hypochondria?

I sometimes wonder if I am a hypochondriac as I frequently worry if I have illnesses. I'll experience some weird symptom like swollen lymph nodes and google it and then spend like 3 days worrying if I have lymphoma. Most instances are similar to that and I don't know if its hypochondria or just being extremely pre-cautious. Fortunately being Canadian I have free healthcare so generally my fears are short-lived as I can go to the doctor any time, but I still wonder.

Then again this is what lead me to consider that I had depression when I was a teenager. And now I'm wondering if I may have BP too. Is it better to be safe than sorry or am I a worry-wart?

a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.....have you heard that before? Med students when they first start get all kinds of illnessess..fake ones.......but after doing all that studying on disease etc they wind up coming down with half of them..none of them real...all in the mind....

We now can research anything we want...can be good or can be bad and then we obscess about it till we are convinced we are dying.... and we are not

I've done that too...you are not unusual.........how can you get away from that...maybe by being around more people and getting out more. When I am alone and stay in my apartment I tend to worry much more. When I am out and engaging in converstion with friends or whatever, I forget about myself and things seem more realistic... and then I stop that worrying about every little thing on my body.

Hope this helps a little. Are you a hypochodriac.... I don't know....

thanks for the post though. It shows that you think this behavior is not so normal or healthy for you.......

Thanks MissBell
Yeah, I think you may be right that the knowledge might just add to the power of suggestion. I think depression aside I might just try to start living a philosophy of not worrying about it unless it hurts consistently.

I think you are just researching things of interest/concern to you. I remember reading a lot of counselling books when I was in therapy, just to compare how my therapist did therapy against what the books said? It's a natural thing to want to do. However, if you spend a lot of time doing it and going to doctors, etc. and don't want to spend so much time doing that, then see if you can find "different" interests? I'm interested in weight loss but tend to study food history and nutrition, for example. That way I don't fall into diet traps or other oddball "cures".

If you worry about a particular illness, why not experiment with detecting it better or helping it by doing things someone with the illness probably wouldn't do? If you think you are depressed, think of something useful/concrete to do and then immediately go do it, for example. Start eating better and setting a regular time to go to bed and get up and see if you can follow your ideas for a week.