Personal Narrative: Diabetes

"But you're not that fat." I can still remember the look on his face, smug little smile and all. He looked so proud of himself as if his statement had healed me of my disease instead of its ignorance hurting my already small confidence. Looking back at this conversation I understand how misinformed he was. I was at least twenty pounds underweight and not by any means fat but in that moment my sixth grade self wanted nothing more than to disappear. When I was in sixth grade I was diagnosed with type one diabetes. I was only eleven years old when given a diagnosis for a disease I would have to live with for the rest of my life. At the time I had no knowledge of diabetes much like any other average middle school student. The only time I had even heard the word used was on the show The Biggest Loser. In my mind diabetes went hand in hand with being overweight and unhealthy. The three days following my diagnosis were spent

As dramatic as it sounds, they were honestly just happy I was alive. At that point in time H1N1 was all over the news and striking fear in the hearts of all preteens. They were eager to learn everything I knew about the disease and even argued over who would get to go to the nurse with me. Their overwhelming acceptance briefly shielded me from the stereotypes and the judgement from people outside of our circle. Living with diabetes has brought many challenges into my everyday life. Being a teenager with diabetes has brought even more. In my adolescence especially, I suffered with extreme insecurity. Much like me all of my peers associated diabetes with words like fat and obese which weren’t ideal adjectives to have tied to yourself. I became the girl with diabetes and I hated the title. My confidence grew with my age and I became more accepting of my disease as time went on. Though the extreme insecurity in my genetics surpassed there are still many obstacles I run into with diabetes every