What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
In life, things can be tough. I find that when I am at my weakest, life will throw me something just to see if it can push me over the edge. That is how the diagnosis of my diabetes happened….
Ii was feeling stress and sadness because of family issues, then during a chocolate binge session at Easter, I diagnosed myself with diabetes. Having a family full of diabetics is a good and bad thing. It is good because they share the experience and know what to do to help me in the case of a hypo. However one aunt said to me, “no one will give you sympathy”. I didn’t need sympathy, I just needed support.
Everyone seemed to look past me.
This was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I was diagnosed with a chronic condition and hormones were flying everywhere in my body and things internally were chaotic. Eeven my own body wasn’t on my side. I felt betrayed by life. I have done good things, I never hurt anyone. Yet life throws me one challenegs after another. People say to me “what doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger” -I believe this myself.
I know I’m strong enough to cope and handle diabetes but I don’t want to anymore. At the time, I said “I don’t want to be stronger, if I have to feel this sad each time”. It was tough, especially as some people in my family made it sound like I was making it up for attention and being a drama queen about it. It was actually me just crying out for help.
I have never done anythign like this before, that involved my health. I was young, fit, I loved food. Now everything I love was being taken away from me. I dedicated my life to food, by studying nutrition. It truly is my passion. After my diagnosis, I realised that it can also be my enemy if I don’t maintain a good relationship with it. It can cause serious long term health complications.
I went to lectures where they discussed that diabetes can lead to blindness or limb amputation. It was really hard. Although people say “things are going to be ok”, and “people have it worse”, that didn’t matter to me at the time. I didn’t need to be told everything was going to be ok. I know it will, I just needed that time to grieve for my loss of health. Diabetes is more serious than people think. I think people don’t understand, which can make me feel really isolated.
If managed, diabetes is fine, but I’m at an age where I don’t want to manage, I want to be free and do what I want, not be limited because of my condition..however all these intial negative feelings are fading. I am accepting it and thoguhts of diabetes are no longer manifested in my mind. Before I knew it, I had passed that stage of grieving and was coping.
I do feel stronger now, although there were periods of deep weakness and sadness. I am getting over it – it will be a long proces, but I’ll get there in the end – tougher and stronger than I was the day before.