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Please Stop Making Me Diabetes
And other assumptions I’m tired of hearing about type 1 diabetes.
I’ve had type 1 diabetes for 19 years and in that time I’ve heard countless people tell me things that are flat out false. From people telling me that I’m immunocompromised to others proclaiming that I’m “sick”, I’ve been educating and having to correct people since the day I was diagnosed. Not only it is frustrating, but it ends up exhausting me as people continue to believe they are the experts over something they know nothing about. Here are the things I wish people would stop saying about type 1 diabetes.
“You’re Diabetic?”
The issue with calling someone diabetic is that you label them as the disease. It is important to recognize that people are far more than their diseases. They have lives that are more than just diabetes. The same goes for other diseases too. Calling someone autistic does nothing more than reduce their life to that disease. Why should people with diabetes or ASD be reduced to just something that they have? Do our lives hold no other meaning? Instead of asking someone if they are diabetic, rephrase the question by asking do they have diabetes. Simple acts like this make the person become far more than just their condition.
