Don't feel embarrassed about having anxiety. When you're anxious your brain tries to find something to feel anxious about thats why you might hypochondriac, or hyperfocus on stuff. Really important to treat the anxiety
Anxiety can totally give you IBS symptoms. It sounds like you have an axiety condition that needs to be treated. See if you can get treatment for that and some counseling to boost it. When my anxiety acts up I fret and have the same physical symptoms. Problem with anxiety is you can worry so much about being sick that you can make yourself sick. Focus on wellness topics. Read about prevention and zen meditation, positive stuff. Stay off of WebMD and don't go looking for pictures of various STD's on the internet because you don't have any STD's ;) Take care
The specks of pepper are bits of fiber that didn't digest. I've had colon cancer and actually took some stool in for testing. My Gastro assured me the 'pepper specs' were not at all concerning. He said if you could press on them and they smeared and looked like blood, then he'd be concerned but the hard specs are normal.
Sounds like anxiety.