It's been a while...I haven't written a blog post since October last year - my blog posts have been few and far between for a long time now, so much so that I don't even call myself a blogger anymore, not even sporadic.
I can't pin point one specific reason for my stopping, my passion for blogging just gradually faded and along with my fading passion I found myself fading. I found myself not enjoying the things I used to enjoy, I lost my mojo, I lost my spark, I lost myself. I didn't know who I was anymore, I wasn't a blogger anymore, or a diabetes advocate, or bubbly (albeit irritable ha!) anymore, I didn't realise who or what I was until I finally came out of the cloud I was in and looked back and realised I spent most of the end of last year sitting in my room, in the dark.
I used to have a very thick skin, I liked to see myself as "strong" and prided myself in my ability to control my emotion and not be overcome by it. However as the years have gone on I have found myself more and more consumed by emotion and my terrible lack of ability to accept things that I can't change. People have a larger influence on me now than I ever thought possible, and for the most part that's not a good thing because I opened myself up way too much, it's one of those things that you look back on in retrospect and wonder why you didn't see it coming. However those who have a positive influence on me I'm incredibly grateful for.
I find my intense awareness of myself and my emotions and life in general both a blessing and a curse. I can hold the deepest of conversations with you about the world and life until my brain hurts, and enjoy thinking about it all or I can be completely overwhelmed by everything. There's no in between. I think I'll always question the meaning of life and why certain things happen and why grass is green or why cats meow and dogs bark and why animals don't talk and why some people fall in love and others don't and what DID come first the chicken or the egg?! I'm inquisitive and always have been and my mind is a constant stream of thoughts.
Sometimes the thoughts aren't helpful to me, I have OCD and it makes your anxieties and your fears and your worries 10x worse because a worry will pop into your head and it won't leave. It's almost torturous, it just spins round and round in your head and you're forced to think about it and worry about it until something else takes it's place. My old psychologist said to me - "the more you try not to think about something the more you think about it!" and it's so true. I see a new psychologist now because my move to adult clinic back in 2016 spelled the end of my appointments with her. The new psychologist is lovely too, I wasn't sure about her at first but she really wants to help me and I just have to trust that opening up to her is fine.
I have a job now. I really enjoy it, it also really helps with my diabetes. I have a routine now and it feels good. Not to mention my manager has Type 1 and so does someone else in the office. I love hearing pumps beeping and test strip pots popping open and insulin pens being wound up while I'm typing up the minutes from a meeting or sending out e-mails. I also work with a bunch of wonderful people who create a wonderful working environment.
I also have a car now. I passed my driving test on my fourth go earlier this year. What an adrenaline rush that was!
When I stopped blogging and I took a step back from all the diabetes advocacy I found myself in other ways, I started practicing hand lettering more and I focused more on getting a job and I found a different identity to the one I'd been identifying with for so long: a diabetes blogger and advocate. While I love being an advocate for Type 1 and helping others and I am so proud of this blog, I never had a personal agenda when I started this - and I was determined not to let blogging become a chore or something I felt I needed to do to stay relevant or get invited to diabetes events - when I feel the want to blog, I blog, if I don't, I don't blog, and when I do blog I want it to offer some sort of insight or advice or comfort to someone else, and if none of that, to myself.
I assume no one is reading this, because, well, why would you read my ramblings at 9.45pm on a Friday night? I suppose I just needed to vent and to get my feelings out. As always with life I've had good and bad moments and I suppose I need to learn to go with the flow as hard as that may be for certain things. I used to be so good at being present, and being in the moment and enjoying good things for what they are and not worrying about what will come next but now I struggle to be in the moment and I think I need to learn to find that again. And I need to learn to let certain things go, no matter how much it might hurt or how much I care.There's lots of things that my mental health taking a dip in the deep end took away from me but also I see it as a chance to come out stronger.
My HbA1c is 10.2% now. Sometimes I think that my struggle with staying on top of my diabetes will be a perpetual struggle but I often remind myself that I can do this, I absolutely know I can. I'm realising my new team actually aren't all bad, it's just a shame they fall victim to the time constraints and everything else that's wrong with the NHS, as wonderful as it is it doesn't make the discrepancies that we come across any better. As I'm typing this I just hit the giant bruise that my most recent Tresiba injection left on my stomach, a reminder that I'm working on getting my pump back so that my skin won't look so much like a pin cushion.
On the bright side, I'm ok! And I feel a bit more like me again these days. I smiled to myself when I typed that first sentence into this text box, because while it has been a while since I wrote a blog post I'm back to write this one. I hope I can get back into the swing of things with my blog and I hope for good things and good thoughts and sunny days.
