I’m absolutely in bits and have convinced myself I’ve got melanoma.

I’ve had a mole on my ribcage (an area where I was sunburnt badly as a child) for about 13 years. I’ve never liked it and mentioned it to the doctor 11 years ago who said it was fine and probably dark because of pregnancy skin changes (I was pregnant at the time which is why I remember when I asked about it). Since then I've kept an eye on it for any changes. Whilst it was dark, to my eye it appeared to have smooth edges and hasn’t grown, changed colour and is just under 6mm. 

Then a few weeks ago it started to get itchy and when scratched it bled so thought I better get it checked. The doctor I saw on last week seemed really concerned about how dark it was and showed me the microscopic picture, where to my horror I could see that it wasn’t one colour at all, but had varying shades of dark brown and tan and the edges weren’t smooth either (I suppose with the size and location I couldn’t see this clearly). 

The doctor kept on saying it was an “ugly duckling” and needed to be checked by a dermatologist. I said I was very concerned I’ve had this at least a decade and they just said not to worry about it and it'll be cut off if they're concerned. 

After googling it appears “ugly duckling” moles are likely to be melanoma and I’ve been in tears about it all afternoon. I’ve had this mole for over 10 years and have convinced myself it’s going to have spread everywhere and I’m going to leave my three children with no mother.
 

Another thing that’s terrifying me is that when looking up threads about this to try and calm myself down, I kept on coming across posts saying things like “get it checked out straight away, my friend/relative left theirs for two years and it didn’t end well for him”/"I got it checked straight away and thank god it was caught early" - I’ve had this mole for over a decade. I’m absolutely devastated and can’t calm down about it. I’m so angry with myself for not pushing to have it checked properly when I first saw it and for accepting the original doctor's nonchalant response.