I am just curious, for those of you who want to talk about this, where are you in your acceptance level of this disease? When I was first diagnosed, they (and myself) thought I was type 2. I was more than willing to do everything I could and then some to stay as healthy as possible, thinking it was in my control to correct with diet, etc. When I had tried my best, only to find out that I was type 1 and needed insulin, I had mixed feelings about it and still do. While I appreciate being able to eat almost everything because of my insulin, I also find myself resenting it for a few reasons. The lows (and worry of future lows), the extreme highs sometimes, worry about future complications and , the unpredictable nature of it. If I was type 2, I could have a lot more control. I have some acceptance but not as much as I would like to. I also have a lot of shame sometimes, checking my bg in front of people, etc. I don’t know why. I am wondering where everyone else is at with this?
Oh yeah, and another thing I resent is that before the clinicians scoffed at my natural attempts to get better and handed me insulin, I was really full of motivation and determined. Now I’ve gotten a little lazy because, after all, I can eat anything i want and sit around. The insulin will take care of it. That doesn’t sound good, I know. I just feel like they took something away from me. But I’m going to end this post on a positive note and say, I am starting to take more responsibility again (like trying to have more self control with my eating, and exercising alot more), and this forum is starting to help me feel a lot more positive about things again.
You’ll get over what people think pretty quickly. I agree with you. Type 1 is a turd sandwich. You will also find that insulin can give you better control.
It was not the gift I would have chosen for the beginning of middle age (43), but there’s nothing for it. You can do this. What you need to know and/or do well are a few things.
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Where you BG has a tendency to go during the day. Up, down sideways. So you have to test. Because that’s how you find out what’s going on.
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What do I eat? Find out how much your dietitian says you should be eating as a starting point. How much do you need to eat to do what you need to do. (You’ll know you’ve got this right when you don’t gain or lose weight–unless you want to).
What I’m talking about is how many carbs per day/meal, which leads to:
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How many carbs is that? What does it do to my BG?
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How much insulin do I need? How much basal? What’s your carb ratio for meals? Your insulin sensitivity?
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and for later–how much do I need to eat to walk that 45 minute jaunt to wherever?
Every one of us is doing all those things all the time. The really horrible thing? Your insulin needs will change over time. Your patterns might change over time. What you eat may change over time.
My best advice is to remember to not take yourself (or others) too seriously. You’ll figure this out. How about a joke.
How is Donald Trump like Type 1 diabetes?
Sometimes he’s bad, sometimes he’s good–but he’s always crazy.
LOL!! Thank you 
It seems to me like there is more shame with T2 since we are generally told it is our fault by having a bad diet, not enough exercise, etc. but we couldn’t do anything to prevent T1 (except maybe be more exposed to germs/viruses/dirt as a kid? The hygiene hypothesis).
Anyway, it doesn’t bother me to test or inject in front of people or that people know I am diabetic. I kind of like explaining what it is to people that don’t really know.
Maybe I am just bad at carb counting, but if I eat anything I want that is high carb I usually end up high or sometimes overcompensate and go low. So at least for me I can avoid the rollercoaster with lowish-carb meals and avoiding the rollercoaster is motivating for me! Anyway still lots of room for exercise and eating well for T1’s 
I’m only in my second week of T1 and I think I’m coping fairly well. I’m still in the honeymoon phase of the disease and my body is still producing a little insulin so my doses aren’t that big. I have already begun carb counting and try to do yoga every day just so I can get in to the good habits and I’ll be prepared for when I really need them. My levels generally stay under 200 (closer to 100) and I’m learning what foods give me the big spikes (I’m looking at you mac & cheese).
My main concern right now is for my infant son, who is 10 months. I can manage with the constant blood tests and injections but I really hope he doesn’t get diabetes and have to suffer through it. He is too young to understand what is happening and I’d hate to see him in pain.
I wish I were labelled a type 1… then I could get technology to assist me in dealing with this crappy disease. When everyone thought I was type 1 I was a better patient. I was more interested in checking BG and documenting etc. Now I’m not really interested anymore. I don’t want to document my demise. Too much stigma around type 2 and there are no resources around me for help. It’s very a isolating and depressing disease to have. Do I accept it? I don’t know yet. I just do what I have to do, and keep calm and carry on.
I think I was lucky that I got it in my late 20s, when I was old enough to deal with it but young enough that my habits weren’t so established as to make it hard to adapt. I’d have a much harder time with it now. But… it’s mixed. On the one hand, after thirty years-plus asking if I accept it is a bit like asking if I accept my eye color or facial features. It’s just part of who I am. Except sometimes. I mean, just tonight I was struggling with a high after eating at a restaurant before choir rehearsal (I thought I’d bolused enough but it takes a while for the insulin to catch up to the carbs if you aren’t able to pre-bolus, and then it kept going up and up…), and at the break time everyone else was enjoying the cookies someone brought and I found myself really resenting the fact that I couldn’t just enjoy something like that without having to think about it and struggle to get the insulin right and have all these consequences to deal with and, yup, it pisses me off at times. Mostly I do all the stuff automatically, but even after thirty years there are times when I really really really don’t want to do this anymore. But then you go on.
And at least the tools for dealing with it are SO much better than they were in 1983, so that helps. “Being able to eat almost everything because of my insulin” was not a thought I could have remotely entertained for the first couple of decades.
when i was first diagnosed, i had just moved to a new city. i met a wonderful friend who had crohns and he so understood where i was with regards to diagnosis and acceptance and the mental state i would be in. he was diagnosed with crohns at the age of 18, and told me that it would take me like a year to 18 months to accept it and not be angry.
and i was angry. people eating christmas cookies, kids walking down the street eating bags of crisps in my face, whole families eating ice-creams in the summer. i wanted to kill all of them! i was so angry at my benedict arnold-immune system, angry at the hospital i had to go to, glaring at it from the bus or from my bike whenever i passed it. i resented my endo, the poor woman, who didnt have anything to do with the death of my stupid pancreas.
i spent some months kind of doing the bargaining thing, exercising like three hours a day so that maybe it would go away/turn into type 2 and make insulin unnecessary (like that would be better, yeah right).
i had a very prolonged honeymoon period and just ate the same thing every day, scared to death that id have some very horrible early complication, just because yes. it was a dark time, though to other people i seemed absolutely fine. except when my mother told me it would all soon become a habit, just like brushing my teeth, which i exploded at. naturally.
that was four years ago and now it is just like a habit. mothers are always right. hot damn.
but i am and even at the very beginning was, very grateful i got this as an adult, having eaten all of the cake at birthday parties, stuffing myself full of sugary goodness at halloween, growing up eating nyc pizza, experimenting with alcohol with just the regular risks and eating a pound of cherries on the sofa instead of making dinner. it is horrible that children and their parents have to endure this disease. it has got to be much more stressful and scary.
so right now im at peace with it. last year i had two a1cs in the low 7s, which woke me up a bit and work a little harder and pay more attention. not fun, but it is what it is. i dont think ill ever be one of those people who think diabetes made them a better person or made them who they are. but hell, i certainly have a healthier lifestyle because of it.
Thank you for being so honest and open about the earlier part of your journey! That was beautiful.
Sounds like a good idea for me too, having low carb meals. Yes, good point for me to remember what I CAN control–the exercise and healthy food, thank u! 
Ah, parents. The day I called to tell them about my diagnosis, my mom was actually pretty good about it, maybe a little hysterical–she really wanted me to go to the hospital though my PCP just had me checking in from home twice a day and doing the shots and all myself. My dad on the other hand… I was in my 20s, married for about 4 years. My mom handed him the phone and, crusty old bastard that he was, the first thing out of his mouth was not “Tough break,” or “It’s no fun but I’m sure you’ll do fine.” Nope. It was “Diabetes, huh? Makes ya impotent.” Thanks Pop.
my level of A is I just want a transplant or something… it is just too difficult. I don’t want to be on insulin for the rest of my life, it is getting harder and harder, certainly not easier.
I know. I believe there’s always hope though. Maybe for a transplant or maybe there will be something else they will come up with one of these days. Some days are better than others, right?
We have to keep hoping that we won’t have to live this way forever. Yes, lately most are bad for me unfortunately… ugh. Here’s to better days soon
It’s honestly taken me 25 years to get to something that I would consider acceptance. I was diagnosed at age 9, so for the first few years my parents did most of the hard stuff like calculating my insulin doses and planning all my meals. As a teenager, I did what I had to do but didn’t really think much of it. I refused to carry supplies around with me until the day I passed out from a low in the middle of my high school hallway. After that, I took more responsibility, but still didn’t really think much about it. In my early 20s I continued doing what I needed to do, but didn’t really care if I was in tight control or not, so my A1c crept into the 8s once or twice hit the 9s. Then I started on the pump at the age of 25 and was told I could eat anything I watned. That is the worst advice I have ever been told. I wish that, instead of telling me I could eat whatever I wanted, I’d been told that I could get an A1c in the 6s. But, nope. So, as a 25-year-old who had lived on a restricted diet most of my remembered life, of course I went out and tried everything that I’d never had before, like brownies and milkshakes and chocolate bars and cinnamon buns, which I remembered from before I was diagnosed but had not had since. And, of course, I gained a ton of weight doing that.
In recent years, my life has changed a lot. My allergies have gone from few and mostly mild (I did grow up with a severe food allergy, but otherwise allergies and asthma were mild) to multiple and severe enough that they affect my life nearly as much as diabetes does. I’ve developed a couple other autoimmune conditions. Diabetes is no longer the one and only health condition that takes daily management. And, so, while I don’t like diabetes, I’ve come closer to accepting it than I ever have before. It isn’t going anywhere, and doing a mediocre job of managing it isn’t going to help me (and may likely hurt me), and I do not want to retire at age 60, having had diabetes for half a century, and be facing complications. And, even if I don’t have complications, dealing with diabetes on top of other chronic health conditions is just much harder than dealing with diabetes on its own, mentally and emotionally and physically. And so, while I will never like diabetes, I’ve come to accept it as part of my life, and I don’t get nearly as emotional or upset about trying and failing (in terms of control) than I used to.
My dearly departed mother was trying to kill me with love and food from day one… She would say to the doctor “it’s OK to give him a cinnamon bun or banana cream pie once in a while isn’t it?” her meaning of once in a while was for dessert after a healthy dinner… Miss her…
Hang in there.
Aww, she does know how much you miss her; her love surrounds you day and night!
I’m not there now but I remember those early days. It was almost impossible to to exist with diabetes and keep on living your life and being accepted. I was a freshman in college when I was diagnosed. I was an athlete and a wrestler when I was simtimatic. I was trying to lose weight for a weight class, but couldn’t stop. After diagnosis I was in Salt Lake City and a doctor there was going to have me off insulin in about a week. After two days he finally gave up. He was sadenen to tell me it wasn’t possible. I know this was the reverse of you, but the emotions where about the same. I found that trying to get a job was almost impossible. It got to the point that no one could know I was a diabetic. My wife didn’t know until we’re married. I finally graduate college and had a job and then I started to be more open about it. I had to give up most of my friends. It was impossible to control my diabetes with those people I hid it from. Now most all my friends are diabetic or have a spouse or a family member who also is a diabetic. It seems as I got older that it didn’t matter because everyone has some alment to deal with.