I have a confession.  I have been in a dysfunctional relationship for the past three and a half years.  It started one afternoon with my heart beating out of control and it has been a love/hate relationship ever since.  When things are in sync life seems bright and possibilities endless.  However, when there are long wrestling matches, I wind up jaded and broken, tired and hurt.  While tackling this relationship the past couple of years, I thought I could make it work. This relationship hasn’t made sense for a long time and it is one I must reconcile because I am not speaking of my marriage or my parents or my best friend, I’m speaking of my health.

2006 was definitely a stressful year: Graduating from grad school, the terrible job search, turning down a job I could see myself loving, but knowing it wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I also started therapy to face my torturous inner voices. And on top of all of that, I came face to face with many family members awful perceptions of me as a former fundamentalist that was once upon a time more interested in the “right” way rather than the loving way.  It was a long year, and in August of that year, my thyroid, which unbeknownst to me had been pissed off for months prior, really let me know how mad it had become one day by speeding my heart rate up to 120 beats per minute (resting).