Living with the Autoimmune disorder Hashimoto’s Disease

Photo of FONUT donuts. One of the few guilty pleasures I found I can have with Hashimoto’s disease and a yeast allergy. The donuts are made with agave and almond four. I get them only a few times a year.

Hashimoto’s disease is an Autoimmune disease. I actually had someone send me an email from the middle of America accusing me of having AIDS now because they mistook me saying I had an AI disease with AIDS. Autoimmune diseases kind of reprogram the autoimmune system to attack the body instead of diseases. Hashimoto’s disease attacks the thyroid. If you have one autoimmune disease you may have several. I believe I have three at this point, but I may be developing a fourth.

First I want to say to doctors, please stop categorizing Hashimoto’s disease as a THYROID disease and treating it like hypothyroidism. It is not the same. The test to determine if you have Hashimoto’s disease is not the same, and the treatment should not be the exact same. Doctors do not give patients with Hashimoto’s disease any advice on care or medication unless the disease advances to being hypothyroidism. The treatment is basically let the disease advance, do nothing, then take the thyroid and let the patient be on medication for the rest of their life. I have a food allergy to pork. I am also vegan. It is against my religious beliefs to kill any living thing. I do eat honey. I have had to be proactive in my own care.

Second what has this disease been like for me. Imagine having the stomach flu all the time, plus headaches, and diarrhea. My digestive system basically shut down. Normally people gain weight with this condition. I lost weight. I was trolled by someone saying I looked like a zombie. Actually kind of scary to me that who ever was trolling me had actually seen me in person. This person also tried to say I was faking my illness. My weight dropped to 101 pounds on three different occasions from 2007 to 2016. I should weigh over 116. I am five foot and nine inches tall. I was a walking skeleton and people in California thought I looked great?

I was also experiencing mental problems caused by my illness. I was having anxiety. Though there were plenty of reasons for me to have fear. With my disease I could not handle bullying, abuse, and being isolated and traumatized. My disease made it harder for me to deal with being treated badly by others. We live in an age where treating people badly is a sport. It is as if people need to find ways to put others down while making themselves look like the victim. I was so traumatized I stopped going out. I stopped hiking when I needed vitamin D. I stopped living. It did not help that people did not want me making it as an actor as if that somehow if I was acting I would have power to destroy them. I just wanted to have fun and love life and be happy. I wanted to be confident and be able to be an imaginative creative person. I wanted to be with people who inspired me to be creative. I do not like to hang out with people into business or profits or spread sheets or computers. I discovered in Graduate school that I was not meant for corporate America.

I was also hemorrhaging. We women bleed once a month, and I was bleeding sometimes twice. I would have periods every two weeks instead of every four. This was in part probably menopause as well, but I do not think it would have been that bad if not for my disease. I lost so much blood there were days I could not get out of bed.

I also could not sleep. For two years I would be up all night and sleep all day. I actually tried to say up all day and night once, and it just made me sick. It did not fix my body clock.

Finally someone told me about a supplement called Los Dose Naltrexone. It is not an opioid. From what I understand, it shuts down my endorphins for a short time, and then when my system turns back on, it causes my body to go into hyper mode. My body is flooded with natural pain inhibitors. It gives my immune system a kick in the pants. I take it every night, well when I remember. I did not remember last night, and got upset with a girl on line and we fought and I got so angry I was up all night again. I do not need a therapist. I need to get my disease under control.

I also need for the hypocrisy to end but it probably will not. I have been abused and discriminated against for a decade. I still want my acting career. I needed to build a career from home to manage my disorder. I wanted a child with a man who would protect me from abuse, not give me reasons to be terrified. It would take a miracle for me to have a child of my own now, and I do not want to have a man in my life just because he wants to make a child with me. I used to say I did not want kids. I said that because my abusive mother acted like my giving her grandchildren was the only reason she cared about me.

I am still living with this disorder. It does not go away. All I can do is manage it. It can take years to do so. All the while I have been fighting a culture that will not tolerate my condition. It will not allow me to be different so I can be healthy. I have had to cut out all the foods that caused my digestion to shut down. I can not have gluten, soy, night shades, and pork/meat. I tested positive for a pork allergy but I have since read that having a pork allergy may also mean I am cross reactive with all forms of mammal meat- lamb, beef, venison. It would explain why when I switched to being a pescatarian when I moved to California I seemed to get healthier. I even went from not being able to walk, to getting the use of a knee I busted in a car accident. I also had help from a physical therapist. I still will never ride a bike. But I can walk without pain.

I have a YEAST allergy to. With a yeast allergy, yeast infections are an allergic attack to my system. I have had to remove two toe nails due to fungal infections that my body could not get rid of. Yeast is a fungus. I am on the Candida free diet for life. I eat probiotics all the time and I have to constantly check labels for hidden yeast growers. Sugar causes yeast. High carb foods cause yeast. A can of food can have yeast growing in it naked to the human eye. Some foods however combat yeast. Coconut milk and yeast to not like each other. There are also spices and herbs I can add to food that will kill the yeast and also help my body combat yeast infections.

I wonder often if my autoimmune disease are the result of my allergies, or if the disease caused a food sensitivity I had to get worse. I do know that scientists have done research that suggest having cancer can trigger autoimmune disease. I had breast cancer and I have implants that are 15 years old. I had a nurse practitioner at my breast cancer doctors over the phone tell me that new symptoms I have may be the result or the implants and that they need to come out. I am having trouble finding a doctor willing to help me who takes my insurance. All I need is to have the implants removed but I want to do so with minimum scaring. My illness causes my body to take longer to heal.

I am realizing more and more we live in a horrible society. We live in a culture that can not stand differences. We live in a political climate where people use labels to cause conflict. We all assume the grass is greener on the other side. There are 20 million people with autoimmune diseases and most of them are women. Many of us are crying. Many of us are dying. It is not something solved by a pill or a surgery. It takes life changes. Instead we get called lazy or liars or crazy. I saw a statistic that said about 14% of people institutionalized with bipolar disorder probably have Hashimoto’s. All the psych meds in the world are not going to be as effective as simply getting those patients onto a diet that allows their gut to heal and their body to function better. I was put in an institution in 2012 for saying I was a lawyer at a SAG meeting and apparently for saying I would get a gun on the phone to someone? That second part never happened.

Through all of this, I still want to be an actor. I still want to be in my imagination. I wanted work from my own home with my own business. Instead I got attacked for not having a job and my business was ruined by people thinking I was running around town chasing imaginary lovers or men I was secretly lusting after. It traumatized me so much that I stopped dreaming. Now if I dream about a guy coming on to me, it turns into a rape and not a fantasy of loving and companionship. Thank you California. But the I am disgusting because California seems to want to bring back UGLY LAWS where people who are imperfect are castrated. This state used to do that. Look it up. It is a sick twisted part of CALIFORNIA history.

I went to college. I went to graduate school. I do not want to date men who are looking for companionship when I wanted money to be able to live alone and take care of myself. I do not need a man to make me feel good about myself. I do not want to go back to MARYLAND. I am not into horse racing or car racing. I am not into competition. I had scripts I wanted to write. I am literally writing this straight into the internet and editing as I write. I speak in full coherent sentences. Stop bothering me. I want to be able to read a book in peace. If I can not have kids, leave me to my acting dreams. If they never happen, I will die alone. But I will die happy. I express myself on line and half the time do not expect anyone to respond. Because it is more important for me to express my feelings than to care if anyone worships me for it. I get pleasure out of just the expression of words. I was never stalking anyone. I have been slandered and destroyed. I will probably never be a working actor now, but I am never moving on to men who do not like the arts and acting and think that because I like horses or something else that is all it will take for me to want to communicate with you. I do not need a man to love horses, photography or food. IN fact the only thing I need a man for is to scratch my back, make a baby with, or help me with my acting by running lines with me. If you are not an actor, I have no use for you and do not want you in my life. I have enough to deal with.

I care about the planet. I do not want to work in environmental law. I care about animals. I do not want to run an animal rights group. I have things I will NEVER FINISH because other people needed to make me grow up after I lost my breasts and was experiencing illness. I still need to finish ACTING and FINISH MY SCRIPTS AND FINISH MAKING MOVIES. I wanted to GIVE HOPE. I AM NOT INTERESTED IN BEING THE ASSITANT TO SOME CELEBRITY not unless you want to pay me what I am worth. I was worth $30 an hour. YES SANTA MONICA COLLEGE. I had an education and was trying to put myself in a position where I could have FUN and LOVE MY LIFE. I was not interested in BEING IN SCHOOL FOR EVER. My parents are DELUSIONAL NARCISSITS. My father kept freaking out I went back to school. I was going to school while working on sets. THE MORE MY FATHER IS IN MY LIFE THE MORE HE FILLS ME WITH RAGE AND THAT IS NOT LOVE.

I AM CRAZY NOW BECAUSE WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY THAT DOES NOT RESPECT INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM. I still want to be an actor living with an incurable disease. I am NEVER GOING TO FEEL PRETTY OR LIKED OR BE HAPPY WITHOUT ACTING. A THERAPIST IS NOT GOING TO MAKE ME BE A LAWYER.

I test as an INFP. I am a dreamer. It is part of who I AM. I NEED TO BE ABLE TO DREAM. What is wrong with you people that you needed to stop me dreaming. I do not stalk and I do not try to make people do anything. I do not want to control other people. I FEEL LIKE I HAVE NO CONTROL.

I hated my ex boyfriend because he was NOT AN ACTOR. I HATE LAWYER. AND I DO NOT WANT NEW FRIENDS. I WANT TO KEEP THE ACTOR FRIENDS I HAVE WHO UNDERSTAND MY LOVE FOR ACTING.

I am not interested in being NORMAL so stop expecting me to be LIKE YOU. I AM ME. I do not like routine and I hate being trapped in the same place with the same people. I NEED CHANGE and I WANT TO LEAVE AMERICA not stay here if I am not going to be a respected actor. YOU ARE NOT RESPECTING ME BY TRYING TO MAKE ME BE YOUR FRIEND AND NOT RESPECTING ACTING IS WHAT GIVE ME CONFIDENCE.