DIABETES AND DENIAL by Peter J

DIABETES AND DENIAL by Peter J

DIABETES AND DENIAL

by Peter J. Nebergall, PhD

Diabetes
is a serious disease. Its consequences can be major, even life-threatening,
and it can kill you quickly if ignored. We know this. But there are still many
people, folks with diabetes and folks around them, who do not take the condition
seriously.

Denial is the psychological state in which one

feels exempt from reality. "The rules do not apply in MY case; I'M different!"

Folks deny lots of things: Old age, obesity, business failure, ignorance, military defeat,

even the end of a relationship. But if you have diabetes, denial, used as an excuse to NOT

practice good self-management, is about as subtle as drinking slow poison.

Why do folks go into denial? There are many

reasons, most having more to do with a person's self-image and psychological state than

with the nature of the disease. Folks want to think of themselves as "well."

Like the onset of grey hair and arthritis, the demands of diabetes remind the sufferer

that he is not eternal. Some folks don't want to hear it, and tune it out.

Some people get mad. In our culture, there is

still the strong belief that afflictions are visited upon those who deserve them; that

disease comes from moral defect, or is punishment for sin. For one who believes this, to

admit diabetes is to admit character defect. WE KNOW diabetes is not a character defect,

but for many, this ancient belief system is still quite real. Someone knows he or she has

lived a decent life, and yet winds up having to lose weight, exercise, watch their diet,

test their blood, and inject insulin—"Why ME!" is not hard to understand.

Some folks have been misinformed about their

diabetes. Ignorance is not a pretty word, but there are a lot of folks out there giving

"advice" to the diabetic, and some of them haven't cracked a diabetes journal,

or a current textbook, in years. Twenty-five years ago, the outlook for a life with

diabetes was not what it is today! There have been great changes in what we know about

this condition, and in how it is best treated. Research has given us new medications,

better glucose monitors, less painful syringes, new ways to schedule testing and

medication, more convenient meal-planning techniques, safer and more widely available

transplantation, and the real hope of a cure. Make sure your diabetes advisor is up to

date!

Burnout is a possibility. The demands of diabetes

self-management are mercilessly unsubtle. Today, tomorrow, and everyday after, you must

perform the tasks that will keep your blood sugars as close to non-diabetic normal as

possible. There is no vacation; and there is little forgiveness for departure from that

almighty schedule. Some folks do well for a time, and then lose patience with the

necessary discipline. Then they depart from good self-management, and their health

suffers.

Some folks have a real psychological need to be

"in control." All their lives, these individualists have resisted authority,

public opinion, and social pressures to conform. They may be devilishly effective salesmen

and negotiators, but diabetes cannot be cozened at the bargaining table. Lacking the

emotional skills to deal with a disease they cannot overawe, unable to confront it in

their traditional fashion, these folks are lost at sea.

There are many other reasons why folks depart

from good self-management, or fail to ever adopt it. What matters is what we need to do

about it. The best response to denial is education. Fact cures fiction. Education shows us

the consequences of departure from good self-management, but it also shows us the rewards

of tight control. It shows us the constraints diabetes places on diet, but it also shows

us how those constraints have eased substantially in the past few years. It shows us what

we need to do to keep ourselves going, but it also shows us how that task has become

easier. It shows us the ways diabetes can be life-threatening, but it also shows us how it

is becoming ever easier, even to someone facing complications, the ramifications of

diabetes, to live a long, full, and in-the-mainstream life. Education shows us the

undeniable truth about diabetes.