WebMD Hypochondriac

[wizardSD]

Does anyone else get paranoid reading symptoms of various ailments/disorders on WebMD? particularly psychological things

i've always been a pretty shy person. in high school i liked to stay in and read and play video games, and never had an interest in socializing so i never had a group of friends that i would see regularly. i'm in college now and i'm less shy, but not significantly. now i do like being with friends and have met some really amazing people, and i feel that friends are a really important part of my life, so college has definitely gotten me to think about my life more and has begun to change me

still, i feel "different". i sometimes wonder if people see me as being different and i just dont realize it unless i think about it. i think a lot, like all the time i'm overanalyzing things. it's like thoughts are running without me controlling them. sometimes i start daydreaming and realize i'm having a really strange dream-like vision, and when i "wake up" from it, i forget how i came about that strange thought or even the strange thought itself. it's like a dream, you don't really remember it sometimes, you just remember the "essence" of it -- it freaks me out because i'm supposedly completely conscious when it happens.

i don't use drugs heavily. i used to smoke weed regularly for like a year, now it's very irregularly unless i feel safe with the people i'm smoking with. apart from that, i've used adderall for studying (prescribed) and i started dropping E in January with an average of about a month in between each time.

anyway, this is a long post and i guess i'm just wondering if anyone else thinks too much about things like these.

 

[Jamshyd]

Yes, it's called the Amateur Doctor (or Amateur Psychologist) syndrome. Most med students go through a phase like that around their 2nd-3rd years because they are inundated with information about diseases yet their medical education is far from full, making their judgements rash and half-formed.

My advice to you as a hypochondriac myself, that now that you know you're a hypochondriac, simply stop reading these sites and similar things like the Merck...etc. I feel so much healthier now that I've been avoiding these things for over a year.

 

[Z Y G G Y]

^Yup.

And when these thoughts come don't fight them, just let them come and let them go. By fighting them they will stay around longer. Be aware that u have these negative thoughts but try to be more of an observer on these thoughts rather than trying to argue with them.

 

[p-mo]

Learning to control your own thoughts is a huge challenge but the reward is enormous. Just try and stop thinking about something if your train of thought is leading to unplesant or upsetting. Obviouslly you can't just STOP thinking about it but trying to distract yourself and concentrating on something positive is the way to go. If reading about diseases makes you uncomfortable- then stop reading about them!