A Shift

April 4th, 2021 was the four year anniversary of my Diabetes diagnosis. Starting almost exactly on that day, the way I thought about my story changed.

When I first got out of the hospital, I was telling everyone my story. Granted, that was because I was in high school and everyone wanted to know 1. why I had missed so much school and 2. what had happened to my arm, which was now in a sling due to nerve inflammation as a complication from Diabetic Ketoacidosis. I explained what happened to all of my teachers and all of my friends who hadn’t been in the loop for the whole thing. I was of the mindset that my story would help raise awareness—awareness that there are more symptoms to Diabetes and DKA than most people know about.

Around this time, I had not fully processed the trauma of the whole situation yet. I often thought that it would take years for me to truly realize the gravity of what happened—I pictured myself being in my thirties, just going about my life, and suddenly have a breakdown. Well, I wasn’t completely wrong.

Fast forward to Easter Sunday of 2021, the fourth anniversary of the day I was rushed to the hospital. I had to work that day, and I spent the day as normal—but there was something in the back of my mind that I couldn’t quite shake. In the following days, I started thinking more about my story.

I almost died. I spent six months in physical therapy. No one knew what was wrong with my arm. What if something happens to my arm again? Could I get through it a second time?

These things have been on my mind ever since. In the past few years, I have had several intrusive thoughts about my arm simply going limp again, and they have nearly brought me to tears because I can’t go through that again. I can’t have to adapt to my life with one arm again. That was the hardest time of my life, and one of the darkest mental health times I’ve had. I can’t do it again.

I will still talk about my story with people—the other day, I talked to someone at work who has several family members that are diabetic—but I’m a lot more hesitant to share the scarier details. Mostly because I don’t want to cry in the middle of the workday, but also because I have seen a lot of mental health pages on social media talk about being careful with who you share your trauma with. I’ve realized that there are a lot of people who don’t need to know the intimate details of my diagnosis, or how it affected my mental health. However, I do think there is a time and place for talking about things like this. Maybe it’s joking with a friend who has a different chronic illness—she’s the only one who ever laughs at my jokes—or talking about my experience in physical therapy with someone who wants to go into that field.

The way I see my story has changed, and so has the way I think about the trauma from it. With things like this, you can’t just flip a switch and make it go away. This is something I’m going to be dealing with for the rest of my life, and I might as well find a way to process it.

Stay safe everyone.

—Abbie