You, Me and Hypothyroidism: When Someone You Love Has Hypothyroidism by Rachel Hill & Adam Gask

Author:Rachel Hill & Adam Gask [Hill, Rachel & Gask, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rachel Hill
Published: 2019-09-18T00:00:00+00:00

Seeing Your Loved One’s Mental Health Decline

Adam’s Insights

It wasn’t easy to see the bright, happy, busy-bee Rachel I had known for so many years, slip in to such poor mental health. I would come home from work to see her crying on the sofa, not able to smile when having an enjoyable time with friends or even be able to muster up enthusiasm for the things she used to love.

As well as depression, she also had anxiety and this showed itself mainly at work or surrounding the idea of work. Panic attacks in the morning as she got ready for work or phone calls where she could hardly breathe and needed me to help calm her down so she could return to the office - it was all a minefield to me.

When she was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, she was told to take the ‘one pill a day’ and she’d be fine, but I watched her only get worse as time went on, and this spread into her mental health and well-being too. Yes, the hypothyroidism affected her physical self in terms of her energy and day to day capabilities, but I was really shocked and surprised by how much it affected her mental health and just how closely tied they are. I could make an easier connection between her hypothyroidism and physical health, i.e. having less energy and sleeping more, but grasping the idea that it affected her mental health was harder.

The impact on her mental health was massive, when she wasn’t optimally treated for the thyroid issue, on Levothyroxine, she was not just fighting her body but also fighting her mind, struggling with depression and anxiety on top of hypothyroidism, which seemed to amplify everything. It made things even worse.

If your loved one with hypothyroidism struggles with their mental health, you probably don’t need me to say that it can really alter their personality and who they are. And that can then put a huge strain on the relationship.

When Rachel’s mental health was declining, I mainly felt quite useless. With her physical health struggles, I knew I could do more around the house in order to help, but managing her mental health was daunting and something I wasn’t accustomed to at all. I had to learn a lot about depression and anxiety, what made them worse for her and what made them better. For example, she has always liked being in a tidy environment, as clutter and mess makes her anxiety worse, so I became more aware of helping to maintain a tidy home. Simple but effective and it soon became second nature. Before her thyroid condition diagnosis, a messy house did frustrate her but now laying it on top of the physical health condition, it was even more of an issue. I could see that it was more frustrating to her because she had less control over doing anything about it. In my experience, lots of these little stressors can soon mount up and exacerbate each other. The

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.