Diabetes Blog Week - Room for Improvement

Yesterday we gave ourselves and our loved ones a big pat on the back for one thing we are great at.  Today let’s look at the flip-side.  We probably all have one thing we could try to do better.  Why not make today the day we start working on it.  No judgments, no scolding, just sharing one small thing we can improve so the DOC can cheer us on!

This was a hard topic for me. Namely because I feel there's SO MANY things I need to improve upon. So many things that with the right amount of tweaking would (in theory) make this diabetes thing so much easier. That line of thinking led me to the larger issue that impacts every aspect of my diabetes self-care and how I live my life with diabetes.

I don't give myself enough credit.

I don't give myself a break.

Every single number that isn't between 75 & 110 feels like a failure and a judgment of my worth and my ability. Every time I have a high number I think that it's just blown my decent a1c out of the water.

Feeling like that - feeling beaten down and feeling like a failure; feeling like I just can't do anything right - leads to burn out much more quickly than if I could manage to separate my feelings from those numbers. If I could look at those numbers as a road map rather than a report card it would be so much better for my mental and emotional health and my overall diabetes management.

Feeling like a failure when it comes to diabetes is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thinking "I'm awful at this" or "I can't do this" leads to actually not being able to handle it. That thinking leads to poor decisions which lead to even worse numbers which lead to less testing and more "going through the motions" of diabetes care rather than carefully tending to what my body needs at any given time. It leads to basing everything on my Dexcom numbers and only testing right before it's time for some lizard spit. It leads to going to the gym without my meter or glucose tabs. It leads to not double checking (or really paying attention to) my Dexcom alarms. To me, ALL of that is far more dangerous for my overall health than trying my best and knowing that I'll still get numbers that I don't like despite my most sincere efforts.

I'd rather try my best and let the numbers fall where they may than not care at all. Rationally I know that's the better option. But I need to work on letting the numbers fall where they may - and being OK emotionally with where they fall knowing that I tried my best. I need to be ok with my best efforts not always yielding the best numbers. I don't know if I'll ever be able to get there 100%, but I'm working on it. In the long run it's the best thing for me.