Definitions

Defining who you are to the world is a big step in figuring who you are to yourself. Discovering the true you. All my life, I have always been recognized as the girl with diabetes. Not the girl that loves to run. Not the girl with a crazy personality. Not the girl that that loves to bury her face in books, fill her life with art, or spend time with cousins. Just the girl with diabetes. And for the most part, I have accepted that, embraced if even. But the truth is that diabetes does not make, or define me; and I have the choice and obligation to change that.

 

This post may seem a bit odd to anyone that is reading. You must be thinking, “Megan says diabetes doesn’t define her, yet she has a whole blog dedicated to her diabetes…?” And yes, I accept my diabetes, I appreciate everything that it has done for me, and I appreciate that others are able to learn from my experience – hence the blogging. Nevertheless, I am not my blog, and I am not just a girl with diabetes.

 

To try to relate to others, if anyone has an older sibling, you would understand that it’s easy to just be known as “so-and-so’s little brother/sister”, rather than just you for you. Often times we get sucked into what society labels us, and eventually we just go with it. But until we can all stop and take a step back to see the damage will we finally be able to change the world’s perspective.

 

My peers’ fascination with my diabetes began at such a young age, I honestly can’t remember when people started to take an interest more in my diabetes than me when we first meet. But, one of my earliest was in the fourth grade. I had just started my new elementary school and I knew no one. Within the first few hours, I hadn’t really talked to any of my classmates that much, but when I took out my test kit all eyes were on me, or else that’s what it felt to nine year old Megan at the time. The attention I was getting was overwhelming, and that was when I first realized that my peers noticed my diabetes more than they noticed me (at least when we first meet).

Diabetes is not a bad thing, and from this post I’m not trying to sound angry or mad that it’s what I’m known for. Rather, it’s the facts, and it shouldn’t be like that. To any and everyone that have something that defines them that isn’t really you – get up and do something about it! Don’t sit back and watch and think it’s not a big deal, because in the end everything small, or big detail matters!

I think that part of what has made me become the outgoing and blunt person I am today is because of diabetes and how I have felt, in the past, the way it had pulled me back in some ways. It prevented me from showing my true self to the world, but instead hide behind a disease that is not me.

I am Megan. I am diabetic. But diabetes is not me.