The road to acceptance with type 1 diabetes

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode of Type one on one is kindly sponsored
by Insulette. More on that later. What I will say
now is that we have a shiny new Instagram page
dedicated specifically to the Type one on one podcast. It's
very exciting, So come and say hi and join our
lovely community at Studio Type one on one. The link
is in the episode description. Hi everyone, and welcome to

(00:25):
Type one on one, a podcast that delves into the obscure,
complex and challenging world of life with Type one diabetes.
I'm Jen Greeves, and each week, with the help of
some brilliant guests, I'll be showing that there is no
normal when it comes to handlink this whopper of a
chronic condition, because we're all pretty much figuring out the

(00:46):
messiness of day to day life with diabetes as we go.
And most of all, even though it doesn't always feel
like it, we are absolutely not alone. Hello, lovely people,
Welcome back to another episode of Time one. This is
the podcast that chats all things Type one diabetes, but
mostly the thoughts and the feelings that come with living

(01:07):
what we all know. I'm sure if you're listening, is
a very complicated condition and I'm doing something a little
bit different today. It's just me, but I wanted to
chat today about acceptance and the very long, very non
straight roads to acceptance around type one diabetes. So, you know,
just a small topic for us today. And I know

(01:29):
everybody's journey is different. That's a word that gets thrown
around a lot when it comes to this condition, but
it is a journey. I think acceptance with type one
diabetes as well can really ebb and flow. Obviously, there's
a diagnosis and that's a big adjustment for anyone in
including family members and partners and things like that. And
then you start moving through life and there are new

(01:51):
challenges or new chapters to your life, maybe when you
make changes to your diabetes management, but also very much
outside of diabetes, you know, new relationships, new jobs, career changes,
maybe going into parenthood, all sorts of things where how
you feel about your type one diabetes and the acceptance
you have around it can be made present or come

(02:15):
to the forefront of your mind, and it might be iterating,
it might look different than it did before. So there's
a lot in this And with that in mind, I
am not really here today looking for answers, so sorry
if you want the key to acceptance. I'm not here
to give it to you. As you can probably already tell,
this is going to be a broad stroke one. It's

(02:37):
going to be big ideas and concepts, and I'm probably
going to be jumping around because this isn't one clear
cut answer. I do hope you stick with me. And
of course, of course, of course, this is not medical
advice at all. It's not anything that you should be
taking as the kind of guidebook to acceptance with type

(02:59):
one diabe. I'm absolutely not a medical professional, not a psychotherapist,
a psychologist or anything in that world. It's just me,
as always talking from my experience. So yeah, definitely lots
to chew on here. And I've now been on a
long twenty nine year road with type one diabetes. So

(03:20):
I was diagnosed at eight years old, and you know,
twenty nine years is a long time. So I've obviously
gone through a lot of changes, not only in the
thinking around type one diabetes, but the management tools, the
attention to the psychological impact of type one diabetes, which
is absolutely huge, and then of course my own personal
experience moving through life, moving through all the different stages education, friendships, relationships,

(03:46):
moving around the country starting my career, iterating around that travel, etc. So, yeah,
that's just quite a lot to dig into when it
comes to acceptance, and as I said, different challenges that
I've been confronted with along the way that have made
me question whether I'm accepting of this thing, all the
parts of this thing, and what that means. And there

(04:09):
was some inspiration behind this episode, but it was actually
really compounded as I've had quite a few tough type
one days lately, and I kind of caught myself leaning
towards the kind of I hate this narrative just just
for a second, just for a minute, And that's actually
something that, gratefully, that's quite a rare place for me

(04:32):
to be in, or for me to allow myself to
go to, should I say, all of these years down
the line and having come a very long way, which
we very much will get into, so that thinking that
narrative that did catch me off guard. I'm not afraid
to admit I definitely didn't get stuck there, because, as
I said, I've got the awareness and the tools to
kind of be aware of how unhelpful that kind of

(04:54):
thinking is. And also I think the fact that in
that moment I noticed I wasn't particularly accepting of my
situation was interesting to me and I was able to
step back from that, and that was therefore even more
motivation for this episode, because this is or it can
be such a hard thing to accept, not just at
the point of diagnosis, but ongoing. And I think, even

(05:16):
though I'm nervous to really be sat here talking about
a concept like this that, as I said, I'm not
qualified to talk about from any kind of a professional standpoint,
understanding the physiological demands of type one diabetes really is
only part of the picture. And I'm quite confident in
saying that that mindset and perspective especially are such a

(05:37):
crucial part of the puzzle. And this condition does make
you feel a lot of feelings a lot of the time.
And I think where I've come from is that originally,
or back in the day when I was diagnosed, a
lot of that wasn't acknowledged, certainly wasn't talked about, and
that's sort of more psychological side of things. The perspective
it took me a very long time to even be

(05:58):
aware of, let alone to try and understand or figure
out for myself, and that has been a huge piece
of the puzzle when it comes to acceptance for me,
which we are absolutely about to dive into. But by
the time I was even aware of this part of
the puzzle, I certainly wasn't in optimal health and type
one diabetes truly is a rollercoaster. So acceptance, however that looks,

(06:25):
I think, has been a part of my toolkit that
I really do need outside of my insulin and my
CGM and all of those things, you know, the physical
things in order to handle this condition on an ongoing basis,
And yes, it is for the rest of my life,
and I am very aware of that. I don't necessarily
dwell on that. I focus on the day to day

(06:45):
and the one decision at a time, but having this
awareness of the need to be in a relationship with
my type one diabetes, that's huge, and that is really
why I wanted to make this episode today. So I
will absolutely get into looking at what acceptance is, what
it might look like in the context of type one diabetes,

(07:07):
and the different pieces of acceptance, different tools, different keys.
But let's talk about the original inspiration for this episode, which,
as I referenced, there was a sort of trigger point here,
so it was an analogy that I used on a
podcast that I was speaking on as a guest very recently,

(07:27):
and the conversation sort of flowed into talking about acceptance
and Type one diabetes. So I was on the typecast podcast,
which is the podcast from Insult who make omnipod, who
actually are sponsoring this episode. The two are not related.
I was a guest on the podcast, so I'll leave
a link to that if you want to listen. Because
it was very different for me to sit there and

(07:48):
be interviewed, and I shared a lot about my own
story and it was super super chatty myself and the
host Natalie. We covered a lot of ground, so that
might be something that you might want to hit play
on half this episode, of course, but I fell into
this analogy that I was talking about when it came
to acceptance, and they chose to kind of pull that

(08:09):
out for a social clip to promote the episode, and
it seemed to resonate a lot online. So that was
kind of the jumping point for this episode. And then,
as I said, having had a few tough diabetes days
recently and realizing that in certain moments I wasn't particularly
accepting of my situation, I thought, yes, this is a
good topic to dive into, something I want to like

(08:31):
poke around at and as I said, not necessarily draw conclusions,
but maybe look back at my own story and my experience,
and it's all come to kind of help me work
with my type one diabetes and with my body without
pretending that this is all a bed of roses, because
that's definitely not the case with this thing. As you're
well know, if you're sat here listening to this and

(08:51):
you know you're dealing with a diagnosis, either yourself or
a family member, or you're just in the grind of it,
you know, after days, weeks, months, years, let's get onto
the analogy that I mentioned on the podcast, and I think, yeah,
as I said, this seemed to kind of connect with people.
So this is where we're coming from on this episode
and on this topic. So what I was talking about

(09:12):
on this episode is how I'm personally seeing myself as
on the road of life, the journey of life, to
use that word again, and that probably sounds a bit
woo woo, and it probably sounds a bit cringe, But
here we are, buckle up, I think we all are.
You know, we're on our path and I'm driving along,
and I think there was this point where, knowingly or
otherwise I started to try and drive down this road

(09:34):
without my type one diabetes. I certainly knew that I
had it. I didn't have a problem saying that I
had it, but I definitely at one point in my
life wasn't really giving my type one diabetes my attention.
And there were a few different reasons for that. And
it happened quite gradually, quite steadily. There was only a
certain amount of consciousness around it, although I certainly knew

(09:55):
I wasn't feeling great. But throughout my childhood with type
one diabetes, everything was She's doing great. And I mean
we didn't have cgms or anything, so who knows, But
certainly around my late teens early twenties, I just started
to veer off course. And so there I was driving
along this road and I'd get so far along, kind
of not giving my type one diabetes any mind, well,

(10:16):
certainly not enough mind, not paying enough attention, and suddenly
there was me thinking I was cruising down the road,
even though it was quite a difficult path. At that point,
I would suddenly have type one diabetes clambering all over
the windscreen, shaking the car, you know, making all kinds
of noise on the roof, and essentially careering me off
the road. The road I thought I wanted to travel

(10:38):
down off my path as it tried to climb back
in through the window. Because I couldn't drive off without
type one diabetes. Diabetes has to come along for the ride.
So because i'd not kind of let it in, it
was trying to clamber into the driver's seat. And that's
all quite horrible and tense and scary, and ultimately I'm
not really in control of that car off that road,

(11:00):
and I'm certainly not in control of where I'm headed
because type one diabetes had come clambering at me and
essentially careered me off the road. So what I came
to learn, and I'll get into the house of that
if I give my type one diabetes enough attention and
I soothe it, and I shmooth it, and I coax
it into the car and coax it into the passenger seat,

(11:23):
maybe even the back seat if I'm lucky. So I'm
engaging with it, I'm speaking to it, I'm soothing it.
I can get it to the point where it's got
a seat belt on what happens then is even though
I'd rather not have type one diabetes in the car
with me at all, it means that I'm in that
driver's seat and I'm in control. I've got my hands

(11:44):
on the steering wheel, not type one diabetes. And type
one diabetes kind of is a bit more held in place.
I have to entertain it a little bit, you know,
make sure it's okay there in the back seat. And
type one diabetes might make me take the slow road
or a detour every now and then. It might make
me stop at a service station when I don't particularly

(12:04):
want to, but it cannot get hold of the wheel,
It cannot plung itself in the driver's seat and take over.
So it's still my journey. And the more we drive,
the more I figure out how I can go in
the direction I want to go with it. And even
more so than that, I can start to visit all
of these different destinations on the way that I had
previously thought were not possible for me. And as I

(12:27):
kept going down this road and speaking to my type
one diabetes nicely, having a few chats with it along
the way, I've picked up a lot of helpful tools
and you know, they all work towards keeping the car
running a little bit smoother. You know, I've got a
sat NAV, now, I've got a four wheel drive thanks
to my diabetes technology. I've got a banging playlist to

(12:47):
make the ride a bit more fun. All these things
that help me on the journey. And for the most part,
type one diabetes. Yes it's annoying, but I've accepted that
it's on this journey with me, it's in the car
with me. With that it doesn't cause me to crash.
So that is a long version of the visual that
kind of sums up I guess where I've come to

(13:08):
in terms of being able to accept and live with
my type one diabetes in general. So if we're looking
at acceptance of anything as a starting point, I think
generally we need to first or I need to first
acknowledge where I'm starting from, and that I think is

(13:29):
a acknowledgment of the current reality where am I at
and with type one diabetes. For me, that's happened more
than once, because as I said, there are different chapters
in life, there are different iterations. My relationship with type
one diabetes does change, and it has evolved, and it's
not a static thing with a view to being able
to move forward. So, as I said, I'm twenty nine

(13:50):
years into this now. I was diagnosed as a child,
and at that diagnosis point, I think I accepted it
by default, because that's what happens when you're a kid.
You're told something and you kind of have to do it.
You don't really have a choice, and that is most
of your life at that age, you know, eight years old,
You're told to do something and you do it, whether
that's by parents, teachers, other authority figures. So yes, I

(14:13):
was upset, and no, I didn't really understand it, But
I for the most part, can't really remember ever thinking
at that point of diagnosis or in the weeks and
months that followed. I don't remember thinking I cannot do this.
Where I'm not sure if that was the same for
my parents, I don't think so. I don't think that's
really my parents' view on things. That's not to say

(14:35):
they weren't terrified as well, But I think thinking I
can't do this is probably a very common thing, especially
if you're dealing with the diagnosis of a child or
you know, an adult diagnosis, where your life is set
up and You're used to living your life in a
certain way, so yeah, an acceptance by default. Definitely things changed.
I understood that life as I thought it was going

(14:58):
to be had changed and looked a little bit different.
But for the most part, I think the acceptance was there,
and you don't think long term, do you, when you're
a kid. It probably was different from my parents. They
probably had those questions, but for me, you're sort of
in the day to day, aren't you getting up, doing
as you're told, going to school, going out to play

(15:22):
as it was back then in the nineties, no mobile phones.
I had to take a few injections, and I knew
it was for the rest of my life, but I
probably couldn't grasp the concept of the rest of my
life at that time. So yeah, off I went. And
so with that, my challenges or having to confront more
of the feelings and emotions that type one diabetes certainly provokes,
came a bit later, because my reality, as I mentioned,

(15:45):
had gone a long way from the girl who was
diagnosed to eight years old. However, I was pretty much
doing the same thing I'd always done, despite all the
hormone changes and the life changes and the routine changes
that had happened and were happening at that point where
I'd careered quite far off the road, which was kind
of lateeen's early twenties, and I just didn't have the

(16:07):
knowledge or the information to look after myself or the
tools to handle my emotions, shall we say, which in
turn would have helped me understand the reality of where
my health was at at that time. And so there
could be no acceptance because I wasn't aware and I
was just very lost with it all. And so without
that awareness of the situation i'd got to the place
I'd got to, I don't think it was possible for

(16:29):
me to change something or to begin to try and
accept it. I thought I was doing enough. I thought
I was looking No, I don't know if I did
think I was looking after myself, because I certainly didn't
feel okay, but I didn't have an awareness that my
body needed more from me. I was taking my injections.
I'm more than ten years down the road from diagnosis.

(16:53):
I hadn't really had any new pointers. I hadn't really
been given any new information in terms of hormones or
changes that I might need to make, or things that
I might need to do to look after myself a
bit better. And I was very, very, very unaware of
what my body needed from me. I was completely focused

(17:13):
on other things outside of my Type one diabetes. But
in hindsight, I could very much see that those two
things are absolutely linked, and my body was screaming at me,
screaming at me for giving it more attention or just
giving it more love and care. I became very aware, however,
when I got a diagnosis of background retinopathy at the

(17:35):
age of twenty two. So some of you who have
listened to other episodes or have seen other things I've
written online will know this already. But that diagnosis, that
was what made me realize that whatever I was doing
wasn't working, or it certainly wasn't enough. And again, just
to iterate, I didn't really know any different. We didn't

(17:56):
have carb counting, there was no CGM data. I was
just injecting, doing a couple of finger prick tests to
day to basically stay alive, which will horrify a lot
of you if you've been diagnosed in recent years, I'm sure,
but it is a common story and unfortunately type one
diabetes needs a lot more than that. But that I
cannot iterate like that was what I was told to

(18:17):
do to manage my condition a few finger prick tests today.
But had I been on a carb counting course, No,
did I know how to do that efficiently? No. I
was also a very active and sporty child. So my
HbA one c's were coming out fine up to a point,
and then I just wasn't as engaged with the system.
I wasn't engaged with my health in that way, certainly

(18:39):
not in a constructive or a positive way. Yeah, that's
where we'd got to at that point of that retinopathy diagnosis,
which was not a lot of fun, let me tell you.
And I certainly wasn't feeling great, but again it was
just my reality and that was a reality check. So
that's all just to give you a bit of context
of where my learning and my experience is coming from,

(19:02):
which is a very different lens from someone who's just
received and had at diagnosis, for example, and their body
doesn't suddenly doesn't feel like their own, or a diagnosis
has turned your life upside down, or you're left wondering
why you feel like shit and there's so much stuff
in your bag all of a sudden and whether you
will ever be able to do the things that you
were doing before again. And if that is you, as

(19:24):
you're listening to this now and you're scared, understandably scared,
this is also valid. So please give yourself grace in that,
and don't compare your day one to someone else's day
thirty two hundred and one. Yeah. I don't know if
I'm being particularly eloquent in that, but hopefully to just
paint that picture that coming from where I came from

(19:46):
and knowing where I'm at now, there is hopefully a
lot of comfort to take in that that so much
is possible, so much progress, so much good stuff, and
not only in terms of your understanding, your perspective, but
the other side to that is the changes that I've
seen in these years in diabetes management, in access to technology,

(20:07):
in our understanding of the psychological piece that I mentioned before.
That is so so important, I think for me, having
witnessed that journey, not only for myself but on a
wider scale, there is a lot to be hopeful about.
That makes me hopeful for what's yet to be discovered
and how our thinking is going to evolve in the
next few years. And I don't say that without the

(20:27):
understanding that that's probably not that helpful if you're in
the upside down and you're not sleeping and the alarms
are constantly screaming, and you're scared to eat the foods
you love because you don't know what's going to happen
to your glucose levels. And for me, going from fingerpricked
to cgium was one of the biggest positive changes in
my journey. But if your starting point is that you've

(20:50):
been free and living your life and now you're wearing
a sensor on your arm, you're probably not going to
feel particularly good about that or empowered by that. So
this is all different lenses, different perspectives, different journeys, And
as I've said, this is kind of my story and
where I've been and where I'm at now, and I

(21:10):
think it's important to say right now, like if you
are moving through a diagnosis or a difficult period with
your life or your Type one diabetes, or you're feeling
angry or scared or separate from your body, please consider
talking to someone you know. As I said, this isn't advice,
This isn't intended to be advice. I think all of

(21:30):
these things are really understandable, but it's important to talk
to someone your diabetes team, a therapist, a professional, and
I will say you are absolutely not alone in this.
I will say that it is hard, and I will
say that to you with force, because you deserve to
know that you're not stupid wherever you're at on this road.
You're not stupid for feeling overwhelmed. You're not stupid for

(21:51):
feeling frustrated or scared, because you deserve to feel well,
and that is possible if I'm speaking from my experience
going from where I want to where I'm at now.
I'm living a much better quality of life now, but
it's taken time. So yeah, just to say I see
you if you're in that, But from that, the reality

(22:12):
is that this is not going away. So with that
in mind, acceptance for me is okay, what do I
do now? And that's what I want to focus on
today when it comes to acceptance, the what now. So
if we try to define acceptance many minutes into this episode,
I think in general, it's suggesting that you're in a
situation that you really don't like or wasn't expecting. So

(22:35):
type one diabetes check and I think then we're looking
at where or how to go from that situation into
something that feels less like defiance or fear or overwhelm
or pretending none of it's happening, or believing you can't
possibly cope with this situation, and into something that's more

(22:57):
like forward motion. So moving forward, whether that be with
a clear action plan or just step by step or
feeling your way through, but that desire to move in
that general trajectory, no matter how fast or slow is there.
And to kind of just back this up, so it's
not just me speaking here. Medical professor John cabot Zin,

(23:17):
who founded the world famous mindfulness based stress reduction clinic
at the University of Massachusetts, but also wrote the book
Wherever You Go, There You Are, which I have read
and recommend if you're open to the more spiritual side
of things. He kind of sums this up in his
definition of acceptance, which is acceptance doesn't, by any stretch

(23:38):
of the imagination, mean passive resignation. Quite the opposite. It
takes a huge amount of fortitude and motivation to accept
what is, especially when you don't like it, and then
work wisely and effectively as best you possibly can with
the circumstances you find yourself in and with the resources
at your disposal, both inner and outer, to mitigate, he

(24:00):
redirect and change what can be changed. So there's so
much in this definition that I really like and a
lot to pick apart there. So maybe I'll leave that
definition in the show notes for you to kind of
look at in your own time, because I think you
can work through it line by line and really think
about how that relates to Type one diabetes. And it
certainly struck a chord with me on so many levels.

(24:21):
But how that reads to me is it's about acknowledging
first the reality as I mentioned, Okay I live with
type and diabetes, or Okay, I'm not exactly where I
want to be with how I'm living with my Type
one diabetes, how I'm managing my Type one diabetes, the
investment I'm making in my health, and to stop resisting
the reality of that so it's all fine. Or I

(24:43):
can pretend this isn't happening, or I can play it
down and then start to acknowledge the feelings, the frustrations
or the emotions without judging myself for them. And I
think that's an absolutely crucial piece. Yes, I can be
annoyed with type one diabetes, but at this point in
time where I'm now, I don't get annoyed with myself
because I'm showing up for myself consistently. And that doesn't

(25:06):
mean I'm on top of it one hundred percent all
the time. All the while, I've got things to do,
I've got life to live, but I'm showing up for myself,
and I can move forward from that place because that
place has compassion and that space is just such a
more loving place to start from. And I think for me,
I had to start from there. I had to start

(25:28):
from a place that wasn't so against myself. I really
was in a fight with myself. And like, my amazing
body is doing its best despite having type one diabetes.
There's still so much it can do. And I've got
proof of that of the things I've done over time,
as I've like explored edges of what's possible and what's
possible to achieve with type one diabetes. In spite of

(25:50):
type one diabetes, there is still so much you can do,
and there's not a lot that I would say I
can't do. It costs me more time, it costs me
more energy, more planning. I might have to adapt, the
reality might look different for someone who's not living with
type one diabetes. But through all of that, my brain
has got to be a nice space to live if

(26:12):
I'm going to be in any way entertaining the idea
of equipping myself enough to take on the demands of
type one diabetes to be able to live a life
that's fulfilled and meaningful. And that certainly is me speaking
from experience, and that's kind of like the trajectory that
I'm on with that journey of life as I as

(26:34):
I mentioned in the analogy, and I have really, really
truly been in the very opposite headspace and it was
so so lonely, and it was honestly torturous. So compassion, compassion, compassion,
no matter what the numbers are saying. And yes, as
I said, I'll get frustrated with this situation, but I
do always always show compassion to myself. So Diabetes Challenge

(26:56):
nineteen of the day, Oh there you are. You're in
a that doesn't mean that I am being a terrible
person today. You're telling me what's going on from the
back seat, and I will decide what we are going
to do next. And I don't make an enemy out
of myself if that means, for example, that today I'm
going to take the slow lane and yesterday I was

(27:18):
able to drive in the fast lane, do you know
what I mean? The one word I do not love
in that description is motivation, because I don't do this
because I've motivated. I do it because I have to.
And that's not to say there isn't different sort of
views and lenses and perspective I can take around that.
But I think motivation, you know, it's just not constant,

(27:41):
it's not there all the time. It's what we do
in spite of lacking motivation. It's what we do because
it's routine, it's what we do. We're doing it for
reasons that are bigger than being enthralled to do diabetes
that day. But that's another podcast, that's for another day.
A word that John News is that I really like
is redirect and I like that because we're kind of

(28:03):
redirecting ourselves constantly. I think, as I've mentioned iterating a
few times, I think we're constantly adapting. We're constantly re
routing our sat NAB if you like, and course correcting
as we go. But also we're redirecting because we can't
go back to before the situation. You can't go back
from a diagnosis. And although I was diagnosed as a child,

(28:24):
I can relate to this in terms of something sudden
like a breakup or something really hard hitting like grief.
You can't go back to before, but you can redirect,
you can adapt the course. And that's very much like
with the car analogy. I've had to let this diabetes character,
whoever he or she is, in the back seat. I've
had to adapt my journey because of type one diabetes.

(28:48):
But I'm not not moving forward. I'm not on the journey.
I need more equipment, I need more information, but we're
still going in the right direction. And I'm the one
that decides how we redirect, and I think we can
redirect ourselves but also our relationship to diabetes. And that
is exactly what I've done, And that to me says

(29:11):
acceptance because it's something that I keep checking in with,
I keep working with. Like any other relationship in your life,
it takes work. It's a two way street. You have
to communicate, you have to pay attention. Things shift over time,
and so as I've moved through those different stages of
this relationship. I can certainly acknowledge that there are times

(29:33):
when I haven't made the best decision that's one hundred
percent in service of my body or my type of
diabetes because I was having a good time, or I
ate more than I thought I was going to, or
I forgot to change my pod over before bed, or whatever.
You know, I can acknowledge that maybe I need to
pay a bit more attention, to make some tweaks, to

(29:55):
refocus myself, to get my time and range a bit
more where I'd like it to be. But I definitely
do not use that as a weapon against myself to
determine whether I'm a good or bad human, a good
or bad diabetic, etc. But that really does take practice
because it is us making these diabetes management decisions. It

(30:18):
is us taking our lives into our hands every day.
But for me, I think personally, that's even more reason
to give myself grace. I've said already, this is hard.
Maybe no one has ever told you that this is
an incredible workload and at times has extremely inconsistent and
often scary outcomes. So to take that criticism away and
just meet myself with Okay, here we are we are

(30:41):
where we are, We're going to try and make decisions
one at a time, one day at a time, with
the information that we currently have. Yeah, that's just a
much much nicer place to be and kind of leaves
my sense of self worth much more detached from the
actual outcomes, the glucose outcomes, And sometimes that's helpful. I

(31:02):
absolutely know where I want to be, I know what
my ideal ranges, I know what my ideal glucose level is.
But I can detach my self worth from those numbers
because I know that I'm trying, and therefore I'm in
such a more rational or collaborative place to make those
decisions from. Rather than being super defiant or just doing

(31:22):
it and like shoving it away, I'm much more willing
to be conscious in my decision making, and I guess
proactive in my approach, rather than reacting to the numbers
and trying to like chase them down or up all
the time. You know, on the back foot. And although
this thing happened to me, you know, type of diabetes.

(31:45):
I was diagnosed with type of diabetes long ago. The
life I now live with it, in spite of it
and because of it. That's all been my doing, you know,
being more conscious and being more proactive and investing my time.
I am an energy into educating myself and trying to
learn about my body and connecting with myself. I've created

(32:07):
a life as a result of that investment, and I
continue to create my health over days, weeks, months, and
with that in mind, when we look at this huge
enormous road in front of us that is a life
with Tyitewan diabetes. The odd frustrating day, although it takes
all my energy and patience and feels shit, is actually

(32:28):
a drop in the ocean. And I know that the
longevity of life with titeane diabetes is so so hard
for a lot of people to get to grips with.
But for me, that kind of conscious decision making and
iterating and working with it it does compound. So the
marathon element of it actually helps me place less weight

(32:48):
on an individual day or an individual hour where things
don't go the way I would like them to. And
I know, on the whole as a majority thing, most
of the time, over the days, weeks, years, I actually
have a really solid baseline from which I work from.
You know, I've got my foundations in place. I understand

(33:10):
my body enough that what I'm dealing with as I
move into each decision and move into every day isn't
as terrifying. And I've seen the compound effects of that.
I've seen how different it is possible to feel. I've
seen what it is possible to do. I've seen versions
of me that come to life when I'm feeling good.

(33:32):
And the effort I've put into this, little by little
over time really has paid off. That I think pushes
me on, pushes me forward. They say that motivation comes
from action, not the other way around. You're not motivated
into action. So if I take this action to look
after myself, I see the effects of that. I see
the rewards. None of it is perfect, but that is

(33:53):
what motivates me to keep going. So motivation coming from
action rather than the other way around. So this compounding
impact is something that sports people talk about. We talk
about it in finance. We finance, we talk about it
in finance. It takes time. You have to wait to
yield those results. Just like when you start to learn

(34:14):
anything new, you're not going to be good at the beginning.
It could be in language, it could be an instrument parenting.
It's all a process, and for me it's still a process.
As I said, I got frustrated the other day, and
I think on that point, actually it's probably worth highlighting
what standards are we setting ourselves against here? What's the
marker of success? I already told you mine. Am I

(34:35):
showing up for myself? So if your marker of success
is something like one hundred percent of the time in
range or no blood glucose above eleven, if you work
in minimal's perlita, they're kind of setting me up for failure. Yes,
I want to be within range as much as possible. Yes,
I want to be as close to five point five

(34:55):
millimos perlita as much as possible, But I absolutely know
that that isn't possible one hundred percent of the time
because there's just too much at play here. There's too
many variables. So putting yourself under that massive pressure. Maybe
if this is all new to you, or you're trying
something different, or you're trying to build better habits, I

(35:15):
think for me it's always helpful to think about what
I'm marking myself against. And those glucose targets are hard
to ignore, of course, because they're very clear they're very
black and white, and it's so easy to tell yourself
you're bad at this if you're quote unquote only fifty
percent in range, But if you weren't doing anything, you'd
be zero percent in range. So like, this is all

(35:37):
work in progress. It's not to say you can't aim
for more time in range next week or work to
improve things over time, but being very aware of the
mark that you're setting yourself against, for me, is really
really important so that I don't start falling into that criticism,
that self criticism, and then I'm working against myself, and
then that's when the wheel starts to come off. So yeah,

(35:58):
just something to highlight there. I think that's really relevant
while you're on this voyage of discovery, if you like,
if you are on a road to acceptance, because the
goals will keep moving, or they certainly have for me
as I've learned more and more. But with that it's
become easier. As I've learned more and more. You don't
know what you don't know. So I started out pretty

(36:19):
in the dark, and I had to go and seek
out all this information for myself, and I came to
understand that that was on me, that was my responsibility.
But that's the point I'm on this quest for myself,
and I think that is part of the acceptance that
I have to do this. No one else is coming
to do this for me. No one else can tune
into my body the way that I can. No one

(36:39):
else can understand how my unique body works, what my
unique needs are. So from that point where I knew
I wanted to change things because I'd suddenly become so
aware of how of course I'd gotten, that was where
I accepted the reality of where I was at, because
I needed to know where I was starting from to
start to figure out what information I needed, which direction

(37:02):
I wanted to be heading in, what markers of success
I was setting for myself, what mattered, what was important
for me, and what I could do what was within
my control to change without kind of turning my whole
life upside down, without letting go of these important things
that were in my life. Because what I immediately became

(37:22):
aware of at that point of diagnosis of the retinopathy,
what I immediately understood when I was contemplating whether I
was about to go blind at the age of twenty two,
was diabetes actually is a part of me it's in
the car with me, and it doesn't mean that's all
that I am. And I think maybe that's where the
defiance came from. I didn't want to be diabetes, but

(37:44):
it's far from it, you know, just to reassure you
if you are there, And I guess that's the comment
I get a lot on my Instagram as well from
other people with type one diabetes. There is absolutely no
doubt whatsoever that I am living. I am living so
far beyond the realms of what I think thought life
could look like. So if that helps, please take that
as reassurance. I didn't have to accept my diabetes or

(38:07):
accept my situation and therefore reject so many other parts
of myself because diabetes was going to become this massive
or consuming thing. It actually, over time became less consuming,
And I really am not doing all that living all
that life, all of these things at the expense of
my health. Quite the opposite. This acceptance has allowed it

(38:29):
all to be in the mix together decent health, with
the time and range that I feel good about, and
also with this life, this lifestyle, this capacity to do
all these things and think and feel and explore and
make memories, all at the same time, and Type one
diabetes is linked to all of that, It's linked to

(38:51):
everything else in my life, but it hasn't stopped me
in the way that I think maybe I was so
fearful of at that point, And as I've explored that
and worked with that, that is something I can accept
and move forward with and actually be very proud of.
This episode of Type one on one is sponsored by Insult,

(39:13):
the makers of omnipodtube free insulin pump therapy. I've personally
used POD therapy to manage my type one diabetes for years,
and using Omnipod five automated insulin delivery has improved my
diabetes management significantly, with less diabetes decisions and of course
no multiple daily injections. How well, Omnipod five automatically adjust

(39:37):
my insulin every five minutes to help keep me in range,
allowing life outside of type one diabetes to get bigger.
If you want to know more, head to omnipod dot com.
So there was a change in approach, and it definitely
wasn't conclusive, It definitely wasn't all correct. It didn't stick around.

(40:02):
But as I invested energy into my health, as I
did more things, I learned more about my body. I
was tuned in and probably for the first time, you know,
at the age of twenty two, thirteen fourteen years into
my diagnosis, me and my body and my diarbetes, we
really started working together, cohesively, paying attention, as I said,

(40:25):
being conscious of my decisions, instead of me doing the
bare minimum and then shutting it all in a drawer
or shoving it in the bottom of my bag and
just like thinking that was enough, which is definitely not
a particularly accepting way of being. So the next point
I want to come to is trust, which again another huge,

(40:46):
huge key for me when it comes to acceptance. I
absolutely have to trust myself to be able to do
any of this, and I think handling a condition with
type one diarbetes where the parameters are pretty tight and
outside of those parameters things can get really scary, they
can get really dangerous. To have trust in myself is

(41:10):
just crucial. So at that point, at that turning point,
I don't think I had any trust in myself, and
that is probably because I hadn't shown up for my health.
I really did have to start from zero in terms
of like building trust and working with my body and
this new approach of waking up to my current reality

(41:31):
and meeting my body exactly where it was in its
current place, not the one I wished I had, not
the one that worked, where I had a working pancreas,
not the one that looked different all of these things.
I had to meet myself exactly where I was at,
to have a conversation with my body about what it needed,
starting to build a picture that allowed me to make

(41:55):
decisions where I could then start to build trust in
myself in the decisions that I was making, that I
was bringing myself back onto that course, onto that road,
and meeting myself. At this point, I'd already spent so long,
so many years trying to run from myself, So this
really was a very slow process. It was very new,
It took a lot of time, and I would say
it's actually still ongoing. The path I'd gone down at

(42:19):
that point was one of me trying to be completely
separate from my body, and I was so outside of it,
so detached from it, so not in tune with it.
I didn't really want anything to do with it. And
again that all links back to compassion to self worth,
because I really was very hard on myself. I was
hard on my appearance, I was hard on my personality.

(42:40):
I was hard on what I could offer the world.
And therefore, like I guess, I didn't have that sense
of self worth or trust to be able to look
after myself. So I went on a quest to start
to gather information. Now this was back in two thousand
and nine, twenty ten, So I ordered some absolutely huge textbooks.

(43:02):
They were like bricks landing on my doormat. Obviously, now
you can Google, you can go on Instagram, there's social media.
I selected very discerningly the books and the information that
I wanted to start with, and I started to learn.
And as I said, as a beginner in anything, which
I felt like I was at that time, it was

(43:23):
very small steps. It was very bite sized pieces. I
gave it a lot of time and investment, but I
didn't understand everything, and I didn't try to take it
all up on at once. I tried to get enough
of an overview, and actually very quickly I felt better
equipped because I really was starting from the other end
of the park, Like I was so far gone on

(43:44):
what I thought health looked like. That yeah, coming back
to something that looked like center with the help of
these professional textbooks from doctors and medical professionals. I felt
equipped to start making those tiny changes because I had
been quite careful about the information I was gathering, and
also I'd live with TITLEOD diabetes long enough to know

(44:06):
that small changes I could probably handle those. And you know,
especially with the perspective that what I was doing up
until that point was actually, you know, actively damaging my health,
I kind of didn't have that fear of like, oh
am I going to be able to do this, And
of course I would recommend speaking to a healthcare professional
before you make any changes to what you're doing. But yeah,

(44:28):
very quickly those day by day, step by step changes,
they kind of started to create shifts in my thinking,
in my perspective, and I started seeing results, which, again,
action breeds motivation. It motivated me further to learn more,
to understand more, and I also started to write about it.
Processing this as I went, and I wasn't doing anything

(44:49):
super super crazy, but yeah, I think I had felt
so ill up to that point. I had got into
a place where I just felt so shit that any
change was probably going to be quite positive. But this
is just to iterate again that this is just me,
my journey, my body, my story, and if you're not sure,

(45:09):
go and get information from someone who is qualified to
give you that information. I was, as I said, thirteen
years into my diagnosis, and when I tell you, I
literally went back to basics. I found a carb counting
course online because no one had ever told me that
that was a thing I read about what was actually
happening in my body. I didn't know insolent was a hormone.

(45:29):
As I said, I started a blog to documented it
all because I still wanted to be able to live
my life. And all the textbooks I was reading they
were helpful about body. Yes, they were helpful about insulin. Yes,
they were helpful about dosing recommendations and nutrition, but they
did not tell me how to be a twenty two
or twenty three year old who wanted to go down

(45:51):
this road of taking care of herself but also wanted
to live her life, go out on the weekends, enjoy
the new city I was in, embark on my care
that I just started, and do all the things. So
that was the approach and going on that path of
something that I didn't know at the time but very
much was the start of a road to acceptance has

(46:14):
very much brought me here talking to you today on
this very podcast, which has been an evolution from that
blog that I started way back then. So here we
are back to trust. So naturally I started out on
this path. Yes, I was thirteen years in, but as
I mentioned, I was starting from absolute zero and really

(46:37):
going back to basics, and it is terrifying. I completely
understand that, and that lack of trust is of course
tied into confidence around decision making, because we're making decisions
that we've never had to make before. In you know,
it's well reported that people living with Teitewan diabetes make
up to one hundred and eighty extra decisions a day.
That's a lot. So I started making decisions that supported

(46:58):
this version of me that's here with type one diabetes,
and my confidence grew and that has just helped me
to gather a body of evidence that suggests that I
am showing up for myself and that is something that
I can control, which goes back to the definition we
talked about earlier, that is within my control. Having type

(47:19):
one diabetes is not. So my focus is on the numbers,
but it's not defined by the numbers. It's not attached
to the numbers, because in my experience, what I've learned
is that the numbers come as a result of showing up,
of investing in myself and showing up. I've now said
it about fifty thousand times in the space of three minutes.
But that's what we're going to dive into now. So

(47:41):
showing up for myself, what does that mean? So, as
I said, it was very much on a decision by
decision basis, and what that looked like apart from this
feasting on information, was starting to bring my glucose meter everywhere,
testing more frequently, getting more test strips put on my prescription,
looking a bit closer up my food, doing that online

(48:02):
carb counting course, trying to flexibly dose a bit more accurately,
checking for corrections instead of getting to the next meal,
and then trying to figure out what to do with
the screaming high. Again, this probably sounds absolutely bonkers if
you are quite newly diagnosed, but that is what the
reality of a living midsite one diabetes was not that

(48:24):
long ago, you know what am I talking about now?
Fifteen years or so, So actually it's really not surprising
that I'd gone so far off this course, but it's
also not surprising that with a little bit of attention
and a little bit of an awareness, very quickly I
started to feel better, and very quickly I found more
of a balance, and very quickly I realized I could occasionally,

(48:44):
and then more and more and more often be friends
with myself. And that is then when I realized that
showing up for myself was the very least I deserved.
I deserved to be healthy, I deserve to feel good,
I deserve to feel well. And I actually also came
to understand that I knew slash know my body better

(49:05):
than anyone And I think maybe before then I was
just looking to the experts for like a yes no
tick box and then be on my way back to
doing what I'd always done. But learning that actually I
know my body better than anyone else because I was
tuning into it, because we were having more of a

(49:27):
collaborative approach. That was so empowering, and that again made
it easier to move forward into this place that was
more accepting and to go back to the definition that's
not passive resignation at all. It is so active to invest,
to try and understand, to nurture yourself and I was

(49:48):
surprising myself with the results I was getting and how
quickly I was getting them. But also I was putting
my hand up, I was asking for help. I was
allowing myself extra time back to pack a bag, or
you know, I was advocating for myself when I was
in a bar, out for the night and saying, I
can't have that drink. I can't drink that cocktail. I

(50:09):
live with tyite diabetes. It's too sugary, rather than just
drinking it anyway and hoping for the best. That became
such a positive reinforcement that my approach to Type one,
my outlook, my perspective, and actually how I choose to
live with typewe diabetes, what that looks like a lot
of the time, that was very much in my control.
That was all news to me. That really was quite like, wow, Okay,

(50:33):
it wasn't me saying life has to stop because of
this acceptance. It was actually more like life gets to begin,
life gets to start, but a different kind of life.
I was still out every weekend, and I was in
a new city making friends, I was running around in
my first media job. Life was really like out there
for the taking for me, so as the days, weeks, months,

(50:56):
years pass by virtue of doing this every day but
also staying curious, tuning into the experiences, trying to understand
a bit more. I was equipping myself with more tools
and more evidence that not only can I do this,
but it actually feels good to do this, and it
doesn't really ever become all that I am. Yes, I
might slow down, Yes I might say no to things,

(51:18):
but to me, again, that is empowering. That is because
I'm looking after myself, and no, I don't like it.
I don't have to like it. But because I'm in
tune with my body, I understand what my body needs
and I honor that. I respect that I cannot do everything. Yeah,
this is all kind of colliding and combining, but I
hope you see where I'm coming from with this, on

(51:39):
this kind of path, on this road to acceptance. The
difference between then and now is that back then it
was me versus me, and now it's very much me
with me and my tools, me and my CGM later
my insulin pump. We're all a team and I'm so
so proud of what we do, and that might seem
unfathomable at the moment. Or it might be blatantly obvious

(51:59):
to you. I don't know, we're all in different places
with this, or maybe talk of CDMs and insulin pumps
is a lot. But just to reassure you, I also
have never been someone. You know, I'm talking about investing
in myself, showing up for myself, But I have never
been someone who downloads the data, who comes through every
meal time to see what my bolus was and whether
I split the dose and whether i'd exercise that day.

(52:21):
I do not go into that granular detail because it's
everyday life. The fabric of everyday life, and diabetes is
woven in every strand of that. So it might sound
like I'm doing a lot, but again I think just
going back to the compound effect of this. Once I
had that information and I built up that trust in myself,

(52:44):
I do a lot of this based on how I
want to feel and adapt the decisions as I go along.
So these small changes every day, over time, they become
part of the talkit. They become habits, and those habits,
as I said, reinforce by the outcomes. I think that's
James clear talking about compound effective habits. I'm absolutely butchering that.

(53:07):
But as someone who does go on how they feel,
who isn't scientifically minded, who isn't analytically minded either, I
can sit here today and feel really good about where
I'm at on the whole. You know, nothing is perfect,
but equally I can look back and see how far
I've come. Which is such a cliche, but it's so
so true because all of this that I think, as

(53:28):
I sit here and say it, I'm quite conscious it
all sounds like a lot you know, it's become much
more in the day to day of who I am,
and it's just become a lot lot easier, And I
feel good about the investment that I've made, and it
doesn't feel like it costs me. It certainly doesn't cost
me in the way that like the cost of my
health back then, and the cost of my mind, and

(53:50):
like what it meant to sort of live in my
head back then. Like this for me is return on
investment twentyfold, and as I do this, the investment feels
like less and less. And then on top of that,
from there, I guess I've also been able to zoom
out of those daily diabetes decisions and look at other
things that have actually become huge parts of my talk kit.

(54:12):
So as I mentioned before saying no sometimes sleep stress,
prioritizing creativity, streamlining my life quality over quantity, and of
course this all comes with age and experience, and I
think that's true of type one diabetes but also life
in general. This small holistic side of things. This like

(54:32):
more bird's eye view of my lifestyle as a whole
as it relates to type one diabetes, but also as
it just relates to being a function in human being. Yeah,
I'm feeling pretty equipped and I'm interested in this stuff.
I like looking at all this stuff. So yeah, self
development alongside the road to acceptance with type one diabetes.

(54:52):
So if that piques your interest, absolutely go down that
road and start to explore. I do that predominantly through podcasts.
There's certain you know, philosophers and thinkers and self development
people that I resonate with and others that I think
talk absolute nonsense. So it's kind of the same as
the education piece around type one A. It's never complete. B.

(55:12):
It's you know, not one hundred percent of everything is
going to be for you. Take what works, leave the rest,
and be kind to yourself as you go through and
learn more and understand more about what you didn't know before.
And just for me, it's a focus on trying to
be a decent human being and feel content about who

(55:33):
I am and what I are for the world. And
maybe you don't feel compelled to do that. That's okay too.
I think you're allowed to just want to live a
peaceful life and do what you're got to do and
get the things done. And you know, whatever this road
looks like for you, whether there's self development in it
or not, whether there's wu woo in it or not,
whether you're more analytical, I think regardless, there are growing
pains because you're learning something new. So yeah, that's something

(55:56):
I'm also accepting of that. The more I know, the
more I realize I didn't before. And it's just again
about moving forward. I can't dwell on the mistakes I've made,
I can't dwell on the decisions I've already taken, but
I can use that as information to move forward. And
in terms of moving forward, I can't talk about any
of this without talking about community. Community for me, has

(56:20):
been huge. It is the reason I sit here talking
to you today. It is a huge source of inspiration,
it's a source of information, and I understand that I
can toot the horn of community, but it's also not
something that people want to approach straight away because you know,
as I sit here in twenty twenty five, there are
so many voices out there, there's so much information. I

(56:42):
think it's perhaps the opposite problem of what I had
when I had my little fork in the road. It
really can be a lot to go online and look
between the social media and the diabetes companies, the farmer companies,
between all the different platforms, between you know, age of

(57:02):
diagnosis or diet approach. There's a lot. The professionals would
be absolutely a starting point as your baseline for information.
But then I guess it's building layers, building layers that
resonate with you, building layers that work for you, and
that can change. I think I found as I moved
through my life with Type one diabetes, like going to

(57:23):
try a new food, or you might be thinking about
starting a family and you need a different set of
information for that. But for me, the absolute gold star
of community has come from just that sense of not
feeling alone. And I said this on the type Cast podcast.
I absolutely remember that there was a time in my

(57:45):
life where I thought I was the only person in
the whole world who felt like I did, how I
felt in my head and how I felt in my body,
and how I felt in relation to my type one
diabetes and being in that place where you feel so
alone that obviously absolutely really isn't fun. So if you
do feel alone with this, maybe because you've got no

(58:07):
one around you that you can talk to you about
type one diabetes, I absolutely hear you. I hope you
are taking some comfort in even this conversation as I
just garble on into this microphone. Just that shared commonality
of I know what that feels like and being able
to build other people up and support each other that
is so special for me, and I think it's just

(58:30):
encouraged me more and more to put myself out there
and tell these stories. I've got people I've never met
who have been some of my biggest cheerleaders in life.
Not only have I learned so much from other people
living with type one diabetes, but just yeah, that cheerleading piece,
and I feel like that's very reciprocal, like we get it.
I think as well. For the first time, what community
gave me was this understanding that we can support each

(58:53):
other and cheer each other as we do diabetes differently,
and there is more than one way of doing type
one diabetes. In fact, no two ways of doing type
one diabetes are exactly the same. So that gave me
more confidence again, I guess to try things because I
could see that other people were doing different things out
there and they were working, So that was really helpful

(59:14):
as well. And I think that's maybe a good thing
to focus on. When you are seeing all these different
voices and different ways of being and doing that maybe
can feel overwhelming. It's taking what resonates with you knowing
who you are, and that's why you do have to
connect with self. You have to build that trust in yourself.
And I absolutely do not compare myself to anyone else
living with this thing because it is just too individual,

(59:38):
it's too complex. And my relationship with social media and
community is a curiosity, a willingness to learn and understand
how other people are doing things and being able to
just take little snippets and glimmers and again how amazing
we all are. Because getting up every day and going again,
I mean that takes resilience, It takes strength, It takes

(59:59):
reflection and bravery to keep iterating, and it's not because
we're going into some huge battle. And no, it's not
the most terrible thing that could ever happen, but it
doesn't mean it's not hard. And we're doing all of
this alongside the rest of our lives. And I'm aware
that I might be coming across as I say all
of this, you know, so enlightened, so calm. It sounds

(01:00:19):
like I've got it all figured out, and I absolutely
do not have it all figured out. I'm very clear
on saying that a lot of the time this is
just supposed to be hopeful and hopefully helpful. I certainly
needed to hear some of this this week. As I said,
I'm nearly thirty years into this condition and it's still
kicking my ass on some days. Life absolutely happens and

(01:00:41):
things get in the way. I forget or I misstep,
or I miss time, or plans change and I'm not
prepared or whatever. But being uncomfortable has become comfortable. It
is the norm I think for life with Titwan diabetes,
like we are thrown out of our comfort zone again
and again and again, and simply trying to adapt and

(01:01:02):
making decisions to keep course correcting that is me showing
up for myself. What is difficult about this condition, of course,
is that you can do the same thing on two
different days and get absolutely different results, and that is frustrating.
I've been there, and I am still there. You know,
it happens, it's fluid, it's ongoing. There is no endpoint,

(01:01:22):
which is absolutely rubbish. But how amazing am I therefore
for showing up anyway? And I can see that so
clearly now, But me back at twenty two could not
see that at all. And I think I'm at the
point now as well where I've done so much with
this thing and it's gone right, it's gone wrong. I've
been pleasantly surprised. I've been devastated by how my diabetes

(01:01:46):
day has gone while I'm doing something else. But I mean,
days wouldn't be perfect even if I didn't have type
one diabetes. My reality is this life with type one diabetes.
It is my road. I've accepted that. I can accept that,
and so I'm going to make it the best it
can be within the realms of the things I guess
that I do have control over. And I say that

(01:02:07):
again to be hopeful, because if you are in a
place where that sounds so impossible for you. I completely
get it. I have been there. But your road is
your road. There are things you can do. It's going
to be uncomfortable, but you're not stuck. I promise you
that learning something new, learning your body, learning something as

(01:02:28):
complicated as this, it takes time, and it is hard, yes, absolutely,
but life is hard, and I think I guess I'm
coming as well with this perspective that what was much
much harder than doing life with Titewan diabetes was doing
life with Titewan diabetes while being my own worst enemy
and berating myself for how worthless I was, and feeling

(01:02:49):
terrible because I didn't know what I didn't know because
I hadn't invested in my self, in my health, I
hadn't connected with my body. None of the numbers were
making sense. And I did even know how out of
range I was, because you know, I was just fingerpricking
a couple of times a day. And that's a road.
That is a journey. But living that life back then,

(01:03:11):
that was a lot lot harder. So yeah, I guess
I have this perspective and this experience that it's hard
either way, but this way actually is a lot less hard.
I like this version of me. I'm really good friends
with her. I think she's amazing. Yeah, I've got the outcomes,
but it's more than that. As I've said again and
again and again, it's this quality of life. And I

(01:03:32):
know that life doesn't always go to plan. I think
growing up with type one diabetes taught me that from
a very very early age. So what I've been able
to get to and where I've been able to meet
myself and find this version of acceptance that works for
me that I'm happy with, is that within that mess
of life and that chaos of a scrappy life, of

(01:03:54):
a life full of feelings and emotions and good and
bad and all the things, I am aligned with my body.
I'm working with my body. I'm meeting my body. I'm
showing up for myself, and together we're doing what we
can while also enjoying this life that we do have
as much as we can. I celebrate the winds, the small,

(01:04:15):
tiny winds on a day to day basis, and my
anxiety and my fear around the things that typewan diarbetes
can take from me and absolutely can whip out from
under my feet. At the drop of a hat, without warning,
without so much as an a lah, I am less
afraid of not being able to respond to that. And

(01:04:38):
you know, mile by mile, kilometer by kilometer, I'm here,
I'm figuring it out and typewan Diarbetes is a part
of that ride. It's in the car with me, which
actually makes me, you us all pretty damn special in
my eyes. So if you needed to hear that today,
don't you forget it. So that is my winding and

(01:05:03):
absolutely nonlinear and pretty waffly road to acceptance. There's a lot,
lot lot in that. I don't know if I went
through that particularly clearly, but I think starting with awareness
and acknowledging my reality, allowing emotions, feeling the feelings, but
not getting stuck there because as I know now, as

(01:05:24):
I've experienced, there's just so much life to live beyond that.
Have I got the tools I need to sit out
on the journey or to go along the next stretch
of road? And if not, where can I find them?
Who can I ask? And it's absolutely within my rights
to ask for things. Just some small examples of that.
Actually on my journey, asking for a half unit pen

(01:05:45):
when I was on injections instead of a whole unit
pen just so I could dose a little bit more precisely.
Then asking to switch from Nova Rapid to fias because
no Ovo Rapid was way too slow, it didn't suit
my lifestyle. I absolutely wasn't getting the results I want
and I couldn't respond quick enough with Nova Rapids. Switching
to FIASP has been so helpful for me. And then

(01:06:06):
eventually moving on to an insulin pump and understanding that
that was going to take some accepting that was going
to be a process within itself. And absolutely be kind
to yourself. I cannot say that enough. I cannot stress
that enough. From this day, from now on, please, I
will say it to myself and again and again and again.
It takes practice, but you are doing a really good job,

(01:06:28):
even if the alarms are screaming, even if you're having
one of those really frustrating days. Again, checking in with
what I'm aiming for. What is my benchmark for success?
It is not being perfect, It is not handling it all.
It is not pretending it's all fine. It's not pretending
that this is no big deal. None of that serves
me very well. My marker for success is simply to

(01:06:49):
show up for myself, to honor my health as much
as possible, as best as possible, while also living my life.
From all those things. I'm in the car, I'm ready
to go. I've got gas in the tank. I started
to make changes, just one at a time, one decision
at a time, the changes that are within my control,
tiny things. If it doesn't work that time, that's okay.
I showed up anyway. It's not a failure. It's information

(01:07:12):
for the next time. I'm going to go again, because
these things matter to me. They're important to my life.
If I've got insulin and I've got hypo supplies, I
can treat. If I'm paying attention to my glucose monitor,
I know I'm safe practice talking to a few people
about my type one diabetes. That was something I didn't
do for a very long time, but I got more
confident in explaining my needs, asking for what I needed,

(01:07:35):
talking to employers. You know, we're legally entitled to reasonable adjustments.
That's the UK law. But I know there are laws
protecting people all over the world, depending on where you're listening.
I don't have to pretend it's nothing I can ask
for adjustments, and I'm not going to apologize just for
trying to do right by my health and looking after myself,
dialing in to how certain foods react in my body,

(01:07:57):
dialing in to my insulin carb ratios, pre bowl assing,
find your community, find different people you can relate to
who make you feel informed, not inadequate, and for me,
being careful about not getting sucked into a ranting loop.
Too much anger, too much frustration. For me, this is
about empowering myself and focusing on what is possible, not

(01:08:19):
what isn't. Yes, venting is important, but for me, it's
only helpful to a point. I know that I'm learning.
I know that it's constantly evolving. I know that I
will never be done learning, and that's okay. There was
a time I couldn't use the clutch. I didn't know
where the indicators were. And now I'm using the clutch
and signaling and changing lanes while driving along and I'm

(01:08:40):
singing to my favorite song all the while making sure
Type one diabetes has got its seat bet on in
the backseat and it's doing okay and it's feeling Soon
those learnings will compound. I will keep going. I know that,
and I understand that this process is long, but I've
seen that it's got easier, and I understand as well
that it's going to ebb and flow. And just because

(01:09:02):
I'm cruising one day doesn't mean I won't have to
go off onto a side road the next day. But
this is my car. I'm in the diver's seat, and
this is my journey. That sounds like acceptance to me,
or something like it at least. And you know, some
days I feel like I can take on the whole world,
and other days I'm under a blanket. But I'm accepting

(01:09:23):
of that. I'm accepting of all of those realities. And
I'm not afraid to honor myself when I need to
or to push through when I need to, and I
have come to understand the difference. I'm taking care of
myself and that is actually the most incredibly generous thing
I can do for myself. It is a huge act
of love and kindness. But at the same time, it's

(01:09:43):
absolutely the very least that I deserve, and I want
to pass that on to you today. So I really
hope this episode has been in some way useful or
relatable or soothing or hopeful, And yeah, let me know
what you think. You know where to find me on Instagram.
I'm at miss gen Grieves or at Studio Type one
on one is the podcast account. I'll have all that

(01:10:05):
and the show notes. I would love it if you
came and said, Hi, tell me what you think, tell
me if there's anything else you'd like me to cover
with these kind of waffly solo episodes that do have
a tendency to get a bit deep and meaningful, a
bit kind of conceptual, shall we say. But I told

(01:10:26):
you at the beginning absolutely no conclusions needed for me here.
I just like to chew on all of this stuff
and hopefully you like to listen to it. As ever,
I'm just coming from my personal experience. I will be
back next week with a normal guest episode, so I
look forward to seeing you then. Thank you so much
for listening, and please remember to be kind to yourself. Okay,

(01:10:48):
take care. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Type
one on one. Please remember that nothing you hear on
this podcast should be taken as medical advice. I'm definitely
not a healthcare professor. If you like what you hear,
hit subscribe and do leave a little review on iTunes
if you have time. It really helps to spread the

(01:11:08):
word about type one diabetes and thank you so much
for listening.

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The road to acceptance with type 1 diabetes

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