Discrimination often lurks behind the smiles of everyday interactions, particularly for those living with chronic illnesses such as diabetes and epilepsy. In a candid discussion, the host reflects on personal experiences that highlight the subtle forms of discrimination faced by individuals with these conditions.
“It’s just easier to choose the person, especially when you’re having to lay off people. Anyway, you have person A and person B. This person may have a low blood sugar. Oh, get rid of them. It’s easy to understand.”
Deborah, 02:42
Through anecdotes, the host illustrates how the fear of seizures or diabetes-related “interruptions” can lead to exclusion from workplaces, as well as social settings. This episode encourages listeners to consider their own perceptions and responses to discrimination, urging them to reflect on their personal experiences and the shared responsibility within every interaction.
- It’s important to ask questions to clarify misunderstandings, especially regarding health conditions.
- In these examples, seizures were shown to lead to the removal of management over projects, impacting self-employed individuals significantly. (More research is encouraged.)
- We must advocate for ourselves and not shy away from standing up (asking questions; communicating kindly) when needed.
- Life with challenges such as diabetes and epilepsy often teaches gratitude for each day without health complications.
The conversation extends beyond personal narratives, delving into the societal implications of such discrimination and advocating for a deeper understanding of the emotional and psychological impacts these experiences can have on those affected. Ultimately, the episode serves as a call to action for both individuals with chronic illnesses and those around them to engage in open dialogue and foster an environment of empathy and support, emphasizing that everyone deserves to be treated as a contributing member of society, regardless of their health status.
Chapters
- 00:01 Earned Honors Reassigned to Others
- 01:56 Foundational Social & Personal Responsibility
- 13:26 Reflections on Medical Challenges, Interpretation, and Outcomes
- 29:20 Cause and Effect in the Real World, Algorithmically-Speaking
- 31:27 Hope for the Future in a Balanced Understanding
Episode Resources
Episode Credits
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Transcript
Join Deborah E, multi-award-winning singer, podcaster, and speaker who proves that being diagnosed with a life-changing illness as a child, along with countless hospitalizations in a family who told everyone should be dead before she reached puberty, does not have to stand in the way of life well-lived.
Announcer:The DiabeticReal podcast and the content of its websites are presented solely for educational purposes and the views and opinions expressed by guests are theirs alone.
They do not necessarily reflect that as a host of the podcast, the content is not intended as a substitute for professional medical diagnosis, advice or treatment, ongoing or otherwise. Be sure to always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions regarding your healthcare.
Deborah:Okay, welcome to another episode of DiabeticReal and we are going to talk about what I tentatively called this episode. But of course that usually changes.
It's just my working title, as they call it Discrimination Hidden behind Smiles that Eradicate the Diabetics from the World. All right, I was feeling creative that day when I came up the working title.
There are different explanations or different scenarios throughout life where I felt that this has happened. And I'm not one of these people who says, oh, that's not fair, that's not fair. Everyone's out discriminating against me. No, no, no.
I'm always feel like there's an explanation.
Deborah:And in fact I want to cover one other thing that seems a little bit off topic, but it's the basis for what I'm going to get into in this particular episode.
Deborah:I'm going to go back, way back to my first date with my husband.
Deborah:A little bit unique here and some.
Deborah:Of you that I've talked to have actually already heard this.
Deborah:It's unique.
Deborah:Anyway, hey, you met my husband. He's unique. He's a keeper.
So he was actually talking to me about his theory on well, a lot of people would reference it as blame, but I'm going to use the word responsibility for any particular situation. So let's say for example, a car accident, if you rear end someone else.
Deborah:Generally speaking, and I'm not, you know, an insurance salesman or insurance anything related to that.
But you know, if you run into someone that would generally speaking be the person who did the rear ending, their fault or the blame would be on that person.
But what my husband is teaching me is that if you look at any situation there is, and again I'm going to use the word responsibility, there is an element of responsibility that is shared by all people who participate in whatever event, even if it is simply because you are there.
Deborah:Now, I want you to understand that's not a blame. We're not saying, hey, it's your fault that something happened.
But there is that component that we share that responsibility or because we participated by simply being a part of something together.
Deborah:I hope that makes sense.
Deborah:But if you think about it, there's, for instance, in some cases, something could have been done differently. Now, I don't want to dig into this too far.
This is something that I will cover again in a future podcast that I'll be starting that covers more with psychology issues, fun stuff like that. So this is just a really quick preview, but it's something to think about.
Deborah:But now that we've covered that, that leads into a story that I'm going to tell you really quick. And then that story will lead us into the rest of the podcast and will hopefully make sense or at least.
Deborah:Give you some basis or just simply entertain you.
Deborah:So onto that story, I had said something that was not the kindest thing. This was, oh, I don't know, 20 or 30 years ago or whatever with my mother. And we should respect our parents.
We should respect those who have traveled this earth before us, and especially my mother. And it's a nice thing to do to respect your parents. Right? Okay, so I said this and my.
I just gotten married and my husband's like, oh, come on, Deb, apologize to your mother. And my father was like, apologize to your mother. Like everybody's telling me to apologize to.
Deborah:My mother, you know what?
Deborah:And it's like, but I didn't say anything that was wrong. I mean, what I said was.
I mean, you know, I was like really upset and I got to thinking and thinking and thinking, here are the two dearest men in my life. Well, that and also my, my former father in law is very dear to me too.
But here my father is my best friend in high school, my father and my husband, who's my current best friend, they're both saying I should apologize to my mother. And I want to make these men in my life happy, so I should apologize. But how can I lie and say I'm sorry about what I said to my mother when.
Well, kind of like what I said was, you know. Right. I mean, it was accurate. So I got to thinking and I went to her and I said, I'm not sorry for what I said, I'm just sorry that I said it.
And she was so thrilled and so touched. I never see my mother like that. I mean, you can say stuff and it's like no reaction. But she was so Touched.
I was so glad I apologized because it seemed to have really touched her. And I thought, whoa, this is good stuff. I could, you know, I apologize pretty easily. I apologize for stuff that I didn't do.
I mean, it's not hard for me to say sorry. I've had people say to me, deb, you say sorry too much. You really apologize too much. So it's not hard for me to apologize.
But I learned then it's like, yeah, okay, that works, because I wasn't sorry for what I said because it was accurate, but I did not need to open my mouth and say it that I was sorry for. So that was actually a case where I put into practice what my husband had taught me in the first date. Why did I say all that?
I need to refer to my notes. Anyway, there's. There's a part in any situation, like I said, that we could take responsibility for the situation.
So I want to be really careful as far as what I'm sharing that I'm not saying. Well, it's everybody else's fault. It's everybody else's fault.
Because in any situation, there is a certain percentage of responsibility that is my own, even as a diabetic or even in spite of being diabetic.
So let's say that again, there's a certain portion of each of these scenarios that I may share with you today that are my responsibility, even as a diabetic, as that relates to the situation. Being a diabetic or in spite of being a diabetic, in other words, has nothing to do with being a diabetic.
So I had made a list because there were different things, and in my view, whether. I mean, some of these things happened a long time ago, and it. I thought that it had to do with being diabetic.
And maybe it has nothing to do with diabetic. And maybe I'm too quick to judge, so to speak. I'm not even saying I'm judging. In my mind, I wasn't judging these people.
I don't even hold anything against them. But in my mind, I might have been thinking, oh, they're doing this because I'm diabetic. Okay, I'm written off because I'm diabetic.
And maybe that's where the quote unquote fault lies, is that I'm too quick to think that this other person is doing this because I'm diabetic. And maybe it has nothing to do with that. Maybe they're not even thinking, oh, she's diabetic. So I'm Sharing a lot of roundabout things in this.
And I'm really actually sharing this information in the podcast.
Not because I want to share this information, because this is actually really personal stuff, but I'm sharing it so that those of you listening who are diabetic can stop and think, am I taking some of this stuff too personally? Am I not taking it personally enough? Am I standing up for myself when I need to stand up for myself?
Or maybe I'm not standing up for myself and I need to stand up for myself more.
So it's more of a personal question that you need to consider for yourself, but it's something to think about kind of in all different aspects, the responsibility and whether anything should be done at all. Maybe we need to start a journal. So a few examples. And I'm going to be really careful not to share names because it's not about shaming anyone.
I'm just going to go down the list. I made this list quite a while ago, so I'm not even really sure what's on the list.
But one situation was, and it's funny because a lot of this has to do with not the diabetes, but actually the epilepsy. But for a long time, as I've shared before, I thought that the seizures were related to the diabetes and they may have been related to epilepsy.
You can't go back in time and figure out which one is which, because I can have seizures for both reasons. I'm very talented in that way. And at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter which complication it is.
The fact is I have a seizure and that kind of freaks out people, and I don't blame them for that. If I didn't know so much about seizures and it wasn't me that was having the seizure and, yeah, I'm sort of like unconscious at that time.
Yeah, it would kind of freak me out, too. And the fact that when a person has a seizure, there is that liability that they could hit their head on a desk or something.
Like in a corporate environment, there's a liability that the company could be sued. Like if they're dead, family members could sue them or if they're paralyzed because they've broken their neck and lived.
Now the company could be sued. There's all of these legal ramifications that could concern a company.
And I don't blame them that they're concerned running a company, I would be concerned as well. So I really don't blame people for that. That is a big concern.
But I also want to say to companies, please realize that while we as diabetics don't blame you for your concern, we also are human beings. We do have hearts. And I don't mean just the part that pumps the blood. I mean hearts as in feelings, thoughts, the psychological aspect.
And we do want to feel like we have value and we contribute to something called this Earth, this globe. And we want to be treated like human beings and that we still have something to contribute. So think about that.
And as it relates to corporate work, there is such a thing as remote. And this is more like for the. It's for diabetics too, but also for those who have epilepsy.
If you're afraid that an epileptic, and I hate referencing even myself as an epileptic, it just. It does not have good sound to it. So anyone listening? Yes, I feel for you.
If you're afraid that somebody who has epilepsy is going to have a seizure in your office, think about remote work. Because then the concern about them hitting a head on a desk, they can pad their desk at home.
Also think about liability waivers and things like that. Don't just say, well, nope, you can't work for us. Think about some other things. Talk to your lawyer and think about other options.
Just a little hint out there, rather than just going straight to the nope, absolutely not, and making the person who has epilepsy or diabetes feel like they are not worth a second thought. So one situation, I had a seizure in a live situation. And in a lot of these situations, I'm sharing.
I had started something, and it was my baby, it was my passion. It was something that I put my whole self into. I love creating. As my husband says, there are people. People are in one of two groups.
They're either a consumer or a creator. And that's fine because you need consumers in order for creators to create something for the consumers.
So you need both types of people on this earth. I'm a creator, so oftentimes I create something, I'm passionate about it. My whole world, I'm put into this.
And I had created something that I loved and invited people to join me. And one of the people that I'd invited to join asked if they could be the host.
And in this case, the host was the person that functionally controlled. And this was right after I'd had a seizure live.
And I figured maybe you should have asked the question because again, as I said at the beginning, this may have nothing to do with being diabetic. This may have nothing to do with having Epilepsy, it may just have been a case where someone wanted to be.
To have that role functionally, because functionally, that would give this other person the ability to control different aspects as far as pushing buttons. And I don't mean pushing buttons psychologically, I mean pushing buttons actually functionally pushing a button.
So maybe that was my area of fault, was I did not ask the questions. I just assumed that because I had a seizure that may have freaked this person out. So now all of a sudden, they wanted control.
And that's not a bad idea because in the case of the seizure, I made a noise, hit the floor.
No one could do anything about it because it was in a case where no one could continue or discontinue the event because I had all the control as the host, and no one could take over for me because no one had the controls at the helm. So it wasn't a bad idea for this other person to become the host in future events. It was not an unreasonable request at all.
But it made me feel like I was tossed aside at a baby that I had given birth to originally. It's like, yes, I popped out this baby, and now somebody else wants to be the mother that raises the baby. You catch that scenario.
Even though I didn't find fault in the question, I totally understood it had merits all the way up to like 98% merits definitely made sense, but I still felt discarded. Now, let's see another situation. I worked. This was again, many decades ago. I worked for. And I can.
I can say the name, I think, in this case, because this company no longer exists, actually. And I was thinking the other day, it might be that one of the reasons. Well, I'll just say it. Countrywide, big name back in the day.
ght out by bank of America in:There were four divisions, or four, I'm trying to remember what they called them. But anyway, one of the big four.
Deborah:I was brought on to be the Secretary for Executive Vice President. And it was interesting because when I was laid off, I was actually hired within 24 hours to be the executive vice president for one of the directors.
And then I got a call and say, oh, he didn't have permission to hire. You're kind of going, there's only eight people in that position that's higher up yet than the executive vice president.
And it's like, wait, one of the Eight directors, and he wants me as a secretary, but he didn't have authorization to hide me. You're kind of going, wait a minute. That doesn't sound quite right. So.
And it turns out I used to go visit the chief accounting officer of Countrywide, and I would find areas where Countrywide was spending too much money, and I would point it out and I would give all the. It's just a knack I have. I've got a brain that finds this stuff. So I would find all the supporting documentation and get.
He said, man, I wish I could hire, like, eight of you. You're so helpful. That wasn't even my job. I mean, I was a secretary, for pity's sake. You know, I was on a whole different floor. And I used to just.
I would find stuff because for some reason, whatever it was I was doing, I would just find this stuff. So I would go point it out. He just loved me, and he would. He would correct it and so forth. And the next day I'd find some.
So I'd go visit him, like, three times a week and find all these errors, and he would correct, correct. And he's like, I have a whole floor of accounting clerks, and they can't find this stuff. And somehow you find it. I'm like, I just have a knack.
I love doing this stuff, whatever. But I was probably making more money as a secretary than any of the accounting clerks, so I was happy with my role.
And I didn't mind visiting him and pointing this out, but I found this article not too long ago. And I know I'm off topic, but, hey, it's an interesting story.
Found this article that with all the shenanigans that Countrywide was pulling, and I thought, you know, maybe this has nothing to do with diabetes.
Remember I said later that it's so easy to jump to that conclusion, that, hey, it's because of diabetes, and this is why the diabetics listening to this, stop yourself from just assuming it's diabetes. It might not be the case. There might be another explanation. And that's where communication, asking questions really helps. Now, I'm wondering if.
Especially when one of the directors was forbidden to hire me, I'm thinking maybe it was because I was actually finding things I wasn't supposed to find, and that's why the. The hiring was canceled. And when the hiring was, you know, I didn't fight it. I just said, hey, that's okay. Sayonara. I'm headed out.
But anyway, the laying off came after.
In the last episode, the What I'm trying to remember what number that was, but in our last episode was talking about almost dying, and they had to fly in an endocrinologist to save my life. And the paramedics, not believing that I had lived through that.
And the whole thing that happened while I was at Countrywide, and they kept me there for about six months and then laid me off. And, you know, you're not supposed to get rid of people just because of a medical disability. And Countrywide knew that, and they loved me.
In fact, my boss actually cried when she laid me off, and other people cried when I was laid off. And it was a reduction in force. Every week, more people were laid off at Countrywide, and we'd all line up and see who got the pink slip.
Every single week, there were, like, hundreds of people laid off. So there was always that risk because it was in a down slump. Countrywide. And there was six months.
There were six months of this as far as the laying off of people. But I always wondered, is it, you know, had I not been diabetic and had the seizure, would I have lasted longer?
Because there was another gal that was hired, like, the same day for a secretarial position. Same role, just different person that she worked for. And she was not laid off.
And so I assumed that it was because she didn't have diabetes or epilepsy. At the time, I didn't know I had epilepsy, so I just assumed it was because of the diabetes and again, didn't fault them. If, you know, it's not that.
If I had that choice, I would have made that choice, because as a diabetic, I don't ever want to discriminate, and not because it's illegal, but I just want to give everybody a chance. But I think had I not grown up diabetic, I think I would have made the same decision.
So I'm not judging people for that decision because it's an easy decision to make. You don't want to mess with people having low blood sugars, having to stop for five minutes to go drink a sugar soda.
It's just easier to choose the person, especially when you're having to lay off people. Anyway, you have person A and person B. This person may have a low blood sugar. Oh, get rid of them. It's easy to understand.
So I'm not faulting Countrywide. And then you've got this other option that maybe they got rid of me because I was finding too many of these shenanigans.
They wanted the shenanigans to go through. And I was finding them. And I wasn't supposed to be uncovering the shenanigans that were supposed to be happening, so.
But we won't know because Country White is no more. Can't ask those questions. Unless someone happens to be listening to this podcast episode and knows, feel free to get in touch with me.
I'm not gonna go whistleblow this many decades later. It would just be an interesting ending to a tale that started a long time ago. Let's see the next one. This one. Okay.
This company, I don't want to mention. I love this company. Absolutely love the person I worked for here. And the CTO position.
I actually did acquire the CTO position, but the boss that I worked for refused to give it to me. Which is. I mean, if you looked at what I did, I kept the position that I had. I was hired on as basically the CTO's assistant.
I can't even remember what the title was now, but it's basically take over the overflow for the cto. And the CTO was not doing his job. Like, for instance, continuous. I almost said continuous glucose monitoring. No, that was not his job.
It was for a financial institution in Beverly Hills, in Los Angeles. And he was not covering the disaster recovery and business continuity tasks that were required by law.
But yet he was saying that he was doing that because if we had gotten audited, the company would have gotten in big trouble. But when he was asked, we had these weekly meetings and he was asked whether or not he was doing it, and he'd say yes. He was a dear friend of mine.
I just loved him. He was wonderful. He was technically my boss. I was assisting him and I even offered, I said, and I'm not going to give his name.
I'll just say, dude, dude, I'm willing to go implement this for you and you can take the credit for doing it. But I'm not comfortable that we're going into these meetings and you're saying that it's done.
You're saying that we're doing it and zero steps have been implemented. I mean, we haven't done anything. Nothing has been done in the area of disaster recovery planning and business continuity.
And that's a requirement in the financial industry. As far as Ito. Yeah, I said cto. So we're talking about information technology that is absolutely required for the sec.
I do not like to tattle on bosses. I'm not one of these power hungry people that's like, oh, yeah, great, now I can get a job.
But I Finally did disclose to the COO and human resources, she was the other one in the meeting, that they may think that something's happening in that area, but it's not. And I disclosed because if an auditor had walked in from the sec, imagine their surprise when the auditor says, hey, none of this is done.
And they're like, but wait a minute. We're having meetings every week and it's. We're being told it's being done. And I didn't want. I also didn't want to be blamed.
It's like having my boss say, not that he would say this, but he could say, oh, well, Deb was assigned to do this. Why didn't she get it done? Deb, I told you to do this. You know, so anyway, I acknowledge to the owners of the company that nothing had been done.
Well, long story short, my boss lost his job and I was put in his position. I was told that now you are in his position. His position was cto. I was not given that title. I sat down with his boss, the coo.
I said, okay, I would like the CTO title. And they said, okay, we have to do several steps before you get the title. Well, okay, that might sound silly because I'm already doing this. Now.
I was doing my boss, my former boss, the CTO's job, plus I was doing my own. So I was doing two jobs and I was getting it done. And I got the disaster recovery and business continuity tasks done. So I did all that.
And he said, you have to get these tasks done. So I took the notes, wrote down the tasks. Are these the tasks? Yep, those are the tasks. Got them all done. I said, may I meet with you?
I've gotten these done. I showed them. Now may I have the CTO title? Nope. You told me that if I got all these tasks done, I could have the title. Oh, we never had that meeting.
Oh, man, I should have had an iPhone and flipped it on, recorded it. But that was before the days that I carried an iPhone around with backpack on it for, you know, backpack for podcast recording.
And no, I'm not an affiliate. I just love that app. So I know at the time they weren't hiring any females for director or high level positions.
So it's either because I didn't have the right body parts or it was because of the diabetes. I don't know which. But again, just like I said at the beginning of this podcast episode, you need to ask questions.
And in the back of my mind, I kept thinking it could be the diabetes. I think that one more had to do with the gender. Maybe it just personality of my boss, I don't know. But eventually I left there.
That might have had nothing to do with the diabetes, and it might have been all about gender. But I have to recommend you got to ask the question, or you always wonder, is this because of the diabetes?
Another one was the next financial company, and that one, I had a seizure. That one I think was an epileptic seizure, but it was after half the building lost airflow.
And I told my whole team to go home, and I told my whole team to go home. In fact, I told other employees to go home because it's not good for you to be in a company in a building that has no airflow.
But I was in the middle of trying to get a server room ready, and I decided to stay there and continue to move servers, as in lift the servers to move them from one floor to another.
I continued to work with no airflow, promptly had a seizure, probably an epileptic seizure, because you shouldn't be pushing your body when there is no air, no oxygen to breathe. And that probably did not help as far as keeping a job there.
I also ended up being a whistleblower and letting the SEC know that my boss was stealing things like 32 million one day and 33 million the next.
So again, that one probably, I was a CTO there, probably didn't have a lot to do with the diabetes there, but it probably didn't help that I had a seizure and they found me and helped me. So. And that was good that they helped me. That's a good thing. Very good. But it didn't make them comfortable that I'm having seizures there.
But that one, again, likely not related to seizure or not related to the diabetes. And another reason why you should ask questions and not just assume that it has to do with your diabetes.
And that one probably had more to do with the fact that I worked with the sec. But had I not worked with the sec, I might be in jail trying to record a podcast for you guys. So. And that's not why I'm an honest person.
I believe in. In telling the truth. And. And no, I don't go around telling people I'm. I'm loyal to a fault. That was the last straw.
Deborah:But when your boss is stealing money from retirees to get rich and he's going, he's. Yeah, okay. And I did not sign an NDA, so. But that one is so in depth. That's like a whole nother podcast in and of itself. Let's see.
Oh, this one, this one, I'm pretty sure this one was a diabetic related or at least a seizure related. Another event. This one was an interesting.
I was involved in a Twitter Chat and I'd actually started a Twitter chat for a gal who ironically she gets credited with knowing all these things about Twitter chat. And she was not even active on Twitter. And I am saying Twitter because at the time it was Twitter. It's before it became X. It was a long time ago.
And it's funny because these big brands were contacting this person and saying, oh, we want to know more about Twitter, we want to know more about Twitter chats. And then she would contact me and say, deb, can you handle this? Can you actually teach this class for me about Twitter chats?
Because the honest-to-God truth was she didn't know anything about Twitter chats. I had actually contacted her at her brand at that time and I'd said, hey, you need to start a Twitter chat. This would really help your brand.
And I had, you know, conversed with her back and forth, back and forth, back and forth about why she really needed Twitter chat. And I convinced her to start a Twitter chat. But she really didn't know that much about Twitter. She didn't know anything about Twitter chats.
So she had me running them. Well, she had an assistant that was helping her and I had taught that assistant everything about Twitter chats. Well then I had a seizure.
21's Twitter chats. Now the Twitter chats had. That particular Twitter chat was a special one that we did once a month and it had 10 questions.
So they're spaced like every six minutes. Well, most of them had multiple questions, but this one had like a pre arranged and I missed.
The seizure was so quick, but I actually only missed one question. And I didn't have them scheduled at that time. I was doing them after that. I scheduled them just in case I had another seizure.
But turns out I only missed seven minutes of the chat. I thought it was pretty amazing. I mean, considering you can have a seizure and be out for a long time. Only seven minutes was pretty good.
I wasn't really missed for that long, so that was a win. I was like, wow, I did really well. I only missed seven minutes.
And it's not like I told anyone, I mean I'm telling you guys now, but this again, it was over a decade ago. I just got right back in there and kept going with the Twitter chat.
But after that the gal decided that her assistant should run The Twitter chat and the timing was such that I thought, wow, I have a seizure and now I'm no longer in charge of this bummer. If I'd only not had this seizure. You try so hard to never have. I mean, you got this.
These disorders or these little challenges in life, if I may call them that. And you try so hard to not have one that affects someone else. And that's the whole point of this episode.
You're trying so hard not to have one, period. But definitely trying not to have one that impacts other people.
And it's one thing when you have one that impacts a job, but when you're self employed or you're doing your own thing, you have one that impact, like the very first story I shared. And you have one that impacts someone else, such that you lose the baby that you gave birth to and you are self employed. Wow, that hurts.
It's like, do you really have anything that you've created? Or does this diabetes take everything from you? You see what I wrote here? I said, they all love my work and agree that I am the best.
But after a seizure, it never fails. My management control gets taken away and given to someone else. And it's never immediate. It's algorithmic.
In other words, it's directly proportionate to the service or entity. I'd give you the math, but I don't want to bore you. But for example, the. With Countrywide, it was a prestigious position, so it took six months.
With an online position, it took only a month just to give you an idea. But without the seizure, it doesn't happen at all. With a seizure, it inevitably happens, without fail, every single time.
There hasn't been even one time when I've had a seizure that I have not lost that pet project, that baby that I've given birth to.
If I was a gambling woman, which I'm not, without fail, I would calculate the algebraic equation and actually make money on the outcome, because it happens every time. Oh, we still love the work you do, is what they always say.
Sure, you love the work I do, but you do not want me in a position where I control the work I do. They take away my brainchild, my projects, my ideas, my babies, and deliver them to others to manage, to control.
They take away my access to titles, but it is done in a way that makes it hard to prove, so that it does not look like blatant discrimination yet, even though it is. But discrimination comes in several shapes, sizes and colors. We think of discrimination as based on hatred or these people do not hate me.
Or hate Those with type 1 diabetes or hate those with epilepsy. They just do not want our kind in positions of management or control or in some cases places of branding or the faces of the company.
They need us replaced because we are not their kind and what just happened, as in the case of a seizure, cannot be allowed to affect their lives again. But do they have any idea with those of us with epilepsy or type 1 diabetes with seizures?
Face on a moment by moment basis, we are thrilled to breathe the air, taste the raindrops, smell the roses. We are thankful to have life. So for us, each day that does not have a seizure in it is a good day.
We have learned how to look at the positive and to live life realizing that the cup is half full rather than half empty and filling our lives with the unachievable.
That is precisely why I come up with so many creative ideas that are taken away from me when I have the seizures that dirty someone else's life, someone else's world.
But for others, one lone seizure is such an interruption in their world and to their world that they cannot have it and they must eradicate that seizure. And the person who has a seizure from their life and from their lives.
If only they could walk a mile in our moccasins, maybe they could learn how to be thankful and enjoy the life that has been given them the way we have learned to be thankful for what we have. And with that, I hope that you continue to create passionate creations if you're a creator.
Otherwise, if you're a consumer, enjoy what you consume and don't let the people that want to steal it from you steal your love and your joy for what you create or consume. Speak up when you need to speak up, ask questions when you need to ask questions. And in the meantime, enjoy life. Value life.
Because we are so happy to have life, all of us, regardless if you're diabetic or not. Hugs from Deborah E. Signing off on DiabeticReal.