This is a bonkers idea. Is this a bonkers idea? This is a bonkers idea.

 Let me tell you what happens when I go off of my thyroid meds because I am absolutely terrible at two things:

1. Taking my medications/supplements regularly

2. Refilling my medications when they run out

I ran out of thyroid meds a week and a half ago. If there is anything that I should take, it's this medication. I've had normal numbers until about a year and a half ago, but various doctors over the years have been like, "you should take it." and then, "Nah, you don't need it. You can stop." and then, "You should take it." and then my naturopath was like "You should definitely take it AND here's a higher dosage."

The difference that I felt after I started taking that higher dosage was nothing short of remarkable. I was less anxious (and that's fun, because depression and anxiety are symptoms of hypothyroid), I slept better, I woke up more refreshed, and I had a clearer head, literally overnight. I was rolling along, taking it (basically) consistently, but having hiccups here and there, and really struggling to take it whenever my routine got thrown off, like on the weekends. That's one that will be a perpetual struggle, I think.

But, running out of medications. Right. So, I ran out a week and a half ago. "No big deal," I thought. "I'll just pick it up in the next few days."

And then I didn't. And then I didn't again. And then I started to feel sluggish. And angry. And just...heated. The only way that I can describe it was that it felt like someone had turned up my internal stove (except I was cold all the time) and I was just...not great. I was foggy, I was anxious, and I just was a pretty hard person to be around. I had been feeling like I'd been fighting something for a few days, and lo and behold, it was my thyroid. AND YET, I sat there the WHOLE DAMN TIME wondering why I was feeling that way, and pinning it to my Election Week Diet, which was terrible. I ate macaroni and cheese four nights in a row, that kind of terrible. I figured if I could fix my diet and get myself back to a place of balance in what I was putting in my body, then I'd feel better.

And then I didn't. At that same time, I also realized that I hadn't taken my thyroid meds in a week and a half. I just hadn't made the connection. Unbelievable. (I ALSO TRIED AND FAILED YOGA TWICE THIS WEEK AND COULDN'T FRIGGING FIGURE OUT WHY.)

I hopped back on the thyroid medication train this morning and I feel a world of difference already. I'm clearer, I'm feeling better, and I have energy to move around and stuff instead of just shuffling myself from one thing to the next, hoping that I'd be able to go to bed soon, please, or maybe I'll just nap in my work chair because I'm so overwhelmed that I feel like that's all I can do.

Right. On to my bonkers idea.

I was feeling a lot of internal noise all of a sudden earlier today and thought, "Oh good, my body is finally awaking from this damn stupor." On a break I had been reading Ask A Manager, one of my favorite blogs. The advice she gives is spot on, and I just love reading it.

And then my brain just...barfed something out that totally stunned me. I literally felt like I had been jolted by something.

Write an advice column about ethics for counselors. Start a blog, advertise to my social media groups, have people write in with their hypothetical counseling ethical conundrums, and take it from there, with eventually monetizing it. I need to tease it out from a liability standpoint to make sure I don't get sued, and I need to make sure that I cover myself as entirely as possible, but I think I'm going to do it.

I have some other irons in the fire that I'm trying to work out in the coming weeks, but that's what happens when your thyroid counts normalize; you can actually think and plan and, you know, do things you like because you actually like them and not because you feel like you have to or that it's a chore because everything's a chore when you don't feel well for reasons you can't pinpoint.

And go to your thyroid doctor, even if you know that it will probably end in a biopsy because you're three years late for the one you have to get every 10 years. Oops.