When I was eleven years old, doctors told me I wouldn’t live past thirty-five. Type 1 Diabetes had found me, and suddenly, my life became a countdown—every meal, every shot of insulin, every decision measured against an invisible clock. But what no one saw, what no one even thought to look for, was the ADHD that had been inside me all along.
One condition demanded a rigid, life-or-death routine. The other made it nearly impossible to follow one.
ADHD is often described as a problem of attention, but for me, it was a problem of everything—too much noise, too many thoughts, too many forgotten details that could mean the difference between life and death. Diabetes required structure, and I was drowning in chaos. I needed to remember to test my blood sugar, take my insulin, eat at the right times, carry emergency sugar—but my brain was wired to forget, to get distracted, to leap before looking.
I remember being at school, staring at my lunch tray, knowing I had to take my insulin first. Then I heard a joke at another table, my attention swerved, and by the time I was laughing, the insulin pen was still in my bag. Thirty minutes later, I felt the sluggish fog of high blood sugar creeping in. I had forgotten. Again.
The worst moments weren’t just forgetting my insulin; they were forgetting that I had already taken it. There were nights I lay in bed, my brain suddenly latching onto a terrifying thought: Did I take my long-acting insulin, or did I only think about taking it? If I took it twice, I could die in my sleep. If I didn’t take it at all, I could slip into a coma by morning. I’d get out of bed, test my blood sugar, stare at the numbers, and still have no idea if I had done the most important task of my day.
ADHD made T1D a game of survival I was never built to win. The world saw diabetes as my biggest challenge, but the hardest fight was against my own mind.
The Constant Collision
Managing ADHD alone is hard. Managing Type 1 Diabetes alone is exhausting. Managing both at the same time is like trying to solve a puzzle where the pieces keep changing shape. My brain needed movement, novelty, excitement—but diabetes was a routine that never ended. Every day was a repeat of the last: check sugar, inject insulin, count carbs, repeat. If I got bored or distracted, I could pay for it with my life.
I learned to compensate. Hyperfocus, a trait of ADHD that lets you lock in on something intensely, became both my best friend and my worst enemy. Some days, I could track my blood sugar like a scientist, obsessing over every fluctuation. Other days, I’d get so absorbed in something else—writing, a conversation, a stray thought—that I wouldn’t remember the last time I ate. There was no in-between.
People with ADHD struggle with executive function—the ability to plan, remember, and regulate actions. That’s deadly when managing a disease that requires constant planning. I created systems to compensate: alarms, reminders, notes, even physical cues like leaving my insulin pen where I couldn’t ignore it. But ADHD is unpredictable. Some days, I ignored the alarms. Some days, I couldn’t remember why I had written a note to myself. Some days, I was simply tired of always having to outthink my own brain.
The Turning Point
For years, I thought I was failing. No one told me that ADHD wasn’t just about being easily distracted—it was about time blindness, impulsivity, working memory issues. No one understood that I wasn’t careless with my diabetes; I was fighting a war with an opponent no one could see.
The turning point came when I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. Suddenly, everything made sense. The missed doses, the erratic blood sugar levels, the inability to stick to a routine—it wasn’t just me being ‘bad’ at diabetes. It was my brain working against me.
With a diagnosis came a new strategy. I stopped trying to force myself into rigid routines that my brain would never follow. Instead, I worked with my ADHD. I built flexible systems that played to my strengths: visual cues instead of written reminders, insulin pens with timers built in, meal plans that allowed for spontaneity. I let go of the guilt.
I am still navigating this double diagnosis. There are still days where I forget, still moments where my mind and my body are at war. But I’ve learned to extend grace to myself. Because the truth is, I am not failing—I am surviving. And that’s something no doctor’s prognosis could ever predict.
Living with Type 1 Diabetes and ADHD is like walking a tightrope in a storm. But I am still here. I am still balancing. And I am still moving forward.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
