The Strategic Bunker (Hunker in the Bunker)

Do you find that you feel that it is an absolute treasure to have a group of Dear Hearts in your life that love & accept you on the great days, good days, bad days & all the days in between?  Is it a tiny group or perhaps even just one person that you know with certainty that you can be yourself with no masks, putting on a brave front…just pure honesty & genuineness?  Although I have a positive attitude, let’s face it, there are those days that wipe us out either physically or emotionally or both.  That is part of being human & to be expected.  Some days, don’t you find that many challenges can come our way & we handle these without too much difficulty?  Here’s something that I don’t talk about often & that is the inevitable days that hit us like a ton of bricks & we need to re-group & get strengthened again.

Whether we have diabetes or another 365 challenge, let’s call a spade a spade & chat a wee bit about how those days feel, the support that we appreciate & very much need & the strategies that we each employ for those very days.  We all know intellectually that there is not a person alive that has a perfect life.  It is often surprising I have found to discover some of the situations that would appear to be ones of a blissful life that are the polar opposite of bliss in reality.  Some folks feel the need for his or her personal reasons to portray that life is going great for them continuously.  It is one thing to be a person who chooses a positive attitude yet my value is that this is done in a genuine way.  In other words, my choice is to choose my attitude yet honestly admit that everything is not paradise on earth.  We all have struggles.  Is it helpful to hide these struggles from one another or share them?  We each answer that for ourselves.  If we are pretending to be someone that we are truly not or living a life that looks sparkly on the outside & yet is far from that on the inside, how does that make us feel?  How does that influence how others feel or choose to share or become vulnerable & honest?

As I have shared before, choosing a pity party for one is not an option with a good outcome for me.  A better choice for me at least is to admit the truth with a story, in humour, humility truth & kindness.  When we open up in this way with others, most often I have found that many folks are relieved & give themselves permission to open up to us in truth & friendship too.  We are not meant to “suffer in silence” or alone as the saying goes.  If we have a battle buddy or several for the journey, that we can be “real” with then we are blessed indeed I believe.  Feeling alone in a struggle is exhausting amongst other things. 

If you are a gal, reading between the lines, you may just share this similar struggle to the one I am about to share with you next.  Please don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that guys don’t have struggles of their own.  This sharing is just from a gal’s personal perspective & nothing more.  Gals have hormonal ups & downs a lot like doing the hokey pokey in that we are “shaken all about” chemically from one day or week to the next.  That’s just the way it is.  Now, layer on type 1 diabetes for example.  Oh man, it is like hanging up a dart board & then putting it on a fast moving pulley system & being told to hit the target.  Good luck is what we need at times!  We may just get our basal & bolus rates figured out & them boom, our hormones do a trip on the tilt a whirl & those rates no longer work for us.  That is exactly what is happening to me big time these days.  What makes this even more frustrating is that it is difficult to figure out what the “new normal” insulin calculations are going to be now & my blood sugars seem to have a mind of their own.  There is no rhyme or reason currently  suddenly with my blood sugars.  Also there is no reasoning with a pancreas “having a meltdown” or g.i. issue deciding to flare up just in time for a full summer of planned fun.  To say that type 1 diabetes is complicated is a ridiculous understatement yet many folks do not realize that with type 1 often comes additional autoimmune diseases over time in addition to any other potential physical & emotional challenges.  Folks with type 1 diabetes really should receive a certificate in professional juggling in addition to a math degree, cognitive behavioral counseling honourary degree & a myriad of other honourary degrees on a lighter note.   You may find this has happened or is happening to you too.  While this goes on, the hormones play havoc potentially with our thoughts & emotions chemically & the diabetes side of things does a number on us potentially physically & emotionally as well.  We become jugglers with the hormones & the diabetes care as well as other diseases that we battle as a result of having the autoimmune disease called type 1 diabetes.  Often other Dear Hearts living with insulin dependent diabetes share with me that when his or her blood sugars increase (or go quite a bit out of range) that patience becomes problematic.  Emotionally, I have equated this feeling with that of being a balloon & having too much air continuously forced in & trying to keep composed.  When my blood sugars rise too high, my go to strategy is what I call the warn, duck & cover!  Simply, I admit to folks closet to me that I am feeling the effects of the high blood sugar & let them know that it would be better for everyone if I leave for a while.  This is ideal.  There are times for all of us when we cannot do a warn, duck & cover maneuver & my heart goes out to you if you have found yourself in these situations.  They can be a feat of human strength.  The minute though that I can take cover, I do in these situations.  Thankfully, I do not find that I have to resort to making a getaway very often.  It does happen though. 

There was a time early on in my diagnosis that I did not give myself permission to acknowledge let alone have a plan for the high blood sugar, freaky hormone combination situations.  That has changed thankfully.  With the combination having hit recently out of nowhere, I have chosen to readjust my week accordingly.  My choice has been to try deferring making bigger decisions, not interfacing with folks who can behave in ways that would not bring out the best reaction in me right now and changing activities from the usual flurry of activity to a gentler pace while I attempt to turn myself right side up.  For a short turnaround time, I am “hunkering in the bunker.”  I found that when I did not use to allow myself the “hunker” time that the result was that I became sicker & sicker until I was forced to take a break as my body literally demanded it.  Also, I find it helpful at least in my situation to keep in the forefront of my mind the book, “The Screwtape Letters.”  It is a vivid reminder of the ultimate damage of “noise” or not taking time in quiet reflection.   Thankfully, my husband also in a timely way reminded me in a good humoured fashion about a quote that is a great fit especially right now that I will share with you in a moment.  Have you found that when you experience the roller coaster blood sugar, freaky hormone combination that you are not receptive of folks contacting you with urgent requests to action immediately?  That is a minor pet peeve of mine yet usually it does not get to me too much.  It does however cheese me off to no end when I have the high blood sugar, super freaky hormone combination happening.  A large number of those requests for immediate action have happened in the last couple of weeks.  The trouble is that the situations seem to appear to require speedy action or decision making due to the folks requesting this having waited until the last moment.  The quote that my husband reminded me about was along the lines of “poor planning on your part does not an emergency make on my part.”  My policy during “bunker time” is that if someone is pressuring me for an urgent decision due to leaving things until the last minute that the answer will be no.  If someone needs an answer right that minute under those circumstances then it will be no & if they choose to wait or provide adequate time then the decision will be given respectful thought. It is not my natural instinct to adopt this "policy."  The "policy" however is a part of my blood sugar management literally.  In other words, pressure equals stress & stress to my body equals high blood sugars.   I hope that this does not sound harsh but instead simply the sharing of the truth & promoting an environment of being able to be genuine with one another.  Even I with my positive attitude have a “cranky day” here & there.  It is what the heck we do with these days that can get us back to being more like ourselves again.  We can choose to deny that anything is happening or to just keep going, or try being busier than ever or even take our “crankiness “out on others.  Or, we can admit to ourselves that we are having “one of those collisions of high blood sugar/weird hormone days” & give ourselves the opportunity to re-group & be gentle with ourselves.  I don’t “hunker in the bunker” for long at all I find.  It is usually a case of rescheduling for a couple of days & then I feel re-energized again with a plan on how to be as healthy & joy-filled as possible even within the parameters of the sugar/hormone collision.  Let’s face it that in life as with any collision, it is a very bad choice to keep going during a collision.  It is better to assess the situation, take care of our physical & emotional needs & protect the relationships of others around us.  The other cool thing that I have found is that often absence truly does make the heart grow fonder as the saying goes.  When we fully “re-surface” after a short break, the Dear Hearts in our lives tend to be excited to see us out & about again.

This morning I ran into a Dear Heart friend & I admitted to her that I am having a bout of “crankiness.”   I shared with her that I have not slept more than a few hours each night for over 2 weeks due to abdominal pain & high blood sugars.  Additionally, we briefly discussed how the summer is going so far.  The last 4 days alone have been especially exhausting with the addition of some external stressors on top of the physical side of type 1, the hormonal roller coaster, the g.i. flare up & high blood sugars at bedtime.   Just saying it to her was a relief, very human, and was an opportunity to grow the friendship.  She looked at me with a smile & said a couple of things that touched my heart.  The first thing that she said was that she could not tell.  Next, she said that it helps others when they know that we are having a cranky day.  I appreciated those words.  Then we smiled knowingly & told one another how much we are looking forward to having tea in a week or so & just chatting & sharing time together.  I even found myself finding my humour & making a wee joke before jumping into the car & getting back to my temporary bunker.

My heart’s hope for you is that during those times of “collision” that you know that this is a natural part of life & that having a gentle plan for yourself during these times is a choice.  Most of all, may you know that you are not alone & that you are exactly a beautiful original.  Smiles, Saundie :)

Have a genuinely original you week & next Monday, we will lighten things up with "BYOD"  :)