how certain do you get of your fears?

YES, totally this with diseases. I have a whole list of diseases that I am terrified of getting and if I read anything about them it will cause me to obsess (this list includes the disease you mentioned...I can't even fucking write the name out, that's how paranoid I am of it!)

Just a couple of days ago I had a complete freakout because I was convinced I had developed this rare disease that was mentioned in a (fictional) book that I read. I got so angry at the book for sparking this obsession that I tore it into pieces and threw it in the dumpster outside. I was like literally sobbing and telling my husband "tomorrow we have to go to the hospital and if it turns out I have it, I will kill myself because I will be fucked anyway." I am still afraid of having the disease.

The thing that really sucks is that doctors rarely believe me when I actually have a physical illness. Not because I go to the doctor all the time believing I have diseases that I don't have...because I don't at all, I just freak out about them at home. But simply because I have so much anxiety over going to the doctor and especially taking antibiotics (there's this rare reaction that you can get to antibiotics that was ALREADY on my "list of things I'm terrified of getting"...and then my friend actually got this reaction to antibiotics when we were 16 and almost died from it, so now I have constant panic attacks whenever I have to take them). So doctors usually don't take me seriously because I am like shaking and can't even talk straight whenever I have to go to the doctor. I finally found a doctor a few months ago who actually treated me like a normal patient even though I have anxiety and actually addressed my concerns with facts and rationality instead of saying "stop worrying about that."

/r/OCD Thread Parent