What do you call health anxiety BUT about others?

[UnAutreNom]

Name changed for this.

Is there a name for intense/paralysing anxiety around any notion of illness/medical testing - sometimes for oneself but also for close ones? I have had Health Anxiety before (as in, the version where you are convinced you yourself have various sinister illnesses) - but I appear to also have a huge tendency to find illness in others absolutely catastrophic to the extent that -

1. DD's eczema causes intense panic that it is in fact meningitis
2. DS's hurty knee one time caused paralysing conviction about sinister bone diseases
3. Mum - half the world away - currently getting various tests for diabetes/anemia, none of which have actually returned any red flags - has debilitated me because of unbearable anxiety.
4. Thinking back 12 years, grandmothers' death at ripe old 87 threw me entirely - and I developed acute health anxiety about myself.

This means that ANY - absolutely ANY health related concern/investigation/let alone testing - renders me physically sick. I am remarkably organised and manage to hold down a v successful career + manage a household with small kids - but it causes me to have sleep episodes (literally, where I must shut my office door and simply fall into a stupor like sleep on the floor because Loved Person A is having a blood test which might be cancer, of course). Acute prolonged episodes of deep, sleep - hours and hours - waking full of nightmares, unrested.

When mum was bering tested half the world away last week - I was being regularly sick with anxiety. Now she is home and all raw reports are no red flags - it is moving rapidly to her consultation with docs on 1st Jan to take advice on diet/vitamins/next steps. Anything can set this off.

I have done a lot of work on myself over the years recognising traumatic childhood, undergoing both CBT and counselling and have some modicum of understanding of Mindfulness - but I have also developed a BAD HABIT of using mindfulness tapes specifically NOT to be mindful, but to make use of them like white noise to induce stupor-like sleep.

Have self-referred to IAPTS Mind Matters again (they were incredibly useful when I had a baby at the first lockdown) - but heavens, if this continues how will I manage life as a mum of two, with aging parents inevitably aging halfway across the world?

Does this have a name?

Hypochondria by proxy?

I am not sure the word hypochondria is in use anymore... I guess it is Health Anxiety by proxy...

Actually just found this thread which might be of some use https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4355423-Healthy-anxiety-by-proxy-is-ruining-my-life

Health anxiety about loved ones is still HA x

Your traumatic childhood would have made your subconscious hyper sensitive to any threats to your safety and happiness, which explains why you over react to ill health in others (and yourself, triggered by your grandmother's death).

Remedial hypnosis is very effective with all types of anxiety as it deals directly with the part(s) of your mind which developed this strategy in order to protect you, but is no longer required.

I always call it health anxiety by proxy but I don’t think that’s the official name.

I have this and it’s ruining my life. I’m obsessed with DS’s eyesight and how many times he’s going to the loo! It sounds so ridiculous but it’s this constant cycle of thinking of the thing and perceiving it as very serious, followed by self-reassurance until I feel reasonably ok. Then forgetting, and becoming terrified all over again in an endless cycle.

The joys of autism and ocd😳

I think this hits nail on head. Re childhood trauma - and a very specific way in which I react to any (real or perceived) threat to my now safety and happiness

Therapist here op, we'd just treat it as health anxiety 😁 it's just the same process just with others and not yourself

Post-traumatic stress disorder.

I suffer from this too, I've had therapy for it but it's never really gone away. Currently struggling with my daughter and weaning her, we've had a possible flare up from an allergy and I feel quite ill with anxiety over it and now over feeding her. I look for bruises on her worried about leukemia. I've had to tell my parents to not update me when they are ill or having tests as it causes me to spiral. I am not sure the answer but I wanted to let you know you are not alone!

I have exactly these thoughts and feelings .and have severe health anxiety..I've actually just recent been diagnosed OCD as well. The conditions are related in the sense that the OCD causes the obsession that X will get sick etc etc I geso obsessed about every health scenario. I feel your pain OP.