What Health Anxiety Actually Looks Like

Natalie Altman has lived with health anxiety and OCD for as long as she can remember. As a teenager, she became fixated on throat cancer. At 16, she became convinced she was going to die the next day. Last week, she had one of her worst episodes in months. We spoke to her about what health anxiety actually looks like day to day. Not the textbook version, but the lived reality.

Watch the full conversation on YouTube.

It started young

For Natalie, there was no single triggering event. Health anxiety has been present for her entire life.

"Genuinely as long as I can remember -- and it sounds like a lie but genuinely for my whole life. I would read scary stories in the paper and then I'd give myself the symptoms. I remember this from the age of like primary school."

At 15, she became fixated on throat cancer. Every time she swallowed, her throat felt strange. Her parents initially refused to take her to the doctor, not out of cruelty, but because they did not want to reinforce the pattern. Eventually they did. The doctor said she was fine. Months later, the same thing happened again. She got referred for professional help.

But even with years of therapy, the cycle persists. As Natalie puts it:

"I've had so many therapists. I've had hypnosis. When you're in that spiral, none of it helped. Because I'm like, 'How do you know?'"

Logic does not fix it

This is one of the hardest things about health anxiety to explain to people who have not experienced it. You can logically know that you are fine. That does not matter.

"Health anxiety is not about logic. Logically, you can know there's nothing wrong. The problem is the anxiety doesn't think that. It's an emotional problem, not a logical one."

Natalie described going to A&E, begging for a CT scan, knowing that her family would not come with her because they did not want to endorse the anxiety. She went alone. She got the scan. She was not reassured.

"Even once I've had it, I was like, 'Well, did they miss something? Did they do the right area? Should they have used contrast?'"

This is the hallmark of health anxiety: the goalpost moves. The reassurance you were desperate for five minutes ago is already insufficient.

The emotional toll on relationships

One thread that ran through the entire conversation was the impact on the people around her. Natalie sends her partner, her sister, and her parents long text messages before bed listing everything she is thinking. She checks on her partner's health. She asks her mum if she has been to the doctor.

"I'll be like, 'Mum, have you checked this at the doctor?' And then she'll be like, 'Well, now I feel like I have to go.'"

When her partner had to have some health tests, he was fine about it within an hour. Natalie was on ChatGPT in the A&E waiting room looking up what tests should have been ordered.

"His mum wasn't worried. No one was worried. And I was literally sat on ChatGPT being like, 'What test should they be doing? Have they done this?'"

She is aware of how this sounds. She knows it can be annoying. But the compulsion is not a choice -- it is the anxiety demanding to be addressed, and it does not care about timing or social norms.

When happiness makes it worse

One of the most counterintuitive aspects of health anxiety is that it often intensifies during good periods. Natalie described this clearly:

"It comes at its worst when I'm my most happy. When I got engaged, I was like, 'Best day ever.' But then I was like, 'What if something bad happens before the wedding?'"

The logic: more happiness means more to lose. Less stress from work or life means more mental bandwidth for the anxious brain to fill. Holidays, downtime, good news. These can all be triggers.

"When I was depressed, I actually didn't have bad health anxiety because I was like, 'Well, everyone dies anyway.' But then when I met my partner and it became even better, it's like there's more to lose."

AI tools are making it worse

Natalie was candid about her use of AI chatbots for reassurance, and how dangerous it is:

"It's so easy because it's there. I had a three-hour conversation. It makes you think you know everything."

The problem with AI tools like ChatGPT is not that they give bad information (though they can). It is that they are available 24 hours a day, will answer any question without judgment, and make the reassurance loop frictionless. There is no waiting room, no appointment, no doctor who might push back. Just instant, unlimited reassurance, which, as with all reassurance in health anxiety, is never enough.

The biggest misconception

Natalie identified two myths that do the most damage.

First: that people with health anxiety know deep down they are fine.

"Sometimes deep down you actually don't. Otherwise you wouldn't be in this spiral."

Second: that people with health anxiety should not be taken seriously medically.

"People with health anxiety should still be taken seriously because they still can have problems. As far as the statistics go, they're in the same statistics pool. The symptoms are in your head, but they are real."

Health anxiety does not make you immune to illness. And the physical symptoms it produces -- the chest pain, the headaches, the racing heart -- are genuine physiological responses to genuine psychological distress.

Finding your people

Despite everything, Natalie is hopeful. She started sharing her experience on TikTok and found that it resonated far more than she expected.

"I think it's nice for people to see people who do have health anxiety or OCD but they actually are still living a good life. You can more than cope. You can thrive."

She is not claiming to be recovered. She had a bad episode last week. But she is living, working, engaged to be married, and talking openly about something that many people still suffer through in silence.

"I didn't want to take first because I thought, 'Will anyone judge it? Will any of my employers judge it?' And then I kind of thought, 'Well, if they do, I wouldn't want to work there anyway.'"

Where to go from here

• Take the health anxiety quiz to understand where you stand
• If someone you care about has health anxiety, here's how to support them
• Watch more conversations like this one

This article is for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. If you're concerned about your health or mental health, speak to a qualified professional. If you or someone you know is in crisis, contact a helpline near you.