And — also in the Post — "Anger, emotional upset could trigger a stroke" — "Anger — such as road rage and the simmering displeasure of the ongoing pandemic — is the watchword for 2021. But be careful — those big emotions could trigger a stroke." Smart, top-rated comment over there: "This suggests I should stop reading the news."
Of course, I believe the diseases we're talking about are real, but when is the focus and obsession with them a disease in itself? There will always be diseases, and we can always take more and more and more care, but at some point the care-taking is crazy, pushing out what is valuable in life. So let's be scientific about the disease that is no longer called hypochondriasis.
The Mayo Clinic tells us the proper term these days is "illness anxiety disorder." Symptoms:
Being preoccupied with having or getting a serious disease or health conditionI used the boldface for the symptoms that might support the notion that the whole country is suffering illness anxiety disorder.
Worrying that minor symptoms or body sensations mean you have a serious illness
Being easily alarmed about your health status
Finding little or no reassurance from doctor visits or negative test results
Worrying excessively about a specific medical condition or your risk of developing a medical condition because it runs in your family
Having so much distress about possible illnesses that it's hard for you to function
Repeatedly checking your body for signs of illness or disease
Frequently making medical appointments for reassurance — or avoiding medical care for fear of being diagnosed with a serious illness
Avoiding people, places or activities for fear of health risks
Constantly talking about your health and possible illnesses
Frequently searching the internet for causes of symptoms or possible illnesses
Posts
49 comments:
"used the boldface for the symptoms that might support the notion that the whole country is suffering illness anxiety disorder"
Not the whole country. None of that in this house.
Changing the name of a condition is real medical progress.
So just hypochondria renamed? Feels like more Orwellism.
Please do not refer to the whole nation as having bought into the Covid paranoia. The term KLrens is the subset you are talking about.
i used to think i had hypochondria... But my doctor said i was imagining it
Hmmm...having known a number of hypochondriacs, this is a mistake. I'm not sure what silly interest group the APA is sacrificing its integrity to, but the Mayo Clinic definition of Illness Anxiety Disorder does not cover it.
IAD relates to exaggerating the significance of real things. Hypochondriacs invent symptoms out of thin air and think they are sick no matter what's really going on with their body. They can convince themselves they have an illness simply by reading the list of the symptoms of that illness. Hypochondria is real and it is more divorced from reality than IAD. This change may do real harm to people who can't control their anxiety about fake harms.
News of the Future
No. Not the whole country. Just some people in the blue parts. But then, there are some people afraid to let their kids go outside to play.
Then I am glad I am an outlier. For about a few months in 2020 I had a lot of anxiety about the pandemic. Then I realized I was anxious about the horrible, terrible, and tyrannical response to the disease and not the disease... that cured me.
I do not care anymore. I do not wear masks at all, except at work and then only in common areas as it is required for my employment.
I used the boldface for the symptoms that might support the notion that the whole country is suffering illness anxiety disorder.
Not the whole country, but our power-hungry leaders (mostly Democrats, but few Republicans have pushed back hard enough) have been able to sow enough panic to allow them to get away with unconstitutional mandates. Most people I know are not suffering much anxiety about the disease, but rather about the consequences for their lives should they "test positive" (quarantines, loss of income) or fail to take an experimental vaccine (loss of their jobs).
The DSM has become a politicized document. I notice that they still include "gender dysphoria" as a condition, but first, they renamed it, and it's included mainly so that people can get "treatment" (which includes "reassignment surgery") and have insurance pay for it.
Not the whole country; just the loons in big east coast cities.
I used the boldface for the symptoms that might support the notion that the whole country is suffering illness anxiety disorder.
Not all of us. It seems to be clustered on the coasts.
Is it a disease if EVERYONE has it? Going by the whole covid response, I'd say everyone is a hypochondriac.
The whole system is indeed suffering from anxiety disorder but unfortunately the underlying condition is idiopathic.
The other relevant disorder to consider in the context of corona is Munchausen's syndrome by proxy, with child being the society, and mother are easy to guess who:
What Is Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy?
Munchausen syndrome is a mental disorder that causes a person with a deep-seated need for attention to fake sickness or injury. Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSP) is a disorder in which the caretaker of a child either makes up fake symptoms or causes real symptoms to make it appear as though the child is injured or ill. The term “by proxy” means “through a substitute.” Though MSP is primarily a mental illness, it’s also considered a form of child abuse.
Many people with MSP exaggerate or lie about a child’s symptoms to get attention. They may also create symptoms by poisoning food, withholding food, or causing an infection. Some people may even have a child undergo painful or risky tests and procedures to try to gain sympathy from their family members or community.
Woody Allen Syndrome?
"could bring punishing wave"
Punishment inflicted by leftists, strategically overreacting.
"at some point the care-taking is crazy"
You mean, like, people cleaning their shoes on entry for fear of infection?
"Being preoccupied with having or getting a serious disease or health condition"
Of course, many Dems are. But for Dem officials it's just another opportunity to be exploited.
"symptoms that might support the notion that the whole country is suffering illness anxiety disorder."
Part of the West and East Coast, some blue areas in-between. Of course, the notion that "the whole country" is suffering from the disorder is itself part of the propaganda (not intended as criticism of Althouse, whose "might" is well-placed here).
"I used the boldface for the symptoms that might support the notion that the whole country is suffering illness anxiety disorder."
Not me. And not many I know. But every person I know that has those symptoms is a lefty. Maybe that's why you think every one does. You live in Madison.
Is there any evidence yet that omicron is any more dangerous than chicken pox used to be?
So far my understanding is that Alec Baldwin has killed more people than omicron.
Prove me wrong.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Just for fun, what if we applied the same criteria for, oh say, climate change.
A reminder for those wanting a "gold standard" pcr test
You have 2 weeks left before they become illegal in the USA
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Stuff and nonsense. It's all been an excellent excuse not to go anywhere I don't want to go.
Does DSM-5 still recognize "phobias" as a clinical disorder?
Because the word is now applied to those who dissent from popular movements and public policies: "transphobic," "homophobic," "Islamophobic," etc.
George Carlin Shell Shock
Pre-DSM era I wonder if there was another term or they just believed you and you found some patent medicine to take.
My wife, a pediatrician of 30+ years, has seen Munchausen by Proxy three times. Rare, but real, horrific when experienced as a physician, and even worse for the child involved. The first time she caught a mother at it, the woman was purposefully infecting her hopsitalized toddler with feces in the feeding tube, and investigation discovered she had killed a previous child, too.
COVID provides a wonderful opportunity for helicopter parents to hover even more protectively over their offspring. But Munchausen by Proxy is a whole world different from producing anxiety in your kids about human contact.
Note that the DSM committees are mostly staffed by people who have no experience with test-based diagnostics (i.e., psychiatrists). Research-based Psychologists have a back seat role, at best.
The entire purpose of the DSM is to have a means for billing insurance.
'I used the boldface for the symptoms that might support the notion that the whole country is suffering illness anxiety disorder.'
It's mass psychosis or some sort of weird new Stockholm Syndrome.
I speak to people every day who, no matter what we're talking about, steer the conversation to Covid, their fear of Covid, friends who have Covid, their vaccination status, etc.
It's their entire fucking world.
And yes, I think it is a mental disorder.
I have a friend who, along with her sister, is always talking about what disease they think they may have. If one of them reads about something and somehow finds a small possible symptom of that recently read about disease, the sibling soon after finds that she, too, has that symptom. Then they both start in with heavy concern, worry, and a lot of research to back up their worry. I call them "two sisters in search of a disease". I want to say I've never seen anything like it, but I have. The United States is full of people in search of a disease.
We were like this well before Covid. You would see fad diseases and copycat diseases. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Gluten-free syndrome. Morgellon's Syndrome. There was Binge Eating Disorder, followed by Anorexia and Bulimia. Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen- I know all of these, well...most of these are real illnesses. But not en masse. And not something to strive for. But these and others seemed to be striven for by many around our country for years. And all of this was furthered by 23 and Me and Ancestry.com. Genetic readings allowed those searching for a disease to focus on something they can claim a 'family right' to have.
And while most of these disease strivers were women at the beginning (one only need to look at the covers of older women's magazines to see where the trends were), men soon played catch-up. And most of all of them congregated around mostly liberal/progressive cities and regions. Funny that.
All of this has been a great set up for the National Covid Anxiety Syndrome which is now in it's second full year and showing no signs of abatement in the Northeast, Upper Midwest, or Left Coast, with pockets of cases in virtually every state. This has been spoonfed, amplified, and choreographed by our Federal and State Governments and our friends in the media. Social Media and Tech Giants have 'managed' the speech, thoughts, and writings of the majority of people so that only the right message of fear and loathing can get out. Yes- fear the disease. Loathe those who do not.
Our current state is a natural outcome of what we as a nation have been working on for years. A nation in search of a disease has finally found one we can all close our arms around, caress, and rejoice that we have a common fear to keep us huddled in small, dark corners.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the Omicron Variant has possibly killed 1 (that's ONE) person in the entire world thus far. And that person (located in the UK) died with Omicron, not from Omicron. I know you know this, but let me repeat it even as the Dire Warnings of Imminent Doom and Death and Worse come at you from all sides: No one has yet officially died from Omicron. More people have choked on a spoonful of corn than have died from Omicron.
Yeah...we're no longer the generation that is about to storm any beaches. Too busy. Too many diseases to figure out, and I may have more than I can count.
Imagining the plandemic is just a nefarious plot to take away your freedoms is hypochondriac behavior. This is the major weakness you nutbars on the far right have that's common with your opposite numbers on the far looney tunes left.
This is what makes you all highly suggestible and easy peasy to control like marionettes.
I used the boldface for the symptoms that might support the notion that the whole country is suffering illness anxiety disorder.
And I used boldface to highlight the part you got wrong. As described here, of 1731 people surveyed by a CBS/YouGov poll, a full 81% are ignoring the Omicron variant and getting on with their lives for the coming holidays. Here's the money quote:
While corporate media outlets panicked and revived permanent pandemic narratives and talk of more lockdowns, a new poll from CBS News and YouGov found that of 1,731 people surveyed, 81 percent said they have not rearranged plans because of the Omicron variant or the hype surrounding it. In fact, a majority said they still plan to keep their normal holiday traditions and routines. Sixty-eight percent still plan to “gather with friends and family,” 64 percent said they will do their Christmas shopping in person, and 52 percent said they will eat in a restaurant.
Only 17 percent of those surveyed said they were “very concerned about Omicron,” while about 42 percent said they were not concerned at all about Omicron despite the initial media and bureaucracy-induced panic about it.
And keep in mind that this is a CBS/YouGov poll, organizations not particularly sympathetic to Americans that elitists regard as "baskets of deplorables." I can speculate that the Democrat-controlled federal government is trying to gin up fear because they enjoy yanking people around (the "DMV office syndrome"), and I refuse to rule out large campaign contributions and possibly even outright bribes from Big Pharma. The likelihood that any of the elitists care one tiny bit about ordinary Americans? Zero, to four decimal places.
We must include our germaphobic friends and neighbors in the hypochondriac set. This unfortunately includes Donald Trump, although his condition is relatively non-severe.
According to Dr. Mattias Desmet, Professor of Clinical Psychology, Ghent, this Covid neurosis is properly diagnosed as Mass Formation brought on by people with a lack of social bonds, a lack of meaning in their lives, a lot of free floating anxiety (anxiety not connected to a specific threat) and a lot of free floating aggression. Specifically, he blames Covid propaganda that exaggerated the seriousness of the virus, then conditioned those influenced by Mass Formation to develop an almost religious attachment to "fighting" the disease. There is a You Tube video of an interview he gave that explains the phenomenon quite well, or at least made the most sense to me. Search for "Why do so many still buy into the narrative." My own analysis (MS Operations Research/Systems Analysis) of the Diamond Princess outbreak (around 2500 elderly passengers, a relatively younger crew of 1000, around 712 cases, most symptomless, 13 deaths of passengers with multiple comorbidities, no crew seriously ill, effective death rate 0.0036)and the first four months of data from my county at the time (Guilford Co, NC) led me to believe this was a virus with potential serious affects on elderly already sick people, of very little issue for those under 50, and essentially zero issues for school age children. I was sufficiently convinced of my own analysis at the time that after a month or so of lock down I sold my house and moved to Florida where the governor was already fighting the covid hysteria. Smartest decision I have ever made since life has essentially been normal here for over a year.
I wonder if KenB of covidiocy fame has yet come to grips with the damage done by the lock downs he and a few others so vociferously advocated and his own small contribution to Mass Formation in the American populace.
The psycho-triasts normalize a consensus of a mutant reality that conforms with politically congruent policies.
and could bring punishing wave as soon as January, CDC warns
...and as I add whenever I read something like "...or it might not."
But please, click the link and buy the paper because MONEY.
Psychology as a field is very vulnerable to pressure from outside sources: political, popular, financial, whatever. It is very difficult to take seriously a field that seems literally impossible to produce objective results and changes its mind on topics at a whim. At this point we must bring into question the validity, at least as it is currently practiced by "experts," of the entire undertaking.
So they changed their minds again? How shocking!
Merck Manual Syndrome existed before the book was published. From Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome:
I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch—hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into—some fearful, devastating scourge, I know—and, before I had glanced half down the list of “premonitory symptoms,” it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.
I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever—read the symptoms—discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it—wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus’s Dance—found, as I expected, that I had that too,—began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically—read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright’s disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.
Xanax for everyone!
Hypochondriacs don't identify as such.
It is isn't the entire country. Indeed, life here in a deep red area has been almost completely normal for the last 19 months. I feel nothing but pity mixed with a big dose of contempt for those blue region inhabitants suffering from this anxiety disorder.
A lot of people I knew called people with face diapers hypochondriacs.
It was a fairly common pejorative used to describe the Karens and COVID dopes for a long time.
This does not surprise me.
There are a lot of dumb people with thin skin out there.
Removing stigmatizing labels encourages embracing it as normalcy.
It's mere coincidence this wordplay is occurring now.
Why is psychology so preoccupied with changing the names of conditions?
I used the boldface for the symptoms that might support the notion that the whole country is suffering illness anxiety disorder.
It's not the whole country. It's the whole Left
Just thinking about all of these health risks gives me the vapors.
So all of the gentile mental diseases that mostly afflict well-to-do women are being removed from the list?
Surprise, surprise.
The only reason language is changed is to change how we, as a society, communicate. Enjoy your trip across the debate stage. As evident in the comments, "Green Sky" theory will have most debating what shades of green should be considered green.
"I used the boldface for the symptoms that might support the notion that the whole country is suffering illness anxiety disorder".
Not the whole country. Certain leaders are, and they're trying their best to infect the rest of us.
'Xanax for everyone!'
Dr. Orwell would prescribe Soma...
I've just gotten over a long, long cold, pretty severe symptoms, that included a good week's run of bronchitis to finish it off. Tested negative for COVID just after Thanksgiving, happily. Usually I have a cold for part of a week in spring and again in late fall. Didn't have one in 2020, and none in 2021 until now, probably because of social distancing and lotsa hand washing.
I think that having this cold, a normal part of my life for decades now, marks my "end of COVID era" quite satisfactorily. I've enjoyed the looks of those around me in stores when I coughed behind my mask (and usually I was about the only one wearing a mask here in Austin). I plan on wearing a mask in 2024 in public, now and again, just to panic the COVID worriers.
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