Why You Should Commemorate Your Diaversary

I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes on June 1, 1999. Every year on June 1, I go to the same restaurant I went to the day I was diagnosed to eat pizza and commemorate my diaversary. This tradition on my diaversary helps me stay on track with my mental health.

Your diaversary is an opportunity to reflect on your experience living with T1D and work to keep accepting T1D as part of your life. If you have intense emotions around the anniversary of your T1D diagnosis, that’s totally normal. Commemorating your diaversary helps you lean into - instead of ignoring or avoiding – these feelings around diabetes, benefiting your mental health.

When you commemorate your diaversary, you give yourself the chance to do four important things:

Reflect on challenges

Commemorating your diaversary gives you the chance to reflect on the challenges you’ve had with T1D. It lets you acknowledge living with T1D isn’t always easy and recognize the strength you have to get through it. Reflecting on what’s difficult shows you that you’re up for the challenge – and everyone with T1D can use a boost of confidence every once in a while!

Acknowledge the impact

Your diaversary is an opportunity to acknowledge the impact diabetes has had on your life. It may seem more comfortable to just gloss over the impact of T1D, especially when it’s not all positive. However, acknowledging the hard parts brings them out in the open, which can be liberating. It means you can be honest about how T1D affects you, opening the door for you to get the support you need.

Celebrate your successes

Sometimes, we have a hard time recognizing when things with diabetes are getting better. Your diaversary is a chance to look at what’s going well in your life with T1D and celebrate your successes, no matter how small or insignificant they may seem. Celebrating your success helps you view diabetes in a more balanced way and recognize that some things are going well. You can see how your hard work has paid off in improving your life with diabetes.

Look to the future

Your diaversary is also a chance to look to the future and what you want to accomplish in the next year. Dream big, but also be realistic and specific, setting goals you know you can (with some hard work) accomplish in the next year. Use your diaversary as an opportunity to push yourself to do better with your diabetes management, your mental health, and in your life. Looking ahead lets you see the possibilities and gives you hope that things can keep getting better.

Next year on June 1, I will go back to the same restaurant for pizza and reflect on my year with diabetes. I’m sure I will find areas that are going well, and things I need to continue working on. I will remember that life with T1D is not always easy, but it doesn’t have to hold me back. And that is something I can celebrate!