When you have a chronic illness it’s hard to see the bright side because it will never go away. You are constantly dealing with the pain. If you try hard enough you can ignore it.
When you have a chronic illness like type 1 diabetes there is no ignoring it.
I have sat on a couch in my therapists office for months. We talk about all sorts of things, issues with my people (family..friends...coworkers) issues with severe anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. We also mainly talk about my diabetes.
He has mentioned that a good portion of people diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at a young age were robed of a childhood and robed of that time in their life where they should be “figuring things out; figuring out who they are” instead we spent that time figuring out a disease.
I have recently come to terms with the fact that if I somehow miraculously got better I wouldn’t know who I was because so much of who I am is my diabetes.
My therapist told me I need to start to figure out who I am that has nothing to do with that. But he soon realized that is easier said than done.
You see like mentioned before my specific diabetes is labeled as “brittle” in short meaning a good portion of the time even if I do everything right, it’s wrong.
Because of this I spend so much of my day checking and correcting my blood sugar. It’s always too high or too low, I need to give myself insulin, need to give myself sugar, need to wait..wait...wait. Till it stabilizes....then it’s too high or too low and I need to give myself insulin or sugar and wait...wait...wait.
It is a full time job, with no days off, no vacation, and DEFINITELY no sick time (if you know someone with type 1 you know being sick isn’t just whatever you have to deal with in terms of symptoms of the illness, it is ALSO having to deal with absurdly high blood sugar that laughs in the face of insulin. Seriously. It’s not coming down for anyone.)
So how on EARTH are you supposed to find yourself when so much of your time spent on earth revolves around your disease?? You don’t.
Where does this lead you?
To severe chronic depression.
I spend 90% of my time in my bed.
Feeling guilty for having to leave work.
Feeling guilty for not going in at all.
Feeling overwhelmed at all the phone calls I have to make, to the doctors, dexcom, Omnipod.
I spend 90% of my time in my bed; because I can’t deal with another day of this.
I try to be productive so I crochet.
My hands hurt from crocheting due most likely to my raynauds syndrome.
I try to read a book, I can’t focus.
I try something with less effort, a movie.
I spend half that time on my phone scrolling through Facebook or Pinterest.
I am never present in the moment I am never here.
I am always somewhere else.
I feel empty and lost.
I don’t feel like anything.
I’m not a person.
I’m diabetes.
