My parents are obsessed with illness

[Porrrly]

Has anyone else’s parents become obsessed with illness and disease?

In the years since turning 60, both of my parents have become obsessed with illness, disease and health. They are continuously paranoid about catching anything, to the extent they will avoid meeting up with family members for a 2 week minimum isolation period to ensure all ‘contagious’ disease is gone. This is incredibly difficult as myself and my brother have little children at school and nursery, so they almost always have some sort of cold.

Additionally, they are constantly googling symptoms and will become sure they are having a stroke / heart attack / cancer and are constantly either at the GP or are at A&E. Even when they are told they don’t have such and such an illness, they will then demand to see NHS consultants or will pay thousands privately to see doctors and specialists.

They cancel plans and meet ups at the last minute, sometimes they just don’t turn up and they don’t even bother telling me at all, until I phone them or speak to my brother and find out they are in A&E again because my dad thinks he’s having a heart attack.

They also wear masks everywhere and are obsessive about hand sanitising.

They’ve now said they aren’t sure about coming for Christmas as my youngest daughter, who is 3, has a cold and they are convinced it might be the new strain of super flu. I’ve already paid for everything and told DH’s family they can’t come as it’s my parents turn this year, so it’s especially maddening.

Is this just a normal part of aging and everyone’s parents get to this stage or is something else going on?

TBH ‘old age’ is a rather different thing from merely getting on a bit. Real old age in most people’s minds now = at least late 80s, certainly not 60s!

I am 62 and don't feel or act like this at all.

In fact I not long started intermittent fasting and feel the best I have in years.

They have severe health anxiety and ideally need to get professional mental health. I developed postpartum OCD due to having a high risk pregnancy during COVID and my newborn nearly then dying from complications. I’m medicated and in professional therapy because I too became germ and then sickness obsessed. But I never stopped meeting up with people. My health anxiety has improved a lot! My gran is the same as your parents with the chronic drs and A&E appts.

It’s an age thing. My mother does the same thing (mid 70s) and every time we speak there is some ailment.

I try not to get angry about it because I appreciate that as people age they have way more sense of their own mortality and also their friends start dying.

Personally I would be delighted that they had uninvited themselves for Xmas. Rather that then them panicking, mask wearing and getting themselves wound up which will ruin your day.

Yep. DM (70’s) is obsessed with everyone else’s illnesses and I’m always hearing stories about people I don’t know who have been diagnosed with cancer, etc. literally every time we speak. Then my MIL, who is utterly self obsessed will exaggerate any symptoms to try and garner sympathy and attention. Wild really when they could all be enjoying a happy and healthy retirement, instead of wallowing in other people’s misery, their own self obsessed thoughts and missing out on family time.

One factor is that it's drilled into us all the time that catching things early is crucial. Makes you more mindful of symptoms.

I'm nearly 62 and have definitely had fewer colds since I haven't been in a classroom of little children all day every day - a bonus as I'm asthmatic. I'm aware of not wanting to be still and creaky so make sure I do 3 classes at the gym/pool as a minimum. I meet similar aged and older people who are very active and fit. If people have very bad colds I stay away from them but that's it.

As others have said, it does sound like severe health anxiety.

I'm in my mid 70s and know a fair amount of old people and no one I know talks about their illnesses. They're all too busy getting on with life: travelling, joining things, going to exercise classes and so on.

I imagine health anxiety might start affecting older people when they don't have enough going on in their lives but for those of us who don't want to get old and ill before we have to health is not something that we obsess over.

I also think, as much as it seems to be a goal for a lot of people, retiring when you're in your 50s can be a huge mistake unless you have some solid plans as to how you're going to fill up your days. Otherwise it's just a recipe for premature ageing and depression.

This. I’m not obsessed about masks etc and I haven’t had a flu jab yet, but you do become highly aware of your mortality and the need to keep healthy and fit.

DF is now 90 and has seen a GP only once in the last 10 years - that was at my insistence after a fall and he was promptly sent straight on to A&E where a broken humerus was diagnosed. Surgery was discussed, then postponed. Then my appalling sister decided to take him for a 2nd opinion and got him signed up for surgery. He was meant to visit the pharmacist prior to being admitted, but as this necessitated a 400 mile round trip, I asked why. They said it was to review his regular medication. I told them he didn't take anything and they accused me of lying. He declined the surgery. So it isn't true that all older people are obsessed with their health.

When I was a baby in the late 60s, Dad used to have a pub lunch once a week with our GP. Dad asked him how he was never ill, despite doing lots of house calls. With a straight face, GP told DF, "if you keep up your blood alcohol level, the germs can't live in it." DF adheres to that now. He gets through a bottle of gin per week plus several bottles of wine. He can still do the Daily Telegraph cryptic crossword every day.

When he was a child, he was in an orthopaedic hospital for 2 years, during WW2. They had to sleep outside one night every month. I'm sure that has something to do with his longevity, but both his parents lived into their 90s and his great x2 grandfather died at 101

No , I don’t think it’s normal to this extent either . I’m 65 and don’t think like
this, neither do my friends

My mum to an extent. Mid 60s. She’s not overly cautious about catching anything, but when she has a minor illness she’s started acting like she’s dying. She tried to get me to take her to A&E because she had a sore head.

Another 'oldie' chiming in to say that no, I don't think it's normal at all. I'm not like that and neither were my parents. As someone upthread said, they seem to be encouraging each other in this new-discovered pastime. I'm not sure what you can do about it, especially as they think it's some kind of conspiracy if doctors tell them there's nothing wrong.

If anything, I think I might be the opposite: I keep forgetting that I'm old and then getting a nasty shock when I look in the mirror. Also, I have had my share of illnesses over the years but on balance I would sooner be like me than like your parents, OP. Sorry, that's not really helpful. My only advice is to ignore them when they start and let them crack on with missing family events.

I love this. Reminds of my Dad.

I am sadly like this in my 40s. I think it is a combination of knowing I have a genetic condition that causes issues in older age, lots of 'issues' that doctors cannot find the cause for, fluctuating symptoms and underlying general anxiety. I wasn't anxious before I had these symptoms but am now stuck in a cycle where the symptoms breed the anxiety which then causes more symptoms. I don't think there is an easy answer.

Yes, I can completely sympathise. I think their world gets smaller, their friends start getting health concerns and dying, and it becomes the only thing they have to talk about. My parents are in their 80s but their only trip out now is the hospital. They spend all their time moaning about what life could have been and what they wanted to do, having never done any of it.
The issue becomes, given I live quite far away, very difficult to separate what is a proper illness and what is just in their heads. They have called an ambulance twice recently and have regaled how lovely the paramedics are, spending time with them. It is no wonder the NHS is struggling if they are calling them for a chat.

Of course it is NOT a normal part of aging or normal behaviour for people in their 60s. There is clearly something very odd about your parents.

They are nearing the end of their lives, to be frank. If lucky, just 2/3rds through it and I think that plays on a lot of older people's minds. Friends start to get ill, friends start to die and I completely understand why some people start going down the mega healthy and careful route for themselves, but they need to remember to live life too and not let their negative outlook ruin whatever we do have left.

My partner, who as few years older than me, is 60 in Jan. He's told me that 60 is nothing to celebrate and he doesn't want a fuss. This is at odds to all the other birthdays we've celebrated over the years. He said that now he's just on the route now to death.

Nearing the end of their lives, in their early 60s?
Not for most people.

I’m in my sixties and I am definitely not like this!

I have a friend like this. She's in her 60s. For the last four years, every conversion has been hours of her listing symptoms and refusing to be reassured by negative test results. We have spoken about nothing else. She won't engage in any conversation that isn't focused on this.

Her son hasn't spoken to her for 2+ years and her husband will no longer accompany her to appointments. All of her friends have drifted away. Last I heard she had a new friend who was doing all the leg work taking her to doctors and hospitals.

She's been tested multiple times for conditions she doesn't have. The doctors are lying to her and no one cares. Except they're not lying are they? The medical profession didn't have a meeting and decide to kill her by pretending she's not ill.

The only condition she has no interest in addressing is her health anxiety. I did suggest this but of course that was ignored. It's very sad.

I think your partner is depressed and you should be seeking some help for him. 60 year olds these days can go to live for another 30+ years.

I don't think its normal at all, and I don't think its healthy.

My dad lived to be 86 and was living like a man 40 years younger until the last year of his life: going to drinks parties, going out to eat, going to watch cricket matches and encouraging me and DD to come and stay with him. He almost took it too far and tired himself out, but I'd much rather have it that way than sitting at home, neurotically waiting to die.

Obviously some people become ill and sadly die relatively young and obviously one starts to become aware of one's mortality. But I'm damned if I'm going to sit around ruminating on the presence of death or self-isolate and refuse to spend time with people I love. What's the point of being alive if you're doing nothing?

I do think you have to be a bit tough on yourself if you allow health anxiety to take over your life. It's good to take care of yourself and prioritise good nutrition, exercise etc. But neurosis and risk aversion just make people older quicker.

Your sixties is way early for this if you're relatively healthy and it does sound obsessive and OTT in their case. They could have years of good health
ahead of them yet! I even have a friend who has started doing it in her fifties as if it's all downhill from here. Not in my book, it isn't!

At the same time, gotta say I'm quite shocked at the dismissive, rather sneery approach by some people moaning that their elderly relatives talk about ailments and people dying! That's because the older they get people all around them ARE dropping like flies, I'm afraid, and serious illness becomes more likely. My parents, for instance, when in their late 70s, lost nearly all of their old friends in just a couple of years. Think it's quite bizarre to have to "try not to get angry" with older relatives for talking about such things in your presence - perhaps time to develop a bit of compassion, I'd say, and some understanding that our own fears of death (it comes to us all, you know) aren't an excuse to project our discomfort about it onto older people in the form of anger. Illness and death do and I'm afraid WILL happen when people get older. That is part of life. Sure, it's important to be balanced and not pre-empt problems that are not yet there like the OP's parents, but denial of reality or of their experiences isn't all that helpful either.

People my age (65) seem to go one of two ways. Either they start doing the 'wellll I probably haven't got long left...' and behaving as though they are 'professionally old' or they realise that they've lived the majority of their life and want to make the last bit count!

So they either sit at home and do very little (and usually try to make any children feel guilty about not dancing attendance upon them) or they are out and about so much that they can barely remember what their front door looks like.

I've chosen the second way. Run every day, cycle, Pilates, out with the dog over the hills... I'm lucky and very healthy. Exhausted, but healthy.