It’s not really diabetes awareness time here in Australia. We save that each year for the second week in July and then add an extra spurt of awareness raising on World Diabetes Day. But many of us still decide to jump on the bandwagon of our US friends as they spend the whole of November talking diabetes and giving everything a blue wash.

I always start the month strong, lining up blue clothes and scarves and other accessories to be worn each day. I head off for a blue manicure, regretting it pretty much the minute I walk out of the nail salon. I change my profile picture, and add blue circles to all my photos. I write about every awareness and advocacy activity that comes my way.

By the time 14 November rolls around, I’m already starting to feel exhausted and over the whole thing and by the time my birthday hits in the final few days of the month, I’m ready to slap anyone who wants me to wear blue. All the different initiatives start to roll into one and I can’t remember what I’ve mentioned and what I’ve forgotten to spruik.

So this year I’ve decided to do things a little differently. I knew that I needed to make a change to my usual gung-ho approach when I shared a fun post-a-different-diabetes-photo-every-day Instagram challenge this morning and realised that I was feeling a little ambivilent. I was already feeling the pressure of deciding what to post and didn’t want to commit to posting a diabetes-related photo every day to my socials. So I deleted the post and thought about what I really wanted to achieve this month. And I decided that I want to take a gentle approach to my awareness efforts.

This year, when I get to the end of November, and look back over the month, I’m okay if my SoMe feeds are not a daily reminder of awareness-raising activities. I’m fine with not telling every single person I see that it’s diabetes awareness month and then share one new fact about diabetes for them to commit to memory. I can live with not being sartorially blue or navy or aqua or sapphire for the next thirty days.

Maybe I have some advocacy burn out. Maybe the last couple of weeks of feeling as though I’ve had to defend my treatment decisions have taken a toll.

And yes, I realise how privileged it is to say ‘I don’t want to do diabetes advocacy this month’ when I don’t need to fight for insulin or diabetes supplies. I won’t be abandoning my efforts in this space. (I know that there are some really important access activities coming up in coming weeks and I will be supporting them.)

But I am going to go easy on some of the other things I’m usually all over. And that’s okay. ‘My diabetes; my rules’ extends to how much we want to talk about it. So this year, I’m talking less. I’m not hitching a ride on every bandwagon and I’m taking it easy with the online activism. I’m going less blue and I am absolutely fine with that. T1D will still look like me. (Oh, but I probably will still get a blue manicure. And I’ll probably still regret it.)