- Messages
- 623
- Type of diabetes
- Type 2
- Treatment type
- Tablets (oral)
Dear all
I've been awake all night worrying, writing, researching - not about my diabetes but the 17 other ****** things going on at the moment, and it struck me that I needed to take a break and do today's Positive Thing a little earlier than usual.
To be clear, I used to be a brilliantly positive person. I volunteered for 5 years running my local parent carer forum where I supported parents of disabled children and took their experiences to service managers with an aim to making the world - or just my city - a better place. I was, until about 6 months ago, the sunniest person in any room. Now I don't really know who I am. Not to be too glum, but the last 6 - 12 months have stripped away every defining aspect of my life.
Anyway. Positive.
Since my (inevitable) diagnosis of T2 (see? Already learning the local lingo) last week, I've decided to do one single, positive thing for myself every day. Not just have a banana or smile at the neighbour, but mindfully carry out a task that will directly benefit me (specifically me. If it makes life better for anyone else, huzzah, but this is my single daily moment of selfishness). In a way, I'm challenging my self worth: do I believe I am worthy of kindness; can I be kind to myself?
It's harder than you think, really.
Last week, on day 2, I joined a different diabetes forum. My introductory post was long and angry and didn't really invite anyone to reply - I was welcomed into that community by just a single pair of open e-arms (other introduction posts garnered upwards of 30), who were able to write just a single word: "Welcome".
"Be kind to yourself first" is advice I would readily give out to my parent carers. Being one myself*1, this wasn't some wishy-washy thoughtlessly optimistic affirmation I'd spit out like some dead-eyed yoga teacher, but a creed I genuinely believed in and could back up with evidence-based arguments.
I haven't been kind to myself in some time. It's not because I hate myself or have some secret self-loathing agenda but because when you're constantly at the sharp end of life, self-kindness too easily falls at the wayside, discarded as a gratuitous frivolity: Hey! I've got stuff to do! Kind to myself? I'm much too tough and badass to worry about that - look at all this **** I'm dealing with; I have to be some kind of super-hero uber-mum just to get through the day. Psshaw, self kindness.
So, upon day 1 of my Shiny New Life With Diabetes (positive, see?!), I decided I would take my own advice and do a single, positive thing for myself each day. And my clumsy, inept forum post - where I wasn't kind to myself at all - was my day 2 attempt.
I got better at it, though. In customary fashion (for me), I took the diagnosis of diabetes over the phone because I was unable to find time to get into the surgery for an appointment. And, with typical bloody-mindedness, I instantly set about arming myself with information, striving to understand this new thing and how I might control it (because - as anyone with a disabled child will tell you - information and control are EVERYTHING in our worlds).
My day 3 self-kindness was booking a 45 minute-long appointment with the diabetes nurse. Okay, in and of itself, that's not terribly self-kind, but the reason I did it was: I recognised that I could give myself a break and let someone else do the information heavy-lifting. So instead of spending hours researching and learning and cross-referencing, I figured I'd just save myself some time and anxiety and let someone else teach me instead.
Kindness.
Day 4's kindness, by the way, was to throw away every remaining pot of Slimfast noodles, the diet I finally figured out and started upon an ironic 3 days before my diagnosis. Oh, Life, you are a rascal! The noodles look like something the cat threw up, then someone scooped up and dumped into a plastic pot and then put in the microwave. The noodles themselves have a weird texture which I can only compare to the worms I used to make my brother eat. By pot 2, I was in tears. So on day 4 I threw pots 3, 4 and 5 in the bin.
Sorry, this is probably all a bit TMI for an introductory post. I'm cursed with being both a writer and an over-sharer, Again, when you're dealing with parent carers who might have turned up to your support group in their PJ's, it puts everyone else at ease if you're not ashamed to be wearing different shoes and be sharing all the types of stories that everyone has but no-one ever says out loud. Old habits.
Speaking of old habits, those pesky carbs! I'd never been educated about food beyond the 5-a-day thing (which turns out to be complete arbitrary nonsense, apparently) and the 2k/day calorie rule - which never made sense to me as I'm 6' tall and when you actually SEE what 2,000 calories looks like and then you compare that with what my family raised me to eat. All carbs - pasta, potatoes, rice, more potatoes! We're the family who could eat 4 different types of carbs in a single meal! (I have learned my actual intake should be 2,800 - 3k / day)
This last week - again, very typically for me - I have met my diabetes face-to-face. I've looked it in the eye and stared it down. I've gone carb cold-turkey (as far as modern food, my budget and my energy levels will allow).
Not to boast but my intake totals for the last 3 days look like this:
Friday: 2258 calories, carbs 245.05, sugar 71.5
Saturday: 2318 calories, carbs 151.3, sugar 57.3
Sunday: 1235 calories (Sunday is "Sleep and Salad Day"), carbs 89g, sugar, 43.3g
On Friday my self-kindness (I was carb-craving like I was pregnant) was a packet of cheese and onion crisps. I feel no shame.
On Saturday I thoughtlessly had a baked potato with what I thought was going to be a brilliantly healthy dinner - chicken and pesto wrapped in bacon. Well, it was delicious.
But here's the shocking thing (in this particular instance - a lot of things this week have shocked me). I would think nothing of ordering a takeaway on a Friday and digging in with my son with a movie and a bottle of coke. Goodness, when I worked it all out, it's about 8k calories! In a single meal!
It's all too easy to be tired and click a few buttons and - ta-da! - food appears at your door, delicious and ready to eat! For a while, giving myself a pass from being in the kitchen (not a natural housewife) was the only kindness I could afford myself, which sounds lame, I know. I beg only that you don't judge me until you know more about me. When I say "It's been crazy" I'm not kidding. I've had to give up my beloved volunteering, I've lost my mobility, I've been fighting tooth and nail for my son for well over a year. I've been severely anaemic for 3 of the last 4 years and, in all the appointments where I've asked doctors for help - with my back, with my weight, with my stress, the best anyone has ever given me is "Lose some weight". As if I hadn't realised, until that moment of magnanimous epiphany, that I'm actually shaped like a whale. Being neither stupid nor lazy, it remains a mystery to me why, in 3 years of asking for help, no-one has ever bothered to ask "Why can't you lose weight?"
Which is why I say my T2 diagnosis was inevitable.
So I started looking at the numbers. Logic thus: diabetes is a metabolic disease. It is affected by carbs and sugar. To understand my diabetes, I need to understand what I eat and what that does to me. Not just emotionally and practically, but in terms of what I eat actually delivers. For the first time in my life, I need to be in control of my food - not just because it'll allow me to control my diabetes and my weight, but because it'll prove something to myself, something quiet and vicious and accusatory that whispers to me in my mother's voice. I need to take control of the most fundamental aspect of existence: how I fuel myself.
That and having all that data is fascinating and will - hopefully - persuade the diabetes nurse on Wednesday to give me a meter and lots of strips because, apparently, NICE guidelines don't require T2's to monitor - it's left up to individual surgeries to decide if they want to fund that or not (if you don't monitor, how can you fundamentally understand - and therefore control - your relationship with food?). The way I am choosing to engage with my diabetes is aggressively cerebral and data-driven. It's factual and unemotional: with so much else in my life up in the air, I need just one thing to be stripped of all feelings and boil down to simple observe-and-record scientific fact.
Allowing myself to have this approach, to start anew and let go of the guilt and shame I felt upon my diagnosis (again, meet my lovely mother) is, maybe, the greatest kindness I can grant myself. That and surrounding myself with people who are also on the same journey.
I believe we all need more kindness: we all need to both show and be shown more kindness, and I believe this utterly. I believe we all need to be kinder to ourselves, to give ourselves a break. To be kind enough to ask how we're really feeling about something, or to find out what we actually want, or find that half hour to take the plunge with an overly long, rambling post into a new community.
So this is me. Struggling to be positive. Trying to be kind. I'm looking forward to meeting you all and sharing stories, numbers, jokes and such kindnesses as any of us can afford with you - I've already read some of your stories and felt such a wave of gratitude that I burst into tears.
With e-love,
Sock x
*1 My son, Euan, is 11 and has autism and complex sensory needs. I could go into how poorly we've been treated by our LA and how it's resulted, now, in the decision that he must go into residential - which is a decision I haven't made freely and is absolutely breaking my heart, but I just spent the night working on that and I'm trying to be positive, remember?
I've been awake all night worrying, writing, researching - not about my diabetes but the 17 other ****** things going on at the moment, and it struck me that I needed to take a break and do today's Positive Thing a little earlier than usual.
To be clear, I used to be a brilliantly positive person. I volunteered for 5 years running my local parent carer forum where I supported parents of disabled children and took their experiences to service managers with an aim to making the world - or just my city - a better place. I was, until about 6 months ago, the sunniest person in any room. Now I don't really know who I am. Not to be too glum, but the last 6 - 12 months have stripped away every defining aspect of my life.
Anyway. Positive.
Since my (inevitable) diagnosis of T2 (see? Already learning the local lingo) last week, I've decided to do one single, positive thing for myself every day. Not just have a banana or smile at the neighbour, but mindfully carry out a task that will directly benefit me (specifically me. If it makes life better for anyone else, huzzah, but this is my single daily moment of selfishness). In a way, I'm challenging my self worth: do I believe I am worthy of kindness; can I be kind to myself?
It's harder than you think, really.
Last week, on day 2, I joined a different diabetes forum. My introductory post was long and angry and didn't really invite anyone to reply - I was welcomed into that community by just a single pair of open e-arms (other introduction posts garnered upwards of 30), who were able to write just a single word: "Welcome".
"Be kind to yourself first" is advice I would readily give out to my parent carers. Being one myself*1, this wasn't some wishy-washy thoughtlessly optimistic affirmation I'd spit out like some dead-eyed yoga teacher, but a creed I genuinely believed in and could back up with evidence-based arguments.
I haven't been kind to myself in some time. It's not because I hate myself or have some secret self-loathing agenda but because when you're constantly at the sharp end of life, self-kindness too easily falls at the wayside, discarded as a gratuitous frivolity: Hey! I've got stuff to do! Kind to myself? I'm much too tough and badass to worry about that - look at all this **** I'm dealing with; I have to be some kind of super-hero uber-mum just to get through the day. Psshaw, self kindness.
So, upon day 1 of my Shiny New Life With Diabetes (positive, see?!), I decided I would take my own advice and do a single, positive thing for myself each day. And my clumsy, inept forum post - where I wasn't kind to myself at all - was my day 2 attempt.
I got better at it, though. In customary fashion (for me), I took the diagnosis of diabetes over the phone because I was unable to find time to get into the surgery for an appointment. And, with typical bloody-mindedness, I instantly set about arming myself with information, striving to understand this new thing and how I might control it (because - as anyone with a disabled child will tell you - information and control are EVERYTHING in our worlds).
My day 3 self-kindness was booking a 45 minute-long appointment with the diabetes nurse. Okay, in and of itself, that's not terribly self-kind, but the reason I did it was: I recognised that I could give myself a break and let someone else do the information heavy-lifting. So instead of spending hours researching and learning and cross-referencing, I figured I'd just save myself some time and anxiety and let someone else teach me instead.
Kindness.
Day 4's kindness, by the way, was to throw away every remaining pot of Slimfast noodles, the diet I finally figured out and started upon an ironic 3 days before my diagnosis. Oh, Life, you are a rascal! The noodles look like something the cat threw up, then someone scooped up and dumped into a plastic pot and then put in the microwave. The noodles themselves have a weird texture which I can only compare to the worms I used to make my brother eat. By pot 2, I was in tears. So on day 4 I threw pots 3, 4 and 5 in the bin.
Sorry, this is probably all a bit TMI for an introductory post. I'm cursed with being both a writer and an over-sharer, Again, when you're dealing with parent carers who might have turned up to your support group in their PJ's, it puts everyone else at ease if you're not ashamed to be wearing different shoes and be sharing all the types of stories that everyone has but no-one ever says out loud. Old habits.
Speaking of old habits, those pesky carbs! I'd never been educated about food beyond the 5-a-day thing (which turns out to be complete arbitrary nonsense, apparently) and the 2k/day calorie rule - which never made sense to me as I'm 6' tall and when you actually SEE what 2,000 calories looks like and then you compare that with what my family raised me to eat. All carbs - pasta, potatoes, rice, more potatoes! We're the family who could eat 4 different types of carbs in a single meal! (I have learned my actual intake should be 2,800 - 3k / day)
This last week - again, very typically for me - I have met my diabetes face-to-face. I've looked it in the eye and stared it down. I've gone carb cold-turkey (as far as modern food, my budget and my energy levels will allow).
Not to boast but my intake totals for the last 3 days look like this:
Friday: 2258 calories, carbs 245.05, sugar 71.5
Saturday: 2318 calories, carbs 151.3, sugar 57.3
Sunday: 1235 calories (Sunday is "Sleep and Salad Day"), carbs 89g, sugar, 43.3g
On Friday my self-kindness (I was carb-craving like I was pregnant) was a packet of cheese and onion crisps. I feel no shame.
On Saturday I thoughtlessly had a baked potato with what I thought was going to be a brilliantly healthy dinner - chicken and pesto wrapped in bacon. Well, it was delicious.
But here's the shocking thing (in this particular instance - a lot of things this week have shocked me). I would think nothing of ordering a takeaway on a Friday and digging in with my son with a movie and a bottle of coke. Goodness, when I worked it all out, it's about 8k calories! In a single meal!
It's all too easy to be tired and click a few buttons and - ta-da! - food appears at your door, delicious and ready to eat! For a while, giving myself a pass from being in the kitchen (not a natural housewife) was the only kindness I could afford myself, which sounds lame, I know. I beg only that you don't judge me until you know more about me. When I say "It's been crazy" I'm not kidding. I've had to give up my beloved volunteering, I've lost my mobility, I've been fighting tooth and nail for my son for well over a year. I've been severely anaemic for 3 of the last 4 years and, in all the appointments where I've asked doctors for help - with my back, with my weight, with my stress, the best anyone has ever given me is "Lose some weight". As if I hadn't realised, until that moment of magnanimous epiphany, that I'm actually shaped like a whale. Being neither stupid nor lazy, it remains a mystery to me why, in 3 years of asking for help, no-one has ever bothered to ask "Why can't you lose weight?"
Which is why I say my T2 diagnosis was inevitable.
So I started looking at the numbers. Logic thus: diabetes is a metabolic disease. It is affected by carbs and sugar. To understand my diabetes, I need to understand what I eat and what that does to me. Not just emotionally and practically, but in terms of what I eat actually delivers. For the first time in my life, I need to be in control of my food - not just because it'll allow me to control my diabetes and my weight, but because it'll prove something to myself, something quiet and vicious and accusatory that whispers to me in my mother's voice. I need to take control of the most fundamental aspect of existence: how I fuel myself.
That and having all that data is fascinating and will - hopefully - persuade the diabetes nurse on Wednesday to give me a meter and lots of strips because, apparently, NICE guidelines don't require T2's to monitor - it's left up to individual surgeries to decide if they want to fund that or not (if you don't monitor, how can you fundamentally understand - and therefore control - your relationship with food?). The way I am choosing to engage with my diabetes is aggressively cerebral and data-driven. It's factual and unemotional: with so much else in my life up in the air, I need just one thing to be stripped of all feelings and boil down to simple observe-and-record scientific fact.
Allowing myself to have this approach, to start anew and let go of the guilt and shame I felt upon my diagnosis (again, meet my lovely mother) is, maybe, the greatest kindness I can grant myself. That and surrounding myself with people who are also on the same journey.
I believe we all need more kindness: we all need to both show and be shown more kindness, and I believe this utterly. I believe we all need to be kinder to ourselves, to give ourselves a break. To be kind enough to ask how we're really feeling about something, or to find out what we actually want, or find that half hour to take the plunge with an overly long, rambling post into a new community.
So this is me. Struggling to be positive. Trying to be kind. I'm looking forward to meeting you all and sharing stories, numbers, jokes and such kindnesses as any of us can afford with you - I've already read some of your stories and felt such a wave of gratitude that I burst into tears.
With e-love,
Sock x
*1 My son, Euan, is 11 and has autism and complex sensory needs. I could go into how poorly we've been treated by our LA and how it's resulted, now, in the decision that he must go into residential - which is a decision I haven't made freely and is absolutely breaking my heart, but I just spent the night working on that and I'm trying to be positive, remember?
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