Diabetes and the Over-achiever: A Disasterous Combination

This is just a preview of a longer write-up I am working on, but just a few thoughts so far...

The fact that I am an over-achiever, and the good and the bad that comes along with it, has probably impacted my diabetes self-management the most.

I can remember sitting in the student lounge my freshman year of college, diligently re-copying (yes, re) my notes from class. It was late, other people were going out, but I was driven, committed, and wouldn't stop until I felt I had "mastered" the material. The result of this hard work and need for perfection resulted in just that: nearly perfect grades throughout my four years. I had hard evidence that this type of drive and ethic paid off: 3.89 GPA.

In terms of my diabetes, the hard work, diligence, and sought-after perfection resulted in "failure" left and right. Every blood sugar out of range, every talking-to from a doctor, every headache from the fluctuations in blood sugar: failures all in this over-achiever's eyes.

I couldn't stop equating high blood sugars to failure, and all of the emotions tied to it. What does an over-achiever do? As long as I kept seeing my blood sugars as failures, the results would be disasterous. An over-achiever can only take so many failures. The solution? Stop doing whatever it is that shows your failures. I stopped testing to avoid seeing those awful numbers, and exacerbated the underlying causes of those raised blood sugars.

I am undoing the thinking that these numbers=failures. They are just numbers. They are just numbers. A tool. Simple. But it is hard to undo years and years and years of the rationalizing, avoidance, and explanations for not being accountable for those numbers. I find myself slipping often. Yet another reason for this blog...

They're just numbers...