The diagnosis of diabetes brings out such a range of emotions that a person with diabetes is often taken 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. When confronted with a significant life change, a person normally goes through phases as he or she learns to cope with their situation. Probably the most common and 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.
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. The biggest risk with anger is that it can lead to breakdowns in communication. Sometimes the people who we are most comfortable with are the ones whom 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 alright 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.
While you need not 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.
