Letting Myself Be Upset

I've been surrounded by some form of toxic positivity for most of my life. I grew up thinking that I shouldn't complain about anything because other people have it worse.

Is that true? Partially. Does that mean I don't deserve to be sad sometimes? Of course not.

When I was diagnosed with diabetes, I felt myself drifting toward the “it could've been worse” way of thinking. It's true, it could've been worse. I could've had more severe complications–I could've gone blind, had to have something amputated, gotten brain damage, I could've died–but does that negate the fact that that was the most difficult experience I've ever had? No, of course not.

I think part of the desire to push away the pain of experiences like this, at least from people on the outside, is that they don't know the entire story, or how much it affected you. Most people don't know how much I struggled when I went back to school having to manage a new chronic illness and the complication that caused nerve inflammation in my arms, making my left arm essentially limp and my right barely functional. They don't know that I begged my mom to not make me go back to school because it was so hard.

But then there's the impulse to say “but you survived it!”, and yes, I did. However, I truly don't know how. There were a lot of tears, a lot of frustration, and a whole lot of changes I had to make in my day to day life.

I have never wanted my story to be one of inspiration. Instead, I want my story to bring awareness to diabetes and encourage people to pay attention when their body is telling them that something is wrong. I want people to know that you can be screened for type 1, and that could save lives.

It's really easy to see the end result and assume that everything worked out the way it was supposed to. Of course, no one can say that for sure, but maybe things did go to some kind of plan. Does that mean I have to be happy about it all the time? Does that mean I'm not allowed to ever be sad or scared or overwhelmed?

No. I'm allowed to have complicated feelings about complicated things, and so are you. Give yourself permission to feel what you need to feel whenever you need to feel it.

Your feelings are valid.

–Abbie