‘I couldn’t sit still, I couldn’t be on my own’: how I coped with my crippling anxiety
Near the beginning this sentence appears:
I was told I had endometriosis and an underactive thyroid, and this completely wrong-footed me.
Then, so far as I could see, no further mention of thyroid. I don't think we find out if that, or the endometriosis, was treated. Looks as if they were mentioned as blind alleys.
She'll probably never read that though, as she is likely following her own advice:
Stay off the internet. Stay off the internet. Stay off the internet. Instead, buy Brian Dillon’s Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives. The introduction is like a balm for troubled nerves.
(If she isn't following that advice, she could be being somewhat hypocritical... Oh - she has her own website!)
A therapist told me that too - glad I ignored him and got great help and education here 😉 as if acquiring knowledge is dangerous or something, advice like that is akin to medieval book burning and closing public libraries to my mind. Believing my multitude of symptoms were hypochondria nearly killed me.
I have a cousin who has had terrible health since her late teens, a long period bed bound, a very active few years, and now back in a wheelchair and deteriorating every year - I suspect thyroid issues, or some form of thyroid hormone resistance. She still has no diagnosis
Anyway, when I first became ill she told me not to go on the Internet and read up about things. I never could figure out the reasoning. I think it's supposed to be upsetting and set your mind racing?
Sometimes on this forum we get posters who gave been self-medicating out of control, or looking for obscure solutions but haven't had basic blood tests done. I think this is the fantasy people have when they advise against going on the Internet and reading. They imagine you'll surf to the first page, read that, and believe everything it says ? Or that it can be upsetting and confusing?
Another version of the internet prohibition is, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing". In the case of thyroid endocrinologists, I would have to agree.
To me it sounds like she was told she is hypochondriac and she bought that.
I remember when I fell ill I was told it's anxiety and I bought it. I believed it as it was doctor telling me so.
I started to behave like anxious person. I was scared of EVERYTHING! Even going to a shower took me so much energy. I feared I would collapse.
Then one day I just refused to believe I was hypochondriac and what do you know, all type of deficiencies turn out, whacky thyroid, food intolerance and so on.
Anxiety went a way on that very special day when B12 kicked in. Other symptoms persist as I am not getting treatment but I do not get anxious about it.
Yea, this story seems recognisable to anyone with a chronic illness, or a slightly more obscure form. Like vitamin deficiencies, or poor conversion of T4 to T3.
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