Lessons for People New to Type 2 Diabetes, Part 14

Think about support for the person with type 2 diabetes. This topic is somewhat difficult for many people with diabetes. Not every family is supportive. Blame this on the invisible nature of diabetes. Often teenagers do not understand that a parent has a disease or the hear amputation stories from their friends and believe that you will soon be having that happen to you. The younger children cannot comprehend because they do not see any visible difference in the parent.

This blog shows what can happen when parents know their children well enough to prevent problems until they were older and then drop the news on them. Yes, every family is different. Thought is needed in the method used to discuss a diagnosis with them. This blog discusses a study and what the people with diabetes feels his or her family thinks about their diabetes. This blog covers some useful tips for the person with diabetes and how to manage some situations.

Fortunately, none of our support group members has had support problems. Several of the members know other persons with diabetes that have had family problems and even two that ended in divorce when the spouse would not believe that the other spouse could manage diabetes. Both members believe that the spouse was looking for a way out of the marriage and the other spouse having diabetes gave them that out by developing diabetes.

Self-defeating, self-sabotaging behavior must be human nature or it wouldn't happen with such regularity. No, I am not talking about mistakes, errors, or falling off the wagon in diabetes care, but doing things that are self-sabotaging to your diabetes management. Some of the self-sabotage behaviors include procrastination, self-defeating behaviors, fear, and perfectionism. These were in my blog of August13, 2014. After denial, these behaviors do more damage to managing diabetes than any other activity.

Having said that, bad habits can also do a lot of damage to your diabetes management. Some bad habits are worse than others, but are still bad habits to avoid. A listing of these from my blog on April 29, 2014 include:

1. Not tracking your blood glucose
2. Sloppy carb counting or not correctly recording the carbs consumed
3. Binge eating
4. Skipping meals
5. Emotional eating
6. Avoiding fish in favor of red meat

Completing the list from my blog on April 28, 2014 are the following:

1. Not learning from mistakes
2. Saying that the doctor did not say anything about this
3. Over indulging your sweet tooth

Of these, I hear “Saying that the doctor did not say anything about this” probably more that anything. I admit I do not understand why this seems to be a favorite way that people use to avoid doing something they should be doing.

Now that we are in the holiday season, binge eating, and emotional eating come to the front and these bad habits do a lot to upset the good diabetes management we are accustomed to doing. We are already seeing many people writing about this and encouraging people with diabetes to maintain the good habits, especially during the holiday season. I can only say that we should do our best to maintain control of our diabetes management. Otherwise, the holidays may not be as happy as we want them to be.