Spot on donnellysdogs! It's about acceptance, and once we accept certain things, especially ones we didn't choose but which are a part of our life, we can and will find ways to adapt, as you said, and learn ways to cope, live with and even overcome hurdles. I could write a book (but I won't ) about the lack of productive true-to-life guidance from the medical professionals who specialise in diabetes, to look more positively at the condition, as harrowing as it is in nature, and encourage diabetics to believe in really adapting to it almost as a way of life, life as a whole, affecting everything from whether we run for the bus and perhaps cause a hypo unwillinglingly to whether we worry too much, get stessed at work, or suffer a delay in a traffic jam without a supply of goodies to deal with a hypo. More focus on how embracing it as a part of us rather than as a cruel silent enemy.
Diabetes is my life because from the minute I wake up to when I fall asleep my blood sugars, circulation, food intake and testing are part of how I live. But I have to help myself within my diabetes, by not beating myself up on top of how it already takes up my time and attention. I look at it as a permanent unwanted guest who's come to settle into my home. Of course I'd love to kick it out and make sure it never comes back, but that's wishful thinking, so my best bet is to calmly give myself a short time to accept its presence and figure out how best to handle it. That sounds simplistic, I know, but the point is if I want to enjoy life I can't let it ruin my world, hard as it is to constantly fight its testing of my mental and physical strength. If I enjoy being miserable and don't care for making the most of my time on earth I can let it eat away at me, literally. At times in my life I thought diabetes could turn me into a tired misery bag if I let it, especially if I was doing everything to stat on top of it and yet things just ran amock. I hated the idea of letting the negative general view of diabetes as a road to deterioration become my view so I consciously accepted it as that nuisance of an uninvited guest whom I'd welcome into My home and treat as best as I could for comfort and safety. Of course I'd want to scream at times and wish to God it would get out of my life but I told myself to take one day at a time and never give up, just never give up, no matter what, because thhis sod was there for life. Of course I didn't grow to love it, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but I saw myself coping, doing what I wanted, having choices that some people never got. I could control it if I wanted to, that was in my hands, because it's in my body, my home. Some people wish they could just walk, talk, be able to eat or go to the toilet independently. I was lucky. Of course I get depressed, dreary, even dip into a bit of self pity once in a while when things go wrong or even if they don't, but that's only human and life goes on, it has to.
My biggesr gratitude to T1 is that from an early age it taught me how fragile and precious health is, and therefore how short life is. I knew from times spent in hospital wards as a kid that health wasn't a thing to take for granted. T1 taught me to appreciate feeling well and keeping life simple. It made me feel real empathy with people and made me learn to be strong and independent. My spells in hospital as a child woke me up and made me relish running in the school playground and finding hobbies I enjoyed. As I got older I didn't want to waste my life letting myself be run down by feeling run down, so I kept finding ways to cope with tiredness, to feel productive, and do what I wanted in life no matter how difficult it was to keep swimming against the waves of tiredness. I certainly haven't got it sussed, I have as many ups and downs as the next person, but if I believe in defeat and submission I have no one to blame but myself if my life topples around me, and that's the strength T1 taught me.
I can tell you, I feel tired even when I enjoy myself. I live a full life but tiredness is a regular part of it, often, if not always., especially now that I'm older. I take it as part of each day, and like Lynz84 said, it doesn't make me useless or unable to do what I want. It sounds really cheesy but life is what you make it, but having a srlf-encouraging mindset is crucial in this tough world.
Oh dear, I'm writing a book again here...never know when to stop, what am I like, eh? Before I go, just to say how happy I am to talk to you both Lynz84 and donnellysdogs about tiredness because years ago I felt that a few other T1s I met didn't want to allow the idea of tiredness to be associated with their condition as though it would make them sound less capable or reliable as people, which is silly....it's nothing to be ashamed of, it's a simple fact that diabetes weighs on every organ and cell in a diabetic's body and that tiredness would be a natural conseqence, to varying degrees in each individual, but it's to be expected. Of course there are many who don't get that tiredness, but, again, our bodies are all different. We live in a world where everything has to have a reason and when we don't find one we feel odd, or self-doubt, or let down even, as if we missed something the others seemed to grasp. Go easy on ourselves.
I shall now put a sock in it and hope you'll forgive my long rabbiting.