Did you ever have a bad experience with alcohol? Or perhaps you ate at a particular restaurant and got sick. Did you then spend a while, avoiding that drink or that meal? Maybe you've never eaten or drunk something since the time you were left with no option but to bark into the toilet bowl, soon after. I don't blame you. That's exactly how I feel about Hobnobs but only the original ones. Cover them in chocolate (as seen above) and I'm more than happy to ruin my blood glucose for them. There is nothing wrong with the biscuits, per se, it all stems back to my childhood memories of them.
Hopefully you've read part one of this blog already. If not, just click/tap that link and catch up.
After feeding David hundreds of biscuits and probably tens of thousands of extra calories, hiding Hobnobs in school desks, school bins and my heavily policed home bin, you might think that enough was enough when it was time to start Secondary School. Wrong! A new term, a new school, new classmates, new biscuit hiding challenges! We go again! Raaaaaar!
Initially, I tried my old route of palming off my silver foiled packets of snacks to David. Things had changed. David was less keen to be given food. Perhaps he thought I considered him some kind of charity case, starving for my daily crumby offerings. In addition, the "big school" was exactly that and David wasn't always in my class and had made new friends. Dammit! It was time for a new plan.
The school bins were an option for me on some days. On others, I was a long way from any form of bin and had to take my Hobnobs home but not to deposit in the home bin. I'd already learned my lesson about dumping things there! In my wisdom I decided to hide these little packets under my bed. How very child-like! but, then I was only 11. If you're wondering how many Hobnobs will fit under a child's single bed then the answer is several hundred.
That worked well for a while until the day came for my mum to vacuum my room. Let's call this "H-Day".
I'd like to describe an almighty telling off, here. Something to big-up the drama of that moment. All bloggers use some artistic licence, right? That didn't happen. I was asked "Why?" and my response, blurted out without any real thought: "I don't like them any more".
I mean, it wasn't a lie! but it wasn't the whole truth, either. I didn't want to be the focus of attention, I didn't want to be different, I didn't want to be more different, I was already different. Even at 11, I thought that conversation wasn't something I and my parents were ready for. I didn't want to worry or upset them as much as I didn't want to confess my "weakness".
Finally, things changed. That was the last time I would handle Hobnobs, unwillingly ever again. I was sent to school with a juice box instead. That was perfect. The other kids would drink juice, cola, anything with lots of sugar during the morning, between the first and second lesson. I was fitting in!
The impacts of this time only became apparent as I got older. I lost countless hours in class and in education because of feeling hypo. For around 4 years (before things stopped) I was having a pretty bad hypo, two or three days per week in the hour before lunch at school. At one stage, I collapsed in school, during a PE lesson of Badminton. I had a huge seizure, bit my tongue and had to spend a week at home to recover. Even that incident didn't make me eat my snacks! By now, my friends were old enough and "safe" enough to know that I have diabetes. I still refused to tell them. The badminton incident was chalked down to me falling over and hitting my head, again, not a total lie! I certainly hit my head and fell over.
I decided to blog about this little period in my life because of Eating Disorders Awareness Week. I like to discuss my blog ideas with friends, in advance and we agreed that this might be more accurately described as Disordered Eating or even Disordered Diabetes! Let's go with the former, the latter might light some fires.
The stress, of varying intensities, at that time was frequent. Handling a new chronic illness diagnosis as a child is bad enough. How about a side-order of social anxiety and feeling terrible from hypoglycemia?
I feel lucky. That period in my life could've easily escalated into something much worse. I did carry some of this behaviour into my teens and early adulthood but to a far less dangerous extent.
As an adult, I wonder how this might have been avoided. My conclusion is psychological support. Each person, regardless of age, should be offered support following news of a life changing diagnosis. If I could've normalised and processed the news of diabetes, I'm certain that this behaviour would not have happened. That may have resulted in an easier childhood and a different path as an adult.
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