3 Diabetes Burnout Busters
WHY IT NEEDS BUSTING
Diabetes burnout can be cyclical. Perhaps you experience it a few months after diagnosis. Then again a few years later after graduating college. It’s completely NORMAL for us to experience burnout. Diabetes is a constant job and you never get a break from its demands. It only makes sense that you would feel burned out.
The issue happens when we can’t break out of burnout. For me, once I started ignoring my diabetes, I did it for years.
Not only was this dangerous for my short-term and long-term health, but it was hard for me to achieve my goals in life.
I’ve always hustled — I went to music school and worked as a freelancing cellist for several years. I then decided to go to nursing school while continuing my freelancing career. It was exhausting, BUT I LOVED IT.
Diabetes, on the other hand, was always trying to get in my way. I couldn’t practice or study or work well if my blood sugars were constantly up or down.
I couldn’t be my best. I wasn’t experiencing my personality and bad-ass self as I was meant to be because my diabetes wasn’t managed.
THAT is exactly why burnout needs to be busted as soon as we realize we are slipping into it.
1 — CHANGE YOUR SELF TALK
Diabetes is a “shame” disease. People try to shame us when we’re diagnosed. We may feel shamed at our doctor’s appointments when our labs come back out of range. You may start shaming yourself each time you check your blood sugar.
First step in busting burnout is to change the way you talk to yourself. You won’t ever want to check your blood sugars if you are degrading towards yourself each time.
Put a note in your kit that says something like
“It’s just a number. It does not define who I am as a person.”
Read it before you check your blood sugar each time. Read it until you believe it! If you’re like me and you use a Dexcom, I’ve created a shortcut for your phone that opens a notification with a motivating message each time you look at your Dexcom.
2 — SET BEHAVIOR MICRO GOALS
Set a super small goal for yourself. It must be SMART to be effective and sustainable.
Specific — state what you’ll do; use action words
Measurable — provides a way to evaluate
Achievable — possible to accomplish; you should feel like “HELL YEAH I CAN DO THAT”
Realistic — don’t try to end world hunger tonight
Timely — give yourself a deadline to work towards
An example of a SMART goal that works well for someone at the beginning of their burnout recovery would be “I will test my blood sugar when I wake up each morning at least 4 days a week.”
But Rachel. I need to test SIX times a day! And yes. While this is how often your doctor and I would like for you to check, it just is not achievable at the moment in the state you’re experiencing. It’s OK to be gentle with yourself while you’re trying to develop (or re-develop) sustainable habits.
3 — FIND COMMUNITY
When I was younger and at the beginning stages of slipping into burnout, I wanted so desperately to be normal. I stopped going to diabetes camp because I wanted to go to “normal” camps. I didn’t use my insulin pump in public because I didn’t want anyone to know I had diabetes.
Being isolated as a person with diabetes (or any chronic illness for that matter) is an extremely difficult place to be in.
When I met my ‘Betes Bae, everything changed in terms of my control as well as my attitude towards diabetes. We were sitting on the couch one day, and I was expressing how guilty I felt after I overdosed insulin to correct a high blood sugar every now and then.
He sat up and said “Oh yeah, that’s rage bolusing.”
It turns out not only was this a common behavior among the community of people with diabetes but it had its own universally understood name! I felt heard. I felt understood.
This, in my opinion, is the key to diabetes management. And it’s NOT something they provide for you at the doctor’s office.
Here are a few of my favorite Facebook support groups:
