Type 1 on Your Own Timeline
The type 1 diabetes community is a strange, overwhelming, and amazingly wonderful thing.
It’s a community none of us willingly chose to be a part of. We don’t really want to be here, and yet we are, you know? At the same time, there are so many benefits to having a community of people going through the same thing as you; support, understanding, advice, and so much more. Type 1 diabetes can be an extremely lonely journey, and I, personally, have found so much hope in sharing it with others.
Community is good and necessary, but like everything, it can have its pitfalls. When you start expanding your knowledge of what others with type 1 are doing, it’s easy to add pressure onto yourself if you feel like you don’t quite measure up.
When I was diagnosed with type 1 at the age of twenty-one, I hid myself away from any type of community. I isolated hard. I was confused, unsure, and depressed. I had a fully formed life that I understood, and this change threw me for a massive loop.
When I finally emerged from that isolation and decided to see what others in my newfound community were up to, I felt like I had been left behind. People were using devices I had never heard of. They were throwing around words like “basal” and “bolus” when I only knew “long acting” and “mealtime”. They were already connected with each other.
These were things that I could have taken in stride and worked to understand. But type 1 isn’t easy to navigate at the absolute best of times, so instead I felt immediately defeated.
Let me say this: the problem was not the type 1 diabetes community. I wasn’t angry at these amazing people in this fantastic community for doing everything they could to aid, nurture, advise, and commiserate with others. The problem was this idea in my head that to do type 1 the “correct” way, it needed to look like what “successful” people were doing. Success was a low A1C. Success was wearing a CGM and a pump. Success was knowing the “correct” terms for everything. Success was being an active community member.
It took me many years and a lot of therapy to rearrange some of my thoughts on these things, but because of that journey I have learned a few very valuable lessons:
1. Comparison is inevitable but keep perspective.
Joining a community, no matter what type it is, invites comparison. When you are around others, virtually or in person, who like, have, or do the same thing as you, there’s no way to avoid looking at them and wondering if you are measuring up.
When it comes to type 1, comparison hit me hard when I started looking around at others. I found myself feeling awful when people were doing “better” than me. And I found myself feeling superior when people were doing “worse.” I hated both of those feelings. As people with type 1 diabetes, we deeply know the struggle we all go through. Judgement of ourselves or others is never healthy.
But like I said, comparison is inevitable. It’s human nature. I don’t know that there is truly any way around it completely. What has worked for me, and something I learned in therapy, is to give myself grace when I feel comparison creeping in. I remind myself that type 1 isn’t something anyone has perfected. I allow the feelings to come and don’t punish myself for them. If you can keep that perspective with you, you can let comparison come, and then let it go.
I remind myself that type 1 isn’t something anyone has perfected. I allow the feelings to come and don’t punish myself for them… you can let comparison come, and then let it go.
2. Diabetes tech is amazing, but it’s not everything.
The diabetes technology we have today blows my mind. I use a Dexcom and an Omnipod 5 and I LOVE them. Can’t imagine my life without either of them. But when I first ventured into the diabetes community, statements like that made me want to scream. Being someone who didn’t use a CGM or a pump made me feel like such an outsider, and that made me angry. How could I be an outsider when I was living with the same thing these people were? It was confusing. I judged myself for not using the available tech. And honestly, that just made me more resistant to using diabetes technology for longer.
Looking back now, I am grateful that I took the time to work through those feelings before jumping into using diabetes technology. Tech is not everything. There are so many ways for people with type 1 diabetes to take care of themselves. No way is the best way. In some cases, it will be doctors saying something is necessary – and I can’t argue there – but even then, it’s so important to deal with your feelings around the technology.
It took me twelve years to even consider getting an insulin pump, but I believe that because I did it when I was truly ready, it was such a better experience. I cried tears of joy when I started using my Omnipod 5 because of the burden I felt lifting off my shoulders. I needed the years of daily injections to appreciate the pump.
These days, tech is often pushed at us as a way to make life easier, and often it really does fulfill that promise. But I also feel that it’s important for you to be 100% ready for that technology to help you. It’s better to wait and be ready than to jump in and feel overwhelmed and unhappy.
3. We are all on our own timeline.
Everyone in the type 1 diabetes community is going through the same thing. We all have type 1 diabetes. But despite knowing that deep down, it took time for me to feel like a full member of this community.
I think it fully hit me after I started using the Omnipod. I was so grateful for the pump, but I knew that I wouldn’t feel that way unless I had gone through my exact journey up to that point. I finally understood that I was on the right path for myself, completely independent of anyone else with type 1, and yet I was also a full, card-carrying member of the type 1 diabetes community.
We are all on our own timeline when it comes to type 1. It’s impossible to model our journey off someone else’s because we are all so different. But the beautiful (and sometimes confusing) thing is that we are also all the same in a fundamental way.
