Resolutions on Healing from TED

Thyroid Eye Disease (TED) changed me. I would not be who I am today if it wasn’t for the experience I went through with this disease. I learned a lot about myself and how I go through difficult times. I became a more resilient person. Here are some of the ways I healed from TED.

Mentally and emotionally healing from thyroid eye disease

Learning how to let go

It’s so easy to hold onto things, especially things that are not your choice. TED isn’t a choice someone makes. It just happens for whatever reason. Letting go of the expectations of a timeline for healing sets up realistic expectations. Putting your eyes on a deadline only sets yourself for disappointment when 6 months goes by and there’s little improvement.

My eyes were constantly changing. But I learned that I could not fixate on it every day. It could be constantly on my mind but I realized consistently looking in the mirror hoping to see something better only let me down. I had to move my TED fixation to the back of my mind to allow my eyes to do their thing.

Settling emotions

I also had to grapple with the mental and emotional side of TED. It’s overwhelmingly life-changing the way in which this disease changes you. Your day-to-day life is suddenly flipped on its head. Of course, when I am going through something, I put my head down to get through it.

There were a couple of years there where I just had to be okay with not being okay. It was rough cause I tend to see the positive in most things. And I couldn’t see a positive in this. I felt trapped and sad by my circumstances. My eyes were swollen and so were my emotions.

It took about a year of TED for me to grasp the reality I was in. But even then, there was still a part of me that was still in denial. It would take moving from the active phase to the inactive phase and writing for ThyroidEyeDisease.net to accept all that had happened to me.

No longer a burden

TED is very much a disease on a moment-by-moment basis. Meaning one minute you may be feeling as fine as you can be and the next your eyes are watering for no reason and you can’t look at anything. Certain things you once paid no attention to you now fixate on daily. It’s a disease that can drive someone mad.

There was a day when I was at the tail end of this disease driving down a five-lane highway in San Diego, California, when my eyes started to water. I became so frustrated in the moment because I thought I was done with randomly irritated eyes symptom. I’m not a “why me” person but I felt really annoyed at the possibility of this continuing on past the active phase.

I’m sure that like everything else in life, if this were to have continued beyond the active phase, I would have eventually accepted my new circumstance and carried on. It may have taken a long time, but, like the way my eye shape never truly returned to normal, I can adapt with time to whatever comes my way. Something may not be my choice but it stops being a burden on my daily life.