Dear Thyroid^TM

Dear Thyroid,

I am 19, an age that’s supposed to be one of the most memorable of my life. I should be starting university, going out with my friends, having my first relationships, starting an independent life on my own, and generally enjoying life… except I can’t. Because of you, ever since I was 15, I’ve had to watch my youth pass me by. Because of you, I almost never have any energy to go out, not even to the cinema. Because of you, I have bouts of depression, so frequent that even my wonderful, supportive and caring friends are, despite themselves, getting sick of all my cancellations, rants and crying attacks. I know they’re fed up, though they try hard not to show it. They struggle to understand me, they want to include me and they feel bad for leaving me behind. You’re messing with their lives too.

My family, on the other hand, gave up on me a long time ago. Sometimes they ignore me, sometimes they yell, but mostly they laugh at my “hypochondriac ways”. But they never listen, and they certainly never try to understand. But because of you I’m dependent on them, because my energy levels are so fucking low some days I can barely cook some pasta for myself without feeling like I’m about to collapse. So much for independence.

This is why I missed my graduation ceremony, my school’s graduation trip to Portugal, and my favourite cousin’s wedding. This is also why I’m not starting university, and I don’t know if I ever will, despite all my ambitions and dreams. This is why, instead of planning a promising future and believing I could achieve something with my life, I’m now wondering if I’ll ever manage to hold any sort of job and be able to support myself.

You, and your stupid Hashimoto’s disease, are also the reason why I’m always afraid of shitting myself in public. I can’t even begin to count the times I’ve had to leave a party to go home to wash and change or how many times I’ve had to make chit-chat with people, all the while worrying whether they can smell that something is wrong. You have no idea how humiliating it is just to type this, let alone having to live through it every day. How mortifying it is having this as your reality. How painful it is when shame and fear become an everyday thing for you.

Because of you, I have to listen to my friends talk about their relationships and hate myself for envying them. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I might never have a relationship of my own. Not even a fling. And no, it’s not even because I’m too tired for one, or too busy thinking about grown-up diapers. It’s because I haven’t had a hint of sex drive in 4 years. I’ve never even been able to enjoy a kiss, let alone anything more serious. Because of you, that is exactly what I had to explain while I was rejecting the person I’d been desperately in love with for ages, when he miraculously told me he was in love with me too. Because of you, any sort of romance is basically off-limits to me, and I just have to suffer, standing at the sidelines.

You’ve made me hate my life. What’s left of it, anyway. At the tender age of 19, you’ve made me angry, bitter, disillusioned and desperate. You’ve made me contemplate suicide while my friend were contemplating university choices. I still take my Armour, and my iron, and my vitamins every day. I still try to keep some hope alive. But even if one day something changes for the better, I know that I’ll never be the person I was. I know that I’ll never get my youth back.

P.S.  I wish I could have made my letter to you somewhat more light, at least a bit more humourous. I do joke about my unusual ”lifestyle” with my friends sometimes, when I have the energy. But I have to admit, when I’m alone, I don’t find it all that funny. I think that I might have had a sense of humour a long time ago and that you robbed me of it, just like you robbed me of just about everything else in life. But then again, you know, I can’t really be sure, what with all the brain fog and everything.

Yours unfortunately,

Luci

(Bio) I’m a fresh-out-of-high-school would-be hedonist, trying to find some purpose and stability in my chaotic life. I want to be a doctor (yeah, I know), and hope that someday I’ll actually get a chance to try. Or at least a chance to move out of my parents’ place. I’ve been fighting with hypo and Hashimoto’s since I was 15, and though I’m not as courageous in doing so as some of you, I still haven’t given up.