Internal Differences
I have vague recollections of my childhood. Incidents that are clear as day, and others that I have no idea about. When I was eight, I remember laying in the back of a family member’s car. They were rushing me to the hospital for the third or fourth time that year. The street lights stuck out to me as I gazed through the lines of the rear window defogger. I was begging my Mom not to let me die. I felt terrible. I don’t even think I can accurately describe it.
And it was my fault. I decided in my eight-year-old brain that life wasn’t fair and I should not have to take shots to live. So I stopped and hid it from my family. It took them months to figure it out and I kept repeating the process until I was caught. We went to the hospital about once a month due to my stupidity. I wanted to be normal and somewhere my young brain was revolting. My Mom thought I was suicidal, I wasn’t. I remember my thought process clearly. “Life wasn’t fair and I wanted to live like everyone else.”
Sometimes, we choose to be different. We choose a strange hairstyle, piercings, tattoos, the way we dress. The list goes on and on. Sometimes life or genetics chooses for us. Growing up as a diabetic is difficult, more so than you realize. Many people feel that if you eat right and take care of yourself, you’ll be fine. Maybe. No one tells you about: the hormones, the stress, the deep rooted fears about the complications. The multitude of other factors that can send your blood sugar on a roller coaster ride. They don’t tell you about how hard it is to be limited by your biology, for something as stupid as wanting ice cream.
For those of you who know or love a young diabetic, life is hard. Life is hard for everyone, and there are worse diseases and fates out there than Diabetes. I kept my feelings about it bottles up inside, still do. That was my way of dealing with it, it was my problem. I did not need or want anyone’s pity and still don’t. I have my cross to bear, just like everyone else. There were terrible nights, filled with pain and self-pity.
The real truth is that life is difficult, whether you are a diabetic or not. There are many dangers no matter what your life is like. I hope that anyone reading this that is or knows someone with a disease or condition that sets them apart, realizes that there is a difference inside of them, a fundamental feeling that is difficult to ignore. Regardless of how we choose to look, people want to be healthy and feel good. Sometimes life does not allow for that and you find your strength wherever it may lie and get up every day, no matter how tired, sick or terrible you feel. My inspiration was always that there were people counting on me and I needed to be there for them. If this finds its way to someone struggling with these issues, it gets better, maybe not easier, but better.
I’m still not sure what eight-year-old me was thinking. Maybe I’ll never know. I would have thought that after the first trip to the hospital, begging not to die, I would have learned. Life is a process and eight –year-old me wasn’t ready to hear it. Hell, some days forty-year-old me isn’t ready to hear it.