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Behind Health Anxiety
Mass illness is an unfortunate equalizer. And chronic illness is helping me understand our collective — and personal — health anxiety.
Health anxiety has been a strange, consistent bedfellow of mine for years, more so since I was diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia (TN) in 2017. But today, as we practice social distancing and self-isolation around the world to “flatten the curve,” I know that I’m not alone when I say that my anxiety has skyrocketed.
Anxious? Who? Me?
I have only ever understood anxiety through the prism of my health. In my adolescence and young adulthood, I would have butterflies before exams and interviews, but nothing that felt as all-encompassing as my adulthood anxiety.
Claws-deep anxiety started when I lived in Mumbai for three years in the 2010s. For nearly my entire time there, I had gastrointestinal (GI) issues that started with a bacterial infection. On more than one occasion, I took a heavy battery of full-spectrum antibiotics that killed the infection — as well as my stomach’s good flora and fauna. As a consequence, my GI system has never been the same. I went from being a healthy person with a curious, generous appetite to someone who was terrified of what food could do to me.
Then, after I moved back States-side, I faced several oral procedures over two years…
