Explaining type 1

[Hooked]

I have little to no understanding of conditions that haven't affected my life. I have some understanding of conditions that those close to me have, if they have chosen to freely discuss it with me.

Unless a condition has touched your life, or those very close to you, of course you won't understand it properly or know what exactly to do in which circumstances. Why would we expect Joe Public to understand the ins and outs of our particular disease out of the many different ones that are out there?

When people say "my aunt, uncle, milkman's cousin" has it too and stumble over their misguided understanding of it, that's them trying to empathise with you, engage in conversation over something they know affects your everyday life - AND an opportunity to educate them a little better if they are willing to listen.

Yes, it can be frustrating at times, but if someone said to me they suffered from X. Y or Z, I'd probably be in the same boat as the rest of Joe Public too.

 

[coralkay12]

I think people should make more awareness out there for us type 1's it's all about type 2's it really frustrates me they haven't got a clue!!!

 

[CathytheChef]

Yip I'm always happy to explain or answer questions when people ask ... What gets me down is when they judge without asking ... "but you don't look like a diabetic" ... "you must be really bad to need insulin at your age" (that was a nurse)... "my uncle has that but he manages to control his by watching what he eats" ... "well I don't think you should be in the gym with something like that" (I get that a lot - I've competed in bodybuilding and power lifting, but have been thrown out of a gym before because they didn't want to take the risk of me being there with diabetes).

The people who ask don't bother me, the people who don't ask do.

 

[CollieBoy]

I think people should make more awareness out there for us type 1's it's all about type 2's it really frustrates me they haven't got a clue!!!

<RANT MODE ON>
It is unfair to expect the general populace to have specialist knowledge of each and every condition.
What would be nice would be for everyone to have enough awareness to ask the questions to treat everyone appropriately, and with respect.
And yes, I get P*ssed off being flung into the grab-bag category of Type 2 a.k.a. "we think you're not T1 so we are too d@mned lazy to classify you further"
<RANT MODE OFF>
All you can do is try to gently try to educate people about you, and teach them the right questions to ask

 

[Emmotha]

I tend to try to choose my battles. The taxi driver picked me up from the diabetic clinic and said “oh you’re too young for diabetes, you need to go running more”, I just agreed as I didn’t feel the need to educate him as he won’t be part of my daily life. However, friends / family / colleagues I would spend more time letting them know the daily things that I have to consider and go through. Ie at work the other day they asked me why I rarely go to lunch with them. I explained about timing my food and having to count carbs and that the canteen had poor choices for this, so I prefer to walk down to M&S where I can buy healthy food with carbs labelled. They hadn’t realised, and the next day started asking if they could walk to M&S with me, or if I wanted them to wait until I got back from M&S : )