The Diagnosis You Gave Yourself

It starts with a tight feeling in the chest,

a tingling in the fingers—small things, nothing, surely.

But the phone's in my hand and I'm typing

and the internet knows more than I do.

Anxiety, it says. Panic attack.

But also: blood clot, heart attack, nerve damage,

some disease with a name so rare

they had to invent a medical code for it.

Twenty minutes and I'm convinced

I'm dying of something specific.

The internet has shown me pictures—

diseased tissue, inflamed organs, the terrible

mechanics of the body going wrong.

My fingers tingle more now. My chest is definitely tight.

The internet was right. I'm a case study waiting to happen.

I close the browser but the knowledge won't close.

My body feels different now that I know

what could be wrong with it.

The tightness is worse because I've named it.

The tingling is persistent because I've seen

what persistent tingling means.

An hour passes. I'm still alive.

My chest is still tight.

The internet is still full of terrible reasons why.

I don't open the browser again.

I just sit with the knowledge that I've made it worse,

that I've given my body new ways to fail,

new names for old sensations,

new reasons to be afraid of what's inside me.