Some Rights Reserved
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
United States License.
Glanditude – Love, Hate, Love, Hate… Love
Dear Thyroid,
You screwed up my entire life. When you decided to let my body shut down, I almost lost everything. I almost dropped out of school, lost my job, my friends; and my boyfriend dumped me because he didn´t want to deal with my crazy thyroid anymore.
My whole life turned into a mess. Sleeping became my number one activity, and I alienated myself from everyone in my life.
I got depressed, and I just didn´t know what to do anymore. Doctors told me I was alright and all I needed were some anti-depressants, and some exercise to feel better. Well, the anti-depressants weren´t much help. And how am I supposed to exercise when I can barely get up in the morning?
I cried a lot during that time, didn´t attend any classes, never went out, didn´t eat (and still didn´t lose any weight).
I was on the verge of giving up. But, before I finally threw in the towel, I made one last desperate attempt to try and find out what was wrong with me.
I went to see an endocrinologist and finally got the diagnosis: Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis (probably been dealing with it for about 10 years)
Now, my symptoms finally had a name. And, if you know the name of something, it gets a lot easier to fight it; hence, you know what you are dealing with. And that’s exactly what I did.
I started dealing with all the craziness you’ve caused.
Google was my first stop. I educated myself as good as possible.
I browsed through countless web pages, read books, everything just because of you. I really tried to make us work, tried to understand why you turned against me.
That was about eight months ago.
It took me some time to realize why you decided to take one last turn against me after slowly and quietly fading away for years.
You made me realize that I have to put myself first and focus on what is good for me, instead of trying to please everyone around me.
You gave me a chance to find out what I want to do with my life and appreciate the little things even more than ever before.
You turned me into a different person. I am no longer afraid to fight for what I want, and I am now closer to being the person I want to be than ever before in my life.
You brought so many amazing, inspiring people in my life I would never have meet while being my old self.
Thank you for what you did to me! You changed my life, and even though I still have to deal with a lot of awful symptoms, I would not want to go back to my old life.
Christina
Tags: Dear Thyroid Letters, Hashimoto's letters, hashimoto's thyroiditis, hashimotos misdiagnoses, hashimotos support community, hypothyroid misdiagnoses, hypothyroid patient issues, hypothyroid support
Follow Dear Thyroid on Twitter/@DearThyroid | See our Facebook Page | Become a Fan on Facebook | Join our Facebook Group
You Can Create a Dear Thyroid Profile and share with friends!
Reader Feedback
29 Responses to “Glanditude – Love, Hate, Love, Hate… Love”
Leave a Reply to Joanna Isbill
Comments are moderated in an effort to control spam. If you have a previously approved Comment, this one should go right through. Thanks for your patience!
That sounds so true. The only thing I feel like it is controlling me now. Thank you.
Christina – Love your letter. I think it’s incredible that you’ve been able to find the upside of life in the gland canyon. Bravo.
xo
Hey Christina,
Thank you so much for sharing your story. And what a brave and inspiring person you are yourself – and I can testify that because I have had the honour of meeting you in person. Keep fighting and don’t give up, although I know it can seem so very hard at times. I truly believe that chronic illness teaches us a whole lot of things and if we let it, it can help us become a better person too – one who is more empathic, knowledgeable and eager to help others. You are a brave soul. Bleib so wie Du bist! (Stay as you are)
Love,
Sarah
Faith – I so relate to where you’re at in your thyroid journey; “the gland controlling me instead of you/we controlling it”. What steps have you taken to control your gland, if anything?
Believe me, I know it ain’t easy, kid.
Hi Sarah;
I didn’t know that you and Christina met, that’s awesome! A little Dear Thyroid meet up?
Beautiful show of support.
xo
I love your story! Thank you for sharing it. It’s so encouraging to read that something good can come out of this enervating mess!
Thank you for all your support Katie.
I would never have made it rhough all this without Dear Thyroid. Such a great source of strength and inspiration!
Hi Sarah.
Thank you so much for reading my letter and sharing your thoughts.
I never thought that there could be anything good about this disease and it took me quite a while to realize, what it had done for me not just to me.
I know you are aware of what I am talking about because you had to experience a lot of this yourself.
The support here on DT was such an inspiration and I am really thankful I found this community.
Looking forward to meeting you again soon.
Love,Christina
Love,Christina
Elizabeth,thank you for reading my letter.I felt like I had to come up with something positive to make me feel better,because in my opinion always focusing on the bad sides doesn´t do you any good.
Elizabeth – I love what you wrote; you’re so right! I think it’s incredible that Christina has gotten to such a positive, kind of healing place with her thyroid disorder. Very proud of the girl 🙂
Love it – the perfect attitude!
Christina, I love your letter! I’m so glad you shared some more of your story. You have a beautiful outlook and you are so very encouraging and inspiring!
xoxo,
Joanna
Thank you Joanna.
I really appreciate your support.
Hey Christina,
Can’t wait to see you again too and finally meet your hamster:-).
Katie
Christina and I live amazingly close to each other, so we met a few months back along with Corey. I was so surprised that someone on DT lived comparably “just round the corner”.
Love,
Sarah
Lady Sarah — That is AMAZING. Please, please, please let’s do a write up re: your Dear Thyroid meet up, if you’re up for that. I am so happy you two live near each other, you can’t imagine. Offline support is so important.
Ah, very happy.
xo
Fuzzy Thyroid Brain ( I will always love your name because it is so painfully true.
100% agreed, Christina’s attitude is great. I think every thyroid story is important. We learn from each, and see that there are steps; this is a process. We don’t heal overnight. Finding our way back to ourselves takes time.
Thanks for your comment and support.
xo
Joanna, totally agreed, my sweet!
xo
Funny you should call me Lady Sarah – I have a picture that Corey should be posting soon of us as Lady Sarah and Lord Corey – I’ll keep you posted;-). I’ll talk to Christina and Corey to see if they have any ideas what we could write. Truth be told, the first meetup was a while back, so that I can’t remember exactly what we did other than that I was hoping for warm weather and froze all day, so we went for hot chocolate. We are meeting up again in three weeks’ time.
Love,
Sarah
PS: As we’re going to be visiting my family in Hull end of October/beginning of November, I have talked to a few of my dear thyrella friends about a possible meet-up. If anyone else is interested in joining us, they are more than welcome. I guess if this gets off the ground, I can calendarise it and post it on FB nearer the time.
Christina, what a positive outlook you have! So proud of you for fighting back and accepting who you are now. It is something that I am still struggling with. Kudos for your positivity and your VICTORY!!!!!
What a great and inspiring letter. I can totally relate to all of this. Even though I have never met you or a lot of people on here but I consider all of you my friends.
Can really identify, thanks for sharing and I wish you good health and happiness 🙂
Melanie, I have often said that some of my thyfriends have been better friends that some of my real-life friends, so I totally second that statement!
What a beautiful story, Christina. Thanks for sharing you. I’m so glad you took control and you are where you are today. You are an inspiration! I think we all eventually become acutely attuned to the changes this disease can cause in each of us, which teaches us our limits and what we need to do to take care of ourselves. It does make life easier once we get past that hurdle. You should be very proud of what you have accomplished, and still are! I am♥
Great letter Christine!!
And if you and Sarah meet in the middle, then please say hello to the Cologne cathedral for me. Habe ein manchmal ein wenig Heimweh.
HD
Hey HD,
I used to live just outside of Cologne. I assume you’ve climbed the cathedral? It’s pretty tough, isn’t it? This time we are slated to meet up in Bonn. Last time, Christina came to D’dorf and met our cat, so this time we are coming to Bonn to meet her hamster;-).
Christina – what an amazing story! I love how you’re seeing the positive in all this. I fully believe we can make a choice after the mess our lives become from thyroid disease – to either move on better people, or let our bodies take us down. I love your outlook on it, very inspiring.
It takes a lot of courage to write this Christina and to put your whole self out there. I’m really happy for you that you are not allowing it to take over your life. You are so wonderfully positive. 🙂
Beautiful! Your courage and zest for life is admirable. Keep it up…many more good things are on their way 🙂