I Thought I Had Health Anxiety: But It Was This …

How we label our experiences has an impact. So, it's an interesting feeling when you discover, what you thought you 'suffered' was all a ruse; an action intended to deceive someone—in this case me

For six months, I have been sitting on this blog wondering whether I would write it or post it. For six months, I have been sitting on this personal revelation, wondering if I could trust it. Finally, now I’m in a place to share it ...

Since the pandemic, I have openly admitted that ‘I experience health anxiety.’ I’ve written about it; recorded podcasts about it and unpacked it in plenty of therapy sessions. It made sense to me in a logical way. When I was 23-years-old, my first husband died of cancer. My dad lost the use of his legs when I was a teenager to the same illness.

‘Of course, you have healthy anxiety’, I told myself, conveniently forgetting that, since my early childhood, way before these events, I had a tendency to discover a physical symptom in my body and use it to torture myself … Or, was it something different?