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Two Patients Face Painful Truths

© April Scheiner, Writer

We at RoseMeade's Wellness Nook welcome you to visit with a couple of men who found it necessary to focus on their health. Come, pull up a chair and grab a cup of tea. Sit a spell and see if you can find yourself or a loved one in either story. By sharing these two lives with you, we may be providing a vehicle of encouragement for people who seek the truth about their health; thereby, finding the best overall health possible.

Patient One: Stephen Mills There are times in everyone's life when they receive positive test results, which prove that they are healthy. One might think that this might make a person happier and more secure. This is not always true of a hypochondriac. For the hypochondriac, reassurances are never enough to ease their believed medical condition. Stephen, for example, had great difficulty accepting he was healthy. Like many hypochondriacs, he feared that something in his diagnosis might be wrong. Stephen's psychiatric condition (hypochondriasis) causes him to be preoccupied with his physical health and body to the extent that it effects all other aspects of his life.

In Stephen's case, after his divorce, he returned to his parents' house for support. Upon arrival, he is positive that he is very sick. His overwhelming need for support was too much for his wife who eventually left him. Stephen continued complaining of the same symptoms that had been dismissed by tests proving the non-existence of disease. Yet, he still suffered from pain.

It is typical of the hypochondriac to over-exaggerate the severity of his/her symptoms in his/her own mind. Thus, Stephen's condition got worse as he continued to believe that he had a severe illness requiring treatment.

When Stephen was a child, he suffered from repeated ear infections. While in grammar school, he suffered from severe headaches that kept him home quite often. After seeing a neurologist with a diagnosis of a possible psychological basis for his headaches, Stephen remained upset. The headaches didn't disappear. His parents did not want to see him in pain. It is very common for adults who suffered from chronic childhood illnesses to become hypochondriacs in adulthood.

Therefore, when his wife left him after his need for constant care became unbearable to her, it seemed to him that the best place to go, would be home... where he had been comforted during childhood.

For the past few years, Stephen had been suffering from symptoms that he couldn't understand. These misunderstood symptoms seemed to range throughout his body, something common to the hypochondriac. Constantly needing care and encouragement at home caused him to have relationship problems. This is often the case with hypochondriacs. Now that he had been living at his parents' house again for six months, they too began to feel the effects of his continual complaints and needs. While he was there, not a day went by when he did not talk about suffering physically. Finally, his parents recommended that he see a psychiatrist. They even offered to join him in his session if that would help. Being referred to a psychiatrist is often seen as blame to a hypochondriac. They typically refuse psychiatric treatment.

The copyright of the article Two Patients Face Painful Truths in Hypochondria is owned by April Scheiner, Writer. Permission to republish Two Patients Face Painful Truths in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.