Diabetes: Coping With Your Emotions
The diagnosis of diabetes brings out such a range of emotions it often takes a person with diabetes by surprise. In the flurry of learning basic diabetes information, glucose monitoring, medication changes, and perhaps insulin injections, it is important to stop and pay attention to what having diabetes means to you. "Taking care of diabetes is 30 percent physical and 70 percent emotional," recalls Linda. "When John was diagnosed we never dreamed it would be so difficult emotionally."
When confronted with a significant life change a person normally goes through phases as he or she learns to cope with thier situation. Probably the most common, and the most recognized phase is denial. Denial may be fueled by the fear of not having choices, or loss of independence, or just fear of the unknown, to name a few things.
Sometimes the denial is on the part of the family members. They may choose to ignore, or even sabotage someone’s eating plan by insisting on foods that are not part of healthy eating. "Oh, this won’t hurt you just once" is common. This may be especially difficult when friends don’t, or won’t, understand why the person is limiting alcohol or junk food. If the person with diabetes already has shaky resolve, it isn’t hard to give in when being pressed.
To help overcome denial, it is necessary to understand what is behind it. If you can recognize these feelings for what they are you can take the first steps to overcoming your denial.
Another emotion is anger. When Tanya was diagnosed with diabetes, she refused to discuss it at all with her family. "I was so mad," she said later. "I knew this was happening to me, I knew all the symptoms. But I also knew that I did not have time for this." The biggest risk with anger is that it can lead to breakdowns in communication. Sometimes the people that we are most comfortable with are the ones that we lash out at. It is important to have someone to talk to, but do be careful about hurting someone you love. Remember, they are probably as frustrated and confused as you are. Anger is best dealt with quickly, with the help of a counselor, if necessary.
One of the harder phases of coping to recognize is bargaining. This can be ok at times (since I ate more than usual I’ll take an extra walk), or it can be riskier (I’ll have a few beers and take some extra insulin). It is difficult to achieve balance this way, and most often what happens is a yo-yo effect with blood sugars. This leads to exhaustion and despair. Lots of energy is expended trying to "chase" the sugar and bring it down, and overall diabetes control suffers.
The most difficult phase of coping is depression. Nearly everyone who is dealing with a chronic disease experiences depression at some point, and it can be devastating. "Why bother?" is a question that is heard often, along with wonderings if all the work is worth it. Depression is very prevalent with diabetes, especially among women. It often goes untreated by busy health care providers who are frustrated by lack of time and resources to effectively treat depression. It is very important to recognize depression and get treatment. Finding a support group can be very helpful, even an understanding friend or family member. Some counselors are experienced in working with people who have chronic diseases.
While you needn’t be happy about having diabetes, the goal is to accept it. Acceptance decreases your stress, and frees up all that energy formerly spent on denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. When you accept that this is now part of your life, it is possible to go on. And most importantly, you can be there as an example that even with diabetes, life goes on, and it can be good.
Written by Sonia M. Gordon, MS, CFNP, CDE
Good Books to Read for Coping with Diabetes
Finding support groups
The American Diabetes Association at www.diabetes.org. By entering your zip code you can find support groups in your area.