Prompt: May is Mental Health Month so now seems like a great time to
explore the emotional side of living with, or caring for someone with,
diabetes. What things can make dealing with diabetes an emotional issue for you
and / or your loved one, and how do you cope? (Thanks go out to Scott of
Strangely Diabetic for coordinating this topic.)
This is a tough one to write, so I think I am going to
respond to this with the many thoughts I have tried to convey to people over
the years:
I wish you understood what it is like to be standing there
with a group of people and suddenly have your sugar crash. It’s embarrassing,
it’s uncomfortable, and frankly, it hurts. For a few minutes you feel out of
control of your own body and it sucks. Pulse races, sweat beads all over and
words start to confuse you. I wish you understood that diabetes does not make
me less of a person. Please don’t stand around and whisper like I am dead. “Oh”
you say in hushed tones as I pass. “She has the diabetes, you know.” I am not
dead, we are not memorializing my defunct pancreas.
Yes. I can eat that cupcake.
Sometimes diabetes makes me want to cry. Sometimes it makes
me want to laugh. Sometimes it confuses the hell out of me. My body is basically
waging war on itself; I am allowed to be
emotional about it sometimes.
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