I’m Sobia and soon I’m going to complete my second MSc degree. I have been living with diabetes since February 2011. My mother was living with type 2 diabetes but there was no one in my family with type 1 diabetes. The journey with diabetes is always a difficult path to cover. I never heard anyone’s diabetes story which started with excitement or happiness or like anyone else I started this journey with so many ups and downs. I was diagnosed with diabetes after 1 year of my father’s death. So, that time was already hard for me.In February 2011 I had some infection and one of the doctors suggested; to take my blood test in which one of the tests was about diabetes. When I received my reports, it showed my fasting around 350. At first we thought there’s some errors in the report and then we checked again and at that time the levels were around 600. Ended up visiting an endocrinologist where I got confirmation of being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Oh, adding to that I had a phobia of Trypanophobia (fear of needles) at that time. So, what do you think of a person with this phobia who has survived with this condition? First two days after my diagnosis, my sister injected me but after 2 days I overcame the phobia and started to inject by myself. The first few years were challenging because I was drained and was in a deep depression and made some terrible choices because I thought my life was finished. But after a few years I regained my power to accept my condition. 

The best thing about diabetes is that I got the time to meet myself and I understand how much self-care is important for everyone. Living with this condition made me a disciplined person. 

Just because of diabetes, I have so many friends across the world who understand me and only because of this condition we all relate to each other. Before joining Meethi Zindagi I didn’t know anyone in Pakistan who was living with the same condition but after joining Meethi Zindagi in 2018 it changed my life completely. 

Yet in my diabetes journey I never faced DKA, but I had severe hypos in the past. Every day in our diabetes life we learn new and new things about management. Someone having years of experience managing diabetes cannot not claim that he/she knows everything about it. So don’t ever lose hope if you think that you don’t know how to manage diabetes because we learn daily through experiences. We are all in this fight together and we all are here for each other. 

I received various comments from people like you’re so young so why do you have diabetes, were you on an unhealthy diet? What will happen to you in the future? And many more. Some of these comments were so hurtful but it made me more powerful. If someone asks me if diabetes is a burden or a strength for you? I would always answer I have a superpower “Type 1 diabetes”
Because I manage one of my organ’s function on my own. And not everyone have the courage to do that.