What’s it like living with diabetes? It can be tough to explain to someone else. Most people know someone that’s been touched by diabetes — maybe an older relative with type 2, a classmate with type 1 who had to check her blood sugar at her desk. But until you’ve lived the condition, you have no idea what it’s really like.
On the Diabetes Daily Facebook page, we asked our community members a simple question:
We were overwhelmed by the response: about 1,000 comments!
To be frank, the answers were overwhelmingly negative. There’s no getting around it: Diabetes can create an immense mental health burden.
Studies show that depression, for example, is “more than three times higher in people with type 1 diabetes … and nearly twice as high in people with type 2 diabetes.” Diabetes is further associated with anxiety, stress, and even the prevalence of eating disorders. Diabetes “distress” is a regular part of life for millions of adults.
Most of the comments focused on the interminable, nonstop nature of diabetes. You don’t get days off, it’s always there, a voice in your head nagging you every moment of every day. Blood sugar woes can hit at the worst of times, whether it’s in the middle of the night or in the middle of an important moment in your life. Is it any surprise that diabetes burnout is such a problem in our community?
Here’s a word cloud of some of the top responses:
freewordcloudgenerator.com
It wasn’t all complaints, though. We were pleased to see that some members of our community tried to take things in a more positive direction. Diabetes demands control and self-discipline, an effort that can feel very empowering when done right.
Here were some of the most popular answers:
“A constant struggle.”
“Always meal planning.”
“My constant companion.”
“Full time job.”
“Everything in moderation”
“Expensive! Expensive! Expensive!”
“Frustrating, time consuming.”
“Where’s the cure?”
“Pancakes = coma”
“A learning experience”
“It f*cking sucks”
“Painfully time consuming”
“An everyday experiment”
“Lots of math”
“Constant daily struggles”
“It never ends”
“Exhausting exhausting exhausting”
“Just over it”
“Affects every decision”
“Highs and lows”
“Without any carbs”
“Roller coaster ride”
“Warriors in disguise”
“Living science experiment”
“Controlled by food”
“No vacation ever”
“Permanent lifestyle changes”
“Continuous emotional rollercoaster”
“Life long battle”
“My constant companion”
“Could be worse”
“I got this!!!!”