Dealing with Daily Burnout

This month I overbooked myself. Some things even got cancelled, and I still felt like I couldn't keep up with it all. When I start to feel this way, I just want to sit on my couch and watch it all pass me by rather than take care of the things that I need to. It's numbing, and I knew better. When I looked at my October calendar in September, I knew what I was in for, but even preparing for it didn't change that feeling. It got me thinking about diabetes burnout and how similar a feeling it is. When diabetes starts to feel like a huge weight on my shoulders I just want to give up and pretend like it's not there. But we obviously can't live that way.

Each day to stay organized I would make a list of to do's. Simple and smart right? Wrong, not the wisest choice for me when I get like this. I would look at the list and my throat would get tight, my heart would start to race and I would want to go back to sitting on my couch and pretend none of it existed. I finally started to pace myself. I looked at the list and would decide what was the most important thing to get done that day, take care of it and then take care of myself. Because for some reason we all forget how important that second part is during a busy season.

When I get busy the first thing to go is my diabetes, I stop checking my numbers as often, get lazy about my insulin. But I couldn't do that this month. I had to also stay on top of diabetes with everything else. It was hard, each day took a lot more effort than I would have liked it to, but I did it. So take that October!