Diagnosis of diabetes is like starting a “journey” on a road that is new and unfamiliar to you. It is not chosen and certainly not wanted! It is important to remember you carry all the other parts of your life with you.
Just because you get diabetes, the rest of your life still carries on.
- At diagnosis you can experience:
- Shock
- Denial
- Fear
- Grief
- Loss
- Hopelessness
- and many other things
Family members can also experience these things and family relationships can change. These are normal experiences and feelings and people will work through them in time. However sometimes support is needed to adjust to life with diabetes and our counselling and education team can help.
TYPE 1 DIABETES
If you are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a child you may experience these feelings later, when you grow older and start to take responsibility for diabetes yourself and/or when diabetes impacts on your life in more ways. How you deal with the diagnosis of diabetes can be different depending on your age, personality and past experiences. The support around you is also important.
If you are diagnosed as a young adult with type 1 diabetes it can be tough as most of the information and support is targeted at children and teens and people do not expect to get type 1 diabetes in adulthood. This Starter Kit by The Type 1 diabetes network is very helpful.
Diabetes can cause conflict and pressure on the parent/teen/young adult relationship above what people without diabetes have to deal with in adolescence and young adulthood.
TYPE 2 DIABETES
If you are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes there can be a lot of guilt, blame and stigma – many people feel it is their fault and there is an attitude in the community that you “brought it on yourself”.
In fact, diabetes is not your fault, no matter when you get it, or what type of diabetes you get.
Of course we know there are some risk factors in type 2 diabetes that can be reduced, such as weight, lifestyle and activity levels. These are things you can try to work on if you are at risk of type 2 diabetes. There are other risk factors that are not in your control such as family history and your culture. However even lifestyle factors can be hard to tackle alone as many people who are overweight are living with problems that are difficult and not their fault.
AFTER DIAGNOSIS…GETTING ON THE ROLLER COASTER
After you get the diagnosis of diabetes you will eventually travel a road from what you knew and what was familiar to you in life before diabetes came along – towards where you will end up with diabetes being part of your life.
During this journey people can experience emotional ups and downs and often talk about it being a rollercoaster ride.
Eventually you will incorporate diabetes into your life and get back on track with your life. This can take weeks, months, or even years for some people.
Even after diabetes becomes a more comfortable part of life there can still be many ups and downs and unknown territory. It is a lifelong journey with no map! We are all different and how & when people come to the point where they make diabetes part of life varies. Some people call this “acceptance” or adjustment. Acceptance can be “up and down” at different times depending on what else is happening in life, such as how your general health is going, other problems in life and so on.
IT IS YOUR LIFE AND YOUR DIABETES – YOU ARE THE DRIVER!
It’s important for many people to feel they are the “driver” of their life and to feel in control. Diabetes is a disease that requires you to be the driver and to try and stay in control of it. Once diabetes becomes part of what you know, understand and feel comfortable with, you are more likely to have less stress and better able to continue managing diabetes when there are other stress/problems around and when diabetes is doing its own thing and being difficult!
WHY CAN IT BE SO TOUGH?
Diabetes is sometimes seen as different to other chronic diseases as it requires self management by you on a daily even hourly, basis. You make most of the daily decisions about diabetes management, with guidance from your health care team. There are many targets for health to prevent long term complications and it can be easy to be overwhelmed. Diabetes is tied up with many important physical targets/tests but there can be less focus on day to day living and maintaining wellbeing. Also Diabetes can become a low priority in your life, or it can become overwhelming, taking over everything.
Things can get out of balance and it can be easy to lose your way
DIABETES CAN BE AFFECTED BY:
- stress
- activity/exercise
- illness
- excitement
- travel, work & routine changes
- hormones
- age/stage of life
- food and drinks
- medication and insulin type/dose/site of injection – OR
- For no reason at all it can do it’s own thing!
You can end up tearing your hair out! And this can lead to lowered motivation.
THE BLAME GAME
Holding onto motivation can be tough when the results are not as you would like them to be and diabetes can be like that at times.
Feeling like people are blaming you for your diabetes being out of whack can lower your motivation and blaming yourself will also do this. Stand up for yoiurself and see other people’s lack of knowledge about diabetes as an opportunity to educate them!
It can help to remember it is not an easy job. Sometimes you can make changes yourself to your diabetes management and lifestyle to get healthier results; sometimes you can do this with good support and advice; and other times it is not within your “control” and is just the way diabetes is.
We are very lucky to be living in times where there are changes to diabetes management every day, so keeping up to date with the latest technology and management options is important. Always seek input from your healthcare team if things are not going as you would like them to be so that you can find out what changes may be possible – never suffer alone.
HAVE REALISTIC GOALS AND SPEAK UP!
It is helpful to have realistic goals and understanding of diabetes and how you can manage it. Your motivation for diabetes management will be higher if problems that get in its way are dealt with and if you remember you will have up and down days – this is forever.
Tell your health care team what your needs and priorities are and make sure you are listened to and feel comfortable approaching them with any concerns. Take a support person to appointments if you are unsure about speaking up for yourself or remembering what you are told in the appointment.
PROBLEMS ARE PROBLEMS
In our world we often end up seeing ourselves as the problems and a sense of personal failure can creep in. It can really help to learn to see that “problems are problems” and YOU are not the problem! If things are off track with your diabetes there are likely to be problems getting in the way – sometimes you need to talk to someone, a friend, family member, support person or counsellor, to work out what these problems are and how to make them smaller.
Seeing this does not diminish your responsibility in dealing with the problems and your diabetes management, but it opens up possibilities for change. If you see yourself as the problem ( I am hopeless, a loser, a bad diabetic) it is hard to make changes. Tackling something that is outside of yourself is much more helpful.
So lose the blame! It really helps to see what is possible.
Helen xx
Helen Edwards is the founder of Diabetes Counselling Online, has lived with type 1 diabetes since 1979, is Mum to 3 and also and Interiors Stylist and Blogger at Recycled Interiors.
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