Check please

So I am not allowing myself to check today. This means no Internet searching–I will not be able to spend hours looking at moles and melanoma on the Internet, or afternoons spent reading the posts in discussion groups where doctors frightened of liability counsel patients on their medical complaints. Usually for each post there are another 10 posts saying that happens to me to. I will not be able to read first hand accounts about been diagnosed with HIV or cancer, after reading them usually I get this feeling on dread in my stomach. Does my leg tingle?

No checking also means staying out of the mirror. No contourting and stretching to see my whole body. I will not touch my belly button over and over untill my partner tells me to stop.

Tomorrow, I will allow myself these shameful compulsive pleasures. One day soon I will be finished with them. The Internet will no longer be a mine field for anxiety. A trip to the bathroom one day will be just to go to the bathroom, not to inspect my moles, poke at my stool and spit into the sink and check the colour.

One day at a time.