Navigating Relationships During Your Transition

The biggest thing about starting university with T1D was just keeping track of my appointments and ordering insulin. There’s lots of small things that all that all added up to being a little bit overwhelming at first. In addition, with school and stress, I was having many more late nights, and my eating habits were different. I went straight to living alone, not in residence, so I was fully taking care of and cooking for myself. Managing my sugars with the stress of all the little things, it all added up over time and that made it a bit difficult at first.

What really helped me was chunking things out into smaller steps and knowing that I don’t need to get every single thing done on the same day. My parents were really good at handing off responsibilities week by week rather than all at once.

I think the transition should take place over a period of weeks rather than suddenly. Communicate with our parents and ask them to show you, let’s say, how to order your own supplies, how to do insurance and all the little things over time, so it feels less overwhelming. My parents gave me kind of a handbook of everything I’d need to know about the logistics of managing – ordering of supplies and the appointments and what I’m expected to do.

You Don’t Need to Do it Alone – Getting Support from Home

It helps just having someone to always talk to about it. When my parents were handing things over to me, they said I could call them if I ever had any questions or didn’t know anything. It was a very open line of communication. Occasionally, my mom would shoot me a reminder, or she’d make a calendar invite of when I should reach out for, let’s say, an eye appointment or something like that. She had a little calendar that she shared with me. It’s like, “You need to book the appointment, but here’s when you should probably reach out.”

The other thing is she also sent me all the contacts I would need, which was nice. I kept it on my phone, everything we did digitally. My parents were great, and they were very supportive. Even throughout high school, they were more hands-off. They’d give me the instructions and I would do it. I started driving myself to appointments and blood tests. They’d remind me that for my appointment, I needed to get my blood test at least three days in advance. It was a slow transition, but it felt better that way.

Finding Independence and Building Trust

There was a point where I was afraid to tell them if my sugars got high or low because they would get upset at me, especially in high school. They would always have my Dexcom app on and kept all the notifications on. Every time I ate something, I’d pretty much receive a text message.I had to tell them, look, I’m going to problem solve this. Here’s how I’ll go about it, but I need you guys to trust me. We can look at the results and I’ll speak to you when I need to.

I’m following up with the appointments. I’m doing everything I have to do. With diabetes, sometimes those events just happen.

There can be so many parts of your system that fails. I think explaining to them when things fail and then also promising that I’d be more transparent as well when they ask, that was helpful. Now we have a great relationship on that sense. They have the app, but I set it so that they don’t receive notifications unless I’m low below 3.5 because that’s a more urgent, acute thing.

I also have other people in my life to wake me up. It’s not just my parents anymore. My girlfriend helps me out. While I was in university, my roommate was also well aware of my diabetes.

Setting Boundaries for T1D Communication

Use this agreement to:

• Promote collaborative conversations about your individual needs and boundaries.
• Outline your family’s collective goals for communication and transition.
• Highlight individual strategies to achieve these goals.
• Hold each other accountable for your commitment to these goals and strategies.

Telling New People About T1D

I’ve always been pretty open about the diabetes stuff. People honestly just want to know more. And when I tell them, they usually ask me how it works, and I can explain the science to them and what I do. I have a DIY closed loop system and people are pretty interested in the algorithms there so I show that off to some more scientifically minded people.

With my roommate, I knew him from high school, so that was a little easier. I gave him a briefing of stuff I needed, and he was super receptive. Regarding other friends in my program, I was in a health program, so most people were already aware of diabetes.

The part where I needed to be more open about my T1D was when I went out. You’re in university, you will be partying. It’s good to have a friend or two that knows how to take care of you if something goes wrong. I always had a little speech ready, like, “if I’m low, I’ll be eating candy. Don’t take this candy from me, even if you’re drunk.” I had a good support system when I would go out and I also prepared myself with my supplies.

If you’re at a party, make sure you have people who know how to take care of you because you’ve got to prepare for the worst.

Get ‘Going Out with T1D’ tips & more in our downloadable Student Transition Planner >

Aside from the medical thing, I’d say it’s also important to understand that in university, everyone comes from different walks of life and backgrounds and when high school might be smaller and people might be more judgmental, people are just people. In University, there’s so many more of them and it’s okay to be open about your diabetes and many people are going to react in a more interested way than they would hostile. And they just want to know more and educating them would be to your benefit and their benefit.

Give Yourself Time to Find what Works for You

I’d say it’s important to figure out a system that works for you and that you can see yourself doing when things get stressful. With the standard of care being higher, it’s good to talk with your team about potential new options that might work better with the university lifestyle, like continuous glucose monitors.

Additionally, I think just as far with the transition period goes, starting early is nice, but you have your parents, you have your team, you have supports around you and you have Diabetes Hope Foundation to help set you up over time. You need to learn that it’s okay for it not to happen all at once and to miss things. No one’s perfect and it’s an adjustment that takes time. Everyone’s going to learn and develop to where they need to be within a few weeks or within a few months and things will feel better, even though they’re overwhelming at first.