A year or two ago I was diagnosed with two thyroid diseases. I have antibodies for hyperthyroidism as well as hypothyroidism. For those who do not know, hyperthyroidism means that the thyroid gland is overactive and it causes people to lose obscene amounts of weight. That would have been the case if I did not also have antibodies for hypothyroidism, which means that the thyroid gland is under active. Therefore, one of the symptoms causes one to gain weight. I had gained about seventy five pounds in the past two to three years leading up to my diagnosis. I had changed drastically, both mentally and physically.
At A Glance Author ZephyRainn Contact [email protected] When N/A
Now, being diagnosed with bothered me, but not once did I cry or really even wonder "why me?". For me, it was an explanation. It told me why I had gained so much weight for seemingly no reason. It also told me why my eyes had changed so much, because I had looked like I was constantly "high" or "messed up" on drugs when I was perfectly clean. This, of course, led to lots of nasty rumors and confrontations at school. School was almost unbearable and my family was constantly on suicide watch. I had changed a lot, mentally and physically. Being diagnosed, to me, was an explanation of everything.
As my body changed, I looked for different outlets to help control "the beast" within me. I lost my virginity a few months before I turned 16 because I felt ugly, I was gaining weight seemingly by the minute and my self-esteem was disturbingly low. At the time I thought that the attention I was getting would help me, but now I realize that it only made me worse. I tried smoking cigarettes, but that didn't go over too well. I was underage and relied on my parents for money, as I didn't have a job. Among smoking and being promiscuous, I tried cutting (I liked seeing the blood, but I hated how I felt trapped because I had to work hard to hide them from the world, so I only did that once or twice.), marijuana, and some extremely light drinking. Nothing seemed to help, and I just kind of fell into my own little world, which some may call the internet. The internet helped me keep my mind off of things.
While doing my online searching, I started thinking about the website that I had found when I was searching for information about navel piercing before I got mine pierced. That website was BME, and that was when I had discovered it for the second time. At that point I still had my navel pierced, but I eventually had to retire it due to gaining so much weight. For the next two years, I had read almost everything I possibly could on BME and had become even more tolerant to people who were different than me.
My parents tried to be as supportive as they could be, but they didn't understand my desire to change my body. They still do not understand, but they try. My Dad was a little bit more open to me getting a tattoo (he was also who took me to get my navel pierced), so a few weeks after I turned seventeen I got my first tattoo. It is a simple black and magenta nautical star on my left ankle. My star still needs some work, as some of the lines are not straight, there is some very light feathering, and the color needs touched up badly, but I still love it. I went to the best shop I knew of, and it only took about fifteen minutes for the actual tattoo. Since I was an avid reader of BME, I knew the importance of aftercare and healing so I religiously followed the directions from my tattoo artist. After getting the tattoo, I had finally felt like I was part of the community. Well, sort of.
About a year after I got my tattoo, I fell extremely ill. I had gotten salmonella poisoning and I had almost died. The one good thing I got from it was a huge loss of weight. I would have weighed well over two hundred pounds after I finally got diagnosed. You see, I never really got healthy when I finally got rid of the salmonella poisoning. It had brought out a bunch of symptoms of the thyroid disorders that I got diagnosed with about a year later. I kept gaining more and more weight and was progressively getting sick. I couldn't walk up more than a few stairs without feeling like I was going to have a heart attack. My only escape from reality was looking through the pages of BME. I knew that eventually I would turn 18 and be able to feel the rush I got from my first tattoo again. I admired every person I saw on the website, hoping to one day write my own story. My attention span was becoming progressively worse, and yet I could surf the pages of BME for hours on end. Like I said, it was my only escape from reality.
I was finally diagnosed and everything began to get better, little by little. My top weight was about two hundred pounds (which really looks bad when you are five foot nothing), and because my thyroid was being set straight I had lost about fifty pounds. I was feeling amazing but I felt as if something was missing. That something ended up being the septum piercing that I got when I went on a three day vacation to one visit one of my friends in Maryland when my body was healthy enough to actually heal a piercing. I spent a long time waiting to get healthy again so that I could get some work done and it was well worth the wait.
Right now I am still working on getting healthier, and I am working on losing more weight. I will reward my weight loss with the return of the navel piercing I had lost due to gaining so much weight, and I will reward my health by getting a new tattoo, a back piece that I have been thinking about for a while. Right now it still isn't advisable to get a lot of tattoos or piercing, so I am holding off for a while so I don't end up hurting myself. Even though it is disappointing to me, I still have BME and the community where I am virtually non-existent to help me through the waiting period.
This editorial is my way of saying thank you to BME and the community, which has helped me more than you will ever know.