Are You a Hypochondriac Parent?

 

“Is that a rash? Do you feel itchy?” I asked my 4-year-old for the 10th time that morning. He squirmed away from me, as I attempted to check every inch of his body for the 1237897321st time.

I am a self-diagnosed hypochondriac. It’s hereditary, and I can’t say I am the worst offender in my family. I don’t google symptoms all the time, but only because I’m terrified of what I’ll discover.

But what happens when a hypochondriac becomes a parent?

Nothing changes, except, all my time now is spent obsessing over my children’s health instead of my own.

I panic at the slightest signs of illness in my child — constantly asking them if they’re ok. When my child is having a fever, I wake up every 2 hours just to make sure they’re breathing fine, not too cold, nor too hot and the list goes on.

There’s a running joke in our family — my husband’s favorite hobby is vacuuming. His most prized household possession is a Dyson Vacuum, and he is often seen vacuuming the house every hour of the day because it ‘helps him clear his mind’. One day, he saw me reach for the thermometer (for the 100th time, because our daughter was feeling under the weather), and he said, well… now we know what YOUR most prized household possession is.

Where do my health anxieties stem from?

It didn’t occur to me that health anxiety issues could be passed on between generations. Growing up in a time before Google, I would often hear stories of my paternal grandmother not wanting to eat this, that, or the other (for the rest of her life). All because a GP told her ONE time that fried, spicy, acidic foods and most carbs besides rice were bad for her because she had an acute form of gastritis.

According to this piece of research, anxiety is about 30% inherited, and my brother and I, 100% got it from our dad, who got it from my grandmother. Other factors that can cause anxiety include past traumatic experiences, the behavior of a parent, and external stressors. A person is also more likely to exhibit hypochondria when they or a close relation has gone through a serious health issue.

Aha! When I read that particular bit about being influenced by the behavior of a parent, a light bulb switched on in my head. My dad had gone through a major health scare in 2013–2014. He suffered from a rare autoimmune disease that took months for specialists to diagnose. Finally, a hematologist found the right balance of medication to treat him and he made a full recovery.

Since his year-long ordeal though, my dad has not quite been the same. He became more fearful of a lot of things, including traveling, something which he used to love.

On one particular 14-hour flight from Malaysia to London, he was convinced he was having difficulty breathing. A flight stewardess kindly brought him an emergency oxygen tank. When my parents landed, they went straight to Harley Street to see a specialist. After going through blood work and multiple scans, the specialist issued him with a clean bill of health.

When I asked my mom about the incident, she merely said, ‘Everyone, including the doctor, thinks that it’s all in his head.’

Hypochondria is a mental health disorder that is disruptive and debilitating

In July 2017, 3 years after my dad had recovered from his illness, I was admitted to the hospital for surgery. I had been feeling a niggling pain on the right side of my abdomen for 2–3 months. I went to an Obgyn specialist who ran a couple of scans. He couldn’t find anything and also ruled out appendicitis.

But the ‘pain’ kept eating at me to the point I stopped eating well and started experiencing nausea and unexplained diarrhea. My Obgyn was concerned and said, well, if the symptoms don’t go away, the only way to be sure is to perform a laparoscopy to make sure nothing is really there.

I did the surgery because it was the only way I could regain my ability to live normally. Prior to the surgery, the ‘NOT knowing’ paralyzed me to my core. Every waking moment was spent obsessing over this sensation in my abdomen. I couldn’t go to work, eat or sleep without thinking about it.

Post-surgery, the specialist once again gave me the same assessment — that nothing was wrong and the ‘pain’ I was feeling, could most likely be a muscle tear and nothing more. In other words, he was telling me it was all in my head.

How your anxieties can affect your children

I knew I had to change my behavior when I witnessed this scenario play out in front of me:

My 2-year-old daughter innocently reached out for a purple crayon, placed it in her ear, and then said, ‘Beep! Beep!’

I was already a nut job pre-covid and pre-children. Imagine how having children in the midst of a pandemic wreaked havoc on my children’s lives.

By constantly measuring their temperature, sanitizing their hands, and telling them not to touch anything because it was ‘dirty’ — I was instilling anxiety and unease in them.

Children look to their parents as role models and will instinctively emulate us. When they see a parent panic, alarmed over the slightest sign of illness, they will eventually come to believe that any symptom (no matter how minor), is cause for excessive worry.

If your health anxieties aren’t kept in check, it could also lead you to wrongly diagnose your children. This can have severe outcomes especially if you attempt to erroneously self-medicate or opt for unnecessary treatments for your child.

Seeking help and learning how to manage anxiety

It’s never too late to seek help or treatment from a psychiatrist. Meanwhile, here are some free self-help resources I found extremely useful to treat my hypochondria.

1. Here’s a completely free workbook to help you work through any health anxiety issues you may have, published by the Centre for Clinical Intervention (Western Australia). Although it is slightly lengthy, I found the ‘Self Management Plan’ workbook to be extremely useful in deterring some unhealthy habits caused by anxiety.
2. I avoid Googling/online searches completely. When my child is ill, I usually let the illness run its course (flu, cold, etc). If the symptoms get worse, I avoid self-medicating, choosing instead to bring them to a certified medical doctor for a diagnosis.

 

I do get anxious every now and then, especially if their fever runs a little higher or longer than I would like it to. However, I usually keep calm and remind myself that as a parent, it’s important not to panic, so that I don’t end up making silly mistakes.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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