Stressed? Tell me about it...

Actually, don't tell me about it.

I understand that pretty much everyone in college is stressed about one thing or another, but are you really trying to complain to me about being stressed? Sure, you might have two papers due, an exam, and multiple extracurricular activities that you have to worry about, but you know what? I do too. However, unlike you, I also have a fun little gem called type one diabetes to deal with on top of everything else, so shut up.

This tends to be a conversation I have in my head multiple times a week when people decide that I'm the one they should complain to about being overly stressed. I'm not one to complain too much, especially about my diabetes, so I guess that's why people don't realize how much of a toll it takes on me every day. There is not a single aspect about my life that doesn't make me worry about my blood sugars. Something as simple as walking to class scares me because I worry about going low during class, having to pull out my tube of glucose tablets and try to discretely eat them while hiding any and all symptoms from my professor and classmates. Also, there is nothing more stressful than worrying about having the attention drawn to you because of your diabetes, like your pump going off in class or someone asking why you have a pager in your pocket while standing in a large group of people that probably contains a number attractive guys because why not make it as awkward as possible!? By the way, why would anyone even think a pump is a pager? It's 2014, in case anyone was wondering...

Anyways, type one diabetes is a very stressful thing to deal with in the first place, but it's even worse when you're already stressed about every other non-diabetic related aspect of your life. In the first place, stress can cause blood sugars to be high in general anyways; and, if you're anything like me when you're stressed, you tend to pretend that type one diabetes doesn't exist and the world is all rainbows and unicorns besides that one paper, project, or exam that 100% of your brain is concentrating on. This is obviously a problem. I've had type one diabetes long enough to know that it is like a full time job. A full time job that you hate and doesn't pay you enough, or in this case, at all. What I’m trying to say is that it's really dangerous to just ignore the fact that your pancreas decided to take a permanent vacation and not leave you any provisions of insulin for while it was gone. Sure, it sucks, but if you want to keep the function in your other internal organs, eyes, and nerve endings, you should probably just take your insulin. 

I know what you're all thinking right now because I'm thinking the exact same thing, "It's a lot easier said than done, Miss Know it All." Trust me, I know. I should probably be the last person you want to take advice from about remembering to bolus, but that's exactly why you should listen to me. I understand how hard it is. You're trying to juggle everything else in your life, just like everyone else who doesn't have type one diabetes, but we somehow got the hostile immune systems that decided to take its anger out on our pancreases. It's stressful. About the only thing simple about the life of a type one diabetic is that our lives are simply stressful. 

Reverting back to my rant at the beginning of this post, if you have people in your life who complain to you about how stressed they are, try not to overreact and slap them across the face like I tend to want to do. They don't understand, and probably never will, how much of a toll type one diabetes takes on someone's everyday life. Personally, thinking back to before I was diagnosed, I could have never imagined my life with diabetes. Try to hear them out when they start complaining to you, and in the back of your mind just keep thinking, "I'm just as stressed as you, but I'm going to get everything done and be a dia-bad-ass while doing so!"