When I got my first period aged 11, but not again for 18 months, I worried I might be the next Virgin Mary, pregnant by mystical means. I’d sit at my family computer and Google: “Ways to get pregnant without sex”, “Why am I not having my period?”, “No period after first period”. I’d spend an hour clicking through articles and Reddit threads until I read “no, you’re not pregnant” and “yes, this is normal” enough times. But after days, weeks, or sometimes a glorious month or two, the comfort wore off and doubt would seep back in, until finally I would start my search again.
Though my period eventually returned, my inability to cope with the inherent uncertainty of the human experience remained, and I kept turning to Google for reassurance. When I was 17, I sat on the sofa doing homework while my parents went out with friends. In the quiet of the house, with nothing to focus on besides a dull textbook and my own internal workings, I noticed my chest felt tight. I had a smartphone by then, which meant I could search Google anytime, anywhere. I looked up “chest pain”, and it quickly became evident I had no choice but to call my parents and go to the hospital (after the doctors monitored my heart and took a couple of X-rays, they told me that I probably had acid reflux).
As I entered young adulthood, I’d often end a Googling session by making a doctor’s appointment. I went for a bump on the back of my head (the doctor touched it, shrugged, and said, “It’s just a lymph node”) or a lump in my breast (it was breast tissue). I’d become convinced I had cancer or some other rare and serious disease. But sometimes, in the case of an eye twitch, small rash or headache, I read with relief that my concern was nothing to worry about. During these years, I thought searching online was the very thing keeping me safe. It helped me make sense of my body. Sure, I felt anxious and desperate while scrolling through search results, but wasn’t that just the price of staying vigilant about my health?
I learned that this habit may have been making me more anxious, not less, almost 10 years after my first period, when my mother died from cancer complications. Grief cut me from the thread I’d apparently been hanging by. I had daily panic attacks and often needed to work up the courage just to leave my apartment. I felt like the only person who had ever experienced such strife, and I was desperate to find other people like me. So I took to a different search engine to try to understand not my physical but my mental health.
I typed “anxiety” into Instagram’s search bar. I found people who catalogued their experience with it, but I also found therapists with hundreds of posts on another condition I didn’t know was adjacent to anxiety: obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Before, I thought OCD was about liking things to be neat and organised. But I learned that it’s not about preference or enjoyment at all. Obsessions can be debilitating and latch on to almost anything, including the possibility of having a deadly disease. And compulsions aren’t limited to counting, turning lights on and off or washing your hands. Constantly seeking reassurance – from people around you, yourself or the internet – can be a compulsion, too.
I’d thought I was just a hypochondriac – an almost comically exaggerative person when it came to the goings-on of my body. But about a year after finally understanding what OCD actually was, I received a formal diagnosis. I didn’t quit Googling right away. A diagnosis just meant I now knew why I clung to that search bar with such desperation. I think what helped me ultimately kick the habit was grasping, over time, that there was nothing I or anyone else could have done to save my mother’s life. Her cancer was aggressive and treatment-resistant. I realised, then, that there was no sense in trying to predict anything that could possibly be wrong with me. I’d probably always have intrusive thoughts about my health, but I didn’t need to waste the precious time I have on them.
At 26, I don’t research my health symptoms any more. I don’t try to “solve” them. I’ve learned it’s not something I can do, even in moderation. Instead, I trust myself to listen to my body and make a decision about whether or not I need to consult a doctor. At first, abstaining from the allure of that search bar was difficult, and I was imperfect. My brain tried to tell me: “It’s irresponsible not to check with the internet about this, just to make sure.” But now, in a way I could never have imagined five years ago, I rarely feel tempted. I’d much rather live in the peace and quiet that comes from accepting what I can’t know. I bask in the lack of urgency I feel around needing to know why I have a headache or mark on my skin. I shrug and wait for it to go away.
Elle Warren is a writer covering queerness and mental health
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