Monitor for Symptoms

Content note: detailed description of health anxiety and panicDaily press conferences during Naarm’s gruelling lockdowns imprinted the catch phrase “monitor for symptoms” in my psyche. The symptoms for COVID, for long COVID, and for adverse reactions to vaccines are so varied – snotty nose, palpitations, headache, backache, coughing, fatigue, on and on. I was body scanning perpetually. When I did get COVID, and when I did get the jab, it wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t that bad for me. Chills, some aches, bit of snot. Over and done with in a couple of days. But the damage was done. And now health anxiety is a part of my daily life.

Health anxiety for me looks like this: obsessing over different ways I might die, worrying about it, and trying everything I can to avoid it. The health conditions I’ve been obsessing over recently include brain aneurysms, Multiple Sclerosis, cancer and heart attacks. All of which are very difficult to protect myself against other than eating well, not smoking and regular exercise, I guess. That, or forking out thousands of dollars for tests and scans that none of my GPs have recommended. So I’m in a tough spot.

Some nights, I lie in bed convinced a bad headache was about to become a ruptured brain aneurysm. I’ll go through the steps: I’ll only have seconds to wake up my husband, and communicate to him that I need an ambulance before the pain of the rupture renders me unconscious. Even then, I might not make it to hospital in time.

I could just die on the way there.

I don’t know how brain aneurysms work or feel or happen, aside from what I’ve learned from unreliable old Google Doctor. But I know they can happen. And they have happened to very good friends of mine. And it’s true that it could happen to me. If you’ve got health anxiety like me, that last paragraph might be triggering. I might just go and have a little anxiety attack right now.

And I’m back! When I’m in the spiral of anxiety, panic absolutely takes over. I feel physical symptoms including dizziness, nausea, chills and fever, chattering teeth, fainting, pins and needles and numbness in my fingers and limbs, and palpitations. My inner voice is yelling and screaming at me to do something: “Something’s wrong and it’s getting worse!”

I can’t breathe, I try to stand up and walk around, I can’t relax, my husband tries to calm me down, I make a cup of tea, I get blurry vision, I can’t lie down, I panic more, I ask my husband to take me to the emergency room, I try doing star jumps, I faint, I vomit, I shit myself sometimes, and I cry, cry, cry and cry.

Sometimes it last a few hours. Until I’m all anxietied out. Spent. Exhausted.

In 2024, I had just found out that I’d been selected to perform my own music at a music festival in Berlin. I’d never performed in Europe before. This was an incredible opportunity and a bucket list moment.

It also meant I had to fly across the globe, on my own, somewhere new, and look after myself.

I got prepared. Premium travel pillow, silk face mask, two packs of heavy duty but comfortable ear plugs, downloaded headspace meditations and packed calming essential oils that could leak everywhere. I said goodbye to my family, cried and got on the plane.

For 30 hours, I got right inside the nooks and crannies of my health anxiety. I watched my brain find new things to worry about. “Do I have deep vein thrombosis?” Then I watched my brain turn to panicking silently to adhere to the rules of being in public. “Do I have deep vein thrombosis in my hand?! That freckle wasn’t there before.” I watched my brain search for solutions: “Talk to the nice person sitting next to you – NO NOT ABOUT YOUR DVT! Let’s watch a movie! Stand up, stand up now and go for a walk and cure your DVT. Nope, nope, I have to get off this plane. Nope, nope you can’t do that, you have to push through this.”

Oh my gosh even writing this makes me anxious!

My brain was working overtime. But because I was in a confined public space with no way to communicate with anyone I loved, I had to grin and bear it. And because I had front row (squishy, teeny tiny) seats to this absolute horror show, I started to notice the ebb and flow of my anxiety. I started to realise that this wasn’t a constant state of being. There were breaks; brief reprieves where I felt good. The panic would rise and fall. This meant that the anxiety could, and would, subside for a moment. It wasn’t permanent.

During my layovers, I’d call my Mum or my husband or my sister and ask them to Google DVT. I’d cry to them on the phone and they’d tell me I wasn’t going to die. I’d get nauseous and dizzy and have to lie down in the middle of the airport. I had absolutely no faith in myself and my ability to take care of my own body and mind. I couldn’t look after my self.

When I finally arrived at my hotel in Berlin, I was still so convinced that I had DVT that I refused to take my socks off to have a shower. I climbed into bed with my soggy, wet socks and because of sheer exhaustion, cried myself to sleep.

What a journey.

What followed this shit show, were two weeks of making new friends, performing my music, exploring a new city, feeding myself, looking after myself, depending on myself and believing in myself. I’d learned via hellish exposure therapy that my anxiety is temporary. So, in the moments when I felt anxious for no particular reason, I sat down, and just waited it out, knowing that it would pass and that I had my own back.

Nowadays, I still have health anxiety. I still worry about how I’m going to die. I still panic and spiral and hate the whole process. But I think the difference is that I have more faith in myself to help me through it. So, when the moment arises that I am actually in a state of emergency, that my body is malfunctioning, that I am in a life/death situation, I trust in myself to get me through it as best as I can.

Now, off to Estonia I fly. Wish me luck!