Diabetes management: attitude makes all the difference

By Bob Fleming

Your attitude towards diabetes helps decide how successful your diabetes management will be, and how much effect it has on your lifestyle and wellbeing. If you've ever read biographies of famous people in movies, sports or other fields, you probably remember them talking about how their attitude either kept them down or helped them up the ladder of success.

But maybe you never connected these ideas to your diabetes management. Well, you should! Here are three common attitudinal problems for diabetics:

1.         Depression. A diagnosis of diabetes typically has a dampening effect on a person's sense of wellbeing. After all, it's a serious condition and most of us have heard about all the possible complications. We don't want to lose our feet, or go blind, or have kidney failure! So when we hear we have diabetes, we go into a deep depression. That's natural --- but it doesn't help.

2.         Too much loving support. Huh? This is a bad thing? Well it can be. Having the loving support of family members is something we all want --- but in the beginning, it can actually have an adverse effect on our attitude. Why? Well, sometimes a loving partner will almost take the disease on as their own personal challenge. They are the ones who read up on the condition, its effects and what to do about it. They create the diet and nag us to stick to it. That's natural too --- but it doesn't help.

3.         Becoming anti-social. Too often, diabetics begin to stay away from social gatherings and other activities they enjoy because they are worried that there will be no food available that "fits" their diabetic diet or that friends will press sugar-filled goodies on them. That too is natural --- but it doesn't help.

So what's wrong with these perfectly natural responses? They all contribute to an attitude of helplessness, a "victim" mindset that in no ways leads to good diabetes management. And they make us feel as if we have no control over how we react to and live with diabetes. Believe it or not, those who take control of their lives are much more likely to rise above the debilitating effects of diabetes and learn to live productive, happy lives.

So how do these issues work against us?

1.         Modern medical research has shown time and again that depression makes any illness worse. Depression makes us sick even when we weren't before! So if we become depressed, we'll retreat into ourselves, we'll focus on the negative and we'll start down a spiral of self-pity. Not only does this not help our ability to live with diabetes, but it can be extremely hard on those we live and work with.

2.         Having someone else take all the responsibility for our diabetic care may sound good, but it's a recipe for disaster. First, what if that person suddenly becomes ill or for some other reason is no longer there to help us? If we've never taken responsibility, if we've never paid attention to our own medication schedule or created our own diabetic-friendly food, we will be helpless. Also, if a partner is continually nagging us to stick to our diet or take our pills or injections, we start to see that person as the "bad guy" and we'll go out of our way not to do what is good for us.

3.         Finally, if we felt sorry for ourselves before, then thinking we can't go out and have a good time any more will make matters worse! We start to sing the "poor me" song, and in the end it won't matter that we won't go out to dinner because eventually nobody will invite us anyway!

So what can you do? Well, it's all up to you. Take control of your attitude, and stop playing the victim. You are not a diabetes victim. You are not defined by diabetes. You are a human being who just happens to have diabetes—and that's just a small part of who you are. Once you fully subscribe to that belief, you'll see that:

• letting yourself be depressed is a choice you don't need to make;
• there's no reason why someone else should spoonfeed you through your diet;
• and there are lots of ways to eat out and enjoy good food and good company without any harm to yourself.

Effective diabetes management starts with attitude. Is yours serving you—or defeating you?

By the way, if you're looking for simple, straightforward help in living with diabetes, whether it's advice on diet, explanations of medical terms or alternatives to traditional therapies, check out this excellent resource.