DBlog Week Day 2: Keep it to yourself

Day 2! Today Karen writes: "Many of us share lots of aspects of our diabetes lives online for the world to see.  What are some of the aspects of diabetes that you choose to keep private from the internet?  Or from your family and friends?  Why is it important to keep it to yourself?  (This is not an attempt to get you out of your comfort zone.  There is no need to elaborate or tell personal stories related to these aspects.  Simply let us know what kinds of stories we will never hear you tell, and why you won't tell them.)”

I know I don’t have to, but time to break the comfort zone a tiny bit.
Not all the way.
Just a little.

I try and talk about this, but when I do it comes out wrong. It’s probably very evident in my writing anyway. I think I’ve said it before, and I referenced it in yesterdays DBlog.
I have Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD).

Lots of people have anxiety, it’s a really common thing. But there’s anxiety in a relatively healthy amount, and anxiety that’s incredibly harmful both to the individual experiencing it and everyone around them. I will never detail the ins and outs of my anxiety on here. I am happy to detail the patterns of thinking related to anxiety, but not my exact patterns. I don’t really detail all of it anywhere. That’s because it’s mine to deal with. That doesn’t mean I’m dealing with it on my own, I have lots of help.

Whilst I can talk about anxiety, as I have done on my blog before, I struggle to talk about mental health and diabetes.
Well, more exactly, MY mental health with MY diabetes.

I’ve written about diabetes burn-out and depression in general terms. I don’t experience those but they’re incredibly important issues. I’ve written about GAD and a little on how it impacts me.

I’ve written one example of my diabetes and anxiety last year, and I remember tossing up whether to include it. It was just a sentence, mentioning my old fear of leaving the house because I was afraid to be hypo away from home. I understated it when I said it. It was more than a fear, it made me physically ill every time I stepped on public transport.

But I struggle to say anything else about it. Even adding that second sentence was difficult.

Why?

I’m not sure. I don’t want to avoid a topic because that just promotes it as “taboo” and does nothing for mental health awareness. I want to talk about it one day, but I’m not sure how. I’m not even sure how I feel about my diabetes a lot of the time. I look after it, I put a positive spin on it, but I haven’t ever sat down and quite processed it.
It’s tied in to my anxiety, I know it. But I’m not ready to think about it yet… maybe in the next 5 years?

For now, I will keep talking about the topic in broad terms so that I feel like I’m contributing to a positive message on mental health. Perhaps one day I’ll work it all out for myself.