If you live with diabetes, you probably have a very intimate relationship with regret. Because every meal and every bolus can be an opportunity to make a decision you won’t be happy with later.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve realized that for me, diabetes regret is almost always immediately followed by guilt.\u00a0 I regret a poor food choice I\u2019ve made and then feel guilty about the resulting blood sugar chaos.\u00a0 I regret ignoring my CGM alarms, and then feel guilty when my husband has to finish cooking dinner while I treat a low.\u00a0 I regret not getting a workout in, and then feel guilty when my finger-sticks reveal high numbers.<\/p>\n
In my almost 38 years with diabetes, my largest amounts of regret and guilt are around my college years.\u00a0 I regret how little care I put into my diabetes management.\u00a0 I regret that I didn\u2019t check my blood sugar.\u00a0 I regret that I ate and drank whatever I wanted.\u00a0 I regret that I didn\u2019t schedule any appointments with my healthcare team.\u00a0 I regret that the only diabetes thing I did in college was take insulin.<\/p>\n
However, the heaviest guilt isn\u2019t around the things I didn\u2019t do.\u00a0 It\u2019s around the consequences that haven\u2019t happen to me.\u00a0 It\u2019s something along the lines of complication\u2019s guilt.\u00a0 I am here, alive and well, even after those years of neglect.<\/p>\n
I remember the scare tactics used on me when I was young.\u00a0 The promises that if I didn\u2019t take care of myself, if I let my blood sugar run high, if I snuck those cookies and chocolate bars, the consequences would be severe.\u00a0 I\u2019d go blind, I\u2019d lose limbs, my kidneys would fail, I\u2019d die.\u00a0 Sure, those threats scared me.\u00a0 In fact, I saw all of that happening to my aunt who had diabetes.\u00a0 She was always sick and weak, and although she handled it all with grace, it was clear that she suffered.\u00a0 We lost her to those complications when I was a senior in high school.\u00a0 I witnessed it all first-hand, but I never believed that if I worked hard at managing my diabetes I could avoid this fate.\u00a0 Instead, I believed that this was my future, and nothing I did would change that.\u00a0 So, I didn\u2019t even try.<\/p>\n
Yet, here I am about to turn 50 years old in May.\u00a0 The complications that I was sure would hit by the time I turned 25 haven\u2019t knocked on my door yet.\u00a0 No retinopathy, no neuropathy, no kidney failure.\u00a0 So far I\u2019ve only dealt with a bit of frozen shoulder.\u00a0 And of course, I\u2019m thankful for that.\u00a0 But also?\u00a0 I feel incredibly guilty.<\/p>\n
I have friends and acquaintances who\u2019ve racked up fewer years with diabetes and have worked much harder than me.\u00a0 And yet they are battling all of the complications I have managed to avoid.\u00a0 As often is the case with diabetes, it just doesn\u2019t make sense.\u00a0 It really isn\u2019t fair.\u00a0 It makes me regret those years that I neglected myself, and it makes me feel so guilty that I\u2019m not paying the consequences.<\/p>\n
The thing about guilt and regret is that they really aren\u2019t very productive.\u00a0 I can\u2019t change what happened in the past, I can only change how I live my future.\u00a0 So, while I do remember the things I regret and use them to motivate me to do better, I try not to dwell on them too much.\u00a0 Yes, I\u2019ve made many mistakes in the past, and I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll make plenty more in the future.\u00a0 The best thing I can do is learn from those mistakes and move on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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