Little me — the four-year-old giving herself needles in the school bathroom, the kid explaining for the thousandth time why she couldn’t eat the cake, the kid hiding low blood sugar Smarties in her desk — would have LOST HER MIND for this doll. I would’ve carried her everywhere like a tiny plastic reminder that I wasn’t so weird after all.

Even grown-up me wants one. Not for the resale value — for the simple comfort of seeing my disease represented for once, instead of erased. Because let’s be real: we didn’t get to be the “normal kids” with the Easy Bake Ovens and snack time cookies without worry.

But here’s what makes my blood sugar spike in rage: this is just another way to profit off a chronic illness.

This doll sold out in 24 hours. Why? Because people bought dozens of them — not for the kids who live with this disease every day, but to resell them for three, four, five times the price. Kids who are already fighting daily for insulin, for tech, for insurance, for coverage, now have to fight some basement scalper on eBay just to see themselves in plastic form.

And Mattel? Congrats, you’ve found a way to squeeze more money out of a disease that already drains us dry. Do you know what it costs to stay alive with Type 1? Do you know how many families can barely afford insulin, let alone a $20 doll that’s now marked up to $200 because you didn’t put limits on purchases?

If you really cared about diabetic kids, you’d have made sure every one of them could get this doll. You’d limit how many people could buy. You’d block the scalpers. You’d donate them to clinics. You’d make them free for newly diagnosed kids, the same kids who lie awake at night wondering if they’ll ever feel normal again.

But you didn’t. You made diabetes cute and collectible. You turned the hardest part of my life into a hype drop for profit. Representation matters — but not like this. Not when it’s about someone else’s bottom line instead of our reality.

To the people flipping them online: F U. You are the worst kind of opportunist — the kind that sees a kid’s chronic illness and thinks, “How can I make a quick buck off this?” You’re not clever. You’re not entrepreneurial. You’re vultures, picking profit off the backs of little girls who already have to grow up faster than they should.

You didn’t buy these dolls because you care about representation or kids feeling less alone — you bought them because you smelled dollar signs. And the fact that you’d rip that moment of connection and comfort away from the very community this doll was meant for? That says everything about you.

To Mattel: Do better. Representation shouldn’t come with a price tag.