How TED Defined My Twenties

The first 5 years of my twenties were a walk in the park compared to the second half. There’s an ignorance that comes along with not knowing the future. I have always had so much anxiety about the unknown. I would overthink things that never happened. But I am glad we are incapable of knowing what’s to come before it happens. I am thankful I never saw my thyroid eye disease (TED) as a possibility...until it was.

Thyroid eye disease throughout the years

TED Years (25-28)

I woke up with double vision 2 months before I was set to graduate college with my BA in English with an emphasis on Writing. To this day, I have no idea how I managed to receive a Cum Laude Honors when I graduated. The second half of my final semester was a blur.

These years were filled with doctors' appointments, lab tests, and trying to figure out how to level out my thyroid, which somehow converted from Hashimoto’s to Grave’s when I was trying to figure out the dosage for my Synthroid medication.

My eyes hurt and I couldn’t work due to the amount of pain I was in. I didn’t write. I tried to read but I’d always end up frustrated when the sentence on the page would split into two. The creative spark I found in my early twenties faded. I felt lost and annoyed by the lack of control I had over my life.

I was in fight-or-flight mode for much of this time. My eyes were always unpredictable. In the beginning, I couldn’t find a pattern and everything was overwhelming. Once I began to notice the similarities of eye irritation or double vision, I could at least calm my mind while my eyes freaked out.

When the pandemic hit, the focus on my eyes lessened. I was still having symptoms and they were still very alarming but there were more important things to focus on at that time. I still kept track of my symptoms but the doctor’s visits to monitor my TED halted. With the focus being on other things, I returned to writing. I didn’t write about my eyes. Instead, I wrote the first draft of a novel about a girl driving across the country. It was a way of traveling when sitting still.

Post-ish TED years (28-29)

There was not a defining moment in-between these two periods of my life. My symptoms slowly faded away during the third year of my disease. I got to take the prism off my glasses and haven’t put it back on. I stopped running into tables and lights were no longer the bane of my existence. I got a retail job near my house. It felt good to be out in society again.

Healing through writing

I started writing for ThyroidEyeDisease.net. I have channeled my experiences and pain into articles. This has allowed me to heal. Writing has always been a source of how I made sense of life. I don’t think I would have written about my TED to this extent on my own. I am very grateful to be writing about it now.

How has TED defined your life?