CURSING LIKE A SAILOR

A few months after my daughter was diagnosed, she and I were sitting in our car in the Target parking lot when, without warning, her face cracked like a pebble-struck windshield, and she started to sob.

“I don’t want to have diabetes,” she wept. It was the first emotional response we’d seen from her regarding this new life that was thrust upon her uninvited, and I began to weep with her.

“I know,” was all I managed to say and took her hand. My own emotions were pounding in my chest, beating with both heartbreak and rage. “I have an idea,” I followed. “Let’s scream every swear word we can think of as loud as we can.” I still laugh when I remember the look on her face. Her eyes wide and her expression shocked when she looked at me. “Can we do that?” Clearly this was outside every established boundary she knew.

“You bet we can,” I said resolutely. “Then let’s go home and throw eggs at the backyard fence.”
“Ok,” she said. Her voice was mingled with trepidation, but a smile broke through her tears. She glanced around nervously to see if anyone was within earshot and whispered with looming, misplaced guilt, “But we shouldn’t tell grandma.” Then a smile broke through my tears and the swearing, loud and vengeful, commenced:

#!%@!%#*%#!!!! *^#!&^%$##@%@!!! #^!#@^$$&&%!#%&^!!!!!! #!^%$!@#&^%#(^&!!!!!!!! @^(&%$#@!&^!!!!! %%^$@&^%#@!!!!!!!!! ^%$~!@&#!!! $&#@!^^@#$%!! *^$%^$@!&^$@!&!!!!! %$#@!*^$#!&^$%^#@!!!!! *&%#@!$#@^%$&%#@&^%%$#&!!!!!!! ^@#%!@%&(!!! ^#!&%#@*!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We didn’t stop screaming until we couldn’t stop laughing. Then we did go home and whipped every egg we could find against that fence. The funny thing is, despite everything my daughter knew of my mother, if she’d been there, she would have been cursing like a sailor with us and slinging eggs with both hands. Some moments simply transcend all established rules of decorum.

That day was the first, though not the last, time my daughter and I screamed and swore together. It was incredibly therapeutic and a long time coming for me.

“if diabetes is part of your life in any way, your fear and anger is justified. After nearly 50 years, I still have days and strings of days when I’m just pissed off about it.”

When I was diagnosed in the 1970s, no one ever thought about asking anyone how they felt about hard things. We all just got on with it. And my parents were told to limit the help they gave me with my care. It sounds like insanity now, but at that time, the thinking was that even young children needed to figure out how to deal with diabetes on their own for their own sake. Independence was the rule of the day.

I have no doubt the doctors and my parents were doing what they thought was best. However, needless to say, that hands-off methodology did me little good. I wasn’t wired to scream and cry. It didn’t occur to me to beg for help. So, I operated day in and day out under a mantle of fear, terror really, and eventually anger. It didn’t occur to me until recently that my parents were probably suffering under the same emotional burden.

The psychology of diabetes care in children has changed significantly since then. As has the psychology of most things. I may have been overly involved in my daughter’s care—an unconscious reaction my own experience. After all, the pendulum swings. But that too has its own repercussions. By the time she was in high school our relationship centered on her diabetes, the logistics of it, with not enough attention given to the emotions of it or anything else. That was my mistake.

I have written before about how I believe diabetes has benefitted me. I have written about how both my daughter and my diabetic niece agree with me on that. But the upside in no way diminishes the downside. The truth is that diabetes is hard at any age. It is relentless and unforgiving. And sitting on both sides of the disease, I can say with absolute certainty that having diabetes is so much easier than having a child with diabetes. I did my parents an incredible disservice when I failed to understand how hard it must have been for them.

All this to say, if diabetes is part of your life in any way, your fear and anger is justified. After nearly 50 years, I still have days and strings of days when I’m just pissed off about it. And God and I still have words on a regular schedule about my daughter’s diabetes.

I am fortunate though. I have people who get it and who I can talk to unfiltered about the struggle. But my daughter and I have a deal. When it all seems like too much, we do rant—sometimes it is an ugly rant. We might curse like sailors. We might whip eggs. We might simply pout or even cry. But we also set time limits. It could be 10 minutes. It could be a day. Sometimes an alarm is set. The agreement is that when the time limit is up so is the breakdown. At least until the next day when the whole ritual may start again if needed. And the next day and the next until you wake up one morning and realize you don’t need a sailor’s hat, at least not on that day.

The takeaway: go ahead and be mad. Scream. Curse like a sailor and throw something. Get someone who loves you to join in. It’s not helpful to deny or suppress those emotions. It’s not weakness to give them sound and shape. It will compromise you if you don’t.
But I encourage you to set the alarm. Then just get on with it. This is strength. This is courage. This is how you win or how your child wins rather than the disease. This is how you live and thrive with diabetes even after 50 years.