Enough for now

Diabetes Awareness Month has come to a close and with it the blue that has washed over my social media feeds will dim a little. I had a quiet month, spending most of my time following others rather than sharing my own content. It seems to have been representative of my year in diabetes advocacy, really. 

I’ve been quiet. It wasn’t planned, but it has been deliberate. And it hasn’t gone unnoticed. I’ve started and stopped and started and stopped this post for a while to answer the messages from people who have so kindly asked if I am okay. Let’s see if this is the one that sticks…

Earlier this year, I wrote about having a panic attack while on a plane after landing back in Melbourne from ATTD in Madrid. You can sort of read about it here, although I was pretty vague about what actually happened saying little more than that I turned on my phone to a million Twitter notifications about a blog post that some people had assumed was written about me and then subsequent comments. I was surprised, horrified and more than a little confused. 

This came hot on the heels of a couple of other tricky situations. There was the run in with the diabetes HCP who told me to tone down (after they completely misrepresented what I had written about). And then there was another HCP rallying troops to call me out (that caused me to lock my twitter for the first time ever at the end of last year). 

Anyway…the culmination of all these things resulted in the realisation that this year was going to be a lot different for me. I was going to take a massive step back from much of the work I did that was public facing. I felt that I simply couldn’t take the scrutiny that was coming my way.  

Even before the panic attack on the plane incident, I was feeling unsettled. I was unspeakably nervous about the presentation I had been invited to give at the conference in Madrid. This was a completely alien feeling to me. I have been speaking publicly for decades, and for twenty years, comfortably stood on stage playing the flute for anyone who would listen. Standing in front of an audience doesn’t make me nervous. It doesn’t make me sweaty and scared. And yet, here I was wondering whether I should not go to Madrid at all to stand up on that stage. But after some ridiculous bravado as seen in this post, I decided that I had to go. 

As I sat on that plane, desperately trying to recover from the panic attack that was making it difficult for me to breathe and hiding my tears from the other passengers, I had a fleeting thought that I probably should have gone with my gut feeling and stayed home!

And so, I felt that there was only one thing I could do. Forget the whole stand up thing and instead step back. I wasn’t necessarily sure what that would look like. I couldn’t stop attending and being part of diabetes meetings and conferences because that is part of my job, but I could turn down speaking engagements or anything that put me in a position where I was sharing my personal, lived experience that others might find challenging, or at odds with their own. I needed to deal with the diabetes burnout that was so, so heavy and weighing me down.

COVID-19 certainly helped with that. As the world got turned upside down, a lot of the things that I was worried about simply didn’t happen. It became easier for me to limit my interactions with people and hide away a bit more. 

The feelings of burnout and anxiety about being part of the community didn’t disappear, but they seemed less urgent. 

And with that came the realisation that the burnout I was feeling because of diabetes actually was not because of my diabetes at all. 

Diabetes burnout has always happened to me when those constant diabetes tasks became too overwhelming; when just the thought of opening up a meter bag, or checking my CGM trace was too much to even contemplate. Burnout meant that every single number became a measure of my value and worth. I’d lose all perspective and lose all confidence of my abilities to actually do what I needed to do. 

The burnout I felt now was the effort of being a diabetes advocate IN the diabetes community. It was fearing that I was being seen in ways that actually were completely inaccurate – in fact at complete odds with everything I have ever stood for – and that led me to second guess everything I said, fearing that I would be misunderstood. It was feeling vulnerable and scared and exposed in the community that was meant to support me. 

I received an email from someone in the DOC who has been around for many years, and I have known (on Twitter only) who told me that because I am confident in my communication, am comfortable challenging ideas different to mine and share opinions that not everyone agrees with it, I leave myself open to criticism. And that criticism and the dialogue that follows resulted in their corner of the diabetes community being less enjoyable to him and others. All while suggesting that, unlike he, who has never deliberately set out to disagree with anyone – I seem to revel in it. 

Interesting take. I don’t seek to disagree with people. But if anyone is saying something that I believe is stigmatising to PWD or minimising our experiences, I will call it out. It’s been my MO for almost twenty years. 

I never replied to the person who sent me that email. I cried about it for days, however, and have it filed away and occasionally return to the half-written response that I keep meaning to finish so I can hit send on my reply. I feel it’s quite impolite that I’ve not replied to someone who took the time to write to me… But, truthfully, I am too tired, and that so-called confidence has abandoned me. 

Diabetogenic is the least active it’s been since I started it close to ten years ago. That’s not because I have nothing more to write – I still write every single day, I just squirrel things away now, too afraid to share them, sticking to safer topics – research call outs, fundraising initiatives, commenting on things that aren’t controversial or taboo topics. 

I started this blog because it was the space for me connect with others – not only people who were walking the same diabetes path as me, but also those who were doing things very differently. Because often, they are the people I learn most from. 

It became a place I could write about those issues that were tough – the mental health challenges of diabetes, the frustrations and desperation I felt about the health system, trying to navigate through health professionals who refused to acknowledge that PWD belong everywhere and anywhere diabetes is spoken about. And it was a place that my split-apart heart was able to open up and share the unspeakable sadness that I felt as fertility issues became part of my life. I am so grateful that I was able to do that and receive the support that I so desperately needed from people who understood how the impact of diabetes on those fragile, and so, so hard parts of life shattered me into a million broken pieces. Because it was those people who helped glue me back together. 

Wanting and needing that support and connection hasn’t stopped. I still seek it. I’m just a little more cautious about how I go about it these days sticking with friends and others I feel safe with rather than the wider community that doesn’t feel safe. I know where to go to get what I need.

I don’t really know what to do with this blog anymore. Feeling unable to share a lot of what I want to say is alien to me. But for now, this doesn’t seem to be the place to do it. I guess I continue as I have been – hitting publish when I feel I can, and for the next month, anyone popping by will see a lot of pleas to donate to Insulin for Life. 

And I guess that will have to be enough for now.