Seizures and Vulnerability

This morning, my youngest brother had a diabetic seizure. It was terrifying.

He only has seizures when his blood sugars are dangerously low. Whenever he has one, I worry that we won’t be able to get them back up in time and he’ll die.

I always have flashbacks of when I got the phone call telling me my sister had died.

His seizure this morning was worse than normal. We called 911 and gave him a glucagon injection. He didn’t respond. I rubbed sugar into the inside of his cheek while my mom prepared another injection of glucagon.

He seized for 10 straight minutes while we waited for the paramedics. He had been sitting on a chair in the living room when he started seizing. Before I could get to him, he fell off, faceplanting on the wood floor, and hitting his head on a tv tray.

I rushed to move things out of his way while dialing 911 so that he couldn’t injure himself.

Those 10 minutes seemed to last forever.

Luckily, he’s doing better now.

Are you familiar with Post Secret?

Tonight in group, we did a post secret type activity. We each got index cards and were instructed to write out our secrets on them.

Some were things like “I want another tattoo.”
Most were very intimate.
Many made me cry.

It was a rough group.

Then, we had process group. I admitted that I had been frustrated with my brother for not taking care of his diabetes the way he should be, and thus putting my mom, his girlfriend, and I in the position of just trying to keep him alive and freaking out. However, once process group started, I started feeling hypocritical because I am not taking care of myself the way I should. I admitted that I don’t know how to take care of myself, and that I don’t feel I deserve to.

I cried through my admission, and after, I started to panic and was having trouble breathing. My counselor noted that I feel a lot of shame when I feel vulnerable. It’s true. And I HATE to feel vulnerable.

My homework assignment for this week is to come up with a list of 25 reasons I’m worthy and deserving of food. I’m having a lot of trouble coming up with anything.

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