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Health crises can affect anyone no matter how famous you are, and many celebrities often opt to hide their condition from the public eye, potentially leading them to suffer more as speculation arises.
One particular TV star has opened up about both the rare disease that she was eventually diagnosed with and the mental health crisis she suffered as a result of that discovery, and it all occurred while she was filming one of the biggest shows in the streaming world right now.
Detailing the immense struggle she has faced across the last three years, 'The Boys' star Erin Moriarty has recounted in an essay for TIME Magazine the heartbreaking challenges that were born from what appeared to be an unconfirmed illness before a neurologist finally found out what was wrong with her.
A number of different answers were proposed by medical experts across the lengthy period of diagnosis, with post-birth-control syndrome, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, clinical depression, chronic fatigue, burnout, IBS, and even an intestinal parasite floated as the cause behind her ailments.
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She found herself struggling to remember things – to the point where learning lines while filming The Boys became a nightmare – and describes 'losing herself' as her own body and emotional presence became unfamiliar and difficult to access.
"I began sleeping through every alarm. On weekends, I would sleep 19 hours (or more) straight. The mood swings I had experienced years earlier intensified. My hands and feet became so weak and numb that walking began to feel dangerous. I developed heart palpitations and persistent urinary pain," Moriarty explained, "but the most frightening symptom of all was the cognitive decline."
It was eventually revealed that she was suffering from Graves' disease – an autoimmune condition that affects only up to 1.5 per cent of the population and is caused by an overactive thyroid.
Thankfully she was able to begin receiving treatment after this, but what came in tandem was a mental health crisis, resulting in her hospitalization despite being in the aftermath of the disease.
"The initial relief I felt once treatment began working slowly gave way to something else entirely: the realization of how absent from myself I had been for the previous two years," the Amazon Prime star explained.
Moriarty describes finally feeling clarity, but with that clarity came grief as the time that she "could not get back," and how it had taken from her "professionally, creatively, relationally, psychologically.
"I spent at least two years of my life physically present but mentally unreachable. My grief hit me so hard that there was a moment I was unsure I could carry it," she illustrated.
She has thankfully been on the path of recovery since suffering from the mental health crisis, and it has prompted her to be open about her relationship with Graves' disease and the wider issues surrounding the approach of women suffering from illnesses.
"I hope the transparency surrounding my symptoms can help even one person catch their illness earlier than I caught mine," wrote Moriarty, urging people to listen to their own bodies before they are "forced to scream loud enough for the world to hear it, too."
