Depression – The Friendly Neighborhood Diabetics

I’M FREE.

Guys, it’s been two, TWO, whole days since my thirtieth birthday and I’m still here.

WE MADE IT!

I’m so excited to be starting this new chapter of my life; this chapter without a set end date. I’m free from those prognoses dates and I truly feel different as I go into my thirtieth year.

As part of my diabetes treatment plan, I work with a therapist who helps me keep my mental health in check so I can keep my physical health in check. I’m a firm believer that we have to care about our mental well being just like we have to care about our physical health. There will be several posts about this in the near future.

When I walked in yesterday for my appointment, she said, “Hey! You don’t look dead to me. Congrats!” (She’s awesome and that sense of humor is one of the several things we have in common.)

She’s very right. I’m very much alive.

Riding that high, I took some time Thursday through today to really reflect on my life and how fortunate I am. I did some tough reflecting on how it all has gone and what I’m doing with the next many years of my life. I took a moment of silence and prayer for the people I lost along the way, as there have been several and each birthday and diabetes diagnosis anniversary reminds me that others weren’t so fortunate.

I don’t know what would have been easier. My future mother-in-law passed away in December from complications from Type 1 Diabetes. She was diagnosed in her early thirties after she’d had her two boys and had been living her life eating and doing what she wanted. When she passed, her and I had had diabetes for about the same amount of time. It’s hard for me to imagine being diagnosed as an adult and having to adjust an entire life around something that I didn’t know anything about until I had it. I know people do it, but in some ways, I do feel my situation was more fortunate.

That said, I don’t remember life before this disease, but I know from reflecting and living it and working through some of it with my therapist that growing up with it had its own challenges. I know that my physical development was impacted by diabetes and that my psychological and emotional development was hammered on by type 1 diabetes.

I know that by the time I was graduated high school, I had lost several close friends from the thing I was constantly being told would ultimately kill me. I remember waking up at age 9 after a very serious low blood sugar in the back of my parent’s mini van at an amusement park where I had crashed. I know that I experienced survivor’s guilt for the first time when I was 11, and I’d experience it many more times in my life. I remember being 14 on a school chorus field trip and we went to sing to the patients in the dialysis lab; I came back to my mom’s office after school and sobbed into her arms because I felt so afraid. I know that at 29 I watched the man I love struggle with the loss of his mother from the same disease his future wife has.

I don’t mention all of these things in what is ultimately supposed to be an upbeat post because I’m garnering your sympathy. Instead, I list these things out to try to reflect on the things I lived through in this first thirty years of my life. I’m considering these experiences building blocks for whatever is coming. If you believe in the butterfly effect, I had to be a diabetic in order to live this life, and I had to have everyone of these losses and scares to be here now, writing to all of you.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; I’m so fortunate. My diabetes gave me a purpose and a platform and a complex and a lot of good things and a lot of not as great things. My diabetes made me the person I am, and at thirty I’m really starting to like me. When I talk about being grateful for this life, I truly don’t know how or why I was born this lucky. But I believe my diabetes, the people I’ve met, helped, known, loved, and the things I’ve experienced, are absolutely a part of the reason I’m here. On Earth, still existing despite being told how extremely unlikely it was that I wouldn’t.

I’m still finding my purpose, but I’m excited to live life without an end date. I’m going to take this next year and rock it.

If you’re interested in sharing what you’re going to do with this next year, we’re all ears here. Send me an email, share a comment on the post, or message or post to us on Facebook. This life is most fun with all of us in it.

With Love and Light,

-Megan C.

Let’s be real for a minute. There are a LOT of online forums, resources, groups, events, and hashtags associated with Type 1 Diabetes.

The American Diabetes Association shares that 30.3 million people in the United States have diabetes, with 1.25 million people living with Type 1 Diabetes right now. That’s a lot of individuals with a lot of online activity! (For more on that, click here.)

Diabetes can get lonely.

Tonight on our way home from dinner and shopping, I was explaining that diabetics have higher percentage chances of experiencing depression and anxiety. Justin wondered aloud why that is, which got us on the topic of “fault”. Diabetes is a unique disease because there’s so much criticism and judgement involved.

Sometimes with chronic illnesses people express pity and concern. With diabetes, they do that -and sometimes (far more often than is appropriate or necessary- they say things like “If you just took better care of yourself!” or “I don’t know why you can’t just eat better,” or my personal favorite when something bad happens, “Why didn’t you do X, Y, Z!”

All too often, these folks are doing EXACTLY THE THINGS THEY TELL YOU NOT TO. It’s next level infuriating.

These folks are trying to be helpful, but they isolate us. They intentionally or unintentionally guilt us into feeling like our diabetes and complications and lows and highs are our fault. They are not. These people are wrong, and I do not care who they are. Sometimes even people we care about and trust are wrong. This is your PSA for today.

Type 1 Diabetics are just people. We are not God. We are not all powerful. Most of us are just every day people without medical degrees who are just trying to survive and live our best lives. We do complicated mathematics calculations, utilize thousands of dollars of medical equipment, act as our own EMTs, trainers, and advocates, we take on insurance companies, etc. and we are just people. That’s it.

We can do a lot to make our own lives better. Everyone wants to make their own life better, and if you have a chronic illness, diabetes or otherwise, it probably crosses your mind at least once a day that life could be better.

So let’s do some things to make our lives better for us. Not for the people who guilt or demand or blame, or even the people who love and support and care, but for us.

One of those things we can do is reach out to other people and get support and advice. We can vent and feel understood. We can be validated and feel motivated. We can troubleshoot. We can be together.

We don’t have to be alone, and more importantly, we don’t have to be lonely.

That’s why we’re here. That’s what this site is for, at its most basic core. We are here to be here for ourselves. We are here to share this space and our stories with each other.

We are here to make lives better.

As you peruse this site, keep in mind that we (Justin, the other collaborators, and myself) are just people. We’re people who want our lives to be better, and we’re people who want you to feel better too.

Disclaimer-most of us are NOT medical professionals. We’re just here, telling our stories and wanting to hear yours.

Type 1 Diabetes sucks, but you are not alone, and you don’t have to be lonely.

Sending you love and light,

Megan

Tag: Depression

I’m Free! Start and End Dates Part 2.

So why are we here?