When you have a mental illness, you become accustomed to people appropriating mental illness related terms that they may not identify with. This appropriation works to desensitize society from these terms, leading to increased occurrences of mental illness related stigmatization. It also trivializes the everyday lived experiences of those who struggle with their mental health.
I, myself, have first-hand experience with mental health related stigma — 14 years of experience, to be exact. Since I was 8 years old, I have experienced hypochondriasis. I’ve blogged about it profusely and I’ve spoken out against stigmatization yet I still occasionally hear the phrase “I’m such a hypochondriac” being thrown about by people around me. If they mean it, I give them every salutation for being publicly outspoken and open about their mental health. If they don’t mean it, I tend to feel frustrated and subsequently defeated.
Hypochondria isn’t just feeling frustrated by an everyday cold and it isn’t simply searching an illness on WebMD. From my own experience, hypochondria is the phobia of illness and death (for lack of better words) that repeats itself over a prolonged period of time. Generally, those who have hypochondria experience it unexpectedly and have very limited control over their thoughts while encountering an episode. It can happen anytime and anywhere. Recently, my own hypochondriasis has drastically improved and I can go a month without experiencing even a mild episode. Yet, I still understand the life-impacting seriousness of this mental illness because in past situations my hypochondria has had a tendency of getting in the way of my everyday life.
While experiences of hypochondria vary on a person-to-person basis, in an effort to display the seriousness of it, I’d like to share some normal everyday situations in which my hypochondria has inconveniently showed its face. (Hopefully they’ll inspire you to think twice about trivializing the experiences of those with mental illness.)
1. On A Date
During one normal spring night I was partaking in a romantic country drive when I was rudely interrupted by some unwanted thoughts. My girl and I had decided to go for a drive outside of London. While the sun was setting we pulled over on the side of the road and decided to explore a small man-made lake. We hiked through long weeds and jumped over a rusty fence to get the full-effect of the sunrise reflecting off of the water. Afterwards, on the way back to the car, I had some difficulty climbing over the metal fence and gently skimmed my leg on it. Although I barely broke skin, I was immediately thrust into an episode of hypochondria, fearing that the rust on the fence might have somehow given me Tetanus. I am not informed about what Tetanus actually is and how the human body is affected by it, but I was convinced that I could get it this way.
I spent the rest of the car ride pre-occupied and debating on whether I should go to a hospital or not. My partner assured me that it was fine but I went home and continued to think about it for the rest of the night. It took me months to stop worrying on and off about this one incident.
2. Sitting In Class
While jotting down notes in class a few weeks ago, I made a wrong move and accidentally pricked my thumb with a pen. I then proceeded to examine the mark on my skin and I silently panicked and racked by brain wondering if the ink was toxic or not. The pen barely broke through my skin yet in this instance, my health was more important than what my professor was telling the class. The small mark on my thumb wouldn’t be enough to kill me, even if the ink wasn’t non-toxic. Yet, even though I knew I was being irrational, my mind told me that in that moment, I needed to worry about my health.
3. Eating Out With Friends
My friends proposed one day that we go for sushi. I’m a vegetarian, but I’m always down for the vegetable rolls at any sushi restaurant. When we arrived at the establishment, I was happy and excited to satisfy my cravings. However, when my first vegetarian rolls arrived, they were partly coated in fish eggs that had rolled off my friends’ sushi orders. I salvaged my vegetarian order by brushing off the fish eggs. I felt uneasy afterwards.
My hypochondriasis makes me prone to anxiety about having a sudden allergic reaction. Because I’m vegetarian (and haven’t consumed fish or meat in years) I was worried that I might have a serious allergic reaction in the restaurant. Un-coincidentally, I had a psychologically-induced itch at the back of my throat for the rest of dinner. 4. Sleeping?
People say that the dreams you have at night relate to the subconscious thoughts you have in the day-time. For this reason, dreams might be a tricky thing for people with mental illness. It’s only happened to me a few times in my life, but now and then I will have a triggering dream in which I get a disease or illness. Triggered into an episode by the dream, I wake up sweating and full of anxiety. In one triggering dream, I happened to acquire an illness that I had been worrying about while awake. I woke up and was immediately thrust into an episode that lasted two hours. I found the whole situation quite ironic (isn’t sleep supposed to be relaxing?) and since then, I have re-evaluated the amount of control I have over my mental illness and have realized that accepting help from others can be therapeutic and empowering.
And there you go –hypochondria is serious business. Please (I’m begging you) don’t throw the term around whenever you want to crack a joke or exaggerate a point. And don’t assume that someone around you doesn’t have it. Mental illness often manifests itself in hidden ways. For example, people dealing with long-term mental illness (like myself) can be great at pretending that they aren’t having a panic attack or even an episode. Still, even though it’s often invisible, it has real implications for very real people.
With all of that said, it is also important to understand that, despite our occasional “worries,” people with hypochondria are incredibly strong and just as capable of functioning in the world as any other person. Our mental illness does not define us and we will straight-out refuse to let any ableist-minded person define who we are or what we are capable of.