I have grand plans to categorize and eventually analyze the submissions to My Diabetes Secret and My Chronic Disease Secret based on this grouping of basic emotions. I would love to say things like “this disease experiences more anger than sadness”, or “fear and anger are the most common emotions of people living with that disease”*.

The prospect of categorizing those submissions makes me think about this blog and the range of emotions I’ve shared over the years. I know the early months (and years?) of chronicling life with diabetes was mostly filled with anger. I had a lot of confusion, frustration, and general not-happiness to get out in the open with the hopes of starting to better myself. Somewhere in the middle I found Dayle and emotional content of the blog likely shifted to calmer, more pleasant themes. I suppose that emotional output has largely been the same ever since.

I wonder if the emotional journey of most members of the diabetes online community follow a similar trajectory? So many stories from the newly initiated start with something along the lines of “I thought I was the only one…”, that fear and solitude can fuel all kinds of negative thoughts. But upon discovery of a community of people who “get it” and can empathize with your experiences, isn’t that usually when the flood of emotions begin? Because that’s when all the ugly stuff gets out of the way to make room for new, happy thoughts, right?

The validation that comes from sharing your experiences and hearing “me too” is too powerful to quantify, or qualify. It’s just fantastic. I know it’s impossible to provide that opportunity for everyone living with a chronic disease, but I want to do my part to make that “me too” moment happen for as many people as possible.

Unrelated, we bought shelves specifically for our cats to enjoy.

I am a crazy cat lady.

*of course, this is only based on submissions received, by no means would I be presenting a uniform dataset.