well as a person living with several mental issues hypochondria being one of them. It is a coping style. low self esteem begs for attention, validation. The most important thing is that it is not as cut and dry as one knowingly or not lies to themselves . When confronted with hard evidence that I do not have what I think or want to think I have. I have to back off of that obsession because it has been proven invalid to me and to further claim illness in the face of undeniable evidence to the contrary. does not feed the "Woe is me" Because for me it has to be a possibility. Now you may think that this guy must be in heaven. Quite the contrary. Back in 1989 when I first found out that someone I had slept with was sick. I did not want to be found positive for at the time a fatal illness. But when I found out that I was HIV positive. I was well I do have this why not take the attention that I surely would reap. I remember playing Blue Oyster Cults "Don't fear the reaper" in a small gay bar that maybe half of the patrons being in the same boat as me there was a morbid sense of belonging that I embraced. Because it was that or just wait to die. At this point people were selling their life insurance for $o.50 on the dollar and didn't really care about anything after making sure that their funeral costs were covered. So much money was spent on once in a lifetime trips around the world while they were still well enough to enjoy it. And I went on a lot of those trips on someone elsees dime. And in those moments all was well in the state of denile. then more people started to get sick. They party was ending for so many at the same time. Celebrations of life were a weekly thing. Those of us who were living off of Bactrim and AZT were the lucky ones. I had lost my first love to AIDS. And then some one came up with a pill that stopped the virus from replicating itself. And all of a sudden people wished that they hadn't blown their life savings on lavish trips and fancy cars. Had no idea what they were gonna do with their new lease on life. But how off track did I get? When I found a lump in my throat I had made great progress in my mental state of being. And I did not jump to the cancer conclusion. I thought it was HIV related. And so did my Doctor. A clogged saliva gland was what my Doc. suggested. after all I had have issues with my lymph nodes before. So my progress in not being such a hypo. set me back more than three months.(at least) in that time I watched it grow bigger and bigger until I finally I decided to buy into my works insurance. And met my new doctor and he immediately thought that we needed to find out what it was. So my progress set me back at least four months. It came back as SCC. stage IV, instead of perhaps stage 2-3 if I had hypoed over it. Ironic!