OCD? Hypochondria? Severe Anxiety?

i'm having a hard time dealing with this. i need an opinion badly, so i have an idea of what i'm dealing with here.

i'm having a hard time even writing this. this isn't *anywhere* other than inside my head. it's just killing me.

thinking about it today, i've come to the realization that i must be a hypochondriac. however, i don't think i am in the typical sense. i don't really think i'm dying or have cancer. i believe my fear actually stems from a horrible thought process i've traced all the way back to when i was 18 (i'm 24 now)...

when i was 18, i had 2 encounters in which i had unprotected sexual contact... i won't go into details, but in one situation i felt as though i was putting myself in a bad position and quickly got out of it, and in the other, i made the mistake of letting my guard down, and the contact was forced. at first, i didn't think anything of what happened... i'd been in a bad relationship and chocked my actions up to being miserable about that. i know now of course that it was stupid and it was really i who'd made the decisions to be in those situations, but that doesn't matter.

about 3 months later, i went in for a normal gyno appointment and found out i'd contracted hpv (the warts kind). i was scared out of my mind. petrified doesn't even describe it. so i treated it, and after a while the physical symptoms had gone away. i went in for tests for more std's, and they were all negative. i was elated. i didn't think about it at the time, but i realized recently (in the past 2 years) that i'd never actually consented or been given results to an hiv test. the moment this thought crossed my mind, i panicked, and have been ever since. i do not know if you are given an hiv test without your consent, but after hearing some where (some tv show or something) that they aren't allowed to test you with out your permission. i know that thought was triggered by something stupid on tv, but i can't help but wonder if it is true. i had surgery once about a year after i found out about the hpv, and am still unclear if i was tested then. i am too afraid to ask. would they tell me? it is literally debilitating when i start to think about it.

to this day i do not know what to do. i keep noticing symptoms here and there that i can't classify as normal. abnormal pap smear (assumably from the hpv, but although it isn't curable, the fact that it normally subsides with time and it hasn't yet is really bothering me), constant uncontrollable sweating on my hands, horrible dental problems (which deep down i know is my fault, i spent too long not caring for them, but every time i start thinking about this problem, i toss logic out the window on the matter), breast pain, random rashes, and, most recently, my sternum has been popping and making crunching noises when i turn my upper body.

i'm too scared to go the doctor for most things, unless it is something like depression which i'm currently being treated for (it's "situational", my dr. says), or some type of ailment that wouldn't require invasive tests or procedures (like my back pain which has been going on since i was a pre-teen, so i know at least *that* isn't related). although my last pap smears came back normal, i'm still afraid to go in for another one. i haven't had blood tests in years for fear that i'll find out i have hiv.

i am literally having strong anxiety for about 80% of my day, and i can barely meet deadlines at work because i am obsessed (i do not use the term lightly) with researching symptoms and what they could mean.

i am so scared that i have hiv. but i cannot force myself to get a test done. i know this is bad and wrong. i'm married to someone i've been with for 5 years, who knew about the hpv, and has accepted it as a minor disturbance to our life. i'm getting to the point in my life where the subject of children is coming up more and more frequently. this scares me to death. i can't stop thinking about the "what-ifs". if i get pregnant, i'd have to get hiv tested - if i get hiv tested and i'm positive, the likelihood of my continuing the pregnancy is very low - if i'm positive, the biggest thing that scares me, is that my husband almost certainly is too... he is so afraid of the disease, as am i... if he is positive, i make myself sick thinking of him leaving me or worse, taking his own life - when i think of these things, i begin to think of my own exit from the world - if i lost all those things in my life, i would surely want to end it swiftly.

at the moment i'm not suicidal, the only time i feel that way is when this thought comes up. i cannot control it. i believe that all of my depression and anxiety and stress in my life is triggered by this one notion.

you'd say the obvious route to take is to get tested and rule it out. i've tried. i truly cannot bring myself to get the test done. the fear is so strong, i know what would happen if it came back positive. obviously, if i took it and it was negative, alllll of this would melt away. but i cannot get over the hurdle. there is no way i can find out i'm positive. i've gotten myself to believe that if i don't get tested, i will never know and it will never be a problem. but i do know that there will be a time that i will need to know, and i will have to get tested then.

i do not know what to do. i'm so obsessed with this, i spend so much time researching and worrying about what's going on with my body that it's making me miserable. not a single person knows my pain, i just cannot talk about it. i fear that if someone else knows, something will happen and i'll get tested and be positive.

when i try to push the ridiculous idea out of my mind and genuinely consider the likelihood of it, i think the chances are very slim that i actually have it.

but all of these horrible things i'm obsessing over come back and tell me that i do have it.

this obsession is killing me.

Hi, schmeetwo! I think you should talk to your doctor/psych about this fear of yours, and tell him/her that the fear is the worst part, that you think it's an actual, serious, problem and that you think you might have something like hypochondria and that you need to get help for it. Tell them about how simply instructing you to get an hiv test wouldn't help, because you've already tried it. Explain things to them.
Please know that you're welcome to come here and talk any time. Let us know how you're doing!

You share some symptoms with OCD, anxiety and hypochondria, so, taking into account we are not doctors here and therefore can't tell you for sure what it is, you should talk to your doctor. Tell him/her about everything you wrote here. I can see the biggest thing there is a fear. But remember, nothing is untreatable.