Well with freinds, most know nothing about the subject......so I damn
well educate them emphasising that they may also be at risk.

With family, well I am the only diabetic in either my family or my
wifes and so until I was diagnosed everyone knew very little. You can
be assured that is not the case now. Anyway, not to be hard on them, I
am lucky insomuch as they are supportive and genuinely interested. Now
their awareness is heightened the mystery has gone and it is now not
an issue. In fact I think everyone has forgotten it.

lol.........well that may be the case and really it is not a case of
being fair or not. This is not a competition or anything to do with
them. This is all about you. If its any consolation to you, there is a
good probability that if you work at educating yourself about your
condition and work at controlling your life you might very well end up
being a lot healthier than they are.  Well that is true for me and
there are many others who will say the same. I am healthier now and
feel better about myself now than I have for many many years and I
consider my condition to have been a positive benefit to me. Compared
to what might have been. There are also many who are very much worse
off and there are many reasons for that. I reccommend that you learn
about those reasons and then use that knowledge in your armoury to
help you avoid similar circumstances.

So what.......who realy gives a damn what is fair and what is not.
Never mind that. Complaining about being fair or not will in no way
alter the sittuation. It is as it is and you cannot turn back the
clock. So put that asside and get on with it. You must concentrate on
learning. The more you work now the easier it will become and the
quicker you will be more comfortable with things the way they are.
It's noemal for you to be feeling this way -denial -but get through it
and don't dwell on others. It's you that is important right now.

Being overweight does not cause diabetes. It don't make it any better
but loosing weight is not to get rid of some of the cause of diabetes
but to help your body cope with a reduced capacity.

There ya go - - - lack of understanding.

Seems to me honney that they are not in a position to explain anything
at all.

Diabetes is a genetic disposition except in certain cases. If you are
type 2 then there will be a disposition towards diabetes. So
essentially you are indeed correct.

It seems to me that they are afraid. Fear is often a result of lack of
knowledge and understanding. They might be blaming you for being a
diabetic because to do so is denying the obvious.....that there is a
genetic disposition. They might be frightened that the same could be
on the cards for them.

The only way you can deal with this from my perspective, is to learn
as much as you can. Change your eating habits to cope and keep a
regular exercise routine going. Often just doing things slightly
differently makes all the difference. Once you learn, have your body
under control then I am sure you will feel very much differntly than
you probably do now. Then you will be seen to be fit, healthy and
radiant. In fact you could actually look a damn sight better than they
do now!!! They will see that and the fear will go realising that they
were perhaps wrong and you will not get the hassle. In fact you might
get the reverse.

Once you have a grasp on the knowledge you need, gently and casually
in a gentle way, you can explain piece by piece to them. imagine how
hard this is for you to take in all at once. You have no choice but
they do they can block it out of their minds but only for so long.

I felt pretty similar to you when I was first dx'd and now I feel
absolutely OK!!! I hope you will fare as well as I.

Pete

Diagnosed 20/03/03 Type II D&E + Metformin + Gliclazide
+ Asprin 210 lbs at Dx to 170 lbs 02/08/03 target 161.

How do you deal with the constant stream of supposedly
sympathetic support offered by friends and family when
they learn that you have diabetes, and proceed to lecture
you about how it's your own fault for eating like a pig
for all these years?

I'm 42, 5'9" and 180, and I'm supposed to be losing 39-40 lbs,
but I'm still thinner than most of them. And none of them exercise
at all - they just sit on their couches and watch TV.  I don't go
to the gym, but I am a little bit active: I teach dance several
nights a week, and I also go out and do pretty aerobic dancing
each weekend.  (Of course, now with this condition, I also go
for a walk every day for at least a mile or two.)
It just doesn't seem fair, and I have never once ever
criticized their utterly sedentary lifestyles!

Besides, don't they remember who I was eating all those dinners
with for the last 20 years?

Some of them also insist on giving me bizarre advice, such as not
to drink diet sodas because that is one of the causes of diabetes.

They never raise their voices when criticizing my condition;
they offer it by way of sympathetic explanation.   But I can
hear the deadly accusations in their tone.

I'm a native American on my mother's side, and my father's mother
had diabetes, and my thin sister had diabetes, and so I tend to
think that I have a genetic predisposition for the disease.

But they can't accept that, and just harp on me about what a
fat pig I've been and now I'm getting the consequences.

I wish there were some way to get them to stop.
I feel bad enough already.