For some time now, I’m searching for things to motivate me to cope with my diabetes. I mean, why should I put so much effort in this, when all I get from this is a number every three month? I don’t feel bad if my bs is too high (maybe a bit tired, but that’s it), and I hardly get any lows, if I hold my bs around 190 or so. I know, intellectual, that this kind of ignorance about it might cause a lot of problems on the long run, but they don’t affect me now. Actually, I block the fact out, that I could suffer someday from neuropathy, could become blind and so on. It scares me and paralyses me, makes me unable to move.
(Actually, this first part of the post was my attitude until two month ago. Thanks to you, I’m feeling much better now, take more care of myself, have better bs and take a more active part in treating my diabetes. But the following still holds.)
Also every psychologist would say, that positive motivations are much more helpful than negative motivations are. So…what positive motivations could there be? I really have a hard time seeing any. Oh well…okay, there are some:
- Diabetes made me the person I am. It made me a stronger, more selfconfident person, who has an own opinion and has hardly ever been an opportunist.
- I have learned to listen to my body. I know, when I have to stop, as I know how my body reacts in extreme situations (stress especially and I also have never passed out because of drinking)
- I have gotten a good knowledge about how much carb, fat and calories groceries contain and maybe eat more healthy stuff than I would otherwise
- It probably has also teached my some dicipline
- I’ve met some great people because of it, and I’m going to meet even more.
What else could make me happy to have diabetes? Somewhere here on TuDiabetes I’ve read (as an answer to a similar question) that many of you are thankful for living in our time and having the opportunity to treat their diabetes or that they are thankful for still living at all… but such things kind of don’t count for my, because if I hadn’t gotten this disease, I wouldn’t have the problem in the first place. (I’m also thankful, but that’s nothing to motivate me.)
There are some small things that make happy in my everyday live which are connected to diabetes:
- Sometimes I’m really happy to have a good bs, especially when I didn’t expect it
- I like it when my new tin with test strips has the same calibration code as my old one
- I like to go home from university (or another way that I go repeatedly) and to find used teststrips - they are probably mine and make me happy in a strange cat-making-her-territory way
- I’m always happy to get new diabetes supplies or accessories, but this doesn’t happen often
- I like it when something has a carb count that is an integer multiple of 12 per serving (because that’s the “unit” I do the insulin-per-carb math with)
So… what things make you guys happy to have diabetes? Which small things make you smile and which big things make you strong? Cause I’m still searching for things to add to my list.
Edit: I also like to put a new vial into my pen. It feels like I’m putting together my gun and loading it.