November ended a couple short weeks ago: just enough time to allow me to reflect on how I feel about National Diabetes Awareness Month (NDAM) 2019. My experience can be summed up with the following three sentiments:

It was exhausting. It might not seem like it takes a lot of effort to post daily on Instagram, but for me, this was a major commitment! It was pretty tough to come up with an engaging post for every single prompt of the Happy Diabetic Challenge. I wanted each of my posts to not only generate interest in learning more about diabetes, but I also hoped that others would notice the thoughtfully written captions and, more importantly, blog posts that went with a handful of them. I’m not sure if I succeeded, but I was proud of myself for keeping at it. But man, I still feel like I need a bit of a social media cleanse after all that posting, liking, and commenting.

It was educational. This may have been one of the most enlightening Novembers I’ve ever experienced, diabetes-wise. I feel like I heard and listened to many diverse voices in the diabetes community – and not just the T1D ones. In particular, I found myself paying closer attention to T2D perspectives, especially on Twitter. By doing that, I realized that I need to make it a point to be more inclusive when describing diabetes, in general, to others. In the past, I think I’ve made the mistake of talking about certain experiences about life with diabetes in a way that sounds exclusive to type 1, and that simply isn’t always the case. So it’s my new mission to make sure I represent other types of diabetes as best as I can on social media and in person, going forward, so that I can do my part to end diabetes stigma about all forms of it.

It was empowering. Although NDAM 2019 kind of kicked my butt in terms of showing me how much I have to learn and triggering a social media burnout, it still doesn’t mitigate the fact that our amazing diabetes online community really comes together during this period of heightened awareness and advocacy. There’s something special about all of our interactions during diabetes awareness month: Whether they’re comments about how one person can relate to another, or a story about how someone changed someone else’s perspective, there’s power in these exchanges. Plus, it’s pretty neat to see how sharing the most mundane aspects of life with diabetes can result in positive change and growth.

Now that I’ve reflected on it, I’m ready to put the insanity of NDAM 2019 behind me…and feeling thankful that I have another 11 months to prepare for NDAM 2020 to make it an even better experience for myself and others.