Who Am I After My Hashimoto Diagnosis? | Hashimoto Coach

For a long time, my life felt like it could only move forward. Until chronic illness suddenly brought everything to a standstill, and I had to become someone I didn't even know yet. What used to be completely natural suddenly became something I had to build my entire day around.

Life at full speed—I was adventurous, curious, enthusiastic, flexible.

I worked as a model, traveled from country to country, and lived at a pace that seemed completely normal to me back then.

I could get a phone call a day in advance telling me I had to go to Greece the next day, and I would just go.

I said yes to everything that came my way: new jobs, last-minute flights, unfamiliar cities and people, or a road trip to Hamburg.

In my daily life, I would go out into the city with friends and dance until the sun came up, without ever wondering how I would get through the next day.

On top of that, I also had a part-time job, as if my energy would never run out and my schedule could only get busier.

At my home, it was almost a given that people were always over—for dinners, coffee, or just to sleep over.

I loved that open-door policy, the spontaneity, the feeling that my life was made of constant motion and that I could jump into anything.

There was freedom, warmth, connection... it all went so naturally...

And Then Came Hashimoto

In the past, I could just decide to go somewhere without thinking twice. Now, I quickly feel that everything has to be planned, otherwise I will pay the price for it later.

A day out in the city can completely throw me off my rhythm, as if my body no longer cooperates with what I want.

What is just a fun day out for others sometimes ends for me in bizarre attacks and physical tremors from stress and exhaustion. This was incredibly terrifying in the beginning because you have no idea what is happening or what is wrong. For instance, after a cozy Christmas Eve, an ambulance was once called because I was lying in bed shaking and convulsing, completely overstimulated, without having drunk a single drop of alcohol, and having simply been at my parents' house.

Even a lovely evening can be too much. Even having dinner at someone's house for just an hour demands so much of my energy that it takes me days to recover.

And perhaps the hardest part is that I still want to. I want to join in, laugh, make plans, work, and live like I used to.

But my body often draws a line through that, whether I want it to or not.

That makes it so lonely sometimes; my mind is still the same as back then, but my body asks for rest, silence, and boundaries every single day.

I feel trapped between desire and reality, between who I was and who I have to be now.

The Struggle with Acceptance

I still find it hard to accept that I can no longer do as much as I used to.

There is grief in that acknowledgment, mourning the spontaneous, energetic life that once came so naturally.

And sometimes it frustrates me so much when I want to do something, but my body simply won't cooperate.

As if I have to explain to myself over and over again why I am letting go of something I actually really wanted to do.

That struggle isn't beautiful; it is raw and exhausting.

And maybe that is the truth of living with Hashimoto: learning to set new boundaries and still be who you are, daring to choose yourself in a society built on judgment, pressure, performance, and perfection.

I learn step by step to live with this new reality, without pretending that the loss doesn't exist.

It is not a story with a neat ending; it is a process of finding flow in a new phase...