Diabetes memes on this subreddit have done more for my mental health than anything else.

I know the title seems a little silly and dramatic but I’m not exaggerating at all.

I’ve been having a bit of a tough time lately, as I’m sure a lot of you have been as well. I’ve been feeling extra anxious and lonely during the whole pandemic thing. One thing that has really been pushing me toward my breaking point is my wife’s family not understanding what diabetes management means, especially during a global health event. They keep pushing us to start returning to “normal” because humans are meant to be social and we’ll get too depressed if we stay in quarantine too long, apparently. But right now we feel much safer (physically and mentally) in isolation, and are not ready to start going out again. They also will often push me to just take “breaks” from managing my diabetes because it’ll be good for my mental health. I know they are trying to help, but the best thing for my mental health is knowing that I’m not going to fucking die. And for the record, my wife isn’t like this at all; she hates when her family says that kind of stuff.

I can’t afford a councilor who knows anything about T1D and I’ve never responded to the tired platitudes (“were all in this together,” “we’ll diaBEAT this!”) because they seem shallow and pandering.

But this community has really done a ton to make me feel less alone or abnormal. Especially the memes. Being able to laugh about some aspects of diabetes with people who are also dealing with them is so refreshing and reassuring. Whenever I’m feeling down, like I have been today, I scroll through the top posts of all time on this sub. The top posts are almost all memes and it genuinely makes me feel a million times better.

So to all the diabetic meme makers, genuinely, thank you