I’m not sure if you caught Meghan O’Rourke’s essay What’s Wrong With Me in a recent issue of New Yorker? It shines a spotlight on what it’s like to live with autoimmune disease. Totally pervy stuff for us AI folk.
I read it. I read it again. And I wept. You know that kind of weeping that is all about the sheer relief of having connected after not realising you felt so, so, so alone? Or of having recognised a part of yourself in another, of feeling the enormity of it all, and finding that this is somehow comforting. The bigness – and one’s own smallness and individual pain – is exponentially comforting. Oddly enough.
Of course, weeping is one of the 2938747 side effects of thyroid disease. And connecting with other sufferers is the most soothing respite we AI-ers can draw on. Ain’t that a fact. (As always, at this juncture, I ask anyone reding this who doesn’t have an AI to a) read on regardless as any AI insights can be extrapolated out to the meta population’s health and b) pass this to any loved ones with an AI.)
For those of you without a New Yorker account, I’m going to a) suggest you subscribe even just to read this article and then b) outline the bits that I was compelled to underline for those of you who only like highlights. I’m good like that! I’ve added in my own experiences and observations, too.
1. It can feel like depression… but not. “I wondered if I was depressed. But I wanted to work,” writes O’Rourke. “I didn’t feel apathy, only a weird sense that my mind and my body weren’t synched.” Shit! I get this. Let’s break it down…
2. Work is OK. The rest is hard. Of all the commitments in my life, working is the only one I can deal with when my thyroid folds. But only when I can shut out (oh, I hate that this is so…) people and other “complications”. It’s two things. First, in times of desperation (like when I have to do TV or