Help me hypochondriac! A life in constant fear
Sven lives. He has survived all the tumors of the past years. The cancer that has eaten at this time through his bones and his organs. The strokes that almost killed him but never did. No more than cancer and everything else he was afraid of. And sometimes still has. Physically, Sven * is healthy, healthier anyway, than he fears. But he could never believe that because his soul was ill. Because Sven is a hypochondriac.
One in a hundred is a hypochondriac
It is believed that around one percent of Germans are affected, men and women alike. They all believe that they have a disease? often a rare, incurable or deadly, although they lack nothing at all. Fear employs those affected permanently or in spurts and is reinforced by the fact that their own body sensations are misjudged.
Dangers everywhere
Sven is sitting in a bar and is silent. He has discovered something floating in his whiskey. Concentrated, he tries with a straw to remove the foreign body. Without success. If that little dirt is bad for him? "Nah," says Sven, pushing the glass away. But is it shit, if there's dirt in it?
Some hypochondriacs develop over-the-top precautions, disinfect everything that gets in their hands, stop going to the sun for fear of skin cancer, only sleep on the right side so as not to crush the heart. This is not the case with Sven, Sven only looks for symptoms and has his body in view. Last December, he squats in his apartment and measures his blood pressure every two minutes, over days. He creates Excel spreadsheets, wants to know how drugs affect him. "Because of my arrhythmia, I've had heart disease since birth," says Sven. "Really!" He pushes after. He smiles.
It could always be better
And how is he, right now? "Could be better," he says. But it was already much worse. Somewhere in between is probably the truth with which he has always had his problems. Hypochondria can have its roots in a real illness, one's own or one's close relative. Likewise, it may be neuropsychological or genetically based. Often, the predisposition has its origins in childhood, when, for example, parents circle like a helicopter over their offspring. Sven had already undergone surgery twice, the first time at the age of three. An operation that is usually done earlier, but not possible with Sven. He was too small and weak. Even before Svens first breath his parents were one thing above all: worried. "Slow down ?, they always said," be careful! " Sven remembers well: "You were not allowed to do that, was not allowed to do that?" He would have liked to play in a football club, as did his friends.
Sven is still a long way from hypochondria, but he is no stranger to the fear of disease. "Once a classmate played around with a laser pointer. So I did so much theater until my parents took me to a clinic.? At the same age, around the age of eleven, Sven believes he feels knots in his chest. Both times his concern is unfounded.
A creeping process
The fear of illness spreads slowly into Sven's head like maple syrup in a bowl. Hypochondria is ultimately triggered by so-called triggers such as stress. This maintains existing symptoms, reinforces them or even causes new ones, who then mistake the affected person as pathological and dangerous. This negative assessment leads to a feeling of anxiety, which then leads again to stress. "When you're in this spiral, you can not tell anymore," says Sven. He is someone who? Man? says if he really means himself. "You just go out of the worst," he says. "You just can not help it."
Hypochondria is one of the obsessive-compulsive disorders that is also noticeable in Sven. Twice, thrice, four times, he has to check if the stove is off before leaving the house. And are the windows closed? Really? In the supermarket he grabs the things that are on the back of the shelf. "There are the foods with a longer shelf life," says Sven. "And the products have not gone through so many hands. I do not like that.?
The fear haunts Sven to sleep
There is a picture of Sven on which his head seems too big for his shoulders. Like a photomontage showing that thoughts can control a body. In the worst time of mid-20, there are days when Sven can not think of anything but a deadly disease for a minute. The misery seethes in him. And he takes it to his sleep. The next morning often begins with Sven checking his body functions, again and again.He reads specialist literature, exchanges in Internet forums, researches his symptoms. According to Google, he has cancer in 90 percent of the cases. "Or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis," says Sven, who pronounces medical terms as safe as a pharmacist. The alleged symptoms of ALS, pain in the legs and muscle twitching, Sven gets two days after he has seen a reportage on television. His mind is powerful, interpreted tingling arms as a nervous disease, light flashes in the eye as retinal damage? he has the greatest fear of eye diseases.
Even the light at the end of the tunnel is threatening
Sven's actions, the chats, the googling, all this is determined by the compulsive desire to get the confirmation to be well. At the end of this chain reaction is always a waiting room. "Partly I went to a doctor several times a day," says Sven. Or in the emergency department. When people with this disease enter a practice, they not only bring symptoms, they also have the diagnosis. The doctors would only have to confirm these. But the results of Sven's investigations are the same time and time again: nothing. Whether he understands that he is healthy except for his heart disease, his family doctor wants to know about him. ? Yes, yes? Sven says and is actually relieved. But the light at the end of the tunnel is always an oncoming train. But an eye disease? Once, when his girlfriend wants to go to the cinema with him, Sven rolls his eyes all day, blinking, looking for blind spots? and so they do not find themselves with popcorn in a pair of chairs again, but with a bad mood in an eye clinic. Alone there Sven was almost 20 times. "But that's why our relationship did not fail." The girlfriend left, the eyespots remained. "They really exist?" Says Sven. They are not conceited. Nobody can explain that.? Least of all he himself.
Death can always happen to you
Sven's current girlfriend and best buddy are the only ones he entrusts to. To his parents, the contact is near the zero line. No one notices anything in the job because Sven is currently unemployed. He shuts himself off, hardly leaves the house at the worst stage? and if so, then usually for consultation. "The doctors may have guessed after my 15th visit," says Sven.
IT IS BUT NOT A DOCTOR, who tells him that he is a hypochondriac. That's what Google does. Sven acts, finds a place in a behavioral outpatient clinic. He is shown his patterns of behavior, he learns to control his thoughts better. Relaxation exercises help him. "You learn to deal with the disease and to suppress the addiction to googling symptoms," says Sven. He gradually gets rid of looking for something that does not exist: security.
The waitress brings a new whiskey. Without dirt. Sven takes the glass, looks inside. "I'm 31 now," he says as he puts the glass down again without drinking. The impacts are approaching. At this age, people are becoming more aware that people are getting sick. And die. That you have already had a lot of life.? An acquaintance of Sven had fallen last year with forty-two. Dead. "Stupid came up. Zack! Can one always happen? Sven says and sips the glass. ?You never know.?
