Health Anxiety Case Study: How Jennifer Stopped Constantly Checking Her Body in Just 5 Weeks
Health Anxiety Case Study: How Jennifer Stopped Constantly Checking Her Body in Just 5 Weeks
Health anxiety can take over a person's entire life. For Jennifer, a 40-year-old nurse, it started during the COVID lockdown and grew into a daily routine of checking every lump, every bump, every mark on her skin, and every change in her eyes. This is her story, and how she finally broke free from health anxiety in just 5 weeks.
Meet Jennifer: A Nurse With Severe Health Anxiety and OCD
Jennifer is a 40-year-old nurse who developed severe health anxiety and OCD during the Covid lockdown. As a nurse, she was surrounded by illness, fear, and uncertainty every single day. Slowly, this took its toll, and Jennifer developed an identity that she could not escape from: the identity of "someone who is anxious about their health".
This identity showed up every single day. Jennifer would check her skin for new moles or marks, check her eyes in the mirror, and search her body for any lump or bump that felt out of place. It was not a one-off worry. It was a routine, repeated morning after morning, and it was driving her husband to distraction too, because Jennifer would ask him daily to check her moles, her skin, and her eyes as well.
"Ah But, I Always Do This": The Phrase That Revealed Everything
When Jennifer first came to see us about her long-standing health anxiety, it was easy to understand why she had struggled for so long, despite having seen many therapists over the years.
On teaching Jennifer her very first technique, she interrupted with, "Ah but, I always do this." It was a small comment, but it told us everything we needed to know. She repeated this phrase many times during that first session, each time we talked about her morning routine of checking for lumps and bumps, over and over, every single day.
Every time we moved towards a new behaviour or a different way of responding, Jennifer would say the same thing: "Ah but, I always do this." This was not stubbornness. It was identity. Jennifer had become someone who checks. Someone who worries. Someone who is anxious about their health. And until that identity changed, no technique on its own was going to be enough.
The Part of Traditional Therapy That Often Gets Missed
One thing that is often missed with traditional therapy is working on a person's identity. This is the part of someone that quietly tells them "this is who I am" and "this is what I do", even when they desperately want to change.
Jennifer had spent years in therapy trying to manage her symptoms, but nobody had helped her look at the identity underneath those symptoms. Every time a new technique was introduced, that identity would resurface with the same response: "Ah but, I always do this." Thankfully, good therapists have the tools to identify this part of a person and help them change it.
Creating Jennifer's New Identity
Once Jennifer recognised this part of herself, and realised she did not want to carry this identity into her future, we got to work creating her new identity.
Jennifer chose exactly who she wanted to become: calm, relaxed, and in control of her thoughts, feelings, and emotions. That became the focus of every session from that point on. Instead of simply trying to stop the checking behaviours, we worked on building the identity of the calm, confident woman Jennifer wanted to be, so that the checking, the worry, and the daily requests to her husband no longer fit who she was.
Jennifer's Results After 5 Weeks
In just 5 short weeks, Jennifer became a calm, relaxed, and confident woman, free from the daily routine of health anxiety and the constant checking for anything that could be wrong. Her husband no longer faces daily requests to check her moles, her skin, or her eyes. Jennifer's identity had changed, and her health anxiety changed with it.
Could This Help You Too?
If you recognise yourself in Jennifer's story, whether it is constant body checking, health anxiety, or a pattern you keep repeating even though you want to stop, you are not alone, and it does not have to stay this way.
You can start with our free anxiety relief pack, designed to give you practical tools to start calming health anxiety today. If you would like to find out more about how we help people overcome health anxiety for good, visit our main page on anxiety treatment in Newcastle.
More Real Anxiety Case Studies
Jennifer's story is just one of many. Read more real stories from people who have overcome anxiety with the right support:
