Being a diabetic

It can be pretty hard at first to come to terms with being a diabetic and the fact that you’ve suddenly got this new responsibility, which you have to learn all about and which, no matter how well you control it, is not going to go away. I know I didn’t find it easy. Measuring and injecting all the time, whilst not exactly ‘painful’ in an agonising sense, is uncomfortable and, what’s really annoying, you have to keep on doing it to stay vaguely in control. Along with all the mechanical problems of the disease, I also seemed to feel some stigma attached to my new condition. I couldn’t really define it at the time, and I don’t think anybody ever told me “You can’t do this because you are diabetic”, but that’s how I felt. After a bit of time, I saw that the only thing to do was to accept being diabetic and take control of it. That was the most important step I took.

From that point onwards I tried to learn as much as possible, to work out how different things affected me, and, ultimately, how to be flexible but well-controlled. As time passed, I learnt how to deal with all the mechanical aspects of diabetes. The arrival of Alternate Site Testing in the early 2000s really helped with making measuring that bit more comfortable, and moving on to four injections a day was brilliant. That sounds nonsensical: more stabbings should be worse! But if you take insulin more regularly not only can you be really flexible with what you eat, but since you’re injecting less each time, there isn’t so much pressure on the injection site: it hurts less.

Now, I’m very comfortable about being diabetic. To some degree I think this is down to the healing power of time, but also I think it’s because I made it my own. The way I see it, everybody has some problems in their life. They may be great or they may be small, but until they are addressed, until you say “Things  don’t have to be like this, and I’m going to change them”, you will feel stigmatised. You will feel “diabetic”.

I think this is why people can get so affronted when others refer to them as diabetic or term them as having ‘a disease’. It can touch a nerve. It can make you feel like you’re inadequate, that there’s something wrong with you, and at worst it can even come to define you. But you know what? There’s something wrong with everyone, and the problem with us is manageable.

For me, becoming and then learning to be a diabetic was my way of growing up.

 

 

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