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Thyme For Literary Healing: What Have You Done To Find Your Way Back To Yourself?
Katie here…
I have spent my entire life being able to write my way back to myself and out of situations; meaning, the more I wrote, the more I discovered about myself, or the situation, whatever it was. I used to believe that I could write my way out of everything. I realize that was naive, really I do. Pre-Graves, it worked. When I wrote, everything was right in the world again. My canvas was a blank MS Word doc or a writing software. Whether I was writing a project or an essay, essentially, I was writing my way back to myself; fiction or non-fiction.
Prior to being diagnosed, when my body was betraying me, I used to write wicked essays about what was happening. The more feverish the words flew from my fingertips, the faster I thought I’d heal. Once diagnosed, I wrote scathing Dear Thyroid Letters, hundreds of them, believing that I could heal my disease by writing my way out of it.
I know we can’t write our way out of our diseases, obviously. While it took a bit of time for me to reach that conclusion, it didn’t stop me from writing and hoping, and wishing with every ounce of my being, that once I closed my document, I would be healed. The pain and destruction I endured and put my family through would be nothing more than a nightmare.
Today’s literary healing is about YOUR canvas.
- When you realized you had your disease or cancer, what did you do?
- What did you think would happen as a result of what you did?
- Did you believe that you could heal yourself?
- When you realized that you couldn’t, how did you feel about that?
Ready? Set. Write.
Tags: creative outlets for disease management, healing and managing disease, healing through words and writing, literary healing, Thyme For Literary Healing: What Have You Done To Find Your Way Back To Yourself?, thyroid blog, Thyroid Bloggers, thyroid cancer healing, thyroid community, thyroid support
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10 Responses to “Thyme For Literary Healing: What Have You Done To Find Your Way Back To Yourself?”
Leave a Reply to Donna
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I believe that my biggest issue was realizing that I had a disease to begin with. My affliction has always been that I thought I was indestructable, that I could overcome all and that there was nothing to big for me to overcome or conquer on my own. I have spent my entire life overcoming many obstacles and made it my personal mission to never let anything get in my way. However, the sicker I got the more I began to realize that there was truly a problem. Unfortunately, my choice was to work harder and push myself through the confusion and pain. I honestly didn’t think I would get as sick as I have become and thought that the harder I worked to overcome how I was feeling, the quicker I could heal myself (without the help of anyone else, of course). When it got to be too much to handle- when I could no longer get out of bed, make it through a day without tears, play with my children, etc.- is when I finally gave up and made a doctors appt. I am angry and feel defeated. I have been a guinea pig over the last several months and have been diagnosed with quite a few terrifying diseases and disorders I never even knew existed. I physically feel worse than I did when I finally walked into my doctors office and none of my doctors seem to agree on anything. Incredibly frustrated.
I know, after reading some of your posts here, that there will be a day – hopefully soon- when I will start to feel better. I am incredibly happy for those who do. I am still stubborn and determined to beat this somehow, maybe thats what keeps me going.
It has made me feel better to type this out. Wow. Thank you.
Jill,
I felt invincible too, until the Graves symptoms started. It is so incredibly frustrating to not be able to fix this stuff ourselves. It is in my nature to “fix everything” so I hear you. I can just tell you to learn everything you can about what they have diagnosed you with. Go to them prepared, with questions.
Write it all out, it does help.
Amanda
Amanda,
Thanks so much for the encouragement. I really don’t know where that all came from but I sure felt better after getting it all out. I guess being honest with yourself is the first step in the healing process. I am happy I found Dear Thyroid.
Jill
Jill,
We are happy you are here. Accepting chronic illness has a process very grieving…
1-Denial
2-Anger
3-Bargaining
4-Depression
5-Acceptance
I am fluctuating between Anger and Acceptance.
Amanda
Aww, Jill. I feel your words deep inside of me. There will be a day when you get a grip on all of this and start to feel better. The process is a pain but so worth it. I wish you the best. I know you can get there from here.
My answers are:
1. Being diagnosed with follicular thyroid cancer made me determined to beat it by keeping my eye of the prize and getting through the process. Realizing that I had thyroid disease after the fact took me longer to digest, like three years longer. I wasted too much time attributing all my feeling crappy to everything but my thyroid meds not doing the job properly.
2. I thought that staying focused on the cancer free prize would then allow me to live a better life. I did not realize the thyroid disease part at that point, was too intent on being cancer free and living my life through rose colored glasses.
3. I did not believe I could heal myself but I did believe that the surgeon and then endo would heal me and life would be grand after. NOT! They were and are great, it was me living in denial that was the root of the problem.
4. When I realized that I would have to live with this disease and it could quite possibly take me down, like dying a slow death would, I woke the fuck up and got some help. That help came from Dear Thyroid (each and every one of you) and then from me choosing to help myself by being educated about thyroid disease, finding a new doctor that would listen, and starting the process of always being in tune to what my body is trying to tell me whether I like what it is saying or not.
So far, so good. Far from perfect so don’t be jealous, lol! I’m hyper to the max and it too is a slow process but after all is said and done it has been a learning process as well. Life is a learning process and this one has changed my life in a way I never envisioned.
My canvas is bright and shiny new with lots of good things waiting to be put on it.
Donna,
In number 4 you have written: “…starting the process of always being in tune to what my body is trying to tell me whether I like what it is saying or not.” This is SO where I am right now. I am doing my best to learn what is going on with my body by how I FEEL. And I am making progress. To me this is very important. Thanks for your post!
-Deb
Donna,
Thank you for the kind words. Living in denial was also the root of my issues and I am finally starting to get over myself. I have to laugh at me sometimes, it tends to help.
I have found a bit of relief in Dear Thyroid, just in the short time since I have found everyone here.
I am happy that you are “so far so good”. I think that improvement, in any sense, is spectacular! Good luck to you.
Jill
When you realized that you couldn’t, how did you feel about that?
This question eats at me every single day. I have “fixed” everything that has gone wrong in my life. Financial Ruin? Worked it out! Parent a challenging child? Doing daily. Gutted an ancient house? ME! Morbidly obese? Lost it. Overcome depression? Retrained my brain, thank you. Graves Disease? NO CURE. NO CURE. NEVER GOES AWAY. FOREVER.
How do I feel? Pissed right the hell off.
Amand
Amanda,
I couldn’t have said it better myself! LOL
Jill
Hi Deb, so happy you are making progess. Knowledge is power and now that I know that these levels are out of whack I can do something about it. In some ways I feel lucky because I remember now who I was and I’m getting some of that back as opposed to sitting here and accepting this as my destiny. I remember being healthy and I may never be 100% but I will be better than I was. Finding a great internist helped immensely. You can do it 🙂
Jill,
It is so easy to live in denial especially when you don’t feel well enough to do anything about it. It took me a long time to accept that I have thyroid disease and I am responsible for managing the process. I feel foolish that I wasted so much time. My family paid a hefty price because of my inability to directly attribute all my symptoms to my levels being out of whack. I made the mistake of going with the flow, I never questioned only getting my bloodwork done once a year. I figured my endo knew best even though I knew better. Reading here made a huge difference for me and for that I will be forever grateful. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I agree that we have to laugh at ourselves but that too takes time. All of us can get to a better place, not a perfect place but a better place. We just have to do the work even if we resent it.
Amanda, it sucks to know you can’t fix it. I get it. We all basically have a forever disease and that’s hard to swallow. Some people are more fortunate than others with respect to managing their symptoms. It amazes me that some people really do just fine with thyroid replacement meds after cancer. I often wonder if they are really being honest with themselves because I know I wasn’t. Good for them, I just hope they realize what symptoms of being hyper or hypo are so they can react if necessary. You amaze me with all you have accomplished and I can’t imagine you not getting to the best possible place you can be.
All of us can improve and some days are going to be better than others. We can’t fix it 100% to our liking which is unfortunate but we can choose to not let it take us down. I almost surrendered but now that my head is clear the rest of me is a little happier. It all goes hand in hand.
Donna