The absolute worst decision in my life was just making one search. 
“Headache,” I searched. The one a person might get from playing football or another physical sport. As if a hammer continuously lightly struck the skull. However, I was at home. Still, an easily explainable circumstance. I had been up all night looking at a computer screen listening to loud sounds. Still, something did not feel right. And there lay my phone, next to me in bed. 
Glioblastoma is what came up. A fast and aggressive type of brain tumor. Of course, I did not have cancer. However, in my brain, neurons were firing at that very moment. 
Do I have cancer? 
The earth collapsed beneath me. The only thing holding me from getting sucked into a black hole is the safety of my bed. 
“This cannot be right,” I whimpered. Why am I feeling this way? I am not going to die. But I kept on scrolling and scrolling through more diseases I could possibly have. Just me and my phone on my bed researching through hundreds of illnesses with each possible one I have counting down the years or months I have left to live. 20 years, 10 years, 6 months, 4 weeks. I would see something off about my body, maybe a slight pain or even just a mole. However, what would come back to me when I would search it were the most horrific diseases. I cannot stop thinking I am ill, damaged. One day it is skin cancer, another day it is a brain eating amoeba. None of these are even real, it is all in my head, fabricated from my imagination. 
Hypochondria is what they call it. The fear of illness. It does not feel like a fear however, just a constant headache, an itch in my brain that has gotten worse, a constant headache. 
I know it sounds idiotic, just stop thinking about it. You are just being dramatic. But I have been telling myself that the whole summer, and I cannot seem to grasp that idea. 
The clock, whirring around in my room, sitting on my dresser. It has been days. I have barely eaten, barely even got out of the protection of my bed. Just me, researching on my phone, in bed. I cannot get off either of them. Screens are the only friends I have these days, even though they are the ones causing what I am feeling from all the research I am doing. 
I am miserable. Going in an endless cycle of reassurance, then doubting my reassurance. My parents have noticed. I told them, they reassured me, I doubted them. Like I said, an endless cycle. I know they are right, but I do not feel right. Death would feel like a blessing now. 
The entire world around me has become an abyss. Me and my phone floating through it on my bed. Time is getting slower. I know nothing that I am researching is true, but my brain cannot seem to grasp that. 
“I’m dying,” I think to myself. 
This mental illness has consumed me, dissolving me. Every website link is now purple, visited by a past version of me, revisited by the present, and soon to be reviewed in the near future. I have not eaten in weeks; however, hunger keeps chasing me. Killing me from the inside out, my brain, my consciousness. 
The process to recovery was slow and painful. It is the end of summer. 104 days of this endless torture that no one else seemed to get. 104 days of constant torment while staying silent. After 104 days of people thinking I am being overdramatic, crazy, the world is starting to rebuild. I have started going out more, eating more, trying different things. Anything I can do to get out of this infinite thought spiral, one with no escape or end. I envy those who during the summer were worrying about school. I was not imagining going into 9th grade I would be thinking, I am dying.