Mental Health and Diabetes

I had done some light reading on diabetes a month ago, with the intention of writing about mental health illness and its effect on people with diabetes. I had found out that depression is the main mental illness people suffer from after they have contracted diabetes or have suffered with for a long time even as they may not have known they had the diabetic illness. As I read sporadically during the weeks I finally came across a write-up in the MSN news about diabetics and stigma as well as facing shame. I had to stop and think after reading the editorial, even though it wasn’t intense to the degree of mentioning depression or suicide, it did mention amputation, facing the truth of having diabetes, poor eating habits, and not taking care of yourself. The lack of exercise was another of those foreboding mentioned aspects of the disease and it was at that point, that I began to feel somewhat ashamed of myself. I don’t exercise and I do slip into depression at particular times when thinking of what kind of good times am I missing because of the side effects and symptoms I am living with. When I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes, I remembered how I felt the shame of being fat, uneducated about what was happening to me, and the lacking of exercise which was a part of my life. I looked about the room full of people who were normal, mostly healthy, and felt the stigma of carrying diabetes and my own health. I began to feel I was fat, lazy and a junk food junkie amongst my fellow employees. The depression was real at this point, and the fears grew concerning diabetes; the amputations, the risk of heart attack, being too overweight and the shut in attitude I began living because of the effects I was living with which included my mental health medications. In short I thought eventually nothing good about the illness or my mental illness and I had no one to blame; diabetes is not a “crutch”. “Even diabetics themselves can have a blame-the-victim feeling, says Theresa Garnero, a diabetes nurse educator at the Califormia Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. “Granted, if you’re not eating healthfully, and you’re not exercising like you should – and most people don’t – there should be a modicum of truth to that.
”Hidden shame of diabetes: 'I didn't speak about it' - Health - Diabetes | NBC News  after reading this editorial, I began to have a change of mind about life and death, it’s in my hands. I began to believe that the shame I was feeling was a matter of wanting someone to cry for me, pat me on my back and walk with me. I can’t change the side effects per se of my mental health medications, yet I can be strict about my diet, and even if I don’t exercise for long hours on end, I can walk and restrain myself from some of the other bad habits I have picked up on during the course of my years. Why burden yourself with the blues of something that could harm you, and why wait for someone to hold your hand, denial is our worst enemy, hope is the word we must understand to become healthier, even mentally. Written by Donald S.