So, today I had a moment and completely lost it. Tears – big, fat tears – sobbing and ugly, snotty crying. I didn’t even try to hide it, which is what I would usually do. There’s no hiding anymore now that we are all living in confined spaces and pretty much on top of each other all the time. (Sorry to the neighbours if they heard too. Inner-city living means not much space between house boundaries…)

I felt a lot better afterwards. Lighter and less overwhelmed. I realised that being all peppy and positive was weighing me down – perhaps that annoying Pollyanna-ish exterior was becoming like an armour.

I really try to not do the whole ‘what if’ stuff. This was something that I worked on for a long time with my psychologist. Catastrophising diabetes isn’t a great idea at the best of times. Adding a pandemic to the ruinous thinking isn’t especially fun.

It’s not surprising that people with diabetes are talking more about how our mental health is faring in the current situation. Living with a life-long condition that is so demanding and has the ability to mess with our minds in the most insidious way already makes us susceptible to feeling distressed. Now, it feels like that has been turned up to eleven.

I’m trying to remember how I learnt to move from thinking ‘what if <insert whichever scenario was terrifying me at that moment>’ to ‘what if it never happens’. It took me a long time to understand how to do that, with varying levels of success. There were always scenarios that made me feel extra level anxious, and it was a struggle to try to be rational. I found that by allowing myself to think about the most worrying, scary and uncertain things for a set amount of time – giving permission, I guess, to the worry and concern – I could then move on.

It turns out that pandemics bring out the catastrophising. The end-of-days thinking is not especially good for one’s already stressed mental health. Thinking about the things that are happening or that could happen is hard. Hard and scary and terrifying.

This week, I’ve kept coming back to how the Diabetes MILES study showed that the number one problem area for people who participated in the study was worrying about the future and development of diabetes-related complications.  There is so much fear of the unknown in diabetes. We just don’t know how it will all play out. We do what we can, we assess and try to minimise risk, we do the best we can with the situation we are in. But we don’t really know what is around the corner.

COVID-19 is that all over again. But with diabetes thrown in for good measure.

Today, I gave permission for the worry and concern to come out because pushing it away wasn’t working. It flooded over me and weighed me down. And then I allowed the tears and the sobs. I didn’t try to stop it, I didn’t try to hide it away. And then…then I could breathe again, and work on the things that help me feel lighter.

So, I’m breathing so deeply. I’m standing in the sunshine. I’m watching our littlest dog run around in circles because she (still) hasn’t realised that she’s not a new puppy anymore. I’m listening to my husband play music. I’m listening to my kid’s laughter because it’s my favourite sound.

And I’m still muttering to myself that this too shall pass. Not yet, and maybe not for some time, but it will. This. Too. Shall. Pass.