A Hypochondriac's Tips to Manage Your Anxiety Right Now

Having hypochondria, generalized anxiety, and depression during a pandemic is like watching someone set a dumpster on fire and deciding to jump into it. I have been on fire for four months now, and not because I have a fever. I know I don't, because I bought a fancy scanning thermometer for $70, and I use it 3-300 times per day.

In my research on WebMD, I have had at least 37 different ailments and diseases in the last year. I have missed hours of sleep, and dehydrated my body crying, from self-diagnoses including a stroke, a heart attack, a heart murmur, and breast cancer. Having anxiety means that I sometimes lose track of the big picture and reality. I seem pretty self-involved because I am trapped in my own head and I can't focus on anything on the outside. To cope, I have developed a mantra, or really a question, to help me manage my constant fear of getting sick.

What is the worst thing that can happen?

Easy answer: I die.

This answer is easy for me because, as someone with depression, I sometimes I have suicidal ideations and unfortunately, in my darkest moments, getting really sick feeds into those ideas.

Harder answer: I disappoint and hurt someone I love.

The thought of hurting someone else throws me into hypochondria overdrive. What happens to my family if I were to get sick? Or die? As a mom, I am the foundation to our family's house. I am down at the bottom, under the dirt, keeping everything above ground structurally safe. A sick me would not serve as a very good foundation and my house might fall apart. My job is to help my kids move through pain and and learn from hardship in order to come out on the other side, stronger. How would I do that if I am sick or no longer alive? Plus, I am very jealous and my ghost would not be able to handle Andy getting remarried.

I have been teased about my hypochondria and, sometimes it helps burst the anxious bubble and floats me back to Earth. Concerned about my own self-involvement, I once asked a friend if my constant state of fear about getting cancer was an insult to her as a cancer survivor. She told me that it was not, because a ton of people actually get cancer and therefore, the fear is real. This made me feel better because, at least in her eyes, I'm not the selfish jerk I think I am. It also made me feel worse because tons of people get cancer so there is a chance that I could, too.

There is so much uncertainty about Coronavirus, it's highly contagious, and people are dying. Tens of thousands of people die every year from breast cancer, strokes and heart attacks but the world has never shuttered its doors because of these illnesses. I have never read that I should disinfect my groceries to protect me from a heart attack. I have never been warned that I could get breast cancer from hugging my mom. Broadway won't shut down if I have a heart murmur.

I'm not sure what to think about my health and this pandemic but I sure know that I can't stop thinking about it. Since I have been a hypochondriac with anxiety and depression for so long, and there is no way in hell that you aren't at least a little anxious about the pandemic, I wanted to give you some tips for managing illness-related anxiety during this challenging time.

1. Take your temperature every hour, with 4 different thermometers. One should be taken rectally but just be sure not to get it confused with the others. Don't ask anyone in your family to help.

2. Do not Google search your gender, race, age, geographic location, weight, profession, name and the word Coronavirus at the same time because you will definitely find out that someone of your gender, race, age, in your geographic region, with your weight, working in your profession and with your name, died from Corona.

3. Create a Covid-19 quarantine plan and put 4 more thermometers, Tylenol, tissues, Clorox wipes, and several N-95 masks into your previously designated "in case of a Tornado" Tupperware container that you keep hidden in the stairwell. Move it under your bed but don't tell anyone in your house that you had an "in case of a tornado" bin that you have now converted to an "in case of a case of Covid" bin.

4. Do not read social media. It is inevitable that, right after watching a Tik Tok video of silly kitties to help mend your anxiety-shredded soul, you will see a Facebook post about the increasing number of Covid cases in your county, along with the caption, "PEOPLE! PEOPLE! WEAR A MASK! WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC!!! IT IS STILL IN OUR COMMUNITY!!! DON'T BE STUPID, BE SAFE!!" As your brain processes all of the exclamation points and data points, your soul will leave your body, fall on the floor, and start rocking and crying. I'm not kidding.

5. Switch the water bottles out of your running belt to bottles of hand sanitizer and wear the belt all of the time, except in the shower and while asleep. ( Note, I did NOT say NOT to wear it during sex because protection is paramount.) Carry Lysol in your purse and spray it around the guy at the Dollar General who is sporting a confederate flag t-shirt with the neck and arms cut off, who is not sporting a mask. Duck when he tries to spit in your face while shouting about his rights, freedom and 'Merica. Go home and refer to steps 1, 2 and 4. Add your Last Will and Testament and a stamped, absentee ballot for Biden, to the Tornado/Covid Tupperware bin.

6. Finally, write love letters. Tell people how proud you are of them, how their existence has made your life better, and that the stars shine brighter because they are alive. Give everyone their letter, but keep in mind that, if you are a hypochondriac, it may get weird if you give them a letter every time you think you are going to die. In that case, consider a daily text with a heart emoji or using the care/huggy emoji on their Facebook posts.

I hope this has helped ease your mind during a stressful time. You are not alone in your anxiety, whether it enters your mind only during your nightly news scrolling or if you worry so much that you wake up from a sound sleep at 2 am and cry so hard that you vomit up all of the ice cream that you comfort-gorged the night before. I've got your back, and extra thermometers.

Oh, and P.S.

7. Go on WebMD. It seems counter-intuitive but you should do it! Looking up possible symptoms of other ailments may distract you from thinking you have Covid, as you instead consider the possibility that you have GERD, dementia, tuberculosis, lyme disease, or rosacea. Or that you are pregnant.