Step by step, at a pace very different from that of a walk, the hypochondriac, restless and restless, goes towards his natural destination: a doctor’s consultation, a specialist, the CAP, a hospital, the nearest pharmacy , perhaps a gathering or, even better, a meeting of peers. In the resounding non-existence of an association, group or entity like the Home of the Hypochondriac or of a party – there is one for everyone’s displeasure – that claims their rights, hypochondriacs tend to relate to each other by exchange symptoms, medications, contraindications, rare or new diseases, treatments, natural therapies… The Harvard Health Journal is the bible for the most elitist apprehensives.
The man and woman affected by hypochondria are sensitive people, they say that they are intelligent, and that they suffer in silence, or not, their real or imaginary fears – beware!, that the hypochondriac, like the pessimist, always ends up being right–. And already in the waiting room he scans the complicit glances of other patients and, if he is not one of the shy ones, he will ask, inquire and remain convinced that no one is as sick as he is.
The hypochondriac, as it should be, is not surprised by any disease, he fears them all. And often the visit with the doctor turns into an interrogation that ends with: “Did he tell me the truth?”. A devilish drift from query to query. Listen to the doctor’s slightest gesture and look for non-verbal clues. Melancholy, gloomy, sad and pessimistic, the solvent hypochondriac is curious, he is less anxious when he is ill than when he imagines he is. Deep down, what the hypochondriac citizen seeks and longs for is to be loved. In other words: like everyone else. This is also why Lorca became a poet, he wrote it down.
The ashes of the pandemic have left for the hypochondriacs a perplexing, moving photo landscape. Of video consultations, of online visits, of icy prescriptions, of soulless screens. They say that maybe the doctors who “touch”, who listen, words that heal, that empathize, that… A whole dream for the terrifying epidemic of mental illnesses, and their loneliness. Hypochondria is, without a doubt.
The door opens: “The next one”… And?
