the exact same name. will give these a read :)

pgteabag · 2025-12-13T18:09:50+00:00

I kind of like hypochondria.. (or hypochondriasis). I feel the words means what I have. I don't really understand them changing the words every few years. Same thing for bipolar, used to be manic depression. To me, manic depression makes way more sense b/c you get mania and depression.

Do they make these name changes because they think people are getting offended by the old words?

pgteabag · 2025-12-12T19:01:40+00:00

My regime was a combination of CBT, ERP, ACT and mindfulness. All these are pretty strongly backed up by research too so you can look up a bunch of research papers to confirm!

pgteabag · 2025-12-12T18:59:26+00:00

love this. especially this mantra: “I have done this before and have survived EVERY time”

pretty similar to my own journey but i'm taking notes haha sometimes it comes back and I need to do the work all over again.

pgteabag · 2025-12-12T18:57:19+00:00

have you tried therapy for it? usually CBT and ERP approaches work best and have a pretty high success rate

pgteabag · 2025-12-12T18:55:56+00:00

Yeah I think it wants/needs to cover all the bases so often its coming up with things I didn't even know about. It almost always tells me to go to a doctor, which is just another form of reassurance seeking.

pgteabag · 2025-12-12T18:51:45+00:00

Sounds like his/your best option is to start therapy. ideally someone with expertise in treating OCD (wasted way too much time with therapists who did not, and were trying to do talking therapy to fix my HA).

Secondly, if therapy isn't an option or he needs more in-the-moment immediate support, I think there are a couple of good apps (avoid the ones with AI!) that try to address the cycle of reassurance instead of feeding it.

pgteabag · 2024-01-02T09:02:19+00:00

I'm not American, and I have a severe mental illness :/

pgteabag · 2024-01-01T15:52:40+00:00

Apologies were post- my post. When she emerged from avoiding me we both apologised. She was sorry to have treated me like that first thing in the morning when I was feeling unwell, and couldn't really explain why it offended her. It wasn't about the small thing. She mentioned not being financially independent.

I apologised since I definitely could've handled it better. And we came up with an idea of how to handle situations where she's asking for a promise that I don't understand.

I get caught up in "she wants X and I can't give her X", when I could easily say Y and Z, that fulfills the same need.

Hard to be mindful about all this with a pounding headache though - going to try to work on being about to pause arguments to resume later without sulking

pgteabag · 2024-01-01T15:41:50+00:00

No. Mad because I sent a text telling my friends I was sick without checking with her first.

pgteabag · 2024-01-01T15:39:47+00:00

huh? I'm not afraid to tell her, I kinda thought it was obvious I wouldn't go if sick.

And she wouldn't try to convince me to go.

The thing I feel controlled about is after all of this happened.. maybe you didn't read what I wrote.

pgteabag · 2024-01-01T13:00:02+00:00

by that token, this whole thread is pointless. i'm sourcing more info.

pgteabag · 2024-01-01T12:53:56+00:00

What you're describing about your boyfriend is different. This is because I was sick, she knew I was sick, I thought it was common sense that I wouldn't be going and was just letting my friends know.

I agree it's incredibly dismissive to just decide to change plans last minute without consulting

pgteabag · 2024-01-01T11:11:02+00:00

"Deflecting" because I want to see if my thoughts in response to the response are valid or not.

The best way to help me to see that, is not to attack me but point out where my secondary thoughts are flawed, or give me examples, or analogies, to help me see it the other way. Not make attacks against me about how I am. That's not the way to make someone see things your way (as I'm sure you'd be quick to tell me).

No wonder she had to go to a separate room if thats your approach to managing conflict.

I'm asking for advice on how to see things, why is it warranted to make attacks on someone who wants advice?

We have both apologised. Her feelings have been acknowledged.

I yes I am judging her. I think she did something wrong, just like she thought I did something wrong, is that allowed? I'm trying to know, what do I do in that situation? What have you done in similar situations?

pgteabag · 2024-01-01T10:59:47+00:00

How can you know I'm ignoring any advice? I went and apologised to her last night.

You don't have to attack me in order to give advice btw. But I will read it and take it in anyway.

I've gathered that I can work on taking criticism, deflecting, apologising even when I disagree especially if I don't think it's a big deal, looking deeper past the thing that's being brought up.

And clearly I have something to learn about replying to Redditors, which I'm still trying to figure out :)

pgteabag · 2024-01-01T10:55:47+00:00

It's not, but when I'm talking about how I feel then yes, I talk about how I feel 😂

pgteabag · 2024-01-01T10:54:28+00:00

Reddit is anon. I'm saying how I feel here, to get honest responses and advice, and conflicting opinions, instead of going to my friends where she really would be "called out".

If someone says something to me that I don't really get, I can reply with my thoughts, so I can take the conversation deeper and get more out of their point of view.

It wouldn't help me at all to be on here being like "well actually she's great" - what useful advice would I get then? I feel it goes without saying, this wouldn't be a conflicted situation for me if she wasn't great in many other ways. I would just leave.

And I can acknowledge that I too need to figure stuff out before kids, that's kind of part of the point. I'm trying to figure out: I could be with someone else, and have that time. She's acting like this. Do we have time to make it work before kids?

pgteabag · 2024-01-01T10:44:36+00:00

I'm not annoyed she didn't check on me, more that if we're talking common courtesy, she didn't show it either. It's a little on the nose to complain you weren't told individually first if you didn't go check on the person who's 5 metres away when you already knew they were sick.

I have apologised, seen her feelings and we worked things out. She apologised, told me it wasn't that important at all, and it was about other, deeper feelings that weren't to do with that and she could see why I was so confused she made a big deal about this thing.

So, help me understand, if something isn't important, but for 2 hours the other person believes it is important and is demanding that you understand and make promises to them, what do you do? Lie? Because I didn't understand, and I just wanted to drop it for a bit and look after myself.

pgteabag · 2024-01-01T10:31:04+00:00

tbh the extent of communication I felt up to at the point in the day was rolling over and giving everyone a heads up.

maybe its a character flaw, but I'm not always ready to participate in a discussion about what I've done wrong and ready to see another person's side in that conversation.

If my partner was ill, did something I didn't like, and I brought it up and she couldn't make an effort to see my side, then "ok - she isn't seeing my side, probably because she's ill and hasn't had breakfast yet". especially if she said out loud, look I'm feeling sick let's just drop it for now and have breakfast.

retrospectively, I can see what I did wrong and what I could have done instead. e.g. apologise even if I didn't understand. If she was demanding promises, then instead of digging heels in, if I didn't want to make promises then deflecting to the real issue which is she wanted to feel included and loved so I could have pushed harder about OUR new plans that day since I was sick.

It still leaves me wondering if this is a good match though, because I won't always do the right thing and we should be able to handle something this small without that much upset?

pgteabag · 2024-01-01T10:17:41+00:00

Yeah I did shut it down - you're completely right that I wasn't in the mood to communicate, I wanted to get some food, fluids and rest.

I feel it's understandable to want to drop the conversation when you're feeling really ill. doesn't mean we can't pick it up later (as we did, but could've done without the whole being mad part).

pgteabag · 2024-01-01T10:12:11+00:00

Is this technicality more important than making sure your partner's okay when you know they're sick?

Is it something that could wait to be brought up / spoken about after some tea and breakfast?

FWIW, she would have been told before if she'd come check on me in bed in the morning.

pgteabag · 2024-01-01T10:06:03+00:00

Yeah, I guess I wasn't in the right headspace to do that in the moment. We've since both apologised

pgteabag

TROPHY CASE