Reassurance is a drink that makes you thirsty
Don't build your house on quicksand
I'm a professional-grade reassurance seeker. But not in the way you might think.
Big life decisions that send people spinning don’t give me pause. Choosing a career path, or picking an apartment, or saying yes to forever with someone? I trust myself to make the right calls for me. This trust has led to so many beautiful parts of my life: being a mid-western girl living in California, marrying an incredible guy I met in a random comedy class, and working for the wildest tech companies.
But when it comes to health anxiety, my resolve dissolves.
The time when my health anxiety was epic levels of bad, I’d developed an elaborate network of reassurance sources that probably should have qualified as a side hustle.
My physicians’ offices knew my voice. My Google search history read like a medical textbook index. I consulted AI chatbots, compared symptoms on countless forums, and texted doctor friends at 2 AM. You name it, I've chased it in my quest for certainty.
Fellow reassurance seekers, does this diversification strategy sound familiar? It’s because you know you can't go back to the same well too often or else the reassurer goes dry.
"Didn't we just talk about this yesterday?" they'll say, "Your headache still isn't brain cancer.”
So you get creative, spreading your anxiety across multiple channels. You cycle through the channels, never dwelling on one long enough to reveal the truth: you are scared.
Avoiding this truth though creates an emotional cycle that drains everyone involved. People offer you genuine comfort, you accept it for approximately five seconds, your brain dismantles the reassurance, and you are left with fear. When you come back for comfort it’s hard for them to understand why.
You’ve already been reassured. What more do you need?
The truth is, external reassurance will never satiate the anxious mind. Every "you're fine" comes with an invisible asterisk that anxiety is happy to explain.
Even when a doctor gives me a clean bill of health, my mind start spinning: Were they distracted? Did they miss something? Did I explain my symptoms properly? The certainty I’m chasing evaporates before I even leave the parking lot.
Here's what I'm slowly learning: reassurance isn't something others can give us. It's not hidden in a perfect medical explanation or a friend's comforting words. Real reassurance only comes from believing that the core of who we are - that unchanging essence at the center of our being - will remain steady no matter what storms come our way.
Belief in your fundamental okay-ness is the answer you are seeking. If reassurance is a drink that makes your thirsty, belief is the drink that quenches your deep thirst.
There's no combination of words from the outside world that can match the power of telling ourselves "I'm OK" and actually believing it. It sounds simple, almost too simple, but that's the truth I keep bumping into: the reassurance I've been searching for is found within.
So how do you start to believe that things are OK?
Get in touch with your indelible core
Try noting to navigate fearful thoughts
Remember that fear doesn’t drive you
Deep breath, you’re doing great. Not that you need me to tell you.