Click for the Ten things I hate about you, Diabetes-Thursday 5/12 Link List.
Having a positive attitude is important . . . but let’s face it, diabetes isn’t all sunshine and roses (or glitter and unicorns, for that matter). So today let’s vent by listing ten things about diabetes that we hate. Make them funny, make them sarcastic, make them serious, make them anything you want them to be!!
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Diabetes sucks. No matter how much I manage to convince myself otherwise, that's just what it comes down to. And now, without further ado, here are ten things I hate about Diabetes.
1. Hypoglycemia ... Especially At Night
I hate the late-night Hypoglycemia. Waking up with my heart pounding in my ears, feeling shaky, drenched in cold sweat. The need for carbs, and carbs now. Getting my 15 grams worth of carbs and then ending up going on carb binges anyways, because it's so hard not to. The guilt I get afterwards and the subsequent roller coaster ride from low to high.
2. I Am Sick and Tired of Things Pricking Me!
Did I mention I hate needles? That they were my biggest fear? Irony really pulled a joke on me this time. Sometimes, I am just really not in the mood to prick myself in the butt with a needle. Or my stomach, my thigh, my arm, or my finger, for that matter. Can't I just have one needle-free day? No? Thanks for being so understanding, Diabetes. Way to be an insensitive jerk.
3. Ignorance
I hate all of the ignorant people I encounter. Okay, I'll be nice. It's not necessarily the people, but the ignorance itself. I know it sounds kind of hypocritical coming from me because before my diagnosis, I knew nothing about Diabetes, either. But I'm sorry, this just bugs the hell out of me. YES I can eat sugar, NO a candy bar won't kill me. But no, I cannot eat a whole mound of potatoes or apples or bananas because they're "healthy". If it has carbs, I have to watch how much of it I eat, and just about everything has carbs!
4. Annoying Statements
Don't even think of uttering the statement, "5 shots a day?! Oh, but you'll get used to it. At least you don't have cancer." That's a double whammy there. Let's get things straight. You never get "used" to sharp objects poking your skin. EVER. Put up with it? Yes. Used to it? No. Furthermore, no, I don't have cancer, but don't think that just because Diabetes isn't cancer that it is a walk in the park by any measure. Diabetes is a terrible and exhausting thing to live with, combined with the fact that there is no cure. Just because you can't see Diabetes on the outside doesn't mean that Diabetics don't have their struggles on an everyday basis. So please, I know you might mean well, but please stop making the situation worse by getting me seriously p.o.'ed.
5. Carb Cravings
It's pure psychology. Just knowing that I shouldn't have all of those carbs makes me want them even more. Not aiding in the situation is that Pre-Diabetes, I loved carbs, and I loved baking them. I was convinced that I could live off of bread in perfect happiness and I was renowned for my home made chocolate chip cookies. Carbs were the best! Yeah! And then I got this little thing called Diabetes... Now I miss drinking sweet iced tea more than I can imagine. Some of the foods I loved so much I didn't even realize had carbs, and now I hate to realize that more of them than I'd like have so damn many of them. Now, I hate that the only reason I want to eat an entire box of donuts is because I no longer can, and that whenever I go out to eat I am consigned to merely staring at the tantalizing bread basket instead of digging in. And don't even get me started on what I think about not being able to taste test all of that delicious cookie dough...
6. The Emotional Stress
Diabetes is very much an "inward" disease. You can't really see it on the outside, but it takes its toll on the inside - not just physically, but emotionally. I hate the nagging worry I get every time I leave the house without my insulin, even if only for a little while. I hate the worry about the future, the finances, my health. I hate that I'll feel perfectly at peace with having Diabetes one day and then 5 minutes later I'll get all emotional and want to cry my eyes out because of it. Or I'll lash out at the people around me because I'm angry, not at the people but at Diabetes itself. Or the fact that living with Diabetes is emotional hell and it's so hard to explain to people what it's like when there is no way that they can relate or even truly understand what it's like. I hate that I hate - not a typo - watching other people eat, carefree, and not be able to do the same. I shouldn't loathe people for being healthy and normal, but sometimes I just... do. They don't know how good they have it. I hate going to the grocery store and looking at all of the foods I can no longer, carefree, eat. Sure, I can eat those cookies on the shelf. One of them. And I can eat that candy bar. A quarter of it. It just plain depresses me. I hate how food, something I used to love and enjoy, has become a constant reminder of my illness and an inevitable source of sadness to me.
7. Being Judged
I hate how people judge me when they see me looking at my nutrition book, turning down food, drinking only diet sodas or loading my plate with vegetables instead of macaroni and white rice. This isn't a figure-conscious thing, my life depends on it. So get over yourselves.
8. Invisibility
Having Diabetes is like carrying around an invisible elephant on your shoulders. No matter how heavy of a burden it is, there will always be people who cannot understand how hard it is because they cannot see it. I hate that however much I may be suffering on the inside, that no one can see how much it sucks. How weak and helpless and shakily incapacitated I feel when I get lows. How I feel like crap whenever I get high or feel guilty because I did my math wrong and caused that high. No one can see that, any because of that, they think that "Diabetes isn't that bad". It sucks. It really really does.
9. The Diabetes Police... In My Head.
I hate the Diabetes Police in my head. It it the calculator that adds and re-adds all of the carbs in my meal before the food ever reaches my mouth. It is the mental reprimanding I receive every time I eat more of something than I should have, or could have picked a healthier option, or binged on carbs during a late-night hypo. It is the question of "Should you really eat that?" every time I look a bit too enviously at a plate of cookies or an all-you-can-eat buffet of dessert (those are the worst). No matter what it seems that the Diabetes Police is constantly after me, and I am its most-wanted criminal.
10. I Hate Diabetes
That's right. I hate Diabetes itself. I never asked for Diabetes, but it came in, unasked for and uninvited. Diabetes never takes a break, no matter how exhausted with the disease I may get. Diabetes never asks me how I'm feeling, doesn't bother to check and see if it's an opportune moment to have a low or if it's okay to get high and send my blood sugars skyrocketing through the roof like a bunch of Disney World fireworks. I hate what Diabetes does to me. The guilt, the emotion, the physical and mental toll it takes upon me everyday. The way it isolates me from others who, despite their good intentions, simply cannot fully understand what it's like. I hate how it makes me loathe myself, how it turns myself against me. My body is supposed to work for me, but instead it decided to attack an organ I didn't even know the function to and make it stop working.
So those are ten out of many of the things I hate about Diabetes. Sorry if that came out as very negative... but it sure felt good to get all of that out of my system. :)
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