DEAR THYROID^TM

Dear Thyroid;

I am told you look like a butterfly, fluttering imperceptibly at the base of my neck. I imagine you pretty, delicate, in slightly iridescent shades of pink. Who couldn’t love such a thing of beauty? You’ve been with me faithfully for 45 years; I imagine you joined me even before that, in my mother’s womb. In truth, I never paid you much heed, my constant companion, until a few years ago, when it became official that you were refusing to work with me any longer. I thought I had taken good care of you, along with all the other parts of my body: I eat ridiculously well, I exercise, I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs;

So what gives? Do you have any idea what life has been like for me in the past decade? yes, decade, even if you only were caught sleeping at the wheel three years ago, I have been suffering for over ten years from your dozing off and have all the records to prove it. Do you have any idea of the supreme suckiness that has been my life? Do you have any idea how many times I have wanted to end it all? Do you have any idea what it means for a 36 year-old woman to be told that her fatigue and weight gain and hair loss and depression are incontrovertible signs of impending menopause? Do you have any idea what it means for this woman to be told to give up on having the child she so immensely desires with the man she so immensely loves because of that only to learn, when it is too late, that it was not menopause? Do you have any idea what it means for a teacher to forget words in mid-sentence in front of a class? To forget basic facts of her topic of expertise and draw a complete blank at the simplest of questions? Do you have any idea what it means to pass out, literally pass out from exhaustion on the floor of your office, even with regular 10-hour sleep nights? Do you have any idea what it means to watch yourself cut your own hand while making supper and not having the energy to stop yourself? Do you have any idea what it means to be so terrified of your own out-of-it-ness that you don’t dare cross a street on your own, let alone drive? Do you have any idea of what it feels like to put on weight while you are starving yourself, and see the spark vanish from your husband’s eyes when he looks at you—and who could blame him, honestly? Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to hear time and again that it is all in your head, and get over it already learn to live with it, and go talk to (yet another) shrink?

I went to the shrink; I took the meds even when they didn’t work; I gave it time; I took drugs that split my head with raging migraines; I cut a million foods from my diet; I ingested so many supplements that I rattled like a maraca. And still; How much longer must I take it?

You may be pretty and lovely and everything, but I swear to you, dear Thyroid, I’ll take you down with me. If I don’t win this one, we’ll both lose and you won’t be the wiser for it.

Yours truly,

Vera

(Bio) “Vera Leblanc lives with her slacker of a thyroid in the middle of nowhere, NY. When she finds her way out of her brain-fog, she writes and she teaches. Most of the times these days she succeeds at neither, and she is getting mightily tired of it…

Tags: Dear Thyroid Letters, thyroid autoimmune support for families, thyroid community for thyroid patients, Thyroid disease support, Thyroid Family Letters, thyroid family support, thyroid literary healing, thyroid literary support, Thyroid patient letters, thyroid support

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