Psychology journalist and hypochondriac herself, Caroline Michel takes stock of hypochondria and gives you six solutions to get rid of it.
Hypochondria… This psychiatric pathology – a feeling of excessive anxiety vis-à-vis your health – is likely to affect us all. According to a study published by the National Institute of Health in 2017, hypochondriacs would cost the British public health system (the NHS) more than 61 million euros per year. In France too, this pathology is widespread with more than one in ten French people suffering from a more or less severe form of hypochondria, according to an IFOP study published in 2014. Among them, Michel Drucker and Alain Delon live with the anxiety that accompanies the pathology. How do you deal with it when the whole world seems to laugh at this visceral fear for his physical condition and the health of his body? How do you strike a balance between the idea that the body is an enemy or that it is one of the things to be constantly watched? We interviewed Caroline Michel, journalist in psychology, herself a hypochondriac, and also a contributor for Aufeminin, to take stock of this psychiatric disorder.
What exactly is hypochondria?
It is a term that dates back to ancient Greece. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, classified hypochondriacs as those who thought they had a disease of the hypochondria, that is, the lateral parts of the upper abdomen, below the ribs. Hypochondria is more and more widespread … at least that’s what we are led to believe. While everyone is more or less prone to hypochondria, some are more so than others. The most severe form is infrequent and consists of “A serious disorder listed in the DSM” (Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders), it is a real transverse pathology, explains psychologist Antoine Spath with Caroline Michel in their book “Do you think this is serious?”. To put it simply, the hypochondriac worries disproportionately and constantly about their health. “There is little, if ever, a break”, says Caroline Michel.
However, the journalist specifies that “Even if you are not part of this category of severe hypochondriac, if you are not a prisoner of these anxieties, you are not spared the effects inherent in the“ small ”hypochondria and the anxieties directed towards the body”. Although the effects are more marked for some, leaning in part towards simple anxiety and others towards “pure” hypochondria, everyone deserves to benefit from the journalist’s advice. But first of all, how to recognize hypochondria?
Read also : What is journaling, this method of taking care of your mental health?
How do you recognize a hypochondriac, what are the symptoms?
There are several degrees in hypochondria, but this pathology has some specific symptoms: excessive anxiety about the health of the body, the persuasion of being sick very often and not always identifying the origin of its disease. According to Caroline Michel, this anxiety manifests itself in panic attacks that last “At least six months”, often with little respite between each attack depending on the severity of the disorder. The true hypochondriac is never reassured, “He questions everything, including the doctor’s word”. He is super lucid about serious illnesses, the possibility of getting it, and the fact that medical errors exist. Moreover, the hypochondriac recognizes that death is inevitable, “That it is rather a deliverance”, but that does not prevent him from thinking about it and wanting to impose his control permanently – hence his extreme fear of diseases. A hypochondriac is also at risk of having an insomniac, especially when he or she is alone at night, for fear of not having someone available in case something serious happens. Moreover, Caroline Michel reveals that she sometimes has difficulty sleeping alone. However, hypochondria should not be confused with nosophobia, which characterizes those who are afraid of catching a disease. On the contrary, the hypochondriac is anxious to be already suffering from a disease whose cause remains unknown. In other words, he or she is not worried about his or her health, but more exactly about a disease that he or she is convinced.e to have already contracted.
If the hypochondria is growing, what feeds it?
According to the journalist, “Hypochondria can develop from childhood due to learning about its relationship to the body”. In the long term, both over-care and under-care can both adversely affect the child and lead to hypochondria. She also adds that “Although it is said that hypochondria is not transmitted genetically, anxious parents and the way they behave in relation to their bodies and that of their offspring on a daily basis can lead to an anguished relationship between the child and his health”. The notion that the body is imperfect from the first years of life increases the chances of serious hypochondria in adulthood. The journalist also refers to the English psychoanalyst, Donald Winnicott who establishes the link between a person’s relationship to his body and the way his parents took care of him.
The death or illness of a loved one, the divorce of the parents… Following a trauma, the symptoms of hypochondria can also develop. Guilt, or the feeling that one does not deserve to be healthy can also manifest itself in the form of hypochondria.
Has this pandemic caused an upsurge?
According to Caroline Michel, the hypochondriac is less afraid of catching a disease than of having “A disease he ignores”. Indeed, she explains that contrary to what one might think, this pandemic which causes anguish to the four corners of the world has not led to an upsurge for hypochondriacs who are precisely afraid when there is no need to being.
However, the lockdowns did not ease the angst either. By dint of being locked in camera with plenty of time to read the influx of medical information circulating on the internet, the tendency to self-diagnose and drown in the news on “Endometriosis and breast cancer, among others”, has increased, like other disorders, such as eating disorders. The journalist indeed recommends avoiding excess medical information, “To cut oneself off from this anxiety-provoking environment” where the media postulate the image of a healthy body and the remedies to achieve it.
What solutions and advice to overcome it? Can we “cure” this disorder?
If it is possible to reassure a hypochondriac in the short term, the phases of irrational anxiety will go away and return regularly because illnesses will still exist and physical pain is inevitable. On the other hand, the journalist reassures that it is nevertheless possible to “To appease it and learn to live with it so that it no longer ruins life”. How? ‘Or’ What ? Caroline Michel gives you her most effective advice:
Talk about your hypochondria around you with a shrink, a health professional or with caring relatives. She explains that by hearing herself speak, by freeing her speech and naming her sensations, the fear becomes less burdensome and the degree of anxiety also decreases because this allows the hypochondriac to take a step back, to relativize the fear and to realize that the fear is unreasonable and that he is wrong. Even if the loved one says nothing and simply listens to the anxieties, it is reassuring to share them.
Make symbolic links between physical and psychological pain. To think that rather than being a symptom of serious illness, the physical pain could on the contrary manifest the current anxieties: a pain of the back perhaps indicates fatigue. Knee pain, difficulty finding balance or standing forward. A sore throat may represent impeded communication. Ear pain, perhaps the fact of having heard something that did not please … This does not exclude going to the doctor, but it nevertheless allows the hypochondriac to “refocus your attention on your anxieties instead of thinking over and over about the serious illness” without completely ignoring her worries and staying in the theme of the body.
To move on. Caroline Michel also suggests that sometimes the best way to get out of your anxiety is to turn to another part of the body because the more you think about a particular pain, the more difficult it is to get out: “If you keep thinking about foot pain, try to focus on the parts of the body that are doing well”. Even if in the end, you are caught by another pain elsewhere in the body, it indicates that you will move on and it will be easier to manage instead of going into a vicious cycle.
Relativize the pain. In a week, and in a tone of humor, the journalist reveals that she can think of having twenty diseases: “For two days I have a stomach ache, then I have my left arm pulling me and I think I have a stroke, and then the next day I have a headache, and the next day I am sure I have cyst”. To allay her fears, she accepts that these diseases exist, but she also tells herself that it is very rare to have them all in a week: “I gain confidence, I don’t worry too much and that allows me to put things into perspective”.
Learn to see crises coming and respect your hypochondria. First of all, “If I start to worry about a pain, I try not to blame myself but rather to tell myself that I know myself, I see myself happening. And if the pain is not gone in two hours, I will really start to worry ”. So what can be done to prevent these anxieties? Look at expert opinions, consult your neighborhood pharmacist, make an appointment with my doctor (possibly by video to reassure yourself more quickly), talk to a friend … In short, you have to create a plan and implement place things to calm down without playing all his marbles at the same time.
Surround yourself well. Reassure yourself by saying that there are active and caring people nearby who can help you. And reassure you.