My diabetes is not a happy camper right now. Recently my family has been dealing with some issues that, reflecting back a few years, I never would have guessed - even in my wildest dreams - we would be dealing with.
My youngest daughter is an alcoholic She is sweet, funny, brilliant and what is the most frustrating, an adult which limits just how far we can help her or push her towards help.
The mental gymnastics that I have recently been doing over this issue would qualify me for the Olympics gymnast team and I would most likely be a medal winner. This is much to the disgust and anger of my diabetes. Its unique to me to be thinking in terms of my chronic disease as a person, but lately that seems to be what it has morphed into.
My diabetes type 2 has taken on a new life of its own throughout all of this and I am not happy that I have allowed "him" to become such a constant companion. Every night as I lay in bed waiting - begging - for sleep to come, he whispers in my ear things that I just don't want to think about right now. Things like "You need to make an appt with your endo," or "Did you really need to eat that last cupcake??" I wake up every morning with him already in the middle of planning out my day for me and I resent that so, so much. Underneath it all are the constant thoughts of my daughter and what she needs from me.
I have taken steps to deal with my daughter - she finally agreed that she needs help and so we have admitted her to a residential treatment center far away from home. This was done due to the fact that I am very susceptible to her manipulations and if she were to call me begging to come home, I could not honestly say that I would ignore that phone call and not go get here. She is self-admitted so she is not under any restraint to stay there. So shoot me, I am a mother and the curse of a mother is to worry about her children, no matter how adult they become.
Now I need to take steps to silence my diabetes. I know he will always be a dull roar in my ear, no matter how in control I become, but I don't want to listen to him yelling at me for doing the things I need to be doing to take care of myself. I am a rebelious sort of person and if someone tells me to do something, I typically do the opposite. I need to warn Mr Diabetes that if he does not stfu I might start to rebel.
So I must admit that for the last few months, about a month after I started on insulin, I became very lax about my eating, my shots, my exercising, my thoughts on this disease that I have. This all coincided with the discovery of my daughters addiction and I need to stop doing that. I NEED to start taking care of myself. Any words of wisdom out there?? Anyone want to offer me a pep talk or guidance about how to handle all of this with my family and my diabetes too?
One of the rules of someone who has been impacted by an alcoholic is to start putting yourself first. I have not learned how to do that, but I am willing to learn. That's half the battle right? Now tell me how to do that: How to change a life time, primal need to put my children first.
I thinking climbing Mt Everest would be an easier task.
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