head stuff

When talking about 'coping with diabetes' the first stop is what we think of as the "bad" emotions; denial, obsession, anger, depression, and so on. But nothing is all bad.

These feelings may be painful to experience, but like physical pain, they serve a useful purpose. Without physical pain you would hold onto a hot pan until your flesh charred. You would walk around with a rock in your shoe until you ground a hole into your foot.

Without the symptomatic pain of a headache, or stomach ache, you would let a serious but correctable problem go on until it was too late. It has been said that pain is our friend because it alerts us that something is wrong and we can fix it.

The same can be said of emotional pain. The negative emotions are what many psychologists call smoke alarms. They wake you up so you can get yourself out of danger.

Everyone is susceptible to negative emotions. They are part of the condition. But when you have diabetes and it comes to negative emotions, it seems that you're more human than anybody. Whether you're newly diagnosed or have had diabetes for a number of years, you find panic, fear, anger, guilt, shame, depression, and grief raising their ugly head more often than you remember them doing in your pre-diabetic days and certainly, it seems, more often than with your non-diabetic friends.

You are probably right. After all, you have a built-in reason for feeling bad. You have a chronic disease, one that imposes restrictions and routines on you life, one that, if you don't toe the line of care and control, may lead to complications, and one that in itself can upset your hormonal balance and give you regular rides on the emotional roller coaster.

You're are also probably wrong. Many of the negative emotions you might be experiencing have nothing to do with your diabetes, but since your diabetes makes such a handy scapegoat, it's only natural to load all your emotional problems on its head.

You think that if it weren't for this rotten disease, your life would be a barrel of monkeys. Even many of the negative emotions you experience that actually do have something to do with your diabetes are often a result not of the disease itself but of your lack of knowledge of the skills that will keep it from changing your mood and messing up your emotions.

Emotions are something like blood sugar. As a diabetic your blood sugar levels may be crazy for no reason that you can think of.

You've eaten the right foods, done your normal amount of exercise, haven't been under any unusual stress, and yet you are with a blood sugar of 15 or 2. What do you do? Well, what you shouldn't do is anguish, fret, rant and mutter that diabetes is impossible. You should fix it. If your blood sugar is low, take your glucose tablets or Lifesavers or Coke or whatever and raise it. If it is high, take a little corrective insulin (as directed by your doctor) or a little less food and a little more exercise (or both) and bring it down.

When you plunge into an emotional Grand Canyon, don't just figure that the Demon Diabetes pushed you and that no matter what you do you're not going to get out, that you are stuck down there until the buzzards come to pick your bones. Don't just label diabetes hopeless and yourself hopeless. Get rid of the negative emotions!

Now, admittedly, it's harder and takes longer to get rid of powerful negative emotions than to correct a low or high blood sugar, but it can still be done.

There are techniques you can learn and destructive emotional habits you can unlearn. It will take some time and effort on your part, but you'll find it's well worth it. Then not only will you have more realistic and optimistic attitude towards your diabetes, but toward your life as well. You won't just climb out of the emotional Grand Canyon onto the flatland; you'll have earned a chance - at least occasionally - to experience the beautiful emotions, to scale an emotional Everest where you will breathe the rarefied atmosphere of exultant joy. So strap on your boots, pick up your climbing rope and ice axe, and let us begin.

Excerpt from Richard Rubin, Psyching Out Diabetes - A Positive Approach to your Negative Emotions, John Hopkins Medical School, Baltimore, USA.

Talk to your endocrinologist or diabetes educator about finding a counsellor or psychologist to talk to if you feel it would help you at this time.

Other Useful Resources

> Jerry Edelwich & Archie Brodsky, Caring for your emotions as well as your Health, Perseus Books, Massachusetts
> Dr William Polonsky, Diabetes Burnout, American Diabetes Association, USA
> Diabetes Counselling website < www.diabetescounselling.com.au >