Grace

I am a perfectionist. I am an anxious, diabetic perfectionist who puts way too much pressure on herself. Nice to meet you!

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about burnout, specifically how I've experienced it as a person with a chronic illness. I noticed recently that, when my blood sugar is higher than usual at mealtimes because I was snacking a little in between, I feel a pit in my stomach.

When I was in therapy after my diagnosis, one of the things my psychologist worked really hard with me on was the anxious thought patterns I struggled with. One of those was all or nothing thinking. For example, if I spent an entire day at school and it was mostly good, I will still spend the entire day (and most likely night) thinking about how I stuttered when answering a question in class.

Even if my blood sugars are great for days, as soon as one isn't, my first impulse is to think that I did something wrong. That I failed somehow. That everything my old endocrinologist and his nurse practitioner said about me doing well and taking good care of myself must be a lie.

Now I know that, realistically, that is not true. However, if you live with anxiety or other mental illnesses, you know that “realistic” is not something you're always capable of being.

I've been trying not to stress too much about a few out of range numbers here and there, but it's not easy to reverse these thoughts. I mean, I spent almost a year with my therapist trying to identify and unlearn the thought pattern underneath these thoughts, and I still can barely handle any kind of failure. It’s a learning curve, ya’ll.

Moral of the story is, we all deserve a lot more grace than we’re giving ourselves. Whether your struggle with your health—physically or mentally—and you feel like you aren’t making enough progress, or you struggle with failure and being a perfectionist, sometimes it can be helpful to sit back and give yourself credit. You deserve it, I promise.

—Abbie