Monday, April 30, 2012

Having Diabetes Is The Definition of Being Both Resilient And Being Filled With Resilience


Last night I was having issues with writing today's post. I couldn't
organize my thoughts and I must have scraped about 6 potential
subjects. I stared at the computer screen and was drawing a blank.
Then I started talking to myself (which as you well know, I often do,)
and the conversation went something like this:
Me: What do you mean you can't come up with a post for Monday??
That's unacceptable! Let's look at the facts for a second.
You are a person living with diabetes, which means you are resilient
and strong and tougher than most. You come from a tribe of others who
are just as strong and resilient and this whole thinking that you can't just means that you won't.You're better than that. 
You, like all others who are pancreatically challenged, are both resilient and filled with resilience.
You shine because you know what it's like to have your light from within challenged, and come out
the other side even brighter than you were with a fully functioning pancreas - So do it already.

Then I started writing the words resilient and resilience over and over
again. And then I looked up their definitions.
 According to Webster's Dictionary, the word RESILIENT
is defined as:
Characterized or marked by resilience: as a : capable of withstanding
shock without permanent deformation or rupture
b : Tending to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change
Definition of RESILIENCE
1: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape
after deformation caused especially by compressive stress
2: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change
So while we have been changed permanently by our broken pancreases, we have adjusted and 
have the capacity to flourish. 
People with diabetes, much like the adjectives that are associated with both resilience and
resilient, are able to "spring back" and "rebound" and are "buoyant"
when it comes to dealing with illness, depression, adversity or the
likes there of..
And you know what?  I'm cool with that. 

3 comments:

Cynny said...

Love this! I have a blog about advocating for children with special needs. My 8 year has Type1 and was diagnosed when he was 4yrs old. Resilient fits PERFECTLY! Check out my blog. You can sort by Type 1 or Asperger's.

StephenS said...

Kelly, I've often thought about resiliency with regard to the diabetic life. Just never thought to write about it. You are spot on. It also seems to me that diabetics tend to be empathic as well (not mind-readers... feeling empathy). We're more able to understand struggle, without judging. Thanks again for the thought provocation.

Araby62 (a.k.a. Kathy) said...

A friend of mine just shared this poem on Facebook - I think it sums up your sentiment :-)

Invictus



Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

... Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.



-William Ernest Henley



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invictus