Community Was the Mirror, Not the Answer

A note before you read: The reflections in this essay are based on my own experiences and observations after years of participating in the diabetes online community. They won't reflect everyone's experience, nor are they meant to. I've also met countless people who make this community welcoming, generous, and supportive. My hope isn't to criticize the community, but to encourage a conversation about how we continue making space for one another.

Community Was the Mirror, Not the Answer

Going quiet

Earlier this summer, I completely stopped posting online. I deleted or archived all of my content. I felt emotionally numb.

A lot was going on at the time, but one piece of it was this feeling of toxicity and isolation from a community I love being part of, one I couldn't make sense of then.

What I saw

It reminded me about how much nuance, complexity, misunderstanding, and stigma bubbles up from within our own space. The diabetes community shouldn't be a competition. It shouldn't be a fight to say something first. Our collective voices always do more than one voice alone.

What matters is that we keep the conversation alive, not who says it first. Our shared ideas bring us together. They help us build movements we can actually align on. It shouldn't matter whose brain got there first.

But I watched us yell at each other, claiming stolen ideas when so little is original anymore. The most original thing about any of us is the specific mix of character, experience, culture, and identity we carry. And I watched that get battled too, which broke my heart a little.

I saw people blocking each other over sexuality, gender identity, religion, diabetes type, you name it. Here's the thing: we don't have to fully understand each other to respect or show up for each other.

We can hold our differences and still bond over what we share, without needing to be identical to find basic human connection. We're human. That's the starting point. When we stop speaking to people who aren't like us, it doesn't lead anywhere good.

It just feeds a narrower, more customized version of the world that never measures up to the real one.

How it made me feel

That made me so, so sad. I felt it. I know others did too. I talked to them. Maybe you were one of them.

I felt like I didn't have space in my own community anymore. Like I had nothing valuable to offer. Like it didn't matter whether I showed up at all. I couldn't show up how I wanted to. I couldn't be my full self. I had to define a person I lost.

Starting over

I've been in a season of starting over since then. I know my life will always have its ups and downs. I just hope I never live in the shadow of myself again.

And I'm finding her here. It's exciting. I'm actually enjoying making things again, letting myself have fun with it outside of any business purpose or deadline. I don't have to be perfect here. I'm sharing a part of myself, or a few parts, not the whole thing. If you think you're getting 100% of anyone on social media, look again. At how they show up. At what they share. At how they interact.

Odds are, we're all serving fractions. None of us owe each other everything. We're each shaping a story, crafting a particular lens into our lives.

This is where I stopped needing to explain myself. I don't have to post the deep dive, the research breakdown, the polished proof that I know what I'm talking about, just because I could. Sometimes I want to post something cute. Something bubbly. Something with nothing to prove.

Working in this space professionally blurred that line for a long time. I couldn't always tell if I was showing up for my job or for myself. It's taken time, but I've found that line now. This space gets to be mine, just for fun. I'm a community member first, long before I'm anything else.

The mirror

Going through all of this while trying to stay present on social media felt like a mirror I didn't want to look into. And the echo I felt back from the community made it worse. The very space that once uplifted me was making me feel smaller.

I never felt good enough. I went from feeling like a mentor to feeling like a puddle of a person, and I didn't know how to talk about that shift. Then a new opportunity came along that helped bring me back to life a little. I've been building on that ever since. I don't want to push her back down anymore.

Letting go of validation

Then another shift happened. I stopped caring about the people I thought I wanted validation from. They were never really thinking about me anyway. When I looked closely at those relationships, I realized I'd met most of these people once or twice, or connected over a single video. I took a deep breath. Exhaled. Felt something ease.

Somewhere in that same stretch, I also let go of needing to prove I belonged here. Not with credentials. Not with cute posts either, if I'm being honest. Just by showing up as whoever I actually was that day.

Why we're all here

We're all here for different reasons, and I'll never fully know or claim to understand yours. Maybe you're building something. Maybe you're looking for connection. Maybe you're trying to find your community.

Whatever your reason, I hope it's rooted in something good. I think we could all use more of that, starting in the spaces that are supposed to be safe for us.

The diabetes community is small. How you show up here isn't meaningless. How you treat people isn't either. Judging someone off one post, or even a series of them, isn't a good look. You never know what someone's going through, or how much or how little of themselves they're choosing to show you.

I've also felt the sting of pettiness in this space more than once, even in places I expected to feel supported. I won't spend my energy naming it. If you've felt it too, you already know exactly what I mean, and that's enough. I'd rather spend my words on something better than dragging that back into the light.

Just me

I don't owe anyone all of myself. I know that now. I'm a writer, a content marketer, a social media manager, a health coach, a life coach in progress. I don't have to announce all of that or post about it constantly. I'm a person with T1D first.

That's who I've always wanted to be in this community. Me. More me. Not someone molded to fit an ideal set by another entity, organization, or person. Just me.

I have a unique role and unique strengths to bring to this community, and I don't have to be everything to everyone to be valued here. It took me a while to get to this, but I think I'm finally learning it. I still feel like I'm many things, but I know I'm not all the things. And I'm at peace with that now.

I'll always be better in the communities I'm part of when I'm free to be her wholeheartedly.

So this is me saying: if you've been there, I see you. If you haven't, I'm still here. When you're chronically you, you're safe. That's what this whole thing is about, for me.

What about you?