I have hypochondria (or illness anxiety disorder as it's known these days). Most days for the last 3 years of my life, I've worried that I'm dying. I've had multiple brain MRIs and full cardiology examinations which haven't found anything, by all means I should be healthy.
People think that peversely, my main symptom of constant light headedness is caused by PPPD. Essentially I get so anxious I feel lightheaded, which then in turn makes me feel more anxious that I'm dying of a brain tumor etc, and the vicious cycle continues.
There have been brief periods over these last years where my worries and physical symptoms have subsided due to being particularly distracted by something, so I thought my wife having our first child would actually be great for my condition as I would have a lot to occupy myself with.
Boy was I wrong.
I worry just as much about her life as I do mine. Any odd breathing, or choking, or odd positions she finds herself in has me stressed to the eye balls. Only now I'm debilitatingly sleep deprived on top of this.
Yesterday when I had her sat on my knee burping her, I went to grab a cloth, and all of a sudden she threw her neck back with all of her 1 week old force and toppled back, falling and hitting her head on my other thigh. I think I frantically scooped her back upright but I feared I did it way too quickly and between the impact of the fall and the rushed scooping up could have given her shaken baby syndrome.
My wife was sleeping in another room as we are sleeping in shifts to attempt to get more sleep.
I sat there alone, just so fucking scared, so fucking tired, so fucking stressed as she'd been crying for an hour at that point while I desperately tried to get her to stop so her mom could sleep... and I went on reddit and read posts from people who hate their babies.
I'm looking at her sleeping now, and I feel so fucking sick that I searched for those posts. She's so precious, and hating her couldn't be further from the truth. I created this situation for myself. It's myself that I hate and my stupid fucking brain that can't think like a normal human being.
We took baby to the ER after the fall and the doctor looked her over extensively and said she's fine.
I just can't get over the fact that a) I let the fall happen in the first place and b) at some point I was in a headspace where I thought it was ok to read about experiences of people hating their baby in some twisted sense of camaraderie.
Do you guys think that is just an issue I should discuss with my health anxiety therapist? Or is there enough here that I should start speaking to a postpartum depression therapist too?