Extra! Extra!

So, I just thought that I would post about how good I have been feeling these days. For those of you who know me well you will know for as long as you've known me that I have been one of those people who tends to get MOODY... for seemingly unexplainable and mostly random reasons. I haven't been one of those mean grouchy people, I have very often just had low moments. The frustrating thing was that there didn't seem to be any concrete reason for them, and I couldn't seem to pull myself out of them. They plagued me and made my life pretty difficult.

Now for the good news... My grouchiness is going away!!! Why, you ask? Well, I am almost positive that it is because of being diagnosed with celiac disease. Yes. A diagnosis of a DISEASE is making me happy. Actually, to be more accurate it is the no gluten that is making me happy. Apparently if you have undiagnosed celiac, one of the symptoms is irritability. My whole life my parents have wondered what the heck my problem is and have always attributed the low moods to low blood sugar or lack of sleep or just a grumpy personality. It was classic in my family... "Leave Annie alone, she's in a BAD MOOD again".

I am so, so, SO happy that I have finally discovered why I felt so gloomy with no explanation why.

Let me explain how it felt to struggle with a gloomy mood. When I felt happy I tried to hold on to the brightness and freedom of it because I knew it would suddenly slip away for no reason at all. Any small thing could set me off and send me tumbling into depths of darkness and loneliness. When I felt low I felt trapped. I tried so hard to pull myself out of it because I didn't want to be in a dark mood but it was impossible. I often ended up isolating myself from my friends and family so I wouldn't feel worse and offend people for seeming upset. It was a very lonely thing to deal with. I didn't deal with it constantly, but it was definitely a part of my life.

(Hmmm... yes... I recognize that this last paragraph oozed with "emo-teen-angst"... or in my case, "emo-early-20's-angst". But this is really how I felt. )

Now that I'm not eating gluten I feel like a different person. I have been waking up so much earlier than I used to, just because I have enough energy to get up... and I WANT to get up and get the day started. I feel more outgoing and less threatened by people. I actually talk to people in stores or in random places like elevators. A lot of you know I never would have done this before. I feel CHEERY all the time. I am not used to this and I am LOVING it. I feel so free. :)

It's not that I never feel low now... occasionally feeling low is definitely something everyone on this planet deals with. I just don't feel like I'm a slave to bad moods anymore.

Another thing that is gone from my life for the most part is headaches. I have been getting them for about 6 - 7 years. I don't think they could be called migraines exactly, but they would last for at least 2 days and they didn't respond to pain medication. I would lose my appetite, feel nauseous and just lie around waiting for the pain to subside. Since getting rid of gluten I have only had a couple of headaches... and I'm pretty sure that the ones I've had have been from accidently eating gluten. Those accidental ones were even TONS better because pain medication actually took them almost completely away.

All this to say I am feeling AWESOME and that I wanted to blog about it! :)