Fear of Being a Bad Patient: Health Anxiety and Self-Worth

Problem for me is I also have social anxiety. Dealing with doctors is just as anxiety provoking as worrying about illness. My symptoms and test results seem just worrying enough to warrant monitoring the situation but I'm constantly worried the doctor will think I'm just being a hypochondriac.

I actually looked through some books on hypocondria, but they all focused on worrying about something that has been ruled out. Which isn't the case for me. I'm working on establishing a format of when to call a doctor, which symptoms or tests should be followed up on and which need not. I'm finding this helps me to let it all go and enjoy things more, particularly when I am having low symptom period. I've got a ways to go, though. :)

I've been thinking about this comment by MinM on my post Hypochondria and Health Anxiety OCD.  The social anxiety of dealing with doctors complicates my health anxiety, as well as cultural stereotypes of women as oversensitive, and my perfectionism which demands I pre-diagnose myself and get it right before I even go to the doctor.

I spent many years at my old job listening to medical residents do their rounds, and anything to do with the mind and emotions and human complications was a struggle for them in the midst of all the technical, diagnostic work they were doing.  There was a staff psychologist who would sit in at times, and I was glad to have her there providing some perspective.  Also, some residents were much more able to deal with anxious patients than others.

OCD is still an enigma to many people, professional or not, and health fears are often labeled hypochondria, even though health anxiety OCD has a significant component of dealing with uncertainty and rituals to try and undo the fear, such as repeated calls to doctors, web searching symptoms and monitoring and checking body symptoms in a similar way to those who check locks, stove burners and light switches.

My latest challenge was a physical in October with my family doctor, who was concerned about my low iron levels and said since I was "close enough to 50" that she was going to refer me for a colonoscopy.  Getting older adds another layer to health anxiety.  I'm still a few years away from 50 and I felt a surge of panic that I was going to choose the wrong thing, do the wrong thing.

Ironically, my doctor was not "certain" about this.  She even went and talked to a colleague to see if she sounded "crazy."  Here was her thought process: My iron levels could be due to being female, but she's seen too many cases of patients in their 40's who turned out to have colon cancer, and while she doubts that there is something seriously wrong with me, she wanted to play it safe, and have me consult with a gastroenterologist.

Does this sound omnipotent or certain?  No.  Do I deal well with uncertainty?  Well. . .I hadn't seen Leonard, my exposure therapist, in 5 months, so I made an appointment to sort this out with him.  I didn't look up colonoscopies in the meantime, which is huge for me.  Leonard made me laugh by saying the sedative is fabulous with a colonoscopy. . .he'd also heard that the guidelines might be changed to start a screening colonoscopy at 40 rather than 50.  

For him, it didn't trigger a big emergency because his self-worth was not at stake, as opposed to my perfectionism, which decreed I'd better get this right or prove my defectiveness.  Leonard asked if I really believed that there is a way for someone to prove I'm defective as a person by looking at my colon.  I made the appointment with the gastroenterologist and saw him a couple weeks ago.  He basically said the same thing as my family doctor, about wanting to err on the side of caution.  I scheduled the colonoscopy for January.  

If you are a reader tempted to write me a treatise about the dangers of overtesting, and other sociological factors about suburban US medicine, please be assured I've already thought about all of this, and I've taken my best guess.  Does this scare me?  Yes, it does, because I'd prefer to make a perfect omniscient choice, but ritualizing to give myself the illusion of being able to make a perfect choice has stolen many years from me already.

Some of what I've learned over the years of dealing with my OCD with Exposure Therapy:

• It's important for me to trust and respect my doctors, and be able to honestly say when I'm struggling with the OCD.  The anxiety of figuring out how to indirectly get my questions answered was exhausting when dealing with doctors who had little patience for anxiety.

• Even people without OCD have a difficult time gauging when to go to the doctor.  There will be uncertainty.   I may be wrong.  This doesn't say anything about me as a person.

• Self-Monitoring and vigilance will not magically protect me from illness and disease, as evidenced in my experiences: Skin Cancer Anxiety: Fear, Vigilance and All or Nothing Thinking and Skin Checks and OCD: Never Enough.