Hypochondriac Hell

My earliest memory of being a major hypochondriac dates back to about kindergarten or grade 1. I learned somewhere in school or maybe on TV that elclipses of the sun could make you go blind. This terrified me beyond belief. For some inexplicable reason I valued my sight probably more than the use of my limbs. If I woke up in the morning and was blurry-eyed I would FREAK out. I was very firm when I told my mom that I needed to get sunglasses, and not just any sunglasses, special sunglasses. My mom bought me "special" glasses with a high UV protection and I wore them whenever I left the house. I have a vivid memory of sitting in my kitchen while my mom asked me to please open my eyes. There was sunlight coming in through the blinds and how was I to know at what exact time an eclipse would occur; thus I kept my eyes closed. It got to the point where I was afraid of the sun even without an eclipse occuring, and so I wore my purple UV protection glasses even in the house. I'm perfectly aware that this is crazy, that I am crazy, but everyone has their vice and this is mine.

Eventually each old worry gets pushed out by a newer, more modern, pending and consuming anxiety, and thus worrying about eclipses seems comical at some point. As a professional hypochondriac I've gotten a lot more creative over the years, you really have to up the innovation factor if you want to the best. An eclipse is so one dimensional, the key is to layer, interlock, and combine fears, this will really make you shit your pants. For example, that brown spot on your apple. A bruise right? No, it's a family of microscopic viral parasites that feed off the bile in your internal organs so that you will eventually develope a fairly normal stomach ache that provokes you to take a tylenol which is unluckily the exact type of drug that seems to enable the viral bugs to multiply, strengthen, and have babies in your intestines. The second generation viral parasites are mutated genetically to attack your ovaries and render you sterile for the rest of your life so that having a family will be impossible. The logical next stage I like to go through is imagining myself in the near future with this new life long disease while being on Oprah and I can picture myself saying "Yeah, I just thought it was a regular stomach ache, I mean, how was I supposed to know?", and as Oprah covers her mouth and inhales I'll start to cry a bit (half because I feel the need to, and half because the producers told me to). This is just an example, for instance, if I were to extrapelate, kinda thing. My average worries are a lot longer and complex.

I always find it kind of funny when someone comes up with the real original cancer worry. I have to supress my chuckles as they go on about a bump and a blah blah blah. Pfft, it's so amateur. I was doing cancer scares at eight, my current worries now involve the Oprah thing. My most recent worry is that I'm getting stupider. Right in the middle of university my brain decided to start degenerating at a slow and painful pace. I've been listening to music while reading and then testing myself by seeing if I can remember what I just read. Sometimes I get the lyrics and the paragraphs mixed up, a clear and obvious sign that I am stupid. I'm sure I'll devise a new test soon that will be so perplexing and impossible that I give up, and unfortunately neglect to realize the irony of my acts.

Whatever, worrying about being stupid is a waste of time because other things have to take a higher priority. Things like the shape of my mole, I think it's a bit off...