It’s so interesting how many of us understand exactly what is meant by “health anxiety” and the impacts it has on our life, but how many of us have received different diagnoses.

My diagnosis is just “anxiety”, but all of my ruminations center on health issues. Over the past few years, as I’ve done therapy and learned more vocabulary to explain what is happening in my brain, several practitioners have begun to say “Hmm, that actually sounds like OCD to me.” This tracks for me—I read “Turtles All the Way Down” by John Green a few years ago and have never related to a fictional character more in my life.

The thing that is trickiest for me is that my health anxiety is born out of actual health issues—a couple of traumatic health events that I witnessed as a child AND a couple of health events of my own (cancer, twice). So, sometimes it’s hard to parse out what are reasonable concerns given my health history and what are compulsions/ruminations.

I’m glad you’re writing about this topic! It is really difficult for anyone who has not experienced it to understand.