It never really feels like it’s the right time for it. That’s how most things have felt in my life: not always happening at the right timing, in the right way, with the right people. Perpetually imperfect in some ways. I never really took the time to work on myself, both mentally and physically. I just kept piling on the issues, the crutches and the kilos until my body forced me to stop. I thought I had it under control, doing better than before even.
On September 19 2019, at 29 years old, I was hospitalized for diabetes two days after my diagnostic. I had high blood glucose levels and my primary care physician thought it best to admit me immediately. I spent five nights there where it was determined I had type-two diabetes: the one where your pancreas still works a bit but not a lot; the one without the need for insulin shots multiple times a day. The one that requires a lifestyle change to manage as there can only be so much drugs can do and only for so long. Multiple specialists examined my body. Nurses taught me to use a blood glucose meter: a device to check your glucose levels by pricking your finger. A dietitian berated me daily about my previous food choices and what I had to do to change them from now on, seemingly convinced that I wouldn’t change; but I may be projecting.
Then I was sent home with drugs and a few printouts on how to eat healthily. The diagnostic had barely started to sink in but I was already back home with a few days off for bed rest, then back to work the following Monday was the plan.
Except that’s not what happened.
I retreated in the bedroom. I became obsessed with my blood glucose levels, how different types of food affected it, how to make sure it was always in perfect range. I scoured online for tips, articles, and communities, both to find support and get angry with at the unfairness of it all. My identity felt entirely defined by those words: diabetic type two. I also began to terribly miss food. The kinds I couldn’t eat anymore. The kinds I shouldn’t have been eating so much of in the first place. And then began my spiral into depression. After only one day back at work, I left again. I couldn’t handle the outside world, let alone my job. Everything had become so hard to do. I used to love my job and it suddenly felt so meaningless. I began to ask myself whether my current career path was truly right for me, something I hadn’t doubted in years.
I felt incredibly mortal for the first time in my life. Like I was dying. Like nothing mattered.
It wasn’t the first time I suffered from depression, but it had been in check since an antidepressant medication prescription 7 months earlier. These small pills had felt like a god send to me. For the first time in years, what seemed like chronic depression finally died down. But after that diagnostic, it’s like they stopped working. I had good support at home: my fiancé cooked the right food, took care of the house and me while working at his full time job. My friends encouraged me throughout the ordeal. I still felt horrible day in and day out. All I could do was stare at the iPad screen. I watched fifteen seasons of Grey’s Anatomy. For some reason, seeing doctors cure people and do their best to save lives made me feel a bit better.
I went back to my primary care physician multiple times and after seeing that I was not getting better mentally speaking despite great blood glucose levels, he suggested I see a therapist. We first went the public public hospital route but after an initial profiling session, they turned me away. “You’ll get over this with time, I’m sure of it” the nurse said. My doctor sighed when I told him about the meeting with the nurse. “Public hospitals: if you aren’t suicidal, you’re low priority” he said before giving me the names and numbers of a few therapists. The first one I called didn’t have open slots for a month. She suggested I see another person and thankfully that therapist could see me the same week.
An hour into my first session with her, she had identified my problem and the reason I had felt so depressed since my diagnostic. In hindsight, it makes absolute sense, and yet I had never seen it that way. It had always felt like a choice I was making, and one I could stop making at any moment of my choosing.
For a large part of my adult life, I had used food as a crutch.
My diagnosis, forcing me to change my diet and banning certain foods entirely, took it away from me.
And so, my world spiraled out of control, and life became unbearable. Like a person with broken limbs without a crutch, I fell and couldn’t get up no matter how hard I tried. Add to that a couple of other issues related to anxiety and family, and my brain took that diagnosis as a death sentence.
I’ve seen her a couple of times now. I’ve changed how I eat and lost weight, thanks in huge part to the support of my fiancé. My doctor even lowered my medication already in light of my positive early results managing this. Things are looking up.
It’s been 40 days now since my diagnosis, funnily enough. I’m done grieving. I’m not done managing this disease and I won’t ever be for how long I live. I’m not done working on my issues and that work may never stop as well. But I’m feeling better, and most of all, I’ve gained something that doesn’t seem to go away even as my physical and mental health improve: an appreciation for the time I have left and the life I still have to live. I feel incredibly aware of my time and what I would like to do with it.
It’s scary to think about, though. What it took to stop and reassess. To make the right choices going forward. To work on myself, and in consequence, be better for the people around me. To consider my mortality. To reconsider the life I live.
Was it the right time to do that? Probably not. I had loads to do at work and didn’t leave at a particularly quiet period of the year. My finances weren’t in the best shape either and could have done without paying for a therapist.
But you know what? Screw the right time. It wasn’t the right time. It was the necessary time.
Hi, my name is Isshak, and I’m, among many other things: male, Muslim, gay, pan-African, and now diabetic. And that’s okay. Because these words describe me, but aren’t enough to define me, not entirely at least.
And I can now let it fade to the background.
I let it go.
I’m back.
