My T1D Story

I’m a type 1 diabetic. Let’s talk about it.

On September 25th, 2014, I turned 12 years old. The next day, I went to get some blood work done at the request of my doctor. On September 30th, 2014, I was admitted into the Novant Hospital in Fairfax VA, where I was told that I had type 1 diabetes. That’s a very condensed version of events, but as you can imagine, those five days were quite the blur. I remember them so clearly despite it being nine years ago.

I was so happy turning 12 because I didn’t want to be a kid anymore; I wanted to be an adult. Not necessarily because I craved responsibility, but because I wanted to be taken seriously. I hated being talked down to like I was stupid or excluded from conversations because “the adults were talking”. Becoming 12 meant I was one year closer to achieving that. Then the rug was pulled out from under me when my parents picked me up from school early that Tuesday, and we drove to the hospital where I would spend the next 48 hours. I was in the ER for 9 hours while they did tests, listening to the wails and screams of pain from other patients, never getting answers from the nurses and doctors that came in and out. They thought I already knew I was a diabetic and failed to take proper care of myself, so you can imagine how I felt when a PA came in and asked “How long have you had type 1 diabetes?”. That question changed my life forever. I felt like I was in a bad dream, and I kept expecting myself to wake up, but I never did. I got my wish in a way, I was treated more like an adult after that day, but not in the way I had hoped. I was expected to have the responsibility of an adult but still keep out of adult business. If I had felt frustrated at being treated like a kid before, it got worse post diagnosis. In those 48 hours I aged about ten years emotionally and mentally. I got very depressed, lost interest in all of my hobbies and aspirations, and had falling out with some friends because I had changed so much. I didn’t give a shit about who was dating who or gossip or being popular. I just had a doctor tell me that if I had waited a week longer to come in, I probably would have died. I was told how lucky I was to be alive. That puts things into perspective. I always say that I died in the hospital that night and someone new came out, and that’s exactly how to feels. I don’t recognize the girl I was before. She isn’t me. We are two different people.

Going back to school was hard, for many reasons. The biggest being how differently my teachers treated me. I had all of these accommodations, most of which went against their classroom rules, and they were legally required to let me do my thing. I had teachers with no eating, no getting up, no bathroom breaks, and no technology policies in their classroom, and I broke every single one of those rules. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to. My teachers would make sure I knew how annoying and frustrating I was to them. They couldn’t directly say something, but they didn’t everything else. Huffing, rolling their eyes, refusing to let me make up work, lying to me about needing work to make up, lying about my grade, calling my parents and nurse claiming I was a distraction in class and was ruining others learning, bad mouthing me in faculty meetings, standing outside their doors to make sure I wouldn’t “skip” by going to the bathroom or nurse, and a multitude of other things. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they are just unhappy, maybe I was reading too much into things. My parents disagreed and fought like hell for me in school, but all it would accomplish was pissing my teachers off more. I would get so stressed out about going to class that my blood sugar would get fucked up, causing me to miss even more class time. I couldn’t legally keep my insulin on me and could only fit so many snacks in my purse, so I went to the nurses office all the time. But somehow all of this was my fault. My medical condition was an inconvenience to my teachers and they wanted me to know that. I really internalized this and genuinely believed that I was in the wrong for just taking care of my chronic illness. It took years of therapy to undo all of that.

I eventually discovered my love of reading about a month or so post diagnosis, and it was a game changer for me. I felt alive for the first time since everything happened. I could escape my life that had just been torn apart and the body that was trying to kill me. I could be something else. This newfound love of reading led to me wanting to become a writer. I wanted to write books that made people feel alive and hopeful in times when they experienced unending darkness. I wanted to write books that would help people the way books helped me. I picked up interests like history, mythology, astronomy, painting, and anthropology. I became the antithesis of the person I was before; a girl that thought reading and writing were boring, who wanted a pink mustang, dreamed of becoming a fashion designer, and refused to admit she liked Star Wars because she knew she’d be called a geek. As I said before, I lost a lot of friends because of my 180 degree personality shift, and it became exceptionally hard to make new friends. I had a hard time connecting to people my age. Still do. I couldn’t relate to their problems or interests. They were all so trivial to me now. In many ways, I was happier and more fulfilled than ever before, but I was very lonely. People at school liked me, I was never hated, but what was there to talk about? The few friends I did make I essentially became a life coach for. They would come to be for all of their problems and ask for my advice, and that was our entire relationship. I was a therapist to my “friends” because of how mature I was. I liked feeling needed and I hated being lonely, so I let those relationships go on, but eventually I burned myself out trying to help other people when I wasn’t helping myself. When I tried to make real friendships that didn’t involve me advising them, I would often get brushed off or ghosted. I talk about myself and my interests then that person avoids talking to me in the future. If you think I’m exaggerating, I’m not. While I was making up a math test during my freshmen year of high school, I was mistaken for a substitute teacher. By a senior. I was an outcast in school. I was a weirdo. I also internalized this and to this day if I’m ghosted on a dating app or I can’t connect with a classmate, I immediately worry that it’s because I’m too strange to be liked. I’m working on that.

So becoming a type 1 diabetic fucking sucked. This is only the surface of the bullshit I dealt with as a teenager, and if you want some more details, go to the extras part of my website and read my narrative essay from my freshmen year of college titled “The Diabetic”. Despite all the bullshit though, I don’t resent having become a diabetic. It made me who I am. Without having been diagnosed, I never would have gotten into reading or writing. I wouldn’t be publishing this blog post on my website as an author. I truly believe that good things can come from bad, and that everything happens for a reason.

Here’s to nine years with a broken pancreas.