Having health anxiety sucks, having health anxiety in the midst of a global pandemic is a nightmare. You might be anxious too, now the coronavirus is a threat, but we've been doing this for years. We're the experts.
Health Anxiety?
Health anxiety is the new, kinder term for hypochondrias. It is, at its core, the crushing fear of being ill and sometimes passing on illness. This particular branch of crippling anxiety was given a new name because of the stigma that comes with the hypochondriac label. There is so much shame around the matter that sufferers would rather suffer in silence than voice their worries. You're told you're being overdramatic, attention-seeking or just plain stupid. Hypochondriacs are a comedy cliche. You don't have to agree with the fear, but you have to understand that it is terrifying and life-altering for the sufferers.
Typically, we'd assume health anxiety is ultimately a fear of dying from an illness but it's so much more than that. Each person tends to have their own reasons for being so scared. As an ex-agoraphobe, mine revolves mostly around not being able to escape. When I feel threatened, my instinct is to leave, cancel or somehow put an end to it. I can't do that with the coronavirus outbreak. I can't make it go away. We all have no choice but to sit and watch with uneasy hope. I am terrified of feeling ill, whatever the symptoms might be. I am afraid to be trapped in a hospital. I am afraid that if I catch the virus and it gets bad, I have no control over what it does to my body. I am afraid to have no control over who I spread it to if I don't know I have it yet.
I Can't Fix It
When this kind of anxiety starts to flood every minute of our lives, we develop incredibly unhealthy coping mechanisms. If you tell us that washing our hands can solve this problem, or any health problem really, then through sheer terror we'll do it until we have no skin left. Unsure where all that soap went? Check the cupboards of any health anxiety sufferers, we're stocked up no matter the current global climate. We'll over check our bodies every second of every day on any given day too, just in case we've developed an illness, let alone now in the times of a pandemic. There's a strong desire nationwide to just stay home. Self-Isolation is all good and well, but staying home is a slippery slope - I would know.
I've read the statistics, I've listened to the comforting words of professionals, it just doesn't sink in. The crux of anxiety is that statistics don't matter. I could be that one in one million. Someone has to be, right?
You say the coronavirus will only harm the elderly and the immunocompromised and the ablism is heard loud and clear. The guilt I feel for using my privilege to comfort myself is crippling in itself. Health anxiety stretches to our loved ones too. I don't want just healthy old me to not have to deal with it, I don't want anyone to have to.
They can tell us that we'll be fine if we wash our hands, but I don't want the "if". I want to hear that it is fine. No more no less, just fine, please.
In fighting the urge to run away to some distant mountain town, so far off-grid even a global pandemic can't touch it, I've tried being constantly on top of the news. I've spent more time on my phone than ever, under the belief that knowledge is power. The whole world is talking about it and all I want is to run from it, but I've been through enough therapy to know that running isn't the answer. Instead of tolerating the constant aches, nausea, and dizziness, I've decided to take knowledge to extremes and only left myself more scared. Turns out, absorbing negative information from unreliable sources every second of every day ISN'T good for your mental health??
Reality Beckons
If knowledge is my only way to feel any sense of power, then I have to do it right. No more twitter, no more deep-dive conspiracy theories and definitely no more hysterical Mothers on Facebook. Or anyone hysterical on Facebook really. I can't count how many times I've seen comments on coronavirus related threads from people who claim to know a secret the government or media are hiding. Trust me when I say that journalists aren't that sly. If there was a secret out there, someone would have sold it to a media outlet by now. If unverified strangers are spouting "hidden" statistics and mass cover-ups, at least one other source would know about it. There are papers (not mentioning any names 🌞) who will do unspeakable things just to be the first to break a story. If these MI5 spies turned Facebook commenters were right, believe when I say it wouldn't stay hidden for long.
The thing with anxiety is that we struggle to distinguish between genuine threats and hysteria created by media and the people around us. Through lots of therapy, I came to learn of the availability heuristic. This, in short, is where we trick ourselves into believing something is more common or more likely because we hear about it a lot. In a world where news, opinions, and discussions are available 24/7, we're constantly falling victim to the availability heuristic. Plane crashes, car accidents, abductions and even murders we seem to think are likely. This is because we can't stop hearing about it. There are 7 Billion people on the planet, nothing is likely.
To put the whole thing into perspective: the UK has a population of over 60 million. If we gained 1000 new cases a day, which is incredibly high and unlikely, it would take 164 (and a bit) years to reach the whole country. Given those numbers, why do so many of us feel like our chances of contracting the virus are so high?
It doesn't matter if the news is good or bad, media circulation is about fear. This outbreak is the first pandemic to occur in our social media age. Swine Flu killed more than 200 UK residents, but I barely remember it happened. The escalation and inescapable nature of this outbreak are what's fuelling the fear.
In truth, the virus IS dangerous. People ARE dying. Vulnerable people are at the highest risk of an infection being fatal, but no one is talking about the mentally vulnerable. A little research revealed that as many as 35% of SARS survivors suffered years of PTSD. The toll these things take on our mental state should not be underestimated. Since the coronavirus arrived in the UK, anxiety charity No Panic has reported a 20% jump in calls to their helpline and OCD UK reports similar increases in cries for help.
Understand that your hysteria is not helping others to "prepare". It's fuelling terror in those who suffer from anxieties. We have genuine and reliable sources who provide information on the outbreak and progress of the virus without scaremongering, if we need advice, we'll find it there. Assuring us that "more people die from the flu" only makes me nervous about getting seasonal flu in a way I never was before.
Clickbait Media
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| Scooby Dooby Dooby Do Not Spread False Information |
In researching this virus that has stolen my focus and any voice of reason I had, I was forced to sift through so many headlines that could have terrified me had they been relayed to me by someone who hadn't read the article. (You know you do it. We all do.) On January 31st, the Plymouth Herald informed us that DEATH RATES ARE HIGHER THAN RECOVERY RATES. This statement came based on research from only a few countries and later admit that recovery rates are slower to be calculated. A pretty bold statement to have made, ey.
The BBC has published an article which informs us that between 5 and 40 people in every 1000 cases will die. Nonsense statistics like this are terrifying. Those of us predisposed to panic will jump on the 40, while others feel comfortable with the 5. This only leads to judgment and rudeness when someone confesses that they're scared because what you see as nothing is a nightmare to others.
Recovery Secrets
In all of this madness, all I want to hear about is successful recoveries. Turns out, no one wants to talk about that. It doesn't make for an exciting news story. I found only a handful of articles that mention someone who has recovered, and none were particularly insightful. I understand that tracking and reporting recoveries can be tricky, but my anxious brain is craving it. Reporting recoveries relies on re-testing, which can take an awfully long time given the priority of new cases. Recovery is vague, is it based on feeling better or the virus still being present in our bodies? We can assume though, that after a few weeks if the case isn't reported as critical or fatal, it's been a recovery.
Wikipedia has been the most reliable resource in all of this chaos, because it's the only one that offers up every source they've used and admitted that, though several outlets have reported recovery numbers, no one has confirmed it from an official source. Reality is though, recoveries have happened. It is not a death sentence.
Hiding recoveries might seem like a conspiracy theory, but is there really anything we would put past our media? The recovery rate and death rates are statistical illusions because they can't be calculated at the same time. If it takes 2-4 weeks to recover from the coronavirus, we won't hear about the recovery for a month. If someone dies, it tends to be early on. This lets the death rate soar before the rest can catch up. Recovery is all I want to hear about, and all we never get told.
A Not So Grim Outlook
We can't escape the media frenzy telling us that the outlook is grim. Every news outlet has at least one story a day that insists that the positive cases are set to soar. We get it. We know it's not going to stay this low, but we don't need to be bombarded with the idea that we're all in peril.
The unknown is terrifying for most of us, especially those with anxiety that can only be calmed by having a sense of control. So far, all we have to compare our outlook to is China and Italy and, given that negative media sells, all we heard is that it's a disaster zone. But China is improving every day. The number of cases is dropping every day. This good news isn't shared and is another statistical illusion. The numbers don't add up yet, if they ever will. Active cases, death rates, and recovery rates don't equal the total number of cases reported, even after all these months. Keep this in mind when you're reading statistics. Don't let everything you see scare you, God knows I've spent the last few months wasting my time with this kind of stress.
Whether you're scared on a regular basis, or just now with the virus fear, a little respect and concern for others will go a long way. If you need unhealthy coping mechanisms or unintentional ableism just to get by, then, for now, do what you have to do.
Whether you're scared on a regular basis, or just now with the virus fear, a little respect and concern for others will go a long way. If you need unhealthy coping mechanisms or unintentional ableism just to get by, then, for now, do what you have to do.
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When you're teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown most of the time, the thought of getting a dangerous virus is enough to push you to the edge. Think before you share. I'm not looking for sympathy for myself or fellow health anxiety sufferers, just maybe a second thought before you jump on the hysteria train.
P.S 20 seconds is a long time please turn the tap off and recycle your excessive soap bottles.
Here are some reliable sources for your coronavirus news:
https://www.who.int/ - World Health Organization
https://www.nhs.uk/ - National Health Service
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/public-health-england - Public Health England
Learn To Check Facts Before You Share -https://notsofastcampaign.org/fact-checking/
For direct help from charities and organizations:
https://nopanic.org.uk/coronavirus/ - No Panic
https://www.mind.org.uk/ - Mind
https://www.anxietyuk.org.uk/ - Anxiety UK
https://www.ocduk.org/ocd-and-coronavirus/ - OCD UK
