All You Need Is Love

Found a video of a girl showing off Diet Soda detector strips (if there's any diabaddies that see this and want it I can link them, they're super helpful), and half of the comments were "you're diabetic you should just be drinking water..." First of all, not only are you just wrong, but you seriously expect diabetics to just never enjoy themselves? Ever?.

Saw another comment under a video about type 1 saying "you did this to yourselves. you ate too much sugar and you got yourself into this situation." And it's just so funny because they're Wrong™️. Type one diabetes is autoimmune and fully hereditary, and not at all effected by diet.

I mean, I know the answer. It's diet culture. People on their fancy diets think they're a superior human being because other people are "unhealthier" than them, and they hear diabetes and think "big fat and lazy with a bad diet" and think they're allowed to walk all over them since they're so superior. Despite the fact that it's a completely false stereotype that doesn't apply to most diabetics.

A lot of type 2's start out as hypoglycemic -- their pancreas is over-producing insulin, causing blood sugar crashes. Insulin stuffs sugar into fat cells, causing people to get fat, if there's too much of it. The overproduction of insulin is a response to slow-growing insulin resistance. Because sugar is a vital part of human energy, people who cannot easily process sugar due to insulin resistance and insulin over-response may crave sugar in order to have enough energy to function.

And now going back to the top point, I know exactly what video op is referring to and she made a different video a few weeks prior specifically about harmful comments to t1d’s and instead of getting the point, heaps of comments were basically to the effect of “but we can bully t2ds bc they brought this on themselves, they deserve to be mocked”. HUH. DO YOU HEAR YOURSELVES.

Whale shark detected! Yippie

consistent practice opens up whole worlds of skill that you couldn't imagine

making mistakes in the process of learning is not only natural, it is also essential

activities that you enjoy can give you more energy back than you spent on them

RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE. 

When I was at one of my lowest (mental) points in life, I couldn’t get out of bed some days. I had no energy or motivation and was barely getting by.

I had therapy once per week, and on this particular week I didn’t have much to ‘bring’ to the session. He asked how my week was and I really had nothing to say.

“What are you struggling with?” he asked.

I gestured around me and said “I dunno man. Life.”

Not satisfied with my answer, he said “No, what exactly are you worried about right now? What feels overwhelming? When you go home after this session, what issue will be staring at you?”

I knew the answer, but it was so ridiculous that I didn’t want to say it.

I wanted to have something more substantial.

Something more profound.

But I didn’t.

So I told him, “Honestly? The dishes. It’s stupid, I know, but the more I look at them the more I CAN’T do them because I’ll have to scrub them before I put them in the dishwasher, because the dishwasher sucks, and I just can’t stand and scrub the dishes.”

I felt like an idiot even saying it.

What kind of grown ass woman is undone by a stack of dishes? There are people out there with *actual* problems, and I’m whining to my therapist about dishes?

But my therapist nodded in understanding and then said:

“RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE.”

I began to tell him that you’re not supposed to, but he stopped me.

“Why the hell aren’t you supposed to? If you don’t want to scrub the dishes and your dishwasher sucks, run it twice. Run it three times, who cares?! Rules do not exist, so stop giving yourself rules.”

It blew my mind in a way that I don’t think I can properly express.

That day, I went home and tossed my smelly dishes haphazardly into the dishwasher and ran it three times.

I felt like I had conquered a dragon.

The next day, I took a shower lying down.

A few days later. I folded my laundry and put them wherever the fuck they fit.

There were no longer arbitrary rules I had to follow, and it gave me the freedom to make accomplishments again.

Now that I’m in a healthier place, I rinse off my dishes and put them in the dishwasher properly. I shower standing up. I sort my laundry.

But at a time when living was a struggle instead of a blessing, I learned an incredibly important lesson:

THERE ARE NO RULES.

RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE!!!