Trapped in My Body: Living with Health Anxiety
Body shakes, palms sweat
When every symptom feels like a crisis.
Vision blurs—what is wrong with me?
My thoughts spiral in my health-anxious mind.
Stomach flips, headache whirs
What if it’s something serious?
Heartbeat, headache, hysteria–
This is the quiet terror of health anxiety.
Living on high alert,
Nervous system frantic.
Every ache feels like alarm bells.
This is my battle with health anxiety.
Heart beats faster and faster–
Am I having a heart attack?
Googling my way into a panic.
Yup, my Google diagnosis broke me.
Body aches, body chills–
Seeing illness that isn’t there.
Anxiety engulfs me, suffocates me.
This is my life with health anxiety.
One symptom, two symptoms, three and four–
Nausea, indigestion, tremors and more.
A never-ending, exhausting cycle.
What is wrong with me?
The fear beneath the fatigue.
Living in fear of what’s next.
How will I feel today?
That’s the lingering panic of health anxiety.
My list of symptoms went on…and on…and on.
Just when one would finally ease up, another would sneak in to take its place.
Headache. Nausea. Indigestion. Aches. Tingling. Dizziness. Faintness.
Shivers. Sweaty. Cold. Hot. Blurry. Panicked. Frozen. Trembling.
Zaps. Jolts. IBS-like episodes. Insomnia. Constant need to pee.
Eye floaters. Eye flashes. Cramps. Bloating.
The fear of falling asleep—paired with the desperate need for sleep.
It’s endless.
Sometimes I think: My body can’t possibly handle one more symptom.
I just want everything to stop. I want to breathe. I want to relax.
But goodness, relaxing feels impossible when you live inside the mind of health anxiety.
Ever googled a weird body sensation at 2am and convinced yourself you were dying? 🙃
Same. I’ve personally experienced every single one of these — and welcome to the glamorous world of anxiety, where your nervous system gets...creative.
Here are 10 of the weirdest (and lowkey scariest) anxiety symptoms that will definitely make you want to never open WebMD again:
Brain zaps – like your brain got briefly electrocuted.
Tingling or numbness – especially in hands, feet, face…cue the spiraling thoughts: is it a stroke?! No, it’s just your nervous system throwing a dance party. Again. Hello fight-or-flight.
Sudden stabbing or shooting pains – chest, ribs, arms, head…yes, anxiety can mimic heart attacks.
Air hunger – feeling like you can’t get a full breath, even though you’re breathing just fine. The amount of times I would make myself yawn and yawn some more…
Eye floaters & flashes – anxiety really said “let’s make vision feel haunted.” I would blink and wonder if I was entering a new dimension. The tiniest flicker can trigger the biggest spiral.
Random muscle twitches or spasms – especially around the eye or in your legs.
Derealization or depersonalization – feeling like you’re not real or the world isn’t real = 10/10 spooky.
Vibrating or buzzing feeling – as if your body is a phone on silent mode.
Hot flashes/chills out of nowhere – like your body can’t decide what season it’s in. One second I am sweating, the next I am wrapped in a blanket. Anxiety: the ultimate broken thermostat.
Sudden fatigue drop – like your energy just crashed with no warning. Definitely not fun when you’re out on a walk and all of a sudden you need to lie down ASAP.
It’s hard to fully encapsulate what it’s like to live with intense health anxiety.
Sometimes it hits like this:
“Ahhh! I have this weird sensation! OMG — what if I’m dying? What if it’s something serious?”
Cue full-on panic mode and the never-ending anxiety loop.
Other times, it’s more indirect but just as overwhelming:
I hear about someone — whether it’s a close friend or a distant acquaintance — being diagnosed with an illness, a disease, or a type of cancer, and my brain immediately goes:
“OMG. I’m going to get this. It’s going to happen to me.”
And before I know it, I’ve convinced myself I have every possible illness under the sun.
It is so exhausting.
A health anxious brain always goes to the worst case scenario–always. There is no middle ground…
It’s not just about being a “hypochondriac”—it’s also the constant worry for the health and wellbeing of the people I love. I’m always on edge, fearing that someone close to me, whether family or friends, might get sick. That fear is deeply rooted in the pain of possibly losing someone I love unexpectedly.
As someone who’s always been conscientious about my health, it’s almost mind-boggling how an obsession with it can backfire so completely. At the worst points of my health anxiety, I was honestly far from the healthiest I’ve ever been—physically, mentally, and emotionally. It’s wild how chasing after health can sometimes take us further away from it. (You can read more about that here!)
It’s taken hundreds of therapy sessions to begin rewiring my thoughts and shifting my perspective — and yes, I’m still in therapy. Honestly? I probably always will be. But I’ve learned that healing doesn’t mean being “cured.” It means learning how to live alongside the hard stuff.
Health anxiety might always be part of my life… but it’s not the whole story.
Every day, I’m building a life that makes room for both joy and fear — and everything in between. I’m learning to meet the uncertainty with more tools, more self-compassion, and more trust. And that’s real progress.
