When Everything Goes Wrong
The one thing that definitely won't be helpful.
When I say I don’t know how it happened, that’s only partially true. I don’t know why my pod decided to leak after I went to bed on Thursday night. I do know why I ran out of insulin at 3:30am. (Rage bolusing + low reservoir).
I didn’t come back into range until 4 hours later. I woke up yet dead to the world. Still nauseas. Pretty sure I had ketones (I didn’t check, but after 28 years, I know the difference between a high-high and a ketone-high (do you?)).
I was supposed to “catch up on work” but I ended up sleeping until a little after 10am. Woke up, made myself a nice little breakfast of two eggs and a left over slice of foccacia bread. I don’t know why my BG decided to go back up to 270mg/dl. I thought I bolused correctly (clearly no).
So I went for a walk. I could have bolused again and continued working and part of me was sort begrudging and grumpy, but I knew it would be faster if I could get some exercise and movement is good and somehow I thought that would be enough.
I kept trying to give myself pep talks on the walk.
“Going for a walk is good for you.”
“You have wanted to get more movement. This is a silver lining.”
“You’re still going to get more work done than if the baby had stayed home as planned.”
Want to know a secret? It didn’t work.
I didn’t believe anything I said.
I was mad. I didn’t want to be on a walk at 12:45pm, I wanted to be in my office working on a very lengthy to do list. I wanted to be working on this newsletter!
And you know what? I allowed myself to be mad.
I said, “It’s okay to be mad. It’s okay to not want to be doing this. You’re doing this because it’s the right thing to do to take care of yourself, but you don’t have to feel any particular way about it.”
And you want to know something else? By allowing my emotions to exist without judgment or feeling the need to rationalize their existence, I started to feel a little better.
It is okay to be mad at diabetes. It is okay to feel sad. Worried. Frustrated. Angry. What we need to pay attention to is how that contributes to our thoughts and behaviors in response. If I feel mad about my high blood sugar and think, “It’s not fair! I don’t want to do this! I shouldn’t have to do any of this!” it might lead me to make decisions that aren’t actually in my best interest or in alignment with my goals and values. It would actually make it even harder to live a meaningful, purposeful life if I get stuck in those feelings.
The feelings themselves are understandable. We can accept why they are there, and the purpose they service in telling us how something is affecting us. But we need to be careful with the direction they lead us in our behaviors, because our feelings can lead us astray.
I thought that would be the end of it. I don’t know why I ended up going low in the later afternoon. I don’t know why I over-treated my low, but I do know that I tried to take enough insulin to counteract my very late lunch. I do know that it didn’t work. My blood sugar blasted off just as I sat down for happy hour with friends. I do know that I decided to order what I had wanted to order off the menu, even though my blood sugar was not in the ideal range for such an entree.
I know that I felt frustrated and embarrassed, even though no one else knew what was going on. I know I was angry again, and I know I could have made a different decision that would have meant a different out come for the evening.
I know I made the “good” decision in the afternoon and the “bad” decision in the evening. And I know how completely unhelpful and demoralizing it is to think of my life in those terms.
As I’m writing this, I’m thinking about all the things people could say about my decision. All the judgements about what I did and why I did it. And while I’m sure there are some people out there who would judge me for what I did, I think there are actually a lot more people who are probably struggling with same shame that I struggle with on days like that day.
I should have known better.
Why didn’t I make a different decision?
I should have ordered something else.
What was I thinking?
Sometimes the judgements we fear others will say are actually the judgements we hold in our own hearts. And it’s something that I am not immune to either.
I think that’s one of the reasons why I enjoy my job so much. Because these decisions don’t always come easy. I know what it’s like to feel the tension between what we feel we should do and what we want to do. I know what it’s like to worry about if I made the right decision. I know what it’s like to feel like I’m balancing two (or three or five) competing interests. I know what it’s like to make the rational decision and what it’s like to make the emotional decision.
I know what it’s like when you do everything right.
I know what it’s like when everything goes wrong.
When something should happen and doesn’t, or when it shouldn’t happen and it does. Or a combination of everything and you can’t make heads or tails out of any of it.
No wonder so many of my clients have anxiety.
The most important thing to me isn’t the decision-making strategies. Or the pattern analysis. Or the “best” habits or a “good” lifestyle or the “healthiest” diet.
The most important thing that I can teach people is compassion.
For ourselves. For others.
There’s enough shame in this world. There’s enough judgement. There are enough people telling us that we are doing something wrong. There are enough messages in our culture that we aren’t enough. Thin enough, healthy enough, pretty enough. Rich enough, smart enough, talented enough. We don’t eat the right thing or go to the right places or make the right decisions.
It’s a lot. And I don’t need any more of that. I’m guessing you don’t either.
So on the days where nothing goes right, let’s make sure we remember to kick shame to the curb.
There are a lot of things we need to manage our diabetes well.
Shame isn’t one of them.
Not everything in diabetes management is about insulin rates and carb counting! Diabetes management is also about compassion, values and mindset. These aren’t always taught in our doctor’s office, but they are incredibly important! I have some new openings for coaching clients and if this resonates with you, I’d love to see if I would be a good fit.