I started self medicating with dangerous thyroid drugs

As a bit of an introduction to my life at the moment, I had a blood test done in the beginning of January. At the time, I was expecting a hypothyroidism diagnosis, and it is what I got.

To sum the treatment up, there is a gold standard and a fringe treatment. The gold standard only came to be because of how the drug entered the market. "T4 is safer than T3" is the lie many doctors tell patients nowadays, but the argument is faulty: if you take the T3 responsibly everyday, and taper it down if you want to stop taking it, it isn't dangerous at all. But that was different in the 20th century.

In its early stages, both hormones were made from cattle. And although they had a pretty good idea of how much hormone was in the pill, they couldn't be sure.T4 has a longer half-life, so if you accidentally produced a drug with more T4 in one pill, patients wouldn't have huge fluctuations and would, therefore, not feel so different day to day. T3 on the other hand, has a very short half-life and since those hormones affect heart rate, blood pressure, — sleep, hunger and thirst cues — as well as energy levels, any dosage mistakes were felt immediately. To avoid heart attacks, comas, and other less scary side effects, doctors decided it would be safer to prescribe T4 only pills.

However, this is not how pills are made nowadays. We don't use cattle, we have more effective ways to weigh and measure the amount of drugs in one pill. And since T3 is much more effective than T4, some patients prefer it.

Predictably, doctors didn't change their opinions on the matter. But patients have been gathering online and talking about how much T3 helped them to get a sense of normalcy back after years only taking T4. Since I am used to doubting doctors, the first thing I did was to reasearch instead of asking for my doctor's opinion. I wanted to know how thyroids worked, and what were the medicines used to treat a hypo one.

Now, I hadn't tried T4 yet, but there was a clear winner here. T3 helped people much more, it seemed, even if some people felt worse while taking it. Since I am also used to getting drugs with no prescriptions online, I did that with T3 and started my DIY treatment. I felt delighted doing it by myself, from my own curiosity and desire. I always adored treating myself like a lab rat, and this is not the first time I take a drug that wasn't prescribed to me. And I don't care.

While I waited for the pills to arrive, I was excited with the potential effect the drug could have on me. Excited with the new life that I would suddenly build from night to day. I would be a hiker, I would be a cook, my apartment would be flawless and I would have so many friends. I would become skinny and fit and happy, immediately. I would daydream about all the things I'd achieve.

After I took the first pill, I was shocked to notice I was calmer. 

The next day, I took it again, and oh my god, I was so hungry.

The next few days were filled with insomnia, and a bit of adaptation. I was having an easier time taking care of the apartment and I was shitting everyday, sometimes multiple times a day even though my diet was poor in fiber.

I've been taking T3 for a month now. It has been a thrilling and yet calming experience. Everything I thought I knew about myself changed, and I am actually sure that I like it.

If you hooked me to a lie detector, and I had to say "yes" or "no" to the following statements, I'd say yes over and over, and the detector would say "not lying" everytime (if they were that effective).

I'm a very emotional person. Yes.

I'm easily distracted. Yes.

Don't forget: I'm anxious. Yes.

I'm disorganized, my memories are messy, my life is messy and I don't have the energy of a normal person. Yes.

But this is, in fact, not how I am while taking this drug.

I'm sure there are millions of people that have gone through this identity dilemma. Am I who I am with this drug? Does this drug hide who I am or does it highlight my strengths and weaknesses? What is me, what is drug? Even without taking the drug, how do I determine who I am and what is an outside force?

Now, the conclusion is inevitable. We are a mix of the in and the out. We are genotype and fenotype all mixed up until homogenous. Shake it, whip it, turn it to stiff peaks. Preheat the oven at 180ºC, bake it for 20 minutes until it grows. Take it out. Eat it while it's hot.

There is no quantifiable, touchable self. The self is all of it, yada yada yada.

All I know is that who I am now is not who I was before this drug. And that my dearest habits, that were calculated for my pre-T3 body and mind are not useful anymore, awkwardly so.

I found out recently that I can read. Like, truly enjoy a book. See the scenes in my head, pay attention to the words, and feel comfortable and even rested while doing it. Like it is fun. Not like a thing I have to do. It was beautiful.

So naturally, I've been reading this interesting book I bought last called A Little Life. 600 pages, but the pace is delicious. After getting to the part Jude (the protagonist) has a memory of his first occasion of sexual assault, caused by a man he trusted, I was sad, I was uncomfortable. I needed some time to reflect. 10 minutes later, I was interested to know what happened after that. And that caught me off-guard.

I used to be the kind of person that would not only cry at that, but also remember the sexual assault that happened to me. I'd get triggered, sad, affected. I'd tell my friends and my therapist about it, I'd write about it in my diary. All of it to try and process the feelings that I assumed were only there because I didn't do the work of processing them before. Apparently not.

It was such a huge discovery that the T3 had affected my trauma. I thought I had PTSD for the longest time, and maybe I do, but wow, T3 affected a lot of it. How much of it was physical, how much of it was psychological? I beg to understand it, but I don't. The physical and psychological also can't be separated.

Mindhunters, a copaganda TV show starring lesbian magnet Anna Torv, was a show I was dying to watch but couldn't bear to watch. This was two years ago. Every episode includes rape, and I would get triggered instantly if I persisted on watching it. I remember gulping when a line mentioned sexual assault. I was having a hard time.

But after my experience with the rape scene in A Little Life, I was eager to test myself. I called my ex-girlfriend and asked if she wanted to try watching it again. We did, and guess who had a good time? Me. We watched three forty-minute long episodes and I was having a blast, "Anna Torv is so hot and the cases are so interesting." I can't recognize myself anymore.

In my last therapy session, we had a casual conversation about our converging interest in psychology and not me and my life at all. I was having fun listening to her takes, I was into her opinions, and I had only noticed I didn't talk about myself at the last 15 minutes, and I let it go. I didn't want to talk about myself because nothing was bothering me. My therapist noticed that, and felt guilty for talking about our interest; she had to end the session but begged me to send her an audio message explaining what happened during the week. I simply told her my week was very boring and nothing new popped up... It was the truth. 

Additionally, political debate heats me up less than ever. Remembering war is going on in the world doesn't fill me with the emptiness and desperation it did before. I'm really impressed with how much T3 has affected my inner life, and how much it barely affected my energy levels.

Don't get me wrong, I am more energetic than ever. For the first time in my life, I can make three meals a day, exercise for 10 minutes, have fun and work. While also showering, talking with friends and reading. This was more than I have done with my days since I was a child, and maybe ever (when I was a child, I couldn't focus on daily goals, I'd just do whatever). 

I have finally reached normal energy levels, when I dreamed of explosive energy levels. Having a pristine apartment and being a hiker is not what most people can do, and I am fine with having the same energy levels as most people, it's kind of comforting, after decades of forcing myself to be normal, burning out and losing it. But the emotional part shocked me the most.

I don’t want to finish this article with a speech about how medical institutions actively disenfranchise women (women are 7 times more likely to develop hypothyroidism). But let’s pretend I did.

The point is not that the world is unfair and we can’t do anything about it. The point is that we need to be gayer and commit more crime.

Thank you.