This blog project was originally
assigned to me as part of my summer internship, and I was skeptical as to how I
would like the exercise. I always enjoyed reading other people’s thoughts and
perspectives about living with diabetes, but never really thought about
contributing my own stories. However, after a break from blogging, I have
decided to pick it up again, as I feel it is personally beneficial to reflect
on positive/negative experiences, and maybe someone will read it and learn from
my mistakes or be inspired by my achievements. So, here goes my return from my
break.
The
concept of a “break” is pretty non-existent for someone living with type 1.
This is probably one of the hardest aspects of living with diabetes as breaks
are a natural part of life for people: breaks for summer, breaks in between
classes, breaks in career choices, etc. Continually thinking about my diabetes
gets exhausting, filtering questions, different possible scenarios, checklists
of necessary supplies, counting carbs, analyzing blood sugar trends, etc. are
thoughts that constantly consume my brain power. I write about this to release
some of the burden that not being able to take a break from diabetes causes.
It’s hard to constantly keep putting diabetes above everything else in my life
especially when I am faced daily with a million distractions that college life
presents.
In
the past 18 years, I really can’t think of a time I decided it was time for a
mental break from diabetes, but last weekend I made a conscious awful decision
to take a break from diabetes. I will refrain from details, but basically I
made a handful of bad decisions with poor blood sugars and ended up not being
able to control my health independently and needed assistance from others. Just
a one-hour break and there I was incapable of caring for myself. As much as
this experience was terrifying, I can now say that yes I have taken my break
from diabetes. And let me say that I never ever want another one. I knew what
my blood sugar was and yet I still made poor decisions, I think in part because
I wanted to live my life that day without feeling sequestered by diabetes. I
think this is a natural feeling and I am choosing not to beat myself up about
it because I have rarely experienced this before, and use it as an experience
to learn and grow from.
I
think that my message here for others who have not chosen to take a break from
diabetes is to respect the presence of your diabetes in your life and
understand that it is a part of you that makes you you. I’ve learned from my
“break” and I am relearning to love and appreciate the discipline that living
with diabetes requires. Ask me a week and a half ago if I ever wanted a break
from living with diabetes and I would have jumped on the offer- ask me today
and I will immediately say no thank you. Whether I like it or not, my diabetes
is a part of me, and it’s not going anywhere, so I need to make decisions not
just for me personally, but for both me and my diabetes.
Breaks
for people living with diabetes are scary because we have naturally trained our
minds to constantly put diabetes at the forefront of our mind, and so when we
eliminate that ingredient from our thought process, I think we don’t really
know what to do with all the freedom that others constantly live with. As nice
as living with an empty forefront of my mind would be, I think I will take my
life sans breaks.
