Your Eyes Will Be Okay

This morning, I woke up and looked in the mirror. The first thought when I saw my eyes was, wow, I had never seen them like this before. Not because they are back to how they were pre-TED (thyroid eye disease), but because I have a much better appreciation for them than I ever have before.

Bumps

It took years to understand or even recognize the reflection staring back in the mirror. This wasn’t an overnight sudden thing. It took a lot of time and patience with myself as my body healed for me to stop feeling like a stranger was staring back at me.

The puffiness under my eyes, the retracted upper lids, the bulging eyes, left me very unsettled in my reality. And if I was seeing it, surely other people were, right?

Yes and no. The people around me knew something had changed and sometimes commented on the difference in my appearance. But it wasn’t as noticeable as I thought for strangers to be aware of my problems. If they did, they kept their comments to themselves. For that, I am grateful.

Change in my appearance

I wasn’t ever one to judge my self-worth by my outward appearance. That has never been a priority. It’s just how my brain works. I wash my face, I brush my teeth. Whatever anyone thinks about me says more about them than it does about me.

However, a drastic change in my appearance so quickly with my eyes and this disease left me at a standstill. I’m not one to wear make-up but the idea of even putting make-up to help make me feel better wasn’t an option. I just had put my head down and get through it.

While I don’t regret this choice, it’s always how I have dealt with hardships in my life, I do wonder in retrospect how this impacted how I viewed myself. When I looked in the mirror and didn’t see myself it was as though all of this was happening to someone else. My way of coping with this disease was not fully embracing because it was too heavy to hold while I was going through it.

Healing from thyroid eye disease (TED)

With time, comes healing. With time and patience comes to the realization that past decisions to get through things aren’t healthy. My eyes ended up healing. It took many years and a lot of frustrating moments to get to the other side of this horrendous disease.

I can look in the mirror and see myself again. The first time this happened, I cried. I couldn’t believe that after years of not seeing myself, I could see myself again. It wasn’t the me I once knew but it was familiar enough to cause overwhelming happiness and relief.

There’s light on the other side. It was the hardest thing I have gone through.