The Big Picture

Every chest pain is a heart attack; every headache is a brain tumor. You tell people about the heart attack but you keep the brain tumor to yourself - it will be fatal, after all, and there's nothing that anyone can do.

This is the basic approach to health and health care for the neurotic. Not only can you expect the worst, but the worst actually is happening to you right now. When Alexander Pope wrote, "Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms," he was expressing the essential neurotic theme (except that he really was dying). The true neurotic would have added, "And no one seems to realize it."

The neurotic operates in a perpetual twilight of ill health that is dimmed further by confusing magazine articles, know-nothing specialists who picked up their medical degrees in Central America, and hundreds of colorfully packaged health products that just don't do the job. He or she is a walking catalogue of ailments and complaints in a body that is as finely tuned as the most exquisite and tempermental motor car; if any on small thing goes wrong it easily can lead to a breakdown of the entire machine.

Certain ailments, however, are particularly well suited to the neurotic:

On the lowest level are the minor bruises (caused by shopping carts, coffee tables, unrestrained dancing partners) that must be probed with the fingers, and the muscle strains and aches that must be kneaded and flexed until one feels the reassuring stab of pain. When in company, one should emphasize each flex with a brief, badly hidden wince; the injury itself should always be referred to as a "ligament pull" and accompanied by a lie ("I was mountain climbing," "I was mobbed at the airport"). In this same category there are also the cuts, scrapes, and careless gashes that must be attented to with ointments and bandages. These injuries (referred to as "abrasions" or "lacerations") should frequently be peeked at under the bandages for signs of infection lest gangrene set in and amputation be deemed necessary.

On a somewhat higher plane of worry there are the rashes and fungal growth. These are good if they appear suddenly and without explanation, and more wonderful yet if they don't itch. "I've got this damn rash and I don't know where it came from. Look," might be a neurotic's sly gambit at a cocktail party. Such a procedure is not recommended for fungal growths, however, since they actually are located in embarrassing spots and no one (not even doctors) wants to see them.

The next level is the neurotic's speciality - disorienting ailments. These are valued because they may be called in to explain spells of unusual behaviour that are in reality of a strictly mental nature. Hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, is the current leader of the pack here, although inner ear ailments, sinus conditions, and allergies remain useful, too. Each of these ailments can be signaled by dizziness, lethargy, and jumpiness - all hallmarks of the anxiety attack. Such symptoms are nonspecific enough so that one can go to the doctor and simply say, "I feel kind of funny all over" or "I feel like a bird in a cage." Doctors love to hear this.

Finally, there are the major illnesses, or rather the fear of major illnesses. The fear is constant and wide ranging; it usually is triggered by some minor occurrence that, in the neurotic's beehive mind, indicates big trouble ahead. This phenomenon might best be shown by the following chart:

SYMPTOM -- PROBABLE CAUSE
Cough -- Lung cancer
Bloody nose -- Brain hemorrhage
Blurry vision -- Incipient blindness
Sneeze -- Pneumonia
Pain in side -- Appendicitis
Twitching eyelid -- Stroke
Rash -- Syphilis
Headache -- Brain tumor
Lethargy -- Leukemia
Stomach ache -- Botuliam
Pain in arm -- Heart attack

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