⚠️ Trigger Warning:
This post contains an honest, personal account of health anxiety and obsessive symptom checking. If you struggle with health-related triggers, please read gently and take breaks if needed.
💬 Disclaimer:
I’m not a doctor or therapist I’m just a mom who’s lived through the heavy spiral of health anxiety and is learning how to survive it. My words aren’t professional advice, just my truth.
It started with a twinge.
Nothing dramatic just a strange, dull ache behind my left eye.
I paused. Waited for it to pass.
But it didn’t.
And just like that, I was down the rabbit hole.
I told myself, “It’s probably nothing.”
Then I told myself, “But what if it’s something?”
And suddenly I was on Google. Again.
“Dull pain behind left eye.”
“Is one-sided eye pain a sign of stroke?”
“How do I know if I’m having a brain aneurysm?”
I wish I was exaggerating. I’m not.
The clock said 10:14 AM. I was supposed to be logging into work. Instead, I was sitting on the edge of my bed with my heart racing and my phone in a death grip, refreshing search results like they held the answers to life itself.
One minute I thought it was sinus pressure.
The next, I was convinced I had a tumor.
Then I read an article that mentioned eye strain and felt a fleeting sense of relief… until the next twinge.
I checked my pulse.
Then I checked it again.
I tried to yawn to see if it was tension.
I stretched my jaw. I pressed my temples.
I reread the same three articles five times.
At one point, I opened TikTok and searched “eye pain anxiety.”
Then Reddit.
Then Facebook health groups (which, let’s be honest, are where hope goes to die).
I was spiraling, and I knew it.
But I couldn’t stop.
I wanted certainty. I wanted to know.
That I wasn’t dying.
That it wasn’t serious.
That this wasn’t the day my life would change forever.
It wasn’t until my stomach growled that I realized:
I hadn’t eaten. At all.
It was 2:47 PM.
No breakfast.
No lunch.
Just anxiety.
Just me and my phone and an endless loop of fear disguised as research.
That moment hit me hard.
I wasn’t dying — but I was disappearing.
Health anxiety didn’t just take my peace.
It took my focus.
My appetite.
My time.
And for what?
A symptom that went away by bedtime.
That day wasn’t the first time it happened. And it probably won’t be the last.
But it taught me something I can’t ignore anymore:
I’m so scared of dying, I forget to live.
I forget to eat.
I forget to be present.
I forget I’m still here — breathing, surviving, trying.
Now, when I catch myself spiraling, I try to do something different.
Sometimes it’s just closing the tab.
Other times it’s eating anyway, even if I feel sick.
Sometimes I write down the symptom in my tracker and promise myself I won’t Google for 24 hours.
It’s not perfect.
But it’s better than disappearing again.
💜 If this hit you in the gut…
You’re not alone.
Anxiety is loud, scary, and convincing. But you deserve a life outside of symptom spirals.
✨ Download my free Anxiety Tracker to start logging your symptoms instead of Googling them.