Emotional Diabetes

I’m asking you to stand way back and reflect on opportunities you have each day to turn a negative reaction into a positive one. I see my day as a series of events, and how I react to those events often affects my mood and ways I see myself.

I start the day pulling socks from the laundry basket beside the dryer. (I have not yet folded the clean laundry and put it away — but that draws a neutral reaction internally) I pick up a sock and spot the other lurking under a t-shirt. I pull it out and drop it.

“Oh damn, my day is going to hell already.”

I frigging dropped a sock!

I move on to trying to solve Wordle and Quordle. If I don’t get Wordle after the six tries, that’s another black mark. It may not be a fully conscious reaction, but I feel it slightly. I’m sure my body feels it a lot. Quordle is less important, and if I get three out of four words solved, that seems to be good enough.

Sometimes I let my glucose numbers be a measure of my self-worth. The lower they are, the greater value I have in myself. Never mind the fact that glucose is my body’s reaction to diet, and that my pancreas is too compromised to quell glucose surges, or my liver’s overworking and spilling out stored glucose in the middle of the night. I forget that my body has internal injuries for which I am not to blame. All I see is a number determining my self-worth.

I don’t want to talk about my weight. I haven’t stepped on scales in weeks, because I know a gut punch awaits. In my head I realize the insulin causes weight gain all I hear is my mother’s voice kindly urging me to lay off the treats.

She was never happy with her body, and blamed excess weight on the fact she had children. Ouch. She used to drink something called Metrical, a power she mixed with water or milk. Then she went to Weight Watchers. She never really got to a weight she liked, and I doubt the problem was weight anyway.

We grow up with our grades determining whether we’re A-plus kids or just C, average — but C is not really good enough. Some people seem addicted to school and I wonder how much of that compulsion to learn is due to getting a grade, a tangible assessment of their success.

Does getting A’s really help you feel good about who you are?

We get raises and promotions at work. We see managers as superiors, literally floating above us on the flow chart of work-life. I imagine CEO’s look to more powerful peers at competing companies having greater worth. That corporate ladder keeps going higher and higher.

I’m sure you have your own ways you measure success, ways you pass or fail each day. Maybe you drop a sock or forget to put fruit in your child’s lunch bag or lose the keys somewhere in the house — all opportunities to scold yourself. And that scolding happens so fast, it seems automatic.

The first step in any change of behaviour is awareness.

• Hey, I actually have a negative reaction to dropping a sock! That’s crazy!

• My mid-term marks are worse that I expected. How can I change my study habits before Christmas?

• My boss makes more money than me, has power and influence…but he’s got no people skills. I’ve got to remember that I’m a better person.

For me, I’m going to address my glucose numbers as something to deal with. They don’t reflect any value, other than my body’s struggles to handle a difficult situation. Maybe a little empathy toward my overworked pancreas might help.

As for the weight scales, that’s a challenge. I’ll work on it.

Have a great day. I’ll talk to you soon.