Walking into libraries years ago my search started for the right book that would give me a key to well health. My search had been going on for years for just the right medicine to take that would heal me once and for all. The hunt for the right doctor took years. In that search, the best doctor for me actually ended up being the doctor who told me "no!" Several weeks of psychological treatment at Ralpha (located at that time in Euless, Texas) was a beginning to my well health that came about because I believed Dr. Watts when he said "no" in January of 1990.
Once out of the hospital, my search took me to a study on the subject of hypochondria. Dr. Watts mentioned that might be my problem instead of the many diseases that had plagued me for years. Some of the diseases that had plagued me had been real and some had been phantom so I had not been discounted for once in my health career. My thoughts were, "if I can't get well and stay well, I might as well be smart about what is killing me." I decided to do research and write a book. I'd title it "I'm dying as slowly as I can and you're supposed to be helping me." Of course, the title was too long! The hunt had begun though and so had my healing. The best thing about this hunt was my focus was finally off the aches and pains that were still with me.
Next to the World Wide Web. Here lessons came quickly that hypochondria had many links and some web sites of people who knew some about the subject of depression and hypochondria. Actually there were very fewer links than there are today. My suspicions were that many people were now suffering from the same symptoms that had plagued me for way too many years. Just maybe by visiting these people and places I could end up feeling less ill. I did. Time spent as my healing was happening watching others experience hypochondria was also better than any book read on the subject and certainly the best kind of research as my healing approached.
A good place to start sharing with others about this disease is with the definition of disease. Disease is literally that which makes one uncomfortable or not at ease; "dis-ease." When it was first borrowed into English from French desaise during the reign of Richard II, it meant what both languages now express by the word malaise. Why start with a definition of disease? Because, many people see those suffering with hypochondria as complainers. This misconception has caused sufferers to remain in their negative state of being for many years and sometimes, for a lifetime. To heal from hypochondria the sufferer and those who care about him/her will be better equipped to understand if they will first believe it is a disease. Of course, once the conception of disease enters the picture, the belief that it is curable is a new idea. Being stuck in a horrible belief system such as hypochondria will begin to slip away.
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