Diabetes Took Away My Self Worth

by Julienne
(USA)

I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was ten years old. I am now 21. While my overall management of my diabetes has not been the best it could have been, I'm not doing too badly. I still have great vision (I don't even wear glasses) and I still have feeling in all my extremities. Between the time I was twelve and fourteen, I didn't take care of myself. I was having high blood sugar readings and didn't care. I considered suicide more than once because I felt like I had been cursed with a horrible disease. It was hard to understand at such a young age and, while I don't always understand it now, I have better grasp on what I doing now that I'm older. Good things came out of having diabetes. I met my best friend at a diabetes camp (she is also diabetic). I was a very impulsive person and the diabetes made me have to stop and think before I did something. Overall, while it isn't the most wonderful life all the time, I've learned that I have something manageable. I don't have cancer that is going to kill me in six months or some other disease with a short prognosis. I can live my life to the fullest. My diabetes educator once told me that the only things I couldn't do were join the military and fly a plane. And she was right.