Here is the next installment of my Self Exploration series. If you haven’t read the first installment, you can click here to do so!

Anybody who follows me on social media is aware of my issues with mental health. I don’t make it a secret because a large part of my healing came from community. People sharing their stories and letting me know that I’m not alone in this was absolutely essential for learning what having mental health issues meant and accepting it.

Along with generalized anxiety disorder, I also have diabetes. I don’t talk about diabetes as much. Diabetes and anxiety clash…a lot. They both cause a lot of the same physical symptoms that I’m mostly comfortable with. What I mean by comfortable, is that I know the cycle of my symptoms, so they usually don’t cause me to freak out like they used to. So keep in mind that I’m used to certain physical manifestations of anxiety alongside diabetes side effects. Those are normal for me…

Over the years, I’ve discussed being anxious about health related issues. This has been a thing long before I was diagnosed with anxiety. What I’ve realized in 2022, is that this isn’t just anxiety over health. It’s a whole new beast that I didn’t see coming. 

Hypochondria is the constant fear of having a serious or life threatening illness with few or no symptoms. Hypochondria is now known as illness anxiety disorder. I feel like so many things underwent a name change in the late 90s early 2000s. As it is in the nature of my generalized anxiety disorder to feel physical symptoms, I'm not surprised that illness anxiety disorder presented similarly. 

I first referred to myself as a hypochondriac in January of this year. I casually slid it into a conversation with a coworker who has heard me say things like "it's probably breast cancer" or "maybe it's a brain tumor". Then a few months later, Dro referred to me as a hypochondriac and in the same week it came up with a friend. I was very comfortable in these conversations, but on the inside, I was starting to feel crazy. I was starting to think that this is never going to end. It’s always going to be something. For about a month, I felt physically ill in ways I’ve never felt before. I went to the doctor and felt kinda dismissed. That’s usually the case. I never feel like my doctors actually hear me. I like my doctor and I trust her, but part of my health anxiety is feeling like the doctors are missing something. My doctor referred me to all these specialists who kept telling me that everything checked out. I didn’t believe them and if we’re being real, I still don’t. Diabetes and anxiety could contribute to some of the things that were happening, but not enough of them to convince me not to worry. 

The conversation I had about this with my therapist fucked me up. I explained to her about how I thought the doctors were missing something and she said “Do you want to be sick?” As I was shaking my head no, I had the realization that if I’m not actually physically sick, then my brain is doing this to me. So my options are actually being physically sick with some illness or being so mentally fucked up that my brain created these symptoms. Lose-Lose. 

I was feeling like I couldn't trust my body. It was such a let down because I relied on my body when I knew I couldn’t rely on my brain. I know my brain lies to me. I wasn’t prepared for my body to follow suit in this way. I mean technically, it's still my brain letting me down, but me and my body had an agreement to only feel certain things so I would know not to worry too much. Things got worse before they got better because not knowing whether I was physically sick or mentally sick was making me more anxious. Like seriously those are two shitty options. 

While all of these things are happening inside my brain and my body, I still have to carry on with my regular life. I still have to go to work, talk to my friends, take care of my home as if everything is normal. It gets to be too overwhelming to keep talking about it all the time, so I don't do it as much. I share about the doctors appointments and things, but it's hard to tell someone how miserable you feel all the time. Like damn girl, is this all you got going on? No, but it's the most prevalent. 

My therapist referred me to a psychologist for a true diagnosis and proper treatment. I’m excited about the possibility of getting the proper support. It feels good to know that this is a thing. It has a name. It has treatment options. The big thing here is that I had to be honest with myself about how bad this is so that I could open myself up to getting the help that I need. Yall, I be over here stressed tf out thinking I got something and it doesn't have to be this way. Mental health issues are nothing to play with.

As if things weren’t already bad, I’m also coping with going back to school with high covid numbers and monkey pox being declared a global health emergency. That’ll be interesting. 

I ain’t gon lie, this one was probably the hardest to share out of the whole series. I know you guys only have two, but I know what the rest of them are lol

​Thanks for reading!