Diabetes and emotional well-being: your experience

[Stefan Diabetes UK]

You might remember a few months ago many of you told us about what living with diabetes means to you, in a couple of 'Future of Diabetes' online chats.

You're answers were incredibly useful, and we used them and your survey responses to produce our Future of Diabetes report, which is coming out in two weeks.

One of the most common themes we heard about was emotional well-being. As part of the report launch, we're preparing a news story about the issue.

So if you have any experiences you'd be happy to share, we'd love to hear from you. You can contact Becky in our media team by emailing Rebecca.Popperwell@diabetes.org.uk, or let me know on here.

What does emotional well-being mean?

A lot of people told us that they have felt down because of their diabetes and that there needs to be better emotional and psychological support for people with the condition. This could be anything from support from healthcare professionals to support from others living with the condition.

Please let us know if you have any questions or would like to chat about this in a bit more detail. Contributions from the forum were really useful in putting the report together, so would be great to have someone speaking about the issues as it's launched.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Thanks @Stefan Diabetes UK . This looks really interesting. Psych support is so often overlooked, but is SO important.

 

[Cookiemonster2017]

Hello,
I definitely remember the survey, thank you very much for the update.

Under the cover of relative anonymity I feel comfortable saying that I became a very different person. Long story short, it took me almost a year to approach anyone for help over emotional well being. I wasn't able to talk to my new diabetic team very much who (I am making sure to emphasise this was through no fault of their own) were more often on the end of an answering machine than a phone line. My parents become very concerned when they realised that brief episodes of being "not okay" were leaking through from something much bigger I had been hiding for so long. Once I opened up, I was urgently referenced to the clinical psychiatrist for depression and advised to call iTalk in the meantime.

I never received a reply from iTalk, even after leaving a name and number with the lovely answering machine lady I was unfortunately becoming familiar with and I have yet to hear from the clinical psychiatrist. However my GP has been very supportive and is making sure that I have a network of people I can speak to closer to home. I was initially unaware that there was someone I could talk to, and although I was offered counselling at my first HbA1c appointment I declined hoping that everything would just "go away". I lost my English champion title, my independence, my confidence, and was forced to restart a year of college because I had been sick for so long.

I think it is very important that new diabetics are taught not just about how to look after their diabetes, but also themselves because they are always a person before they are a patient. The couple of minutes I managed to spend with a few other diabetics were really insightful and made me feel much less alone, therefore support groups also seem like an nice help source for me. If someone had been able to pick up on what was going on when I was not able to myself, kept in steady contact, or even told me what to look out for I think I would have felt much more open earlier on about what I was going through and maybe things would have been different.

Thank you for bringing this to attention, I am still waiting for help but I'm starting to have a more positive outlook on life with Diabetes 🙂
CookieMonster

 

[Stefan Diabetes UK]

Hello,
I definitely remember the survey, thank you very much for the update.

Under the cover of relative anonymity I feel comfortable saying that I became a very different person. Long story short, it took me almost a year to approach anyone for help over emotional well being. I wasn't able to talk to my new diabetic team very much who (I am making sure to emphasise this was through no fault of their own) were more often on the end of an answering machine than a phone line. My parents become very concerned when they realised that brief episodes of being "not okay" were leaking through from something much bigger I had been hiding for so long. Once I opened up, I was urgently referenced to the clinical psychiatrist for depression and advised to call iTalk in the meantime.

I never received a reply from iTalk, even after leaving a name and number with the lovely answering machine lady I was unfortunately becoming familiar with and I have yet to hear from the clinical psychiatrist. However my GP has been very supportive and is making sure that I have a network of people I can speak to closer to home. I was initially unaware that there was someone I could talk to, and although I was offered counselling at my first HbA1c appointment I declined hoping that everything would just "go away". I lost my English champion title, my independence, my confidence, and was forced to restart a year of college because I had been sick for so long.

I think it is very important that new diabetics are taught not just about how to look after their diabetes, but also themselves because they are always a person before they are a patient. The couple of minutes I managed to spend with a few other diabetics were really insightful and made me feel much less alone, therefore support groups also seem like an nice help source for me. If someone had been able to pick up on what was going on when I was not able to myself, kept in steady contact, or even told me what to look out for I think I would have felt much more open earlier on about what I was going through and maybe things would have been different.

Thank you for bringing this to attention, I am still waiting for help but I'm starting to have a more positive outlook on life with Diabetes 🙂
CookieMonster

Thanks for sharing your experience, even though it's clearly been a very difficult time, I'm sure it'll be a relief to others reading this who are going through something similar that there are things that can help. Great that support groups worked for you and I hope you get the other support you need. In the meantime if you do want to chat about living with diabetes, the Diabetes UK helpline team are there on 0345 123 2399 or helpline@diabetes.org.uk

Anyone interested in sharing their own experience with the media is still more than welcome to get in touch by the way - just email Rebecca.Popperwell@diabetes.org.uk 🙂