Browsing Tag

hypochondria

20-Something

A Lesson in Being Idle

Something happened to me recently: I became scared of everything.

I write about my anxieties and fears often on this blog and sometimes I write about them in a joking manner, but lately it’s become not as funny as an episode of Two and a Half Men.

No, lately my days are filled with wanting to sleep, crying, panic attacks or near panic attacks, obsessively checking WebMD, not wanting to leave the house, leaving the house, but driving back to make sure that the door is locked a third time, fear of traveling and various physical aches and pains due to all the above.

I’ve never been depressed. Even in my early twenties when I spent many a’ emo nights writing tragic song lyrics with eraseable marker on my mirror, I knew I wasn’t depressed. I knew that I would no longer feel this way one day and that all my mixed emotions were due to not knowing who I was or what I wanted.

And it did all come together.

I figured out what I wanted and I got it.

I went after it and I (more…)

September 26, 2013 by hipstercrite

20-Something, Hipstercrite Life

Do You Suffer From Hypochondria?

I’ve been suffering from a disease for quite some time now. Denial has kept me from acknowledging in, but after much research and soul-searching I’ve finally come to terms with this infliction.

I suffer from hypochondria.

It’s an exhausting ailment that takes a great deal out of me. A large portion of my mental energy is exerted while imagining diseases I could be dying from. There has been the “side cancer” I thought I was battling for the past two months (kidney infection), the blood clot in my arm (pulled muscle), the brain tumor (sinus headaches) and a plethora of other aches and pains that I assume must be life-threatening. If I didn’t have shitty-ass insurance, I’d probably be at the doctor every time my appetite is low (must be scurvy!) or am sleepy (thyroid cancer!). All the little stories I’ve heard and accumulated through the years- the friend of a friend of a friend who didn’t know he had diabetes and almost went into a coma, the film business acquaintance who didn’t (more…)

January 17, 2013 by hipstercrite

Austin, Hipstercrite Life

The Emergency Room is a Scary and Confusing Place at 2AM

“Somebody stabbed me with a screwdriver!”

These words traveled with a ten-person entourage on their way through the ER doors last Friday morning at 2AM.

Geoff and I were at the ER because he had a 103 fever and was coughing up blood.

Not coughing up blood in a Robert Shaw at the end of Jaws when he gets bitten by Jaws kind of way. More of a, Geoff: “Ew, is that blood in my mucus?” and Lauren: “HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! WE’RE TAKING YOU TO THE ER RIGHT NOW! NO TIME FOR PANTS!” kind of way.

You see, Geoff is a wee bit of a hypochondriac (I love you, baby) and I’m a bit of a nervous Jew who is petrified that everyone she loves is dying all of the time.

This combination leads to barely thought-out sprints to the ER, but to our credit, spitting up blood is not something that is normal.

It scared us enough to take him to the ER because that’s the only friggin’ thing open at 2AM.

As though it’s a prerequisite for getting submitted into the ER, we waited our obligatory hour in (more…)

September 25, 2012 by hipstercrite