Real Diabetes Mistakes

August 28th, 2012 by Amy Gonsalves Leave a reply »

Yesterday I listed a few of the diabetes “mistakes” I made over the weekend.  I put the term “mistakes” in quotes because I don’t think they really are diabetes mistakes, but they often feel like them.  I make a lot of diabetes “mistakes,” every time I open my eyes and start my day or close my eyes and try to fall asleep.  It’s a fact of my life—I can’t get it right all the time no matter how hard I try.

Maybe that’s what so many people struggle with when dealing with their diabetes—the sheer lack of ever reaching perfection.  Maybe for some of us we have areas where perfection is attainable—maybe not.  All I can promise is that diabetes is not an area where “perfect” should enter if you want to live your life and be happy, ever.

But what do I think are true diabetes mistakes?  On my run yesterday I thought about it, and came up with three things I truly think are mistakes when it comes to life with diabetes.

Ignoring/Denying it.  Life with diabetes is pretty awful and scary if you deny you have diabetes.  It’s emotional, it changes every five minutes, you have everyone else offering suggestions and voicing opinions, you’ve got people worrying at you, and YOU are busy trying to ignore your own questions you have… it’s exhausting.  Choosing to live like that is, in my opinion, a mistake.

Fighting it.  I don’t mean fight the good fight; I mean feeling angry at yourself for ever making a mistake or refusing to accept your current health situation.  You’ve got diabetes and it isn’t going away… no matter what happens.  If you can’t accept that, you’re fighting a losing battle.  Focus your energy and drive toward being the best you can at whatever you want to be and do… but don’t let fighting your body’s disease consume you.  You were never supposed to sacrifice your potential at diagnosis; doing so is, in my opinion, a mistake.

Feeling helpless. Diabetes is not whatever you thought it was when you were first diagnosed.  You will have good days and you will have bad days and you will want to throw your disease out the window some days and some days it won’t be so bad.  But feeling like you are out of control because you have a certain meter reading or string of meter readings does not mean you have failed or can’t improve your situation.  Be it a fix that takes an hour or a month, you have too many tools at your disposal to ever justify feeling helpless. Even asking for help means you aren’t helpless; you are taking a step for your body in the right direction.  Being silent and feeling helpless is, in my opinion, a mistake.

Any others you’ve come across YOU would call a real diabetes mistake?

Be Sociable, Share!
Advertisement

Leave a Reply