My name is Courtney and I am here not only to tell my story, but to raise awareness about diabulimia and bullying. Let’s just say, never underestimate a teenage girl with a newly life changing diagnosis, going through puberty, rapidly changing hormones, and a need for acceptance. I have never shared my story before, especially the part of recovering from an eating disorder. I was an expert at hiding it, a little too well honestly. It was June 2003 and I was about to enter the summer before high school. I was excited to finally be getting to that point in my life, because like most teenage girls we thought it was going to be the most important part. Up until that point I was always the tallest girl in class, which started my severe body image issues. It didn’t help that I was only friends with boys besides a few girlfriends I had older than me or from other schools. The girls I went to school with were harsh and judgmental; it wasn’t until much later in life I learned it was because all the guys were my friends.
I went to the doctor with a sinus infection and my mother who happens to be a nurse mentioned my rapid weight loss and extreme thirst. The doctor brushed it off as my “shedding her baby weight and becoming a young woman”. Thanks to my mother being extremely stubborn and inquisitive, they finally gave in and tested me. Not a single person in my family has ever had a history of diabetes; apparently a virus felt it was important to attack my pancreas and kill it. Without even explaining what was going on, they sent me straight to the local children’s hospital. My blood sugar was over 400, which led me to spending a week in the hospital trying to grasp control, dietician classes, and my new endocrinologist ensuring me “to not worry, you’ll get healthy and gain back your normal weight”; not exactly what a 14 year old girl wants to hear. Thanks to my self-struggle of accepting my new diagnosis, questioning God, and receiving a terrible haircut before the start of my freshman year, the bullying from my peers only got worse. I never let anyone know of the words spoken to me, or the terrible notes I received in my lockers stating things like “hey dyke go eat a cheeseburger”, a year later the same boy that did this asked me out; don’t worry, I told him to go eat a cheeseburger.
My daily struggle of balancing life and diabetes only got worse from there. I quickly learned that if I binged on food high in sugar and skipped insulin, I would shed weight quickly. I become obsessed with doing this, and was professional at keeping it under wraps. I would literally take the calibrating bottle that is included in most meter sets; “test” my blood sugar a few times a day with it (which was always on a scale of 100-120). My endo would download the log thinking my numbers were amazing, but an A1C never lies. My A1C was on an average of 12-13. My doctor would express his concern to my parents, stating I was bulimic and needed counseling. I hated him with a passion; now I wish he had been more persistent. By the time I entered my sophomore year I was in a size 2, dyed my newly grown out hair blonde, and the guys started coming around in a not just friends manner. You would think if I had gotten into my dream size I would have stopped there, but I couldn’t. It took over my life and I loved the attention I was getting. I literally would eat an entire pack of starburst, drink a gallon of water, skip the insulin, and weigh myself in the morning. Normally this resulted in my losing 2-3 pounds. Still no one caught on.
A nurse once told me “you can never get pregnant because you will die”, if you’ve ever watched Steel Magnolias, this just threw fuel on the fire. I’m pretty sure she was just trying to scare me, knowing I was an adolescent who most likely would make bad decisions. Her hunch was right, but lucky for me I never ended up with another life changing add on. Eventually I had lost so much weight; you could literally count the bones in my back. When I went to my junior prom which was full on disaster weeks before it even started, I looked like I had a woman’s head on an 11 year olds body. I remember someone commenting on the picture the guy had posted online “it looks like you could lift her over your head and break that twig in half”. There were many other comments from people I went to school with. Once again, my struggle kept climbing. The moment when I went to the beach with some friends and was told by a guy that my back was so boney it looked like a dinosaur back was my turning point. I started taking more insulin and gaining weight, but if I felt I had gained too much then I took matters back into my own hands. It was something I couldn’t let go of and it was taking a terrible toll on my body.
My senior year I had met someone who didn’t care if I was too skinny or too fat, he thought I was beautiful and helped me realize all those other people really didn’t matter. The harder I tried to take care of myself, the worse my conditions got. I developed gastroparesis, hypertension, tachycardia, and neuropathy in both my feet. Test after test, doctor visit after doctor visit, it only got worse. Every specialist in the city had seen me by that point and no one understood why this was happening; my dark secret still was controlling my life. Even though I was going through all of this, I still didn’t full-fledged take care of myself like I should. I still took less insulin than I should and judged every inch of myself in the mirror. The pain I was in was so intense that I would place my feet in buckets of ice in the middle of the night. I didn’t sleep and could barely keep food down. I was homebound the last semester of my senior year. I had to have a doctor’s note to attend graduation, and guess what? When I went to rehearsal nobody even noticed I had been gone.
My family and even doctors didn’t think I would make it out of my teenage years. Honestly, I shouldn’t have. I’ve worn heart monitors, EKGs, sleep tests, been give so many narcotics to cover the pain I became addicted. I tried breaking off my relationships with people due to the fact I felt like a burden. To the one individual who stuck by me no matter what especially when his friends told him they wouldn’t have been able to deal with it, thank you and I’m so sorry I never appreciated you like I should have. My best friend who I had known most my life didn’t even catch on to what I was doing until this point, I still don’t think she fully understand what I had done. Her and her now husband fought tooth and nail, even went far to wanting to test their blood sugars with me. I am proud to say she is still my best friend, and has been for 18 years. I started taking care of myself, quickly gaining a lot of weight, which ate away at me but I still tried.
I had reached age 20, diabetic of 6 years and still hadn’t accepted the full concept and lifestyle. That year my dad died of cardiomyopathy and congested heart failure at age 41. That was my serious eye opener, we are not promised tomorrow and I was severely selfish. Yes I have a chronic illness that I will deal with the rest of my life, but there are people out there far worse off. Not even two months later I met someone who would change my life forever. He reminded me I was beautiful in whatever form I was, and believe me I was at the most I had ever weighed at this point. I still constantly fought those inner demons, but I got to the point where I could sleep at night and reverse multiple complications that inflicted me. A year later it was 3 months before our wedding date and I went into a full-fledged DKA coma. Guess how I got there? I became obsessive over how much weight I had gained. I am my own worst enemy. Seeing how my fiancé reacted and that I had so many people actually caring for me was another eye opener. Yes I know by this point I’ve had one too many eye openers that should set myself straight. I was a glutton for punishment.
I got married that October and from then on it wasn’t just about me anymore. I began to fight hard for my health, even though sometimes it felt too late. I worked so hard that I reversed the gastroparesis, hypertension, tachycardia, AND neuropathy. I went from taking 23 pills a day to 3. My A1C went all the way down to 7.1 and my new doctor convinced me to get an insulin pump. I fought so hard against it with my other doctors because I knew once I gave in, that was it, and I no longer could feed my inner problems. I am proud to say that it made me accept that I had diabetes, diabetes does not have me. I quickly started seeing A1Cs in the 6 range. After our 1 year anniversary, I became pregnant. I did not have a single complication during pregnancy until the day I actually went in to have her. My average A1C was 5.8 throughout my entire pregnancy and I worked all the way up to the day before I had my C-section. Even though that experience wasn’t the greatest considering the placenta had started failing and she did have to spend 10 days in the level 2 nursery. We both recovered quickly and now she is a full of energy, completely healthy toddler who runs, plays, laughs all the time, and runs her mouth constantly. I am also proud to say that even though post-pregnancy those negative self-image thoughts circulated constantly, and still do every once and a while, I have never gone back to my old ways.
I am married with a beautiful little girl, college degree, a great job, and in charge of my life. I am down to a weight below my pre-pregnancy weight and did it with healthy eating and exercise. I will forever be a recovering diabulimic, but I am in control and hope to spread awareness, as well as hope to help young girls going through what I did. Every year there are so many young girls dying of DKA and diabetic complications. With today’s technology and amount of resources, living a healthy long life as a type 1 is easily attainable. All those people that we thought mattered, all those hateful words, need for acceptance, are nothing. We are in charge of our own future, we just happen to have to not only balance life, but life with a chronic illness. Every situation and circumstance we go through only makes us stronger, don’t forget to be appreciative, thankful, and help those around you. One day your struggles might just change someone else’s life. Even if it’s just one life, that’s one life you helped change. So here’s to a long, healthy, fit, and prosperous type 1 life.
I went to the doctor with a sinus infection and my mother who happens to be a nurse mentioned my rapid weight loss and extreme thirst. The doctor brushed it off as my “shedding her baby weight and becoming a young woman”. Thanks to my mother being extremely stubborn and inquisitive, they finally gave in and tested me. Not a single person in my family has ever had a history of diabetes; apparently a virus felt it was important to attack my pancreas and kill it. Without even explaining what was going on, they sent me straight to the local children’s hospital. My blood sugar was over 400, which led me to spending a week in the hospital trying to grasp control, dietician classes, and my new endocrinologist ensuring me “to not worry, you’ll get healthy and gain back your normal weight”; not exactly what a 14 year old girl wants to hear. Thanks to my self-struggle of accepting my new diagnosis, questioning God, and receiving a terrible haircut before the start of my freshman year, the bullying from my peers only got worse. I never let anyone know of the words spoken to me, or the terrible notes I received in my lockers stating things like “hey dyke go eat a cheeseburger”, a year later the same boy that did this asked me out; don’t worry, I told him to go eat a cheeseburger.
My daily struggle of balancing life and diabetes only got worse from there. I quickly learned that if I binged on food high in sugar and skipped insulin, I would shed weight quickly. I become obsessed with doing this, and was professional at keeping it under wraps. I would literally take the calibrating bottle that is included in most meter sets; “test” my blood sugar a few times a day with it (which was always on a scale of 100-120). My endo would download the log thinking my numbers were amazing, but an A1C never lies. My A1C was on an average of 12-13. My doctor would express his concern to my parents, stating I was bulimic and needed counseling. I hated him with a passion; now I wish he had been more persistent. By the time I entered my sophomore year I was in a size 2, dyed my newly grown out hair blonde, and the guys started coming around in a not just friends manner. You would think if I had gotten into my dream size I would have stopped there, but I couldn’t. It took over my life and I loved the attention I was getting. I literally would eat an entire pack of starburst, drink a gallon of water, skip the insulin, and weigh myself in the morning. Normally this resulted in my losing 2-3 pounds. Still no one caught on.
A nurse once told me “you can never get pregnant because you will die”, if you’ve ever watched Steel Magnolias, this just threw fuel on the fire. I’m pretty sure she was just trying to scare me, knowing I was an adolescent who most likely would make bad decisions. Her hunch was right, but lucky for me I never ended up with another life changing add on. Eventually I had lost so much weight; you could literally count the bones in my back. When I went to my junior prom which was full on disaster weeks before it even started, I looked like I had a woman’s head on an 11 year olds body. I remember someone commenting on the picture the guy had posted online “it looks like you could lift her over your head and break that twig in half”. There were many other comments from people I went to school with. Once again, my struggle kept climbing. The moment when I went to the beach with some friends and was told by a guy that my back was so boney it looked like a dinosaur back was my turning point. I started taking more insulin and gaining weight, but if I felt I had gained too much then I took matters back into my own hands. It was something I couldn’t let go of and it was taking a terrible toll on my body.
My senior year I had met someone who didn’t care if I was too skinny or too fat, he thought I was beautiful and helped me realize all those other people really didn’t matter. The harder I tried to take care of myself, the worse my conditions got. I developed gastroparesis, hypertension, tachycardia, and neuropathy in both my feet. Test after test, doctor visit after doctor visit, it only got worse. Every specialist in the city had seen me by that point and no one understood why this was happening; my dark secret still was controlling my life. Even though I was going through all of this, I still didn’t full-fledged take care of myself like I should. I still took less insulin than I should and judged every inch of myself in the mirror. The pain I was in was so intense that I would place my feet in buckets of ice in the middle of the night. I didn’t sleep and could barely keep food down. I was homebound the last semester of my senior year. I had to have a doctor’s note to attend graduation, and guess what? When I went to rehearsal nobody even noticed I had been gone.
My family and even doctors didn’t think I would make it out of my teenage years. Honestly, I shouldn’t have. I’ve worn heart monitors, EKGs, sleep tests, been give so many narcotics to cover the pain I became addicted. I tried breaking off my relationships with people due to the fact I felt like a burden. To the one individual who stuck by me no matter what especially when his friends told him they wouldn’t have been able to deal with it, thank you and I’m so sorry I never appreciated you like I should have. My best friend who I had known most my life didn’t even catch on to what I was doing until this point, I still don’t think she fully understand what I had done. Her and her now husband fought tooth and nail, even went far to wanting to test their blood sugars with me. I am proud to say she is still my best friend, and has been for 18 years. I started taking care of myself, quickly gaining a lot of weight, which ate away at me but I still tried.
I had reached age 20, diabetic of 6 years and still hadn’t accepted the full concept and lifestyle. That year my dad died of cardiomyopathy and congested heart failure at age 41. That was my serious eye opener, we are not promised tomorrow and I was severely selfish. Yes I have a chronic illness that I will deal with the rest of my life, but there are people out there far worse off. Not even two months later I met someone who would change my life forever. He reminded me I was beautiful in whatever form I was, and believe me I was at the most I had ever weighed at this point. I still constantly fought those inner demons, but I got to the point where I could sleep at night and reverse multiple complications that inflicted me. A year later it was 3 months before our wedding date and I went into a full-fledged DKA coma. Guess how I got there? I became obsessive over how much weight I had gained. I am my own worst enemy. Seeing how my fiancé reacted and that I had so many people actually caring for me was another eye opener. Yes I know by this point I’ve had one too many eye openers that should set myself straight. I was a glutton for punishment.
I got married that October and from then on it wasn’t just about me anymore. I began to fight hard for my health, even though sometimes it felt too late. I worked so hard that I reversed the gastroparesis, hypertension, tachycardia, AND neuropathy. I went from taking 23 pills a day to 3. My A1C went all the way down to 7.1 and my new doctor convinced me to get an insulin pump. I fought so hard against it with my other doctors because I knew once I gave in, that was it, and I no longer could feed my inner problems. I am proud to say that it made me accept that I had diabetes, diabetes does not have me. I quickly started seeing A1Cs in the 6 range. After our 1 year anniversary, I became pregnant. I did not have a single complication during pregnancy until the day I actually went in to have her. My average A1C was 5.8 throughout my entire pregnancy and I worked all the way up to the day before I had my C-section. Even though that experience wasn’t the greatest considering the placenta had started failing and she did have to spend 10 days in the level 2 nursery. We both recovered quickly and now she is a full of energy, completely healthy toddler who runs, plays, laughs all the time, and runs her mouth constantly. I am also proud to say that even though post-pregnancy those negative self-image thoughts circulated constantly, and still do every once and a while, I have never gone back to my old ways.
I am married with a beautiful little girl, college degree, a great job, and in charge of my life. I am down to a weight below my pre-pregnancy weight and did it with healthy eating and exercise. I will forever be a recovering diabulimic, but I am in control and hope to spread awareness, as well as hope to help young girls going through what I did. Every year there are so many young girls dying of DKA and diabetic complications. With today’s technology and amount of resources, living a healthy long life as a type 1 is easily attainable. All those people that we thought mattered, all those hateful words, need for acceptance, are nothing. We are in charge of our own future, we just happen to have to not only balance life, but life with a chronic illness. Every situation and circumstance we go through only makes us stronger, don’t forget to be appreciative, thankful, and help those around you. One day your struggles might just change someone else’s life. Even if it’s just one life, that’s one life you helped change. So here’s to a long, healthy, fit, and prosperous type 1 life.