Worrying about worrying

So amusingly enough, the thing that almost prevented me writing this week is the same thing that I'm going to write about, which is indeed helpful because I had nothing to talk about. If I must have my demons that trouble me, I might as well get a little bit of writing out of them. It's only fair.

The one thing that never ceases to amaze me when interacting with everyday society – aside from the fact that there's an awful lot of them that could do with a minor stabbing – is how people deal with pain. Oh look, I have a headache. I'll just pop a pill and it'll go away. I know people who are practically addicted to Lemsip to keep a menagerie of problems at bay, which quite frankly is one of the saddest things to be addicted to. Lemsip. The thing they should give to wounded soldiers to drink, because after choking down a Lemsip, having your masturbating arm exploded off doesn't seem so bad in comparison to drinking that vile brew.

You see, I don't get headaches. No, I get the first sign of a brain aneurysm, or a tumour. I don't get indigestion, I get the first stages of a heart attack. I don't get thirsty, I get a heads up that I now have diabetes. Because I am a minor hypochondriac, and so spent and inordinate amount of time panicking about things I don't have.

The face of my brain.

I mean, seriously, I'm in my mid-twenties. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I get my five a day. I don't get badly. I exercise readily. I am a very healthy individual. But it doesn't matter shit about logic, it's the fear that gets you. A deep down, wholly irrational fear, and knee-slappingly enough, it doesn't matter that I know this. Whee. When I take new medication, I have to give the little leaflet about 'if you have these side effects, get your ass in an ambulance,' to someone else to read because if I know what the bad side effects are, in about 15 minutes I'll have convinced myself I'm getting them.

This does include stuff like athletes foot cream. Dead serious.

I can take some comfort that I'm definitely on the low end of the scale of how bad this could be. When you research hypochondria, you can read some real horror stories that I'm gratefully avoiding. However, recently I've been having headaches. Again. And pretty bad ones, too. So far I've narrowed it down to:

1. Brain tumour (terrifying, but highly unlikely)
2. Brian aneurysm (same level of terrifying, also highly unlikely)
3. Early onset diabetes (middle ground fear, moreso of losing out on doughnuts, unlikely)
4. Eye strain (no fear, likely)
5. Stress (no fear, highly likely)
6. Atmospheric weather changes (no fear, highly likely)
7. Bullshit nonsense over the EU (no fear, exceptional likely)

It's one of the bottom three. I know, logically, it's one of the bottom four, and I should probably get my glasses prescription checked. Still scared shitless. In fact, it was probably eye strain, and now that I'm stressing about it, I'm getting stress headaches, so I've basically created a perpetual motion machine of headaches. The more headaches I have, the more I worry about them, meaning I get more headaches, until the eventual heat death of the universe happens.

It doesn't help that I once got cranged upside the noggin with a sledgehammer head, and since then, I've had periodic headaches. Then I read a report that people suffering head trauma are more likely to develop tumours about 18 months after the trauma OH GEEZ THANKS FOR THAT KNOWLEDGE, PRICK. FUCK YOU. Fuck you, and fuck me for reading that, and doing that to myself. Incidentally, every time you see someone get knocked out in a movie and later they wake up and they're good to go? Bullshit. You've got a concussion. Have fun spending the next couple of days vomiting.

All I'm saying, the amount of times you've been knocked out  has probably resulted in heavy brain damage.

For this, self-knowledge can be a bit of a handicap. I absolutely wish I didn't know about any of this stuff, and didn't know about the placebo effect, so a doctor, tired of my shit could go, 'Just take this fucking sugar pill, and you'll be cured,' and I'll go, 'Really?' and they'll respond, 'Totally. Now get the fuck out of my office while I deal with actual sick people.' And I'll take it, and I'll believe it, and I'd be fine. But noooo... I had to reading and researching, and now I know about the placebo effect so now I doubt everything. Great. Well done me. I've honestly considered finding out the price of a head scan and having it done, just so that I can look at the clear scan and go. 'Hah! Fuck you irrational fear! I'm fine!' But I'm pretty sure that'll cost a whole bunch and no doctor's willing to put up with authorising the use an expensive machine on the NHS to satisfy a single patient's whining.

I want to blame House for some of this. You see a person, perfectly fine, perfectly normal, and blam! They're on the eye, blood pouring from every orifice, whilst a fake American pokes, prods and sarcasms them for 38 minutes getting them steadily sicker whilst confessing every sin they've ever committed before he figures it out and fixes you. Hopefully. Of course, it's not House's fault, but I want to be able to blame someone other than me being a wuss.

Once again, I am fortunate that I have a very minor type of hypochondria. It is possible, with persistence, to logic it away. I used to be in near horror over my heart the most of the time, like being scared that it was about to stop – have fun trying to trying to go to sleep when every time you start to drift off, you notice your heartbeat slowing so your fear response give you 20cc's of your finest adrenaline. However, I took up regular exercise, through admittedly that started merely to authorize me to continue my rate of doughnut consumption. Now, every time my fear goes, 'OH SHIT, WHAT'S THAT WITH YOUR HEART?' I get to quizzically go, 'What? That was nothing. That heart is a well oiled machine, motherfucker. I know how much cardio I do. It's fine. In fact, I'm going to swim a mile under 50 minutes just to show you how fucking fit it is.' Which, in terms of verbal riposte, whilst perhaps over wordy, in this context, is quite the smackdown. Pity I haven't got a similar thing with my head to respond to the fear.

So what we should take away from this... is that I managed to write over 1000 words on the fact that I have a headache and I'm unhappy about it.