Family & living w/ diabetes (was living with diabetes/Jenny)
Good Morning Jenny,
Family……. funny creatures. The can say some really stupid stuff….
We are diabetics….
Our familys are given a seat at our “proverbial table” whether they choose to or not. You don’t have to love them all the time Jenny… we only have to cope with them. They get a “seat” at the diabetes table purely because sometimes they find us unconscious, disoriented, or otherwise in “diabetes fairyland”. Worse still while we live with the disease… they are only voyeurs, and can do absolutely nothing about what we endure. They get to watch and cope… right or wrong, good or bad… they can nag, whine, cajole, plead or scream… but first and last they only get to watch, Mother, Father, fiancee, brother, wife. Anybody who loves us, gets a seat here because of their love…
Some family sympathize, and feel for what we go through. Others empathize… yet there are many who are angry that somethinng “we” or they did, (or did not do) but something that could be “controlled”, some minor factor that to their mind was “the critical piece”… had someone done something RIGHT…. well then the big IT (whatever that might be) would never have happened…. For them it’s a control issue, pure and simple.
Sounds like your mother has some major groveling in her future… she said some awful things to you, once said can never be called back…. Sounds like… in time you’ll have lots to talk about together Jenny…
If you had never existed in the first place, it would be someone, some thing that was the next source of their suffering, their latest pain. They don’t get off THAT easily, don’t you let them off that hook….
Now, in plain english Jenny… we’re always ~a couple units away~ from death. Its just that simple. Make a better choice…. find ways to laugh at the disease, your diabetes dragon… F-I-G-H-T. Whatever you do in your future Jenny whether single or married, a couple or a family… we get to write the scripts. You have experiences now which will make you an IDEAL nurse…better than others who only treat the conditions, illnesses… but never first hand had the experiences which you have had……. you are a diabetic, a woman whose had some “dark places” in your life… use those experiences….
Make them valuable and serve you well…….
Let me close by sharing two experiences/perspectives which I encountered around the whole depression issue which will hopefully give members a quick chuckle….
#1…
Many years ago, a family member was severely worried about lows that I’d had…
So far pretty normal, right?
This family member talked with their psychiatrist about them and the two morons came to the conclusion over a real brief time that I was “suicidal” because the lows kept happening… }8 O
Well, I was more than a little bit irritated (understandibly) at that idiocy… so I met with the two of them and did some “educating” of the two with…. well… more than a little controlled rage…. (supposedly one of the two was a medical doctor… but was stupid dead ignorant about diabetes for 100% sure).
Ignorant people can come to some awfully stupid conclusions… NEVER EVER underestimate their capasity…
#2
I had dated in college and since been excellent friends with a lady for a very long time. She’d gotten a PhD in Clinical Psychology and eventually a job starting “involentary commitment” process to hospitals… for the local authorities; ambulance squads, police departments, etc.
She worked at a lot of attempted suicide calls…. not pretty stuff, usually.
When we dated (a decade before) she knew all about my diabetes… my fears, my concerns…. Apparently I prepared her well for her future work. One day, she arrived on one scene whereby a diabetic had tried to commit suicide… and called it in.
In route her dispatcher told her the young man had done 15 (FIFTEEN) injections of regular insulin…
When she got there, she assessed the situation, and went straight in… using far more force and will to get past his barricaded door than was normal for her…. I guess we’d talked about that kind of ~darkness~… and she’d remembered well.
The young man had indeed used 15 injections….
The dosage had been in one half (1/2 unit or .5) unit amounts… you do the math….
“Pissed”……she physically marched him out…. (she was 5′6″ maybe 120 pounds soaking wet, he was much, much larger)
He survived…
[Later she learned that the young man had HIGH sugar, majorly depressed by that and made his “attempt” HOWEVER the total amount he apparently used turned out to be the correct insulin dosage to bring him back to a relatively normal sugar level… soooo the only “bad part” (which got him some help btw) was the 15 injections part….]
I always liked that story…. in a dope-slap sort of way….
These are my opinions, views, I could surely & easily be mistaken…
Thoughts anybody… family, depression, diabetes, stories….
Jeff
December 29th, 2005 at 6:40 am
Jenny and gang,
There was a time I had compassion for everyone else, but not myself. Jenny, it is ok to have compassion for yourself, as well. I have finally accepted (sort of) my shortcomings… extra wide hips, misshapen foot, fine hair, and a short temper. I reached a point where if someone wants to come and visit me, but does not like my hair or my house, then they really came to visit my hair or my house, and they are then free to leave.
Guess what I am trying to say is: you are bright and have compassion for others. You have these qualities without the example set by your family members. That is something of which to be proud. As Jeff said, you have LIVED it.
Warm regards,
Whatever thy hands find to do, do it with all thy might. Ecc. 9:10
Joan Geohegan