Diabetes has been declared as the fastest growing chronic illness. 382 million people had diabetes
in 2013; by 2035 this is predicted to rise to 592 million! Diabetes caused at least 548
billion dollars US in health care expenditures in 2013!
I hope to share my insights with the many others who struggle experiencing this illness. Being a health practitioner gave me many opportunities to learn, understand, and incorporate many different treatments that made life easier for me. It can also be difficult for family members and loved ones who want to be helpful. With so many peoples lives being affected I want to shed some light, on my failures and also what has been of tremendous benefit for me on this challenging journey.
Mary Tyler Moore sums up our life really well:
“Both children and adults like me who live with type 1 diabetes need to be mathematicians, physicians, personal trainers, and dietitians all rolled into one. We need to be constantly factoring and adjusting, making frequent finger sticks to check blood sugars, and giving ourselves multiple daily insulin injections just to stay alive.”
Iv spent too many years in denial, anger, and rebellion. When i was little i just wanted to be like everyone else. I couldn't understand why everything had to be controlled. Every bit of food, drink, and exercise measured. I had to be aware and careful all the time. I felt this was so wrong, that this kind of life will never feel right to me!
After the first 20 years i was exhausted and angry. I felt trapped in a cage, which was my body, and it was constantly letting me down. I couldn't bear thoughts of the future if it consisted of feeling like this!
I resisted and punished myself for over 20 years. Why cant i just feel good, every day, like everyone else appeared? why couldn't i have a justifiable reason for exhaustion like exercising or working too much? Apparently my reason was just eating the wrong type of carbohydrate. And id pay for my mistake by not being able to think and move for the rest of the day, and maybe even the next day! For years I was taught that eating oats for breakfast was 'good', but that's not what my body was telling me!
It honestly hasn't been til just the last few years that iv decided I'm going to try something different. I was going to consider acceptance. Resistance sure didn't work. I just felt frustrated, not good enough, different, and isolated. I was a victim to this disease that i was told i would definitely have for the rest of my life.
My motto for life now is "I am where I am, and its ok". From this you then start to treat yourself like you matter. When you start to care about yourself you begin to consider there might be better options out there that you may not have been aware of before, when you were busy resisting. When you start accepting yourself you start opening your mind.
Acceptance has been a tremendous benefit for me. Im becoming more aware of how much time i waste in resistance. And, how much time could be used more productively. Im still learning every day.
I try to remind myself of all the things Iv learned the hard way. My life has been one big experiment. In future I will get into more specifics of my personal management, the mistakes Ive made, what iv learned, and what im now questioning!
With statistics about diabetes always on the rise, I cant help but wonder who benefits from our suffering and ignorance, who controls what we really know, or have been led to believe? I always still believe in the back of my mind that things will always get better. I have a curious mind and enjoy thinking outside the box. I believe our mind is like a parachute, it works best only if its open!
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