Caveat

I wanted to note that there is some, shall we say, personal information below, and while I have the voice of reason in my head screaming something along the lines of “ISN’T THIS A BIT MUCH?,” I do believe these stories are worth telling. In the moments I was experiencing these fears, they almost totally prohibited me from acting like a normal human being in normal human situations.

To wit: During one of these anxious times, I was in a print shop in the middle of central Illinois with some of my favorite people in the world, trying to hide the fact that I was about to explode with worry. As they worked on their project, I went over to the chalkboard and wrote the entire lyrics to the songs “Suicide Note Pt 1” and “Suicide Note Pt 2” by Pantera. I’m sad to report that I did not have these lyrics memorized; I think Pantera’s The Great Southern Trendkill CD was there, and I refered to the booklet. I wasn’t thinking of killing myself, but I thought it was rather funny to read these lyrics on the chalkboard like they were that afternoon’s English lesson.

Humor has always provided me with a place of safety when my mind is doing its worst.

I do not believe maladies have anything to do with morality, or the character of a person. The mocking of myself below is not meant to be seen as mockery of anyone who either suffers from hypochondria, or has dealt with any of these illnesses. This is just an attempt for me to poke fun at myself, and explain my experience with hypochondria.

I hope this helps someone feel less alone.

Two Conversations with my long suffering sister1

Green

My sister: What do you mean green?

Me: Green. Like, you know, Green.

My sister: Like Kelly Green?

(A bright smile stretches across her face, a strange high pitch noise like a high C note got caught in the back of her throat pierces the air)

Me: Kelly, please.

My sister: Okay, so your poop —

Me: My poop is green. Green as green can possibly, uh, green,

My sister: I mean, that’s normal.

(Long silence. I sit in the moment and let the words of one of the people I look up to the most erase a lot of my unease)

Old Spice

Sister: Well, how much Old Spice body wash did you use?

Me: Like, uh (doing the math in my head) four handfuls.

Sister: Okay, Kevin — I mean, that’s —

Me: I had to make sure it’s clean!

Sister: (Sigh) I know, but you don’t need that much Old Spice body wash.

(Pause)

Me: But I had to make sure it’s clean!

Sister: (Even Louder sigh, general disappointment at the sharing a genetic make up with such a strange loser of a brother who turns to soap for all answers in life)

A Search for Meaning

Below is The Cleveland Clinic’s definition of Hypochondria.

Illness Anxiety Disorder is a chronic mental illness sometimes known as hypochondria. People with this disorder have a persistent fear that they have a serious or life-threatening illness despite few or no symptoms. Medication and Mental Health therapy can2 help.

I enjoy that Hypochondria now goes by Illness Anxiety Disorder. I’m sure it now feels more comfortable commiserating with the other disorders that seem to be wreaking havoc on our collective well being.

Hypochondria3 is propulsive. It appears in the mind and within a millisecond, you are dying of any number of ailments, and can’t you feel it spreading across your body, and what’s that red spot you just caught in the mirror?

While this is in no way an exhaustive list, I have worried I have had all of these things: Cancer, herpes, muscle death (that’s right), herpes again, ALS, failures of various organs, beginnings of a goiter, syphilis, massive bleed out due to wisdom teeth surgery, and on and on.

I once wrote a poem called “Hypochondriac” in which each line was simply things I’d thought I had, ending with these two lines:

I was right about the kidney stone

I’ll be right again

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A Guided Tour

As evidenced above, during particularly anxious times, I’d call my sister.

In the Old Spice conversation above, I breathlessly told her I washed myself over and over again, and now everything was all red and irritated. She posited the idea that perhaps that was due to the Noah level drowning in Old Spice body wash, and before she could even finish her thought, I interjected that no, that could not be possible, Old Spice body wash is supposed to help, not hurt, and this could only be one thing, and that thing was herpes. As patient as ever, my sister asked if I had had sex in the recent past to which I whispered, No, but —There were no buts here, or so she wanted me to see. However, I did not see; instead, I paced back and forth in that high-rise building in downtown Chicago, looking over my shoulder each time I said herpes, trying to not get too close to the Lens Crafters lest I scare the nice macularly degenerated shoppers on their lunch breaks with talk of open sores and far too much Old Spice body wash.

What was my sister to do? She stayed on the phone with me, talked me through it, answered my same questions over and over. When she got a tad frustrated with me, I immediately jumped on her reasonable reaction to my absurdity, and played the victim. That’s me: A victim of the overuse of body wash, and the love and limits of my sister.

Just like any other form of anxiety, hypochondria metastasizes from one feeling above all else: certainty. The brain has been convinced that I have herpes, that Old Spice body wash could never lead to dry skin or irritation, even if you dump it on yourself for two straight minutes while praying to any god you can conceive.

For anyone in the public policy space: I strongly suggest there should be a warning label on these body wash bottles that says something along the lines of:

Warning, excessive use may lead you to think you have herpes and ruin not only your day, but also your patient and talkative sister’s day.

If someone could get the ball rolling on that, I would greatly appreciate it.

Overreaction

When I was a younger man, I was in a hotel somewhere in middle America. I was on tour and without a care in the world — I was getting a paycheck, the jukebox had 20 bucks in it, and the whiskey kept coming. I ended up hooking up with a fellow tour mate. All well and good; we didn’t have sex but we certainly were not clothed for a time, there were hands and lips and exhalations and awkward body positions causing this shoulder to ache, or that foot fo fall asleep, and then we were done, lying there, drunk and blissful when she said, Oh by the way, I have herpes.

Now.

Let’s just take a breath, because I didn’t then. I sat up. I looked at her, incredulous, and asked her why she had not told me that before. I began making a mental checklist of all those hands and positions and exhalations, and wondered if by the transitive property I had obtained this gift that keeps giving. When I didn’t pinpoint a moment it could have happened, I happily went back to the beginning to think through it again because as we all know, if you think about something for long enough, you’ll gain control of it, and by gaining control, solve it.

I hopped up from the bed and dashed to the shower. I hope I was kind to her in that moment, but I fear I was too blinded by her disclosure that I forgot the parts of myself I always try to put forward. Instead, I thought about how the herpes were likely already harvesting4 and there was no turning back unless I got in the shower, and scrubbed and scrubbed with those impossible to unwrap hotel soaps, as if I was able to wash away any infection that might be starting5; as if the quick dash to the shower was some sort of hypochondriac five second rule, that if you get there in time, the herpes will be like a chip that is immediately scooped up from the floor: harmless.

I did not contract herpes.

That being said, for the next five months, herpes was all I thought about. After a shower I was too afraid to use my towel to dry my private parts. I would instead reach for toilet paper, trying to grab handfuls so it would not just disintegrate6, but simply wipe away any moisture. By employing this clever trick, I ensured my towel would not be soiled, which could lead to the soiled portion touching my elbow, giving me the oft dreaded herpes of the elbow, a disease so rare and terrifying, it must be possible.

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And In the End

The End. Pretty much all of us fear that, succinctly described below by the master prose stylist Vladimir Nabokov:

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour).

How droll.

But that’s the whole game here, really… or is it? Is it only most of the game? Is Hypochondria also about how one is perceived? As if others possessing the knowledge of you suffering from this illness will lead to you being ostracized from polite society. I know this makes little logical sense, but as a reminder: I was just ranting about elbow herpes.

Is it also about societal norms? As if the most accepted members of society are also those with the best immune systems? If so — fuck you, Stephen Hawking!

Or is it that I have overthought my overthinking, and therefore have sullied this explanation? I don’t know. When I find myself thinking about my thinking, I know I’m likely in the wrong part of town, having missed the off ramp to serenity miles ago. Life is full of opportunities to over do it, and I certainly have many trophies and blue ribbons for “Outstanding Achievement in Overthinking.”

Hypochondria is propulsive. It is intrusive and like all anxiety, it is obsessed with outcomes that cannot be easily determined. It leads one to search for simple answers to a complicated set of circumstances, to reach out to anyone who will listen and ask them: Can you please tell me I’m okay? Do you know the amount of Old Spice shower gel that leads one to believe a herpes breakout has occurred? Wait, wait, where are you going?

Please save me from myself.