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For me living with GD, every day feels like a battle. always concerned about your feelings,embarrassed when you have a mood swing or an emotional breakdown. people think your crazy and I fell like I’m crazy sometimes. then you have to explain yourself and your behavior to people who don’t understand what it feels like to have this disease. mood swings, confusion, depression, stress, irritation, crying for no reason, feeling like you want to jump out of your skin because of the way you fell inside. forget about sleep, lying in bed with a thousand thoughts all fighting for your attention, wondering if your going to lose it again tomorrow. the anxiety, always worried, seeing what inst there, blowing things out of proportion,unhappy, paranoid, not able to relax,stressed out. I feel these things more often then not, I isolate my self from people, I keep distant, and standoffish, communication is often something i have issues with. When the people around you see your behavior and point things out to you,or say something that is related to your illness you get offended because you do have issues,they call you sensitive,and wonder why you are the way you are,and so do I.
YOu know Billy,
You just described almost every person on this board at some time in their treatment and recovery. Every statement and emotion you said, I had. So I know exactly where you are coming from. From the sounds of it you are still very hyper and have not had your levels reach normal with antithyroid drugs.
We must remember we did not get sick overnight and we do not get better overnight. But getting better does happen. Little by little.
It is hard when we do not look "sick" then people expect us to act and behave like we used to. Only we are not the same. We have anger, memory loss and lack of ability to do what we used to before Graves’ disease.
But when you get your levels back to normal, you will find who your true friends were. They are the ones who still kept coming by knowing you may blow up at them or cry for no reason. The ones who took the kids for a few hours so you could try to relax. The ones who brought dinner because they knew you were not capable of cooking with all the stuff going on in your head.
If you have not found these types of friends yet, rest assured they will come.
Life will get better, we just have to have patience. One day you will wake up and realize you don’t feel bad today. It will just come with time. When it does you will try to pinpoint what day or week you felt better. You will just know that one morning you feel good.
I have been through all you have. I can truly say today, "I have Graves’ and life is good."
I have definitely felt this way before, word for word!! Its really annoying. Even sometimes the people you think should understand most just don’t! I have just been diagnosed, and have just started medication, but I really do think its getting a bit better day by day! This could be that now I know there is a fairly treatable problem, and soon I can be freed of it. I hope it gets better every day for you too.
Especially cause we might not LOOK sick! Argh that part of it I hate because people look at me and think…."OK, your playing hooky or something huh?". I just wish sometimes that I could touch someone and transfer how I am feeling to them, just for a moment, so they can understand.
So what are your outlets? What do ya’ll do to get over the mood swings? I get so worked up over nothing.
One thing I did was recognize openly — to myself and my family — that my emotional responses to things were off-kilter. I stopped trusting my emotional responses, which gave me a wee bit of space between feeling things and acting on those feelings. If you cannot trust your emotional response, you are less likely to act on the emotion. I practiced "I" messages a lot through my adult life when confronting people about emotions and that helped me when I was going through the Irrationals with Graves. Instead of "You never pick up your clothes," an "I" message is "It makes me angry to find clothes all over the floor." Well, when the Graves Irrationals hit, I could say, "I am so angry about X, but I know it isn’t your fault." It helped, if only a little, to keep my loved ones from wanting to strangle me and put me out of my misery.
None of it is easy. Just know that this, too, shall pass.
I also found that just knowing that Graves can cause irrational emotions helped prevent me from going completely bonkers. Before I was diagnosed I felt like if I was feeling this way it must be justifiable….so therefor I am right and my husband is wrong. I think I was suffering almost our whole first year of marriage. We have been together for 10 years and never fought like that! It really worried me. But, now that I know of my Graves, if I get emotional and we are arguing I stop to think of what I am saying. It usually results in me thinking: "Ok you’re crazy this isnt even a big deal." So it helps to try to think about that when you are upset, but its really hard to do.
I also found that I was calmer in general when I started reading and not watching tv. I think the constant noise drove me nuts so I read instead and its great. Way more soothing before bed the watching some tv. Ive read about 23 books since mid august!
Hi Billy,
I wouldn’t expect people to understand what we are going through with hyperthryoidism/graves. It controls every part of your body system. It controls your moods. I am hyper and I yell at people instead of taking a different approach and it pisses me off more when people tell me to be different. They do not know and will never know unless they have it. Just be patient with yourself and have faith…there is nothing wrong with you personally. I hope you get better..we all do. We just have to live with it and the people that our; our true loved ones will be there good or bad. Take care and bless you all!!!Billy,
I can completely appreciate what you are saying and I think George hit the nail on the head when he said that you have described everyone on this board at some stage in their life with GD.
I am starting to notice the effects of my mood swings prior to my op- I am out of the loop at work and I feel no one likes me ” title=”Sad” /> GD created a monster in me and although I wasn’t particularly bad with my colleagues I realise now I was probably very sharp and quick at times – this isn’t my personality normally and now I feel very isolated. Also after such a long period of illness I don’t have any social life. My life is my kids but I have lost proper touch with most friends now. However, I am looking ahead to life where I know that my thyroid can’t take over anymore as I don’t have one ” title=”Wink” /> It was the best decision I ever made in my life in regarding my health.
xxxxx
Hyperm,
Glad to hear that you are making progress. Maybe you could make a button for yourself that says Graves Disease under control now, I won’t biteI am getting there too. Finally got a dose of replacement that feels like it’s helping me cope.
Hang tough as they say….
ewmb
Ewmb,
Thanks – yeah I should get one of those buttons I am just feeling that I am regaining some control and I can’t believe how active I can be with the children now. I am able to focus ever more slightly than I did before the GD and I know that the brain fog will clear one day (I hope)!
Great to hear you are on the mend too. I read your other post about wii fit- lol us GD patients really have a hard time if we over do it eh? Will let you know how i get on xxx
Wow, reading this today is a huge help… Just having others who understand. You put all my thoughts and feelings into words. Thank you. Everyday I feel like I have to explain myself to my boyfriend, family, and co-workers. It feels like all I do is complain and talk about my disease, but if I don’t explain my irrational emotional behavior or why I am so quick tempered or slurring and jumbling my words then it’s like they forget I have this stupid disease. (Now I am not perfect and know sometimes-it’s just me and people get moody and down sometimes-it’s life…but for the most part I am very in tune when I am having a ‘bad day’ related to my Graves.) I am 29 and have had Graves for 5 years now and have gone up and down with my levels bc sometimes I get mad and think it’s all in my head and get off my Tapazole only to be reminded that I do in fact need it. Sometimes it’s easy to get so wrapped up in the symptoms that I start thinking I have made it up in my head… but I know I haven’t. The other challenge is I look very healthy, I luckily don’t battle any eye, hair or skin issues. I run 5-8 miles 2-3 times a week, but I force myself to do this. On the outside, this makes me look like I am a very healthly individual (And trust me, I know I am blessed to be able to do this!!!) But It’s almost like I have to argue my case to people to let them know I am not ok sometimes. I have had a seemingly reoccurence of my classic symptoms currently, rapid heart rate, irritablity, bowel issues, dropping things, lack of concentration, jumping out of my skin feelings and brain fog so I am guessing something is going on (I am changing endos next month). But then people see me head to the gym or go for a run but then not show for work 2 days later bc I am so anxious and just out of it and moody and exhausted and I look like a liar. But I promise more than anything I am not lying nor looking for sympathy, just understanding. Sorry, I am just rambling now-your post just really touched me. Graves has put me in such a difficult position. I was raised to be very tough-and now all I feel like I do is whine so people understand I am not being mean to them or emotional or not listening because I want to be! These behaviors are not me!!! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!! And I especially hate to complain considering my life is full of soo many blessings.
I hope you and everyone are feeling well.BMSol:
It can be really dangerous to exercise hard while hyperthyroid. The main reason is the heart, because having too much thyroid hormone causes the heart to beat too fast (and it’s inefficient when it is beating too fast), and can cause the rhythm of the heart to go wonky. Arrythmias are very dangerous.
A second reason is that the muscles do not recover as easily from exertion as they would when we are at normal levels, and we can get pulls, sprains, and shin splints.
So, when you feel like the hyper symptoms are returning, even though you are on the antithyroid medication, you should ramp down your exercise levels until you get a blood test. If you are coming off your runs exhausted for a couple of days, your body is telling you that you are doing too much for the moment.
Billy, yes, we’ve all been through those feelings and emotions at least once in our GD lives… Good news is that the mood swings get fewer and fewer between. After a couple of very emotional situations (one with my boss!!), I took the bull by the horns so to speak and now I try to step back to look at the situation outside my emotions. What I mostly find is that I’ve blown the situation way out of proportion and it’s really not that big of a deal. At times I still utter words that should not be spoken under my breath, but have learned NOT to direct them at my family, friends, or co-workers. GD has not been an easy disease for me to wrap my arms around even when I’ve been in the middle of battling it so I can’t expect those around me who aren’t living with it to understand fully either. It really doesn’t help matters that none of us look "sick" but I keep reminding myself how lucky I really am. I have a friend and co-worker who is seven years younger than I am. He and his wife have three small children and he is battling a brain tumor and praying for miracles. So yes, by putting things in perspective, I really amy lucky that I ONLY have GD. Hang in there… it does get better.
Kelly
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