How much damage and influence will a broken family bring to its children?

At the age of 6 years, my parents were divorced, and I lived together with my mother in Chenzhou, Hunan Province from Sichuan Province.

One day, three years later, at the age of 9 years,I was diagnosed with diabetes type 1.

Xinyi (right) and her younger brother (left)

At that time, my father was thinking of remarrying my mother. But when heard about my illness, he left my mother and me without hesitation and chose a reconstituted family.

At that age when I should be carefree and full of laughter. However, not only I needed injections and blood glucose tests, but also I couldn’t any snacks every day. Coupled with the blow to me due to my father's departure, I began to change my temperament and become irritable.

A male classmate in the same class said to me, ‘you are a wild child without a father. That sentence stung me and I was desperate to lift the bench to hit his head.

Overwhelming helplessness weighed on me. I longed for fatherly love and longed for proper guidance.

Since my parents were divorced, my mother took me to live a strange life in Chenzhou, and I had always felt like a drag. I have not felt warm with my loved ones, perhaps, it was the psychological distortion caused by the divorce of my parents.

Xinyi in her childhood

‘Apparently, you're easygoing, and you have great interpersonal relationships. You, a lively and cheerful girl, get used to bringing happiness to other people. But you've always been alone.'

This is an evaluation of me by a high school classmate. Because of family divorce and diabetes, Self-abasement had been deeply engraved in my heart, which made me unable to face my other little friends, and had to bear it silently.

A child in a single-parent family tends to lack a lot of love in the process of growth and is self-abased. This may become a scar that cannot be healed in a child’s heart, especially for a child in the most helpless. In a time of greatest need, his ‘and her parents must not give up, or abandon that supposedly happy family.

A complete family is the greatest happiness for a child.

From persisting in my old ways to following my doctor's advice, what has changed me?

After I went to junior high school, I became even more unscrupulous. Every time I measured my blood glucose, it was just to cope with my mother.

I misbehaved at school, and my self-control was especially bad.

At that time, I began to try many snacks and drinks that I’d never dared to try before. especially after going to senior high school, I became more and more serious.

Foods, including high sugar, high energy, and high fat, as long as I had access to them and everyone thought they were particularly delicious, I would not abstain from them nor get an additional injection.

All kinds of eating and drinking

I was supposed to take 4 shots of insulin a day. Because I was worried about others and afraid that I would have no friends to play with, I adjusted it to 2 shots a day or no shots at all.  

During the period of junior high school and senior high school, I had been hospitalized up to four or five times due to ketoacidosis caused by that problem.

Because I was young, I had always felt that I had become a normal person and could eat a lot of delicious food, so I did not inject insulin any longer and I was finally sent to the hospital.

When I was a sophomore, I was very fond of noodle snacks. Every night, I would add ice cubes, diet Coke and 1 to 2 packets of noodle snacks. At that time, my roommate teased me, saying: ‘I am the most normal-looking diabetes’.

Coke with ice

Later, I did not go to Xiangya Second Hospital for a re-examination until I had such symptoms as unrelieved foot pain and insomnia. As a result, the complications caught up with me (Peripheral neuropathy and retinopathy).

Later, I was very fortunate to participate in the structured curriculum education of Xiangya Second Hospital, and have also met some of my friends, such as sister rainbow, sister Duan, Fang Yu, Zijing, and others.

During that period, I also got acquainted with an aunt. When she was my age, because of random spending, she did not pay more attention to blood glucose control, thus leading to the development of diabetic nephropathy.

In the group of diabetes, I have also seen some people who had diabetic feet due to complications. That person needed to be amputated due to rotten soles of feet. Example after example has let me learn a lesson. I told myself that I was still so young and I might not dig my own grave.

Of course, I would like to express my special thanks to the summer camp held by Sinocare Diabetes Charity Foundation, where I learned excellent blood glucose control experiences from Sister Eel Rice, Xiaodong, and Li Xin, as well as some little young brothers and young sisters. All these made me feel full of positive energy.

These are the reasons and motivations for me to control my blood glucose from persisting in my old ways to following my doctor's advice.

Here, I would also like to especially encourage some diabetic friends from the same region to hold more offline salons or participate in more diabetes-related activities. When they are communicating face to face, they may know something that they have not known before but others may have encountered. So they can share, learn from each other and support each other at that time.

If I was frustrated due to diabetes while I was falling in love, could I still believe in affection?  

By the end of 2017, I had been in a Net love for more than a year and met a senior fellow student who was 7 or 8 years older than me twice.

Our relationship had always been very good. However, once upon a time, when I was on video with him, I took the initiative in asking him to tell his mother behind him that I was suffering from diabetes. That aunt told me that she had only one son and hoped that he could look for a healthy girl.

I thought, his mother was perhaps worried that diabetes might be passed on to the next generation, or thought that it was just a burden.

After we broke up, I have still gotten to know his circle of friends by making use of WeChat, even if I couldn’t see any hope.

Until one day, the background photo on his circle of friends was replaced by a photo of him and another girl very much in love.

I was devastated. Later, I started to give up on myself.

After the winter vacation, there was no one at school, I got ketoacidosis again. I stayed in bed for two days and two nights. Later, I was aware that, in the first half of that year, he got married to a girl he had known for less than four months.

I exhaled deeply and finally smiled, choosing to bless them.

Because he should not be supposed to be mine, why did I insist on it, he was just a passerby to me.

In October 2019, because I had a bladder problem, I was sent to the hospital in a coma due to a urinary tract infection. But before I was sent to the hospital, a junior fellow student said that he was willing to help me.

He held me up and took me to the doctor. At that time, I had been physically overdrawn, vomiting, and having diarrhea, I did not eat anything at all for 2 or 3 days. I simply thought that it was just a common cold fever because I had not had a cold fever for 8 or 9 years.

However, after taking antipyretic medicine for several hours, my symptoms became worse and worse. Finally, I was sent to Changsha Central Hospital for rescue and later transferred to Xiangya Second Hospital of Central South University due to hospital reasons.

After being discharged, the first thing I did was to go to school to thank my junior fellow student who helped me before. After all, as a stranger, he was willing to take me to the hospital, it was precious.

On a weekend evening, I was impertinent to ask him to meet me and invite him to eat something and drink milk tea. Later, he became my date.

Xinyi and Her Boyfriend

I believe in him because he has grown up slowly from a boy without any love experiences.

I believe in him because he has become a person who can give me meticulous care and concern now from a person who never knew diabetes before.

I believe in him because I have had him, I become more confident and become more believe in myself.

When the epidemic situation was very serious during the Spring Festival this year, I still remembered that it was the second day of the annual lunar calendar, he secretly came to my house downstairs without telling me and his family. He said to me, ‘today is the second day of the annual lunar calendar, you go home with me .’ I was touched, and my mother thought I could also go to his house to find out about his situation.

On the same evening, my mother also send me a text message, letting me ask your mother if she could accept the fact that I was diabetic. At that time, when I discuss the matter with my boyfriend, he hoped that I could hide my situation, but I didn’t want it to become a problem in the future.

Of course, I had prepared myself mentally before talking to his mother. The result was as I expected. His mother hoped that her son could look for a local healthy girl, and also hoped that we could be together or apart.

I’ve been very grateful to him for standing on my side and speaking for me. When the epidemic situation was serious, he came to Changsha to work with me and accompany me despite the opposition of his family. He knew, ‘when you were away from me, I missed you very much every day.’

‘Perhaps, your confession of love will make this relationship last, and let me go hand in hand with you. I just feel how hard it is.’

Love is very difficult, difficult in its just fine, just the right time, just the right fate, just the right meeting, just the right okay and just the right, and I believe in love.

Concealing my diabetes or not in my career, which is better? I concealed the identity that I am diabetic till my sophomore. Before that, I have done summer vacation jobs and part-time jobs. Considering the problem that I had not graduated from the university yet and had no technologies, I’ve generally chosen to work part-time in the factory.

In 2014, before graduating from junior high school, I followed my school to take a part-time job. At that time, I was making mobile phones at an electronic factory in Humen, Dongguan City.

Working in Dongguan

With a daily yield of 2,300-2,800 mobile phones, which often made me work til around 11:30 p.m. I couldn’t tend to take the injection of long-acting insulin and often took the injection after dinner.

My roommates had different working hours, which affected my rest time. Besides, the rest time at the factory was tight, so it was impossible to monitor my blood glucose 2 hours after meals.

In the summer vacation of 2018, after being introduced by others, I went alone to work in Hannan District, Wuhan City. That was probably the most tiring job I've ever had.

It was July, there were no air conditioners but electric fans in the workshop. At that time, I was responsible for making plastic products and processing vehicle-mounted batteries, which were about 50kg weight each.

Xinyi invited you to eat peaches in the workshop

In those days, my clothes had been dry and wet, and again wet and dry every day. The meals offered in the factory were completely oily and salty. Each time I took an injection, I had to hide in the toilet. However, the toilet environment was so bad that it could be described only as "indescribable", which made it difficult to take an injection and measure my blood glucose.

In January 2020, I went to a real estate company for an internship in Yuelu District, Changsha City.

When I submitted my previous resume. I didn't tell the interviewer or the supervisor that I was a diabetic.

However, in my later work, I chose to confess it directly to my colleagues, considering that blood glucose measurement and injection could not be done in the toilet.

Although I received disparaging words and strange eyes from somebody at that time, I choose to listen to music, brush questions or read books to avoid those bad factors that might affect my mood.

Internship in the Real Estate Company

Later, due to the recurrence of a urinary tract infection, I had a fever and asked for leave for one time during the 5-month internship.

When my supervisor heard that I was not well, he said directly to me, ‘You are not well enough to work., and I think you should go home for rest.’

Originally, for a situation like fever, normally, it should take 3 days for a treatment course. However, after hearing the sentence the supervisor said, I chose to go back to work after only one day of injection in the hospital. At the end of my internship, I resolutely decided to leave my job because the company would not accept any job application from a sick person. Then, I would look for a company that could accept it.

From concealing my diabetes ago to not concealing my diabetes now, I’ve felt relieved myself, more and more feeling that I live free and easy, and I am living a free life.

Because, in my personal opinion, when the disease becomes my weakness, when I feel afraid and choose to escape, the deterrence and harm caused by the disease will be infinitely magnified.

I still remember that there is a sentence that is so said: 'If you don’t love yourself, then, why do others love you?’

If you can’t face up to it and accept it, then, who else can accept the fact that you have diabetes?

I’ve chosen to face up to the problem. However, I'm not going to ask everyone to do what I do, it is okay for everyone to choose the method that suits them for treatment.

If, in the process of job hunting, a company emphasizes that it does not accept a person with serious endocrine diseases or chronic diseases. Then, if a job hunter chooses to conceal his / her situation, thus having a fraudulent contract act, him/her must assume the legal liabilities arisingtherefrom.

If the company does not emphasize that, he/she should take good care of his / her body and blood glucose to avoid any new troubles from diabetes to bring and affect the work.

Therefore, for the sake of your own family, your work, and your beautiful future, my diabetic friends should work harder, go for them!

Finally, let me tell you a sentence, ‘Believe that true love exists, believe that life will be wonderful, believe in the kindness of others, believe in your ability, and believe that efforts will be meaningful.’  

For those beautiful things, the more you believe in them, the closer they get.

Come on, honey diabetic persons, I hope that, when we are old, we can also chat about life and recall our youth together!