LIMBO

Have you ever wondered why it is SOOOO easy to be bad? This has been my biggest downfall since being diagnosed with Diabetes nearly a year ago. I KNOW what I should do. I KNOW how I should eat. Yet, it is so easy to make bad choices. It takes one second of failed will power for me to get my bloodsugar so high up that I feel like I am about to slip into a power nap of fairytale proportions. It’s the kind of nap that I never totally wake up from and end up walking around in a stupor for the remainder of the day. I am basically throwing minutes, hours, days, months and possibly years away, shaving off precious moments of my yet unlived life. Does that scare me? Sure, in theory.

I have learned a lot over the last 9 months. I think I have read, in some form or another, every book on Type 2 Diabetes available, or at least brief summaries of them. I think I finally understand why so many people can never get Diabetes under control.

It’s hard.

The vast majority of people with Type 2 diabetes are overweight and as a result have developed the disease. So, your doctor tells you that you have it, hands you a brochure, prescribes some form of medication and just like that, you are expected to walk out of the doctor’s office a changed and enlightened human being. BUT the reality is, you walk out feeling totally overwhelmed, scared and ashamed. There is an unspoken mentality that people who are fat ‘did it to themselves’. I once read a comment on a blog that said ‘all of those type 2 fatties are making the rest of us look bad’. Apparently this person was a type 1, and judging by his comment, was also probably thin. So, my biggest struggle has been this:

How do you change a lifetime of eating habits?
How do you quit years of food addictions?
How do you go from taking comfort in food to looking at certain foods as your enemy?

And believe me, when you suddenly have restrictions where before there were none, food can become your enemy. Every book I read gave me a list of what I had to STOP immediately. Every book I read was very clear in pinpointing all of the wrong elements in my life. Is it any wonder to see why so many people fail at controlling it? Why so many people feel overwhelmed?
I felt like I was doing EVERYTHING wrong and I felt hollow inside. Really. To the point where some days, I just say ‘forget it’. I can’t take the pressure anymore. I eat what I want. I don’t take my medicine. I feel sick and tired. And frankly, I am sick and tired. I am tired of the rollercoaster. Of having a great day and then ruining it by making a bad choice at the end of the day. I suppose I could start taking insulin, but for me, it would be an enabler. And I want to get this under control. I guarantee that the majority of type 2 diabetics want to get it under control but have the same feelings of confusion, of being overwhelmed by shame when they blow it…again. It’s not fun, but a powerful thing I do have is the power of visualization.

I can SEE myself happy and healthy and strong. I can see it so clearly. I want it so badly. I don’t want that girl to just live in my mind. I want her to come out of me. To EXPLODE out of me. To be a reality and not just a dream.

And on most days, it’s that girl, the beautiful diabetic, who gives me hope.