Hypochondriasis

I saw my general practitioner a couple weeks ago for help with my chronic pain and I was dismissed. In a couple days I'm seeing my psychiatrist and hopefully he'll be able to help me understand what is going on with my neurology and why everything is so esoteric. I want to know what is going on with regards to my body -- I want explanations.

To be honest, I'd be happy with some clinical and institutional recognition that there's something wrong in the first place and it's so frustrating not having this.

I feel that when I sit down on an examination table that I'm sitting down to take a test. I know that there is something wrong with my body: I know that I should not be experiencing serious pain in everyday activities and I know the pain I experience is real. Likewise, I know that my memory problems are as real as my motor problems and I know my motor problems are changing in ways that are inexplicable. I know this to be real yet I feel the need to prove myself when I enter a doctor's office. I feel they will not believe me and that in the line of questioning they are waiting for me to trip up and make a "mistake" -- to tell them something that they feel is clinically suspect or impossible.

I am very afraid of being labeled a hypochondriac. I am afraid because of how many things are truly haywire with my body. I am afraid because of how unsure I sometimes feel. I worry that my communication style and how I perceive my body will be misconstrued as dishonesty or delusion. I am afraid they will not believe me.

I know what I experience is real. I know my pain is not in my head. I know my body jerks, tenses, and tremors against my will. I know that I have memory difficulties and that I have cognitive difficulty with self-care and executive function. I know this is not fake.

Yet at the same time I feel I have so much difficulty communicating what is going on with regards to my body that doctors don't really know what to do with me. I feel that I can't say "I don't know" in response to a question. I feel that if I seem unsure or if I seem too eager to point out something that maybe possibly could be something that is important but likely isn't that I'll seem like a hypochondriac. I feel that doctors expect one thing from me and it's not something I can truly deliver and I feel that because of this I am treated with suspicion.

If I appear fickle -- if I divulge a slew of possible symptoms or things that might be wrong with me it is because I am desperate. I know I am experiencing pathology and that my pain and my mind are not normal. If I seem attention-seeking and spurious it is because I am trying to give my doctors the tools they need to explain what is happening to me.

I am trying to provide the tools they need to provide the tools and the language I need to be able to make sense of my experience. This is important to me.

I am afraid, though, and I wish there were some way I could communicate in a way they understand.