Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Broken Record

It has been a long time since I wrote something here.  Like, a really long time.  Months.  I had intentions of posting quite a few times but either life got in the way, I didn't make the time, or I just didn't feel like I had anything worth posting.  I felt like every time I posted something it was the same thing.  I'm in a rough patch.  I'm burned out.  I'm struggling to take care of my diabetes the way I know I should.  So I just stopped posting.  I tried doing a few DCDE and DSMA chats but I just couldn't get into it.  At most I would stick around for a few questions and then just close the window.  Truth be told diabetes was pretty far from my mind.  As much as I didn't want to admit it I was fighting a tough bout of depression and had been for months.  But it wasn't until it started to effect my home life and then my work life that I started to take it seriously.  I needed to beat this, but I couldn't do it alone.  So I bit the bullet and went back into counseling.

I'm glad to say that I'm feeling much better now.  A few slight changes in medications have my mood moving in the right direction.  My A1C is headed back in the right direction and almost back below 7.  It's been a struggle but I have learned a lot over the past few months.  Although I consider myself and advocate for mental health, I have not been comfortable talking about my own.  I was good at talking about it, as long as it wasn't with people who really knew me.  I know that talking to a professional is a great way to stay on track and perfectly acceptable.  It doesn't mean I'm weak.  It doesn't mean I'm crazy.  It means I'm making my health a priority.  People around me knew I had something going on, but they didn't really know what.  I was afraid of what they would think if I knew.  But bit by bit I learned that I could talk about it.  Sometimes I made those moves myself and sometimes I was made to.  I had to talk to my boss about it to make sure my job was safe.  I had to learn to let the people close to me know I was hurting.  I had to admit that, at times, I thought of killing myself because I didn't want to continue to deal with the pain I was in.  But it was all for the better.  I'm slowly getting better at talking about what is going on in my life.  I am getting better and accepting help.  Slowly but surely I am making positive changes in my life.  Which brings me to the changes I want to make here...

Through all of this I was still writing many days.  I just couldn't bring myself to share it.  I didn't know where to go with it.  I considered posting it here but I didn't know if I wanted this blog to go down that route.  This was supposed to be about diabetes, not depression.  And I know there are a few people that know me away from this blog that read it and I didn't know how I felt about letting them into that part of my life.  I even considered starting a separate blog just to post about depression or anything and everything.  Then it hit me.  Mental health is a HUGE part of diabetes.  Not that I didn't already know that, but I needed a reminder.  There is no reason for me not to talk about that here.  I can't call myself an advocate if I'm not willing to talk about it.  And one of the reasons I started this blog was because I thought if just one or two people got a 'me too' moment out of it then I was doing something worthwhile.  I know that I'm not the only one going through this.  So I am hoping to start posting more frequently again.  It won't all be about diabetes.  Chances are a lot of it won't be.  And it probably won't be all about mental health either, but there will definitely be a fair dose of that.

So that's what's been going on around here.  Hopefully I'll see you around.  And if you relate to any of this stuff, hang in there, it will pass.

P.S. I'm also considering moving things over to a new site for a fresh start.  So stay tuned for that.

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