Health: Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, an invitation for understanding

We all have personal struggles and having been diagnosed with an auto-immune disease, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, is mine.

Where has the sexy gone?

The excerpt letter below my post describes well the “mind” of Hashimoto’s and came from a Facebook site called “Thyroid Sexy”.  There’s really no more “sexy” in my life since this disease took over but I keep in mind it’s temporary – maybe (the sexy part, not the disease unfortunately).  One never really knows how tomorrow will be, and that is specifically the part of life which makes it less and less attractive to engage in the world under these conditions.

There was a time I believed that if I could just get out of bed, force myself outside with my camera or stop putting myself down for being too lazy, too unmotivated, too weak (none of which I really am or exhibit realistically) maybe I could get through it because mind over matter, right? But when your mind is brain fogged there is no mind you can call your own. I’ve learned to forgive myself for days where I lack the vivaciousness which usually surrounds me because I still manage to do more than those who don’t have this disease and most days that alone allows for a more self-forgiving attitude, especially for going from being amazing to barely there.

Living diseased or go hardcore for hardcare?

I invite you to understand what it’s like to live with this disease.  I’ve discussed it in the past on my blog (March 2012, July 2012 (humor), August 2012, Sept 2012, )but I like the “I am Hashimoto” letter below. I’d make my own version but Gena Lee Nolin did a good job so I pass on an excerpt of her words of Hashimoto truths.

After about 2-3 months feeling on the upside with stable thyroid hormone replacement medication and a great little part-time job, Hashimoto’s hit me hard a few weeks ago with massive anxiety and hypothyroid symptoms and this present fall brought me right back to more doctor visits and general life hating.   Not good.

My one only option I can’t seem to find the ”JUMP!” attitude for committing fully to is plunging into a full dietary and lifestyle change (hard core Paleo) with the kind of focus and excitement one might expect to see in an individual taking their health to the next level, sans doctors!!  BUT… hard core Paleo is hard core.  Take a look.

Hardcore for me is a limited time experience, not a way of life.  Get that?

L-I-M-I-T-E-D!

Yet in the case of inspirations such as Dr. Terry Wahls, who has found a way to “cure” herself of stage 2 progresssive Multiple Sclerosis through eating  ’hardcore’ bunny rabbit food and veggies aka primarily Paleo diet, I’ve personally been slammed with a non-drug choice.  How does one NOT TRY?!  That’s stupidity to have a choice that works for others in positive ways and not try it yourself.  Pure stupidity…

There is a slew of info on the net about the benefits of strict dietary changes for Hashimoto patients and it’s hard to unlearn, hard to ignore, yet soooo hard to dive into fully.  Thing about me is when I ’just do it’, I do it right and doing it right requires at this time a great deal of energy, commitment, support and planning, all of which I’m low on.

My endocrinologist sees no scientific research linking gluten to hypothyroid/ Hashimoto problems but my body doesn’t need special interest (pharmecutical) funding research to prove it to me.  Upset stomach, extreme fatigue, massive mood swings, body aches, joint pain, headaches, brain fog and depression are the results of my research which includes injesting grains, primarily gluten-based ones. Every. Single. Time.

Finding strengh and motivation

True hope for recovery brings excitment, no? Somehow the true hope part eludes me.  I feel like banging my head on the wall for sense to fall into action!  In part it may be that I just don’t know what or who to believe anymore and self-trust gets eaten away as though it were the thyroid gland itself. With this disease your mind is a hostage not just your body.

So, I’m back to finding new coping strategies to heal my body while realizing rather painfully that just as importantly, I’ve got to find ways to heal my mind and soul. It’s very difficult, all of this. It’s absolutely the most challenging undertaking I’ve ever had, this Goddamnfuckingshit disease.  Oh, sorry.  I was trying to just making the cussing look like a long German word…maybe it needs an umlat somewhere.

I’m a pretty fearless human being but this disease minimizes my ability to face those fears.  Personally, I feel like a huge failure until I remember the truly weak souls, the ones who brush off their struggles as “that’s just the way life is” mentality and then try to fit their misery into a box of mediocrity of self-victimization, ill-health and excuses for a life of struggle. No!  No way is that approach healthy. No way is that appropriate for a spirit like mine.

“Bunny rabbit food, give me strengh!”

* I gave this post a day to “set” because I felt it sounded like a pity post. Perhaps it is. However, I chose to post it because Hashimoto’s and thyroid issues effects millions of unsuspected souls. The more you understand what it is, the more chance you have of giving support to others around you who need it or get help yourself if you qualify with symptoms.

Thanks for listening.

 ”I am Hashimoto’s” letter  (full text)

(text excerpt)

“Hi. My name is Hashimoto’s. I’m an invisible autoimmune disease that attacks your thyroid gland …

I’m so sneaky–I don’t always show up in your blood work. 

Others around you can’t see me or hear me, but YOUR body feels me. 

I can attack you anywhere and any way I please. 

I can cause severe pain or, if I’m in a good mood, I can just cause you to ache all over. 

Remember when you and energy ran around together and had fun? 

I took energy from you, and gave you exhaustion. Try to have fun now. 

I can take good sleep from you and in its place, give you brain fog and lack of concentration. 

I can make you want to sleep 24/7, and I can also cause insomnia. 

I can make you tremble internally or make you feel cold or hot when everyone else feels normal. 

I can also give you swollen hands and feet, swollen face and eyelids, swollen everything. 

I can make you feel very anxious with panic attacks or very depressed. I can also cause other mental health problems. You know crazy mood swings? That’s me. Crying for no reason? Angry for no reason? That’s probably me too. 

I can make your hair fall out, become dry and brittle, cause acne, cause dry skin, the sky is the limit with me. 

I can make you gain weight and no matter what you eat or how much you exercise, I can keep that weight on you. I can also make you lose weight. I don’t discriminate.

 …

You will be put on the wrong medication for you, pain pills, sleeping pills, energy pills, told you are suffering from anxiety or depression, given anti-anxiety pills and antidepressants.

 … 

You’ll be told to think positively, you’ll be poked, prodded, and MOST OF ALL, not taken seriously when you try to explain to the endless number of doctors you’ve seen, just how debilitating I am and how ill and exhausted you really feel. In all probability you will get a referral from these ‘understanding’ (clueless) doctors, to see a psychiatrist. 

Your family, friends and co-workers will all listen to you until they just get tired of hearing about how I make you feel, and just how debilitating I can be. 

…

Some will start talking behind your back, they’ll call you a hypochondriac, while you slowly feel that you are losing your dignity trying to make them understand, especially if you are in the middle of a conversation with a “normal” person, and can’t remember what you were going to say next.

They will not understand that having this disease impacts your body from the top of your head to the tip of your toes, and that every cell and every body system and organ requires the proper amount and the right kind of of (sic) thyroid hormone medication for YOU. 

…

 I am Hashimoto’s Disease.”

Here’s a great post from “Hypothyroid mom” about more details of Hashi’s if you’d like the information: http://hypothyroidmom.com/hashimotos-your-body-is-not-supposed-to-destroy-itself-right/

*a special thx to the women I linked to for their informative websites

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Books: The Art Cure Diaries

After considerable thought, I’ve decided to make the Ipad ebook format of “The Art Cure Diaries” free for anyone to enjoy.  The same applies to the Kindle/Ebook formats I’m working on completing for you.

You can also choose to purchase a print copy or, if you don’t have an Ipad and want to view it, it is available in its entirety also for free.

Enjoy and pass it on!

~ Tatiana

(*shortlink to post: http://wp.me/p3f9L-1DQ)

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Lifestyle: Oh look, a knock on the door

I only want to say it is firm that my curiosity has been piqued.  This doesn’t happen nearly as often as I wish it did.

So, I have a job interview today.  The offer came yesterday and brings with it a great deal of personal growth benefits including dusting off skills from my entrepreneurial days waaaay before motherhood took over.

If I was focused on the novel I wouldn’t have considered this, as the offer came in passing via general conversation months ago and I disregarded it as an unwanted opportunity.  BUT, my circumstances have changed the past few months and timing is everything they say.

So, there you have it.  Close one opportunity door and do it authentically with a peaceful heart and boom, another comes on by effortlessly opening to take its place.  Life is like that.

…I’ve also been meditating, doing light yoga and returning to mild workouts as my energy level permits since Nov. 5 after an embarrassingly long hiatus.  The deeper I become connected to the inner silence through either meditation, yoga or a runner’s high, the more I’m like move on, move on, move on.  Renew.  Recreate.  Move forward. Connect to peace.  Return to love (and the gym).

My expat time is coming to its final year.  My deepest intent is to live it to its fullest potential.  I can’t do that at home in the way I’ve been doing.  Since the book idea felt off-balance, we’ll see what this interview brings.

So, I’ll get back to you on this new development.  I might be working rather than blogging or painting in the morning hours.  Hmm…

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Lifestyle: Self-Initiated Jumps

Today, I decided, is the first day of my renewed life. It’s not my first time and I’ve succeeded before so I know the path ahead and that I’ll succeed. It’s the commitment until habit that is so grueling. Ugg. Truth is though, I’m stagnant and it finally burns too much.

Ten months of professional therapy and 1.5 years of medical testing has brought exactly what I asked for: a solution. So now, I’m in that position which keeps most people from trying in the first place because everyone is fighting for their personal something (cause, freedom, time, sanity, happiness, health) and while it’s fine fighting for your chance or right to jump into those dream pools, when you’re on the so-called diving board of life, waiting for that moment when your consciousness pushes you to jump, well that’s a bit different for us all to act upon usually, isn’t it? Of course otherwise the whole planet would be healthy, happy and peaceful. Idealist at heart, such is possible through intended conscious evolution of the first person kind.

I feel like the waters in the pool are illusion and when I jump it will really be concrete and so, of course, I will die if I jump. But, you know, that’s just fear talking so one must continue to feel the fear and do it anyway because the alternative is to be a victim of circumstance. You must jump if you are to evolve.

I’m beginning my “Third Evolution” change two ways: (I’ve tackled this personal evolutionary change thing twice now but it doesn’t make this time easier because my stakes have become higher. The only easier aspect is experience and that’s just the gift of time which helps keep doubt and anxiety away.)

1. In November I will participate in NaNoWriMo as mentioned here. The idea is to write a novel in a month. In my mind I finished so it’s really a matter of manifesting it through time now. Easier said than done, of course, since I accomplished this once out of three past attempts but back then I felt I wanted to “try” to write a novel hoping to succeed.  Now I’m not intimidated by the try factor.  Of course I’ll succeed: word count, not best seller story.   The point is to get out, dump, expel and finally clear your writer’s mind of “that” story so it can fill itself up with something new.  Hint. Hint. Hint.

2. I’m beginning a Paleo lifestyle, which means I will lose weight without additional exercise and get very healthy very quickly. In exchange for this reward, I must sacrifice and eliminate grains, dairy, legumes, sugar and all processed foods.  This means that awesome bakery around the corner is a poison center for my body because I have distinct negative reactions to gluten contained in wheat. However, one doesn’t give up all this “good” stuff without sound justification:

Here is a TED Talk video of Elyn Saks, who suffered from schizophrenia and who now lives a productive and fulfilling life because a Paleo diet (hunter/gatherer diet which existed in Paleolithic times for our early ancestors) helped eliminate most of her disease. I found Saks’ personal account incredibly inspiring.

A paleo diet isn’t a fad diet but rather a lifestyle change which takes us quite frankly, to the root of our ancestoral beginnings, when the essence of nature was all that was put into the physical body. I’ve heard from others and experienced in trial runs only benefits. I’m a bit more limited being allergic to tree nuts and the base for many paleo baking is almond flour but I focus that increased health is the result.

The plan is:

1. I’ll chronicle my novel-writing on the blog so you can follow along if it interests you. I’ll write a blurb about it regularly with my word count.  If you’re a writer or a wannabe, I do hope you’ll join me in writing 1,600 words a day. Seriously. It’s not that much and you’re only committed to word count* not logical sense. Read more on National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

2. I’ll also chronicle my progression on the Paleo lifestyle but periodically.  Here’s the 101 on Paleo.  I have a food blog I haven’t touched in years and depending on how this change goes for me – if I end up finding desire to write more about it – then I’ll invite you to read about the journey on that blog instead of here but I’m really not wanting to commit to yet another blog, know what I mean? This blog is the whole enchilada of Tatiana.  Having different blogs is just juggling more than necessary.  I already do more than necessary…

Okay, so this is where I’m at so take note if you’re in a similar position in life and want to join in or feel out the process through my experience before you decide. I know it’s hard but if you’re like me, eventually you just have to move forward or you’ll explode from boredom. So, you know, why not move forward now?  Time passes quickly.

I have a lot of projects on the table but my health is first, thus my Paleo diet change; and this year will be the last NaNoWriMo I’ll have commitment power with such gusto for a few years so I made it my prime personal project to tackle and complete. Next year this time I’ll be preparing for my family’s return to America.  And so, there are behind the scene happenings but everything is hovering, waiting for a landing and until it all lands I can’t announce it. You know the laws of Murphy.

I decontaminated my kitchen Monday taking a few days to decide the seriousness of my commitment to both these ideas before I hit “publish” because, you know, that’s commitment.  And so, since it’s mid-week, I’m hitting the Farmer’s Market for fresh veggies and I’m confirming that yes, today is in fact the day I consciously start on the next phase of personal evolution.

JUMP!

*btw, this post is 1041 words, so you only need a little more than a blog post worth per day to hit your NaNoWriMo word count! Have I made a dent yet? Are you gonna write that novel?

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Turning disability around

Here’s a very inspiring story about a quadriplegic turned model, years after a car accident paralyzed her and killed a friend. She’s currently working with Nordstrom. Story here.

After my accident, the thought of modeling didn’t even cross my mind,” the now-37-year-old told People Magazine. “But what did occur to me was that I had been transported to the realm of the paralyzed for a reason. I realized I had a huge choice to make: to go down the positive path, be an example for others in similar positions and be a voice.”

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New Art: “Centered”

I grabbed black and ended up with something unexpected.

“Centered”, acrylic on canvas, 50x70cm (19.7″x27.6″)

This painting began weeks ago after a drought of creativity.  I painted a sun with grass.  I wanted nothing but the yellow to flood my eyes.  Once I had my artificial dose of Vitamin Sun, I put it away.  My 6-year-old loved it so much she painted her own version.  Mine though, just sat there and I’ve been too busy with words and back to school prep to have had time to pick up a brush.  But the Hashimoto’s takes its toll unexpectedly while I find ways to cope.

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Abstractions in Art and Life

Ever feel as though words are not enough? What about images too? Where does that lead, that space of seeming nothingness which creates the form?

In an artist’s world it leads to abstraction. The point with abstracts, in my mind, is the invitation for interpretive reasoning. I will demonstrate in a basic way a variety of interpretations based on a single abstract image. It must be considered that the various planes of any visual – particularly abstractions – will always offer multiple interpretations. Abstraction is certainly the most free form of artwork I’ve ever practiced and personally, I find it a voice when quite frankly, everything else makes me mute.

Yet, within the maddening silence there is often, if not always, something of substance to the mind and its dependence to create understanding, meaning and attachment to the material world. What comes out is value of purpose, subjectively interpretive as it may be.

:::

Therefore, the abstract painting below has three interpretations I want to mention. I began vertically this way:

Considered this horizontal side:

But ultimately found an unexpected surprise when my abstraction was turned upside down. If you don’t see what I see, I’ll get to that in a moment.

The painting above also serves as a token of accomplishment through the incredible power of self-trust and the necessary submission to the artist-self’s demand to follow the intuitive hand.

I began with intent the make the entire painting black as my base and build on top of it but the moment I made the first stroke of paint and the way it took to the canvas, something took ahold of me and absolutely refused me to mess with it and the more I trusted the mindful movements, the more intrigued I became, not with the work itself but the process of this kind of letting go to the artist’s soul.

I planned to paint a figure on top of the background and melt it together so she was coming out from it. Since the painting didn’t go in the direction I was trying to make it go and the all black base felt wrong and thus ruined the original vision (in completeness of form), I surrendered and followed intuition.

The fact that this intuitiveness within led me to create an emerging body from the abstraction in a way that melts it together so she is coming out from it, yet mysterious enough to not see is greatness in comparison to anything I’ve ever produced before.

But this isn’t about my greatness. It’s about greatness in general that sits in front of us but the goddamn thing doesn’t show itself until it’s turned upside down! (or another way, until it’s looked at from a completely opposite perspective). I’m sure this can be applied to life as well. That’s all I wanted to illustrate and say. I’m working on taking my own advice…and a title for the abstraction.

More artwork on www.vontauber.com.

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Seductions of the “Get Out Clause”

What to do..what to do.. I always dread the day I become ‘just depressed’.  Because at least suicidal depression comes with a ‘get out clause’..” (source)

I read that today after one blog reading led to another.  What struck me when reading it was how I get this statement.  Not today.  I’ve been on the thyroid hormones 3 days and the cloud of hell has lifted - oh, and look: a silver lining.

While the corners of my mouth only need Scotch tape now that I flung the duct tape out the window, and while my energy level and mood have improved significantly since Saturday, just a few days prior to that I could hardly get through the day without the seduction of the mind killer.  What else to call him?

I get the quote above because when you’re in that kind of a mental state the ‘get out clause’ is like a lover’s seduction and the longer he seduces, the harder it is to say no.  Everyday you experience his whisper is like a training session into submission, an ultimate surrender (‘surrender’ being the new feminist trend* according to Newsweek).  If you’re into mental BDSM, have your way but really, there’s a fine line between the pleasurable comfort of its seduction and its painful undercurrent. It’s a dangerous place to be when you are weak.

If you do the BDSM thing right in the physical domain  - not that I know as I’m only taking an educated guess** – then you probably have two vital needs for a positive experience: 1) a trusted partner and 2) a safe word.  Both act together as the ‘get out clause’.  Meaning, there’s a safety net and what a difference in experience when you know you won’t fall to your death when pushing the boundaries.  Take that net away and all you have is fear so the entire experience itself begins falsely.  This is what the seduction is about, drawing one into the point of no return with promise of peace to the turmoil, the feather on the spanked ass.  In the mental plane, both sides - that inner demon and the “Ego” - have to actually agree to trust each other to succeed in their own destruction.  Make sense?  That’s flippin’ crazy when you think about it!

Assuming a trusting partner and a safe word are in place, the entire experience changes as a result of this trust, which really in the physical domain is a trust of the Other.  BUT, when it becomes a trust of one’s own mind, how do you reverse the energy to save yourself when it is a part of yourself who’s got the the upper hand?

I don’t know exactly.  Everything depends on the mood and your strength that day and the sheer exhaustion of pulling out alone, beating “the other” in the mind into submission to you rather than you to it is directly influenced by the amount of energy you have left to pull out and THAT in my mind is directly linked to your desire to live, to see your worth, value, potential, goodness, footprint in the time/space you’re in.  Sometimes you just need a jump-start like a car battery.  Unity brightens energy.

One way I survived a few years ago when I didn’t have enough of a support system was I visited a cemetery.  Here in Germany we have lots of them and they are peaceful to walk through.  Sometimes it takes a dose of 6 ft. under to kick life back into us.

***********

…okay, off to paint!  The fact that I linked sex to real life matters and philosophies again is a VERY good sign.

*I’m attempting a feminist piece for a contribution to The Legal Satyricon for this article but I’m a bit overwhelmed by my position on the matter so its on the draft table for when my head is more clear for this kind of feminist stuff.

**hahaha!!!  No, really it is an educated guess.

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Doorway of Reason

Allow me to discuss this RV idea in one quick swoop: I don’t love my kids that  much.

I have to create another escape solution.

… see, I’m not that crazy. I just get crazy ideas. That doesn’t mean I act on them.  We might do a 1 month family vacation to test out its guaranteed failure.

Besides, some very interesting opportunities are beginning to develop. Their potential good, if I can find a way to sustain my sanity here, are worth the risk.  Interestingly, these opportunities presented themselves before the breakdown but it was only after it that I was able to see what they might really be good for. 

This is going to be a tough journey but I’m getting used to those.  What I’ll get out of this should I make it is exactly what I need personally, professionally and sexually.  I’ll stop at that.

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Living The Good Life

I was very struck by the simplicity (and complexity) of Dr. Garrett Lisi’s  E8 model of the universe and theory, An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything in this TED video . I remember when Lisi’s theory hit the news several years ago. I was working on my love theory – which wasn’t much of a love theory back then, though I’m still questioning where the heck it’s going – and I stumbled upon the need to incorporate geometry into it. Well, being I feared failed geometry and haven’t taken a math course since, one might imagine how ironic that was to me.  However, when I saw Lisi’s E8 model I thought wow, that’s got possibilities.  I didn’t need the math.  I needed the visual description of it. (not that it’s necessarily going to work but it’s an ambitious starting point and everything I do begins ambitiously)

Since I can remember I’ve been fascinated with Einstein and when I discovered quantum physics I was like a dog panting in heat. I considered going into physics but well, the math thing made the entire physics idea seem like a guaranteed failure. Instead I read layman physics books, took my time and finally figured out the weird world of quantum physics – in layman knowledge but being philosophically minded, I really enjoyed taking that knowledge and applying it into philosophical inquiry and theory and not being a physicist, it was all I needed. And though I’m still figuring out my love theory, I’ve found some simplification to it that Dr. Lisi unknowingly provided.

During the TED video, Lisi concludes with telling his audience that he is led in life by three “charges” (a play on words being he was discussing the electrical charges of atoms):

This theory and others like it are longshots.  One does a lot of hard work knowing that most of these ideas probably won’t be true about nature… As with any large investment it can be emotionally difficult to abandon a line of research when it isn’t working out.  But in science, if something isn’t working you have to toss it out and try something else.  Now, the only way to maintain sanity and achieve happiness in the midst of this uncertainty is to keep balance and perspective in life. ..I try to balance my life equally between physics ,love and surfing.  My own three charge directions.  This way even if the physics I work on comes to nothing I still know I’ve lived a good life. (source)

I thought simplifying things might create some order in the chaos I’ve got going on right now. It was actually a bit of a struggle to focus my life into three main charges but I did and it led me to the next step in feeling like I understand myself and my direction better. That doesn’t necessarily organize the chaos but at least I can see what’s around me and begin sorting it so I can live a good life.  What I’m living now is definitely low on 2 of my 3 charges.  The positive spark here is that now I know the 2 elements that need attention to feel balanced again and I found a base for continuing my own theory.

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