Behind Health Anxiety

Health anxiety has been a strange, consistent bedfellow of mine for years, more so since I was diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia (TN) in 2017. But today, as we practice social distancing and self-isolation around the world to “flatten the curve,” I know that I’m not alone when I say that my anxiety has skyrocketed.

Anxious? Who? Me?

I have only ever understood anxiety through the prism of my health. In my adolescence and young adulthood, I would have butterflies before exams and interviews, but nothing that felt as all-encompassing as my adulthood anxiety.

Claws-deep anxiety started when I lived in Mumbai for three years in the 2010s. For nearly my entire time there, I had gastrointestinal (GI) issues that started with a bacterial infection. On more than one occasion, I took a heavy battery of full-spectrum antibiotics that killed the infection — as well as my stomach’s good flora and fauna. As a consequence, my GI system has never been the same. I went from being a healthy person with a curious, generous appetite to someone who was terrified of what food could do to me.

Then, after I moved back States-side, I faced several oral procedures over two years stemming from a dental surgery I’d had almost a decade previously. These procedures were common enough, but I faced more pain and discomfort, and longer recovery times, than expected. I started to dread going to anyone wearing a white coat.

And just when I thought I was in the clear, that the only health challenges I would have to contend with were a sensitive stomach and migraines, I was diagnosed with TN. Looking back at the immediate aftermath of my diagnosis, I was on autopilot those first months. I was terrified, but I to-do-listed my way through those initial months, not fully aware of my health anxiety’s hold.

The frustrating mystery of it all

Living with chronic illness is an ongoing lesson in chaos. It’s hard to articulate what it’s like to not quite know what’s happening inside my body.

Though I have a diagnosis and triggers to mind and pills to swallow, there is still so much of my illness that is shrouded in mystery. Because we don’t really know why TN happens, any physical sensation I have felt since my diagnosis is an alarm bell. I don’t know if it’s something “normal,” something related to my condition, or something else entirely.

When both your diagnosis and your body are mysteries, you aren’t always able to trust your perception because you have nothing to objectively compare your experience to. 

It doesn’t comfort me to say that I’m not alone in this. Anyone who lives with chronic illness is familiar with the degree to which their condition, mixed with anxiety, alters self-perception. When it specifically comes to physical perception, you become aware and vigilant of your body in ways that you would otherwise never need to be.

This awareness is where the heart of health anxiety beats.

In the age of COVID-19

For the majority, COVID-19 is the first clear and present threat to their health they have ever faced. Since it invited itself onto the world stage, collective health anxiety has reached fever pitch. The nightly news shows us scenes of empty grocery shelves and deserted city streets and shuttered schools and businesses. These scenes are manifestations of our fear, of the uncertainty and powerlessness we feel in the face of an unknown assailant stalking our bodies.

This collective anxiety feeds our private anxiety.

This strain of anxiety is so familiar to those of us living with chronic illness. We are intimately familiar with an illness — about which so much is still unknown — just as we are familiar with the behaviors we adopt to cope with a new reality.

Because we live with a heightened sensitivity to health, we watch as people en masse are beginning to value their health differently, making lifestyle adjustments to accommodate these scary times. This is as it should be, but I can understand the frustration of the chronic illness and disabled community, expressing how accessibility and mindfulness are only now being taken seriously because it benefits a majority.

Mass illness is an unfortunate equalizer. Now, nearly everyone can understand what it feels like when prioritizing your health is an absolute necessity — but is widely treated as an inconvenience.

Health is the only real wealth

We all know that health is important. But we take that for granted until it’s tested. The coronavirus is testing all of us now. It’s reminding us that health is the only real wealth we have.

It’s unfair that this test comes at a high physical and psychological price. The coronavirus particularly terrorizes the elderly, new parents, and people who live with chronic illness. I know that anyone who lives with immuno-suppressed or -compromised conditions is feeling susceptible and threatened in ways many of us aren’t able to understand. 

Please think of them as you practice social distancing and isolation: their bodies will have to fight infinitely harder battles to recovery. We don’t want anyone to suffer more than they already do.

This is about you

Whatever your health status, I want you to know that it’s okay to be scared now. There isn’t a unified global effort to fight coronavirus — yet — and that feeds our anger and anxiety. We don’t do well with uncertainty, especially when that uncertainty curtails the freedoms we enjoy and threatens the people we love. It’s hard to put our lives on hold, but it’s important to remember that we do it for ourselves and each other. 

Be the helper as much as you can.

Whatever your health status, I recommend not only practicing social distancing, but media distancing. Don’t compulsively check the news; don’t let it become a mindless reflex. Don’t engage with people or content that amps up your feelings of helplessness and fear. Check the news if you must, but don’t let it take over your day. Live your life in all those other hours you have, doing things that feel good and meaningful to you. 

Care for your body and your spirit.

Whatever your health status, I want you to know that the anxiety you feel is nothing to suppress or feel any shame over. Your health anxiety may be reaching new peaks every day — I know that’s true for me. I wake up with an ache in my chest almost every morning, and have had to remind myself to breathe deeply, to take things at my own pace, to do my best, to do what feels good, to do what feels right, to trust.

Yes, trust.

Whatever your health status, remember that you’re not alone. Now more than ever, we need to extend patience, generosity, kindness, compassion, and love to ourselves and one another.

The only way out is through, together.