What Journaling Forced Me To Realize About Lows

IT’S 9:45PM, fine, closer to 11PM (friends will point out that 11 is still an early bedtime, but I don’t care because I love mornings more than everything, including Netflix) and I start jotting down thoughts. Whatever comes up. Sometimes insightful, sometimes forgettable, but nonetheless I enjoy the ritual.

Periodically, an entry will start off with, “Man, today was pretty smooth until…”, “Things ended up turning out alright today after…”, or “What would today have been like if…” Each of those sentences usually end in one of the varying manifestations of a low blood sugar: strange conversations, funky moods, bad workouts, or disrupted flows. When a low BG introduces turbulence to my day, it receives deference in the writing. Why? Probably because low blood sugars tend to trigger strong emotions–hypos aren’t known for producing stable mood states.

After recording some version of a low blood sugar incident for the 62nd time over 2 years, I finally realized, Low blood sugars really impact the overall quality of my days. Does it have to be like this?

Well, blocking off their significance completely is probably a form of repression or suppression, not so super for sanity’s sake. So, while writing and becoming aware of the “low entry”, I still let it flow out but start a new paragraph looking back at the rest of the day. And low and behold, most days are pretty damn awesome, both before and after the low blood sugar. By doing this, I feel less identification with the disease and low blood sugar actions, bringing about a sense of wholeness instead of regret.

After all, we’re much more than what happens when we’re not ourselves. If that made sense to you, congratulations, you might be a person with diabetes.

P.S. If you’re familiar with the other founder of this site, it’s her birthday. She loves house plants.