For me, my type 1 diabetes, anxiety, and the phrase “what if” go hand-in-hand. Or maybe in this case, it should be sweaty-nervous-palm in sweaty-nervous-palm.

In the past, I’ve written about how I believe there is a direct connection between the way my anxiety manifests itself and my diabetes. There’s no denying that the two are related. But another thing that ties the two together in a neat, worried package are these two simple words…”what” and “if”.

Of course, those two words are often followed by a series of other words that turns everything into a full question that is born from my anxiety. The questions all follow the same formula: What if X, Y, or Z happens? Questioning whether something will or will not happen will inevitably trigger me to convince myself that a less-than-desirable scenario will occur, leading me to slowly spiral as I ponder how I can possibly handle said less-than-desirable scenario.

Not following me here? I’ll give you an example. Take my incident last week when I mistakenly gave myself 10x more insulin than I intended to take (10 units versus 1 unit). When I was processing the gravity of that mistake, I asked myself, “What if I’d given myself 100 units? What if I’d been alone when all this happened?”, causing me to think about how much more dire that situation would’ve been and sending chills down my spine. It’s not fun to go down a path like that, yet for much of my life I’ve forced myself to face many “what if” scenarios that have never even happened because my anxiety lead me to that line of thinking.

After 24 years of T1D, though, and living all of my years with anxiety paralyzing me every now and then, I’m trying harder to challenge the “what ifs” and stop allowing them to rule my life, not just my perception of my diabetes.

I guess this is my public declaration, or vow, or affirmation, or whatever you’d like to call it that I want to be better about knocking those “what ifs” out of my way when I feel as though T1D or my anxiety are limiting me. I’m hoping to stop thinking about diabetes as a condition in which I’m held back by “what if” scenarios or one that aggravates my anxiety; instead, I want to have it be more autonomous and separate it from the negative thinking that all too often interferes with my everyday life. I’m just tired of thinking about diabetes with a “worst-case” mindset, so what if…what if I take back control of the “what if” and say “what if I have a really great diabetes day today? or “what if I know more about managing diabetes than I previously thought I did?”

Changing the overall tone of those what ifs sounds like hard work, but it also sounds like worthwhile work. So I’m challenging myself to do it, stick to it, and think…what if I could change how I feel about my diabetes and anxiety, and grow to love them for how they’ve made me stronger, more independent, and brave?

What if, indeed.