When I found out I was pregnant five months ago, I immediately got myself into therapy. With my hypochondria, there was no way I was going to get through a pregnancy without some serious mental help. And you know what? Cognitive-behavioral therapy worked for me. Amazingly well. I wish I had done it 10 years ago. I didn't even freak out when I read about Tim Russert dropping dead--an event that would have normally sent me into days of panic about the possibility that I, too, might randomly drop dead.

The truth of the matter is, we all might randomly drop dead. But usually, we don't. As someone else said, fear of death is at the heart of hypochondria. If you can combine CBT with an honest examination of your own feelings about death, you can start living a life where every new twinge and sensation is not a reason for full-on panic.

If you're suffering, get thee to a good therapist immediately, and ask for CBT (I knew to do this because my husband, a social worker, was successfully treated with CBT for his OCD several years ago, with no relapses). If I can beat it, just about anyone can.

So when the GOMERS run out of real docs they can always turn to the Holistic (Holyer Than Thou) Clan for a real treatment. Hold on to your wallet when you turn your head to cough. My sister-in-law has taken holistic medicine up as a cure-all for all of her self-diagnosed aliments and diseases for her family. At least this way the GOMERS aren't clogging up the ER for the real emergencies. It's all between the ears and I'm not talking about a wax buildup. What a racket! I heard Dr. Ben Casey and Dr. Killdeer are planning for a new holistic hospital right inside the new Walmart Superstore. Later.

I got to go tend to my free-range chicks...

We had an infamous hypochondriac aunt in my family. The saying went that she was cursed with a long healthy life. As a fellow anxiey and OCD sufferer I can tell you that sympathy and understanding are the worst possible things to give to a disease of self-absorption. Cognitive behavior therapy is just a way of slipping it past your ego that you're training yourself to knock it the fuck off and get over yourself already. You're putting a stop to obsessive thought patterns and those obsessive thoughts are about you and things going on with you, its why distractions work well. Sympathy and understanding just feed the monster and make it worse.

...and here it is:

My response to your initial post was way out of line, and I sincerely apologize for that. While it was wrong (and in bad taste as well) it can, and should, be explained. Here comes that part; the following part of your initial post will stand out and speak for itself:

You can call it what you want and give it fancy names and specialized kinks of it but the bottom line is that people are crazy, insane and just plain stupid.

This, following the rather sweeping "crazy" first paragraph, really appeared to me, in the gear I was in at the moment, as dismissive and even condescending, the very things I had just relived as I was writing about them to someone else here.

On seeing your second and third posts I did simmer down (this morning) and after re-reading your first one, in light of the qualifications of posts two and three, I see what you mean, even though I'm not one-hundred per cent in agreement. I do agree with some of what you said, however, and not with other parts, to whit:

I disagree that labeling someone "crazy" is somehow more respectful and sensitive than using a clinical term for the specific disorder in question. This would be the same as calling all people with physical illnesses "sickos." Order bed rest. It's all we can do. Then they'll just have to get hold of themselves somehow and get over it. "It" being anything from a jammed finger to terminal cancer. Same thing holds true for mental illnesses and personality disorders. "Crazy" and "stupid" don't work at all (unless you dismiss both medicicne and its branch, psycology -- in which case you may as well dismiss evolution as well, since they are all areas of silly ol' science). I can hear your response to that: physical illness can be "proven" empirically, while psychology is just a "foolishness", a one-size-fits-all possession case. Remember, I am related to a bunch of jingoists. Welcome to 2008.

I very much do agree with your assessment of mass media advertising and reportage as "intentional behavioral conditioning", but I do not simply blame the victim and leave him sitting on the curb with the horrors. I've spent the better part of my life trying to make peoples' lives' less painful, less frightening and more healthy. On occasion it means even having to try and actually save a life, which is an experience one can best appreciate if one has done it and even moreso if one has had one's own life saved by heroic and adroit medical artisans. I've been on both sides of that fence, but for years I lived on that fence (panic disorder) and while I was typing that if someone called me a hypochondriac I'd punch him in the face, I guess you were typing your "Mad World" pronouncement. Timing can be everything.

That being said, hypochondria was well known long before television was even dreamed. It dates back as far as medicine itself, at least. It has been a curse to victim and caregiver alike. So has acute anxiety and panic disorder. The latter was more than a few times diagnosed as demonic possession and later as "fits" before it became "soldier's heart", "neurasthenia" and other derogatory terms, including just plain "crazy." You don't think in three decades I never was the recipient of any of those sobriquets? It makes one feisty, to say the least.

I also "don't think the whole country is nuts." Not by a long shot. I am not a cynic, nor a skeptic, but am open to the advances of science, human evolution, tolerance, a healthy planet and, above all, the maxim of a certain notable hospital and trauma center in southern California where I once worked: "Everything for Life." Now there's a truly crazy idea. It's also one hell of an ideal.

Sorry for venting on you. I apologized to you sincerely, and explained my bad behavior. Are you perhaps willing to apologize to the people here whom you essentially called "crazy" and "stupid" for having owned a variety of mental and physical illnesses? It would seem fair to me. It would also seem the decent thing to do.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to "simmer down."