[FryingPan]

#1060150

Sometimes I get the date confused on when I was diagnosed with Grave’s Disease. The only reason I remember is because I wrote about it as a blog post. January 15th, 2009-I like to be precise about dates and times.

Precision. That kind of a trait becomes elusive after a diagnosis like that, doesn’t it? I’m suddenly off time, coloring outside lines, and not following instructions of a recipe to exact detail.

My brain slowly became a huge wad of wet cotton; memories turned soft and damp.

And then the dampness of the cotton weighed down my body. I grew slower, weaker, and the more exhaustion I felt, the more short-tempered I became. I wanted to wring the cotton of the water, so it could be light and dry, easy to carry, but it was such a daunting task. I felt overly exhausted-annoyingly-angered by everything.

I wasn’t in an ideal situation when all these changes started to happen. I was on the brink of losing my education, my insurance, and a few other things. Stress stacked against me and I crashed hard. I did lose my education, my insurance, my job…I lost everything except for a place to sleep. And with all these symptoms piling on top of me, I thought I had lost my mind too. Those who I told about how I felt didn’t think it was something to be taken seriously. It was stress, it was unhealthy eating habits, you’re being overly dramatic, stop whining, they said. I started to believe them and thought it was in my head. That’s until I got diagnosed.

Grave’s Disease beat me down like a bad summer heatwave-one of the reasons why I dislike summer, the heat slows me down still, and I ache and itch everywhere on hot days.

It took a little more than two years of being hyper and hypothyroid, experiencing constant mood swings, and hallucinations from the medications to have normal thyroid levels, and after a period of quiet, I feel like I’m crashing again. My eyes feel like they’re about to pop out of my eye sockets, they’re usually swollen, and I’m overly exhausted again. I won’t know anything definitive until I get my tests results back next week.

All I know is that I’ve been intensely stressed these past months due to changes at my current job and difficult issues with family.

What makes it worse is that I don’t have anyone I can really open up to about this in my family, and I don’t feel comfortable telling my friends anything since I feel like a burden. It’s one thing to tell someone how you’re feeling; it’s another thing for them to grasp your meaning.

So I reverted to crafts, drawing, and writing to relieve stress, to exercise a sense of purpose, but I find myself losing interests in these things when I’m usually intensely passionate about them. All I do these days is cry and sit because I feel really lost and alone in this.

I’ve been inverting all that stress within myself. It feels like 2009 all over again.

What do you do to relieve stress from the changes Grave’s disease leaves? I want to relate to someone on this, because I always feel like that only person who missed the boat at the day’s end. Everyone gets to ride together and I get left behind.

[Ski]

#1180767

Hi FryingPan,

I’m so sorry you’re having trouble again, and we DO understand here, so it’s the right place to come and vent. We’ve all been there, certainly. As Jake says — warriors! I can sense that warrior spirit in you, and it’s in the tears just as much as the times you suck it up and do what you need to do. We need our entire emotional spectrum to deal with this one, as you well know. Forgive yourself for needing your own space to feel better.

I’m not entirely clear about your chosen treatment — if you’ve been having a stressful time, it has the potential to throw things out of whack, for sure. It’s good that you’ve had tests done to find out exactly where you stand, because I find that not knowing what’s happening is almost worse than feeling ill.

Of course, a stressful time plus new symptoms is more difficult exponentially, so I really do hope you are creating some type of solace for yourself. I’m so sorry to hear that the crafts and creativity fell flat for you! Sometimes a symptom of hyPOthyroidism is just not caring about things, so perhaps that’s where you’ll find your levels have gone (slightly one side or the other of normal can feel VERY similar). Again, I’m glad you’ve got tests being run. Once you know what you need to do to bring your levels back into the normal range, hopefully you’ll feel at least a little better very quickly, then the spiral can start working its way back up.

Hang in!!

[Author]

Posts