If You Weren’t So Fat You Wouldn’t Have Diabetes

Having diabetes often makes a visit to the doctor a dreaded experience, as there is invariably bad news of one kind or another.  And sometimes the way the doctor talks to you can leave you feeling like you’re at fault.  Or maybe you have a fantastic healthcare team, but have experienced blame and judgement from someone else in your life – friend, loved one, or a complete stranger.  Think about a particularly bad instance, how that person talked to you, the words they used and the conversation you had.  Now, the game part.  Let’s turn this around.  If you could turn that person into a puppet, what would you have them say that would leave you feeling empowered and good about yourself?   Let’s help teach people how to support us, rather than blame us!  (Thank you, Brian, for inspiring this topic.)

Gosh, as if having type 2 diabetes is not hard enough when you have to deal with all of the stereotypes in society, when your own health care team subjects you to it, well, that can really hurt.  My blog post today is about a selection of my experience on this subject and how I’ve been on the receiving end of discussions about my weight which have left me with really bad emotional feelings and feelings of blame about how I got diabetes and my successes and failures managing my condition.

The “Gift” of Diabetes

I have to say, when I was first diagnosed with diabetes I felt terrible.  It doomed me to poor health, difficulties in my life and probably a shortened life.  I went through stages of grief; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.  Diabetes was a curse on my life.  But over time my view has changed.  And at a certain point I reached a view that diabetes was just a part of my life and that I accepted my condition even if it really has lots of downsides.

So how it diabetes the “gift that keeps on giving?”  Certainly diabetes has had a real negative effect on my health, but it has also led me to make very positive changes in the way I take care of myself. And when I look at my life before diabetes, I didn’t visit the doctor regularly, I didn’t care about what I ate and I didn’t exercise much.  And those “gifts” translate to my family as my wife eats healthy and both of my kids have picked up on all of these healthy practices.