TL;DR: We’re allowed to be mad at the inappropriate jokes. We can advocate for ourselves and push back or just save the energy for management, but “suck it up” isn’t a solution at least in my experience.
Jean Paul Sartre wrote in his play No Exit that “Hell is other people.” and despite a widely held interpretation being that people just suck, what he really meant was that “we become trapped by the judgments and gazes of others”.
This has been my problem recently. Tomorrow is my first ‘Diaversary’. Things are going well, if only because I’ve been very lucky with the opportunities I’ve had to improve in lots of areas at a measured pace so that the changes have been sticking. But I’ve started to notice that even as I have my BG under control and I’m nearing my goal weight I’ve got one problem that I just won’t be able to shake with any amount of intervention: other people’s ignorance.
Yeah, it’s a “lifestyle disease”, I guess. I really am growing to hate that terminology though, because I didn’t really choose to be sedentary, software engineering practically chose me. I didn’t choose to be born Autistic, the comfort foods chose me by genetic chance. I didn’t choose to lose my parents at a young age and I didn’t choose replacement guardians who didn’t want to intervene when I used food to try to find happiness. But sure, it’s a lifestyle disease, let’s keep calling it that. But I won’t take the blame. You can’t make me.
I will however take the responsibility. But I do not view this as obvious or completely rational in the short-term. It requires a real long-term view, you have to get a sense of the horizon. You see, without an enforcement mechanism, blame is worthless. It’s handed out without cost to the provider and whether or not the person it’s issued blame responds at all is up to them and when you frame it in the negative you’re practically asking them to reflexively fight you on the matter. Responsibility is taken, with often some (maybe great) cost. Adjudication or enforcement/consequences in the case of type 2 is deferred to the latest stages of hyperglycemia where perhaps loved ones pay the cost by having to take care of you, or perhaps you pay when they abandon you. Either way there’s no immediate cost to rejecting blame and living in denial, there is only immediate cost to taking responsibility. Having come to this realization I’m much more sympathetic to the bad decisions so many uneducated people take when ignoring their uncontrolled T2.
So what am I on about? Why am I so upset? What’s this hand-waving about understanding the math people are doing when they choose not to fight?
Well, for knowing my enemy, for fighting him diligently and persistently, what’s my reward?
Food Police. Other people asking me “Aren’t energy drinks bad for diabetics?” because they’re literally so checked out of nutrition they don’t know there are zero or low-calorie caffeinated drinks (I stay under the FDA guideline of 400mg/day most days, yes I know there are still risks and some T2s spike from caffeine and I’m genuinely sorry for you)
Inability to find “safe” foods. Now that I’ve lost my job, insurance, and don’t qualify for medicaid, I can’t get Mounjaro. So I get to be even more restrictive now. At my community college my safe choices are 1) beef jerky 2) other beef jerky 3) chewing gum 4) diet soda and 5) water. Everything is sugar or carbs. Literally all of it, it’s continuously isolating to realize what other people’s pancreases are capable of doing for them.
But worst of all, my reward is jokes.
I can’t watch my favorite van life youtuber, commentary about capitalistic/consumerist trends, or even health and fitness content without encountering Wilford Brimley memes, jokes about sweet tea that could give you ‘Generational Diabetes’ or something similar. Hell, I left a Discord server for Adults with Autism because most of the crowd was British and when the topic of American Sweet Tea came up, “Diabetes in a cup” got mentioned.
My problem isn’t humor. Some jokes are funny. There’s a comedian I found doing a bit about how a genetic test told him he would likely get the disease and he spins it into a premise of being invincible from any other risks. Sometimes self-deprecating jokes are funny, sometimes they’re just internalization of shame. I remember one person remarking they were named “Most likely to lose a leg” in a class yearbook. Bordering on too dark for me.
I don’t want to hear these jokes for the rest of my life. Hell, I might not want to live a longer life working so hard to maintain control if this is my reward. I really wish there were less food police and more people telling me they’re glad I work to keep myself healthy.
But I told my RDN/CDCES about this concern about the stigma, the jokes, when she asked me what topic I might want to cover in our next T2 support group meeting. That meeting was today, and she delivered.
I still miss my mom and dad. In fact, every few days I get to feeling down or pessimistic or I just just get smacked with a voice in my head that just says “I miss my mom and dad” or “I wish I had my parents to talk to”. At one point I remember going to my brother and telling him this, and his only response being “I don’t really think about it anymore”, which left me feeling broken and devastated.
Fortunately, CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) works on me and I was able to talk to a therapist who was able to convince me to respond to that thought with simple self talk, “Yes, that’s normal. It’s okay to be sad about losing your parents” And it worked
Today, that’s been expanded. I’m allowed to be mad at the ignorant jokes about sugar. I’m allowed to be upset that other people don’t understand the work I’ve put in or that I’ll have to put in today and every day for the rest of my life. I’m allowed to be pissed off when the food police show up in the form of an unwelcome “Uh is that good for diabetics?” from an ignorant peer.
And I couldn’t be happier to have someone mention the possibility. And I was a little awestruck something so obvious hadn’t come to mind.
A few weeks back I came in here complaining about these jokes and how they’ve become impossible to avoid and some less friendly comments came back to me telling me to just suck it up, that I was being stupid for listening. That’s wasn’t helpful to me, so I promptly deleted that post. And if that’s what you’re telling yourself and it works I’m surprised and happy for you,
but if pushing down anger is your approach like it has been mine and it’s not working I hope recognizing that you can be angry and advocate for yourself and even push back or just save your energy for management of this disease is as big a realization for you as it has been for me.
Hell isn’t other people if you don’t allow yourself to be trapped by their gaze or judgement. But avoidance of the jokes just doesn’t seem possible in a meme-driven digital entertainment environment. Denial just isn’t an escape from that trap in my experience.
here’s to 1 year down, maybe 50 something more 🤞