"Hypochondria is a mental preoccupation with real or suppositional physical or mental disorders, a discrepancy between the degree of preoccupation and the grounds for it so that the former is far in excess of what is justified, and an effective condition best characterized as interest with conviction and consequent concern, and with indifference to the opinion of the environment, including unresponsiveness to persuasion." (Retterstol, 2007)
Hypochondria is not new, it hasn't been invented yesterday, but goes back as Hypocrates. However, after going through a terrible episode myself, I have reasons to believe that it might just be the "plague" of the 21st century.
After being asked and get my lumps checked, I started convincing myself that, although most lumps are harmless, I was the one who had the really dangerous type. I went as far as having panic attacks, nightmares and even thinking that if this wasn't the case, then I probably had some other horrible and unimaginable disease. I went so far as to get myself checked for many other diseases (which in itself it's a good thing, especially as I came out clear) and the more I got reassurance on some, I wanted to check other possibilities. But somehow this had to stop, as feeling the way I was feeling contributed to a rapidly declining state of mind, which was affecting my day to day life. And if my biggest fear was to lose my life, well, I wasn't quite living it, was I?...
After doing a quick search on the disease and finding out how closely it related to depression and schizophrenia, I still didn't understand the extent to which this apparently harmless and mockable condition could affect someone's life until I found out that so many of my friends had been through similar episodes. Close friends came up to me and confessed similar phobias, whether it was fear of heart attack, cancer or bubonic plague.
I don't base my statement on any evidence(I am sure I can find one, if I must) so you'll have to trust me on this one, but it seems that the increased awareness of certain types of diseases makes them the top of the hypochondriac's shopping list. I also tend to believe that the mounting level of information and statistics regarding deaths and cases of terminally illnesses, influences people nowadays to believe that one day it is going to happen to them...
Why do we get like that? I mean, I am sure nobody wants to go through hell and back thinking about illness and death, so there must be something more subtle at work. Based on my own experience, I believe that a certain level of stress and feeling of unachievement can easily trigger it. When happy, we don't really listen to our bodies, but when we feel low, everything surfaces. Our body reacts to the instructions of our mind.
Someone mentioned to me the other day that it might be related to the Quarter Life Crisis (I couldn't have said it better myself: Read about Quarter Life Crisis) which more and more people go through nowadays. Other will argue that we live in blessed times when opportunities are higher than ever and it's not fair for the people of the 21st Century to go through Quarter Life Crisises when they have so much more than their predecessors, including a higher life expectancy! I would probably answer to those people that then again we are brought into this world with higher expectations and not meeting them (which is probably the case of most people) makes us feel like we are failures and gets us steps closer to depression and related states of mind. Perhaps that's why we are so afraid of disease and death. Because we haven't fulfilled our mission, haven't reached our goals and we are terrified that we will leave this world without having lived up to the standards.
Yes, hypochondria is an expression of all that and not something we should joke about. I noticed that being part of a small community of hypochondriacs did help and I urge anyone who has ever felt that kind of desperation to give a helping had to someone in distress. An article published in the Guardian in 2007 ("How do you cure Hypochondria?") talks about methods of dealing with the irrational fear of illness and thankfully, there is hope. Apparently, receiving reassurance from your doctor doesn't remove the fear. The sufferer is trapped in his/her own mind and cannot escape without help. I hope this can help...
I still haven't received my diagnosys, but I am hoping that hypochondria is not one of them...
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