Well, sure, in life with diabetes there are pills to take, injections to remember, carbs to count, pump sites to change and fingers to prick…but perhaps the real driving force behind our life with diabetes is what’s happening in our mind: our thoughts and emotions.
And it starts the moment we are diagnosed.
Upon diagnosis, our mind can play the game where we are victims of a frustrating, endlessly challenging, sometimes scary disease…or our mind can play the game where we are empowered survivors of a frustrating, endlessly challenging, sometimes scary disease.
And those mind games never end.
Every time we prick our finger and to measure our blood sugar, for instance, our mind–specifically our thoughts–come along for the ride and truly determine whether that number pushes us to keep going or holds us down.
When we see a 257 mg/dL on the screen of that little ol’ glucose meter, we have so many options merely in how we think about that number. Our mind can play the game where that number means we’re “bad diabetics.” Our mind can play the game where that number is “just a number” and a reason to perhaps take a correction dose of insulin or avoid whatever food popped us up that high in the first place. Our mind can play the game where that number is yet another brick on top of an already heavy house of thoughts, piling up gradually and adding to our diabetes burnout. Our mind can play the game where that number is merely a moment in the day, light and insignificant, doing the best we can in a very tricky disease with a very tricky number of variables in a body that isn’t doing the job its supposed to do on its own.
Every moment of diabetes is threaded to the next with the messages, thoughts, and emotions we put there.
And those thoughts certainly don’t all have to be the same. Some days those mind games can be overwhelmingly filled with anger and despair. Other days those mind games can leave us feeling victorious! Successful! Thriving!
Sometimes it feels as though it’s out of our control–those message, thoughts, and emotions.
Perhaps to some extent it truly is out of our control. We all have different backgrounds, different types of support in our lives, different stressors or lack thereof. We all face a variety of obstacles when it comes to trying to play the mind game that leaves us feeling as though we’re on top and doing the best we can.
But we do all have a choice.
Every thought we give credit to has an impact. Every thought we make room for has an impact. If we’ve been making too much room for thoughts we don’t necessarily enjoy or want to keep, we have the choice of filling up that space with different thoughts, different emotions, different mind games.
These mind games can leave us feeling convinced that we are failing or thriving.
We are all entitled to burnout, sadness, frustration and anger in life with diabetes, but do we have to stay there? And especially depression (which deserves it’s own category separate from this post).
It’s up to us.
Sometimes ending that mind game might mean asking for help from a friend, a parent, or a doctor. Sometimes it might mean spending several weeks looking at all the thoughts we keep in our head around diabetes and choosing a day to wipe the space clean and start anew. Sometimes it might simple taking a deep breath and wanting to choose different mind games, gradually, bit by bit.
We do have a choice.
What mind games do you play the most in your head within your life with diabetes?
