Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Honesty and diabetes

First - thanks for all the comments on my last post.

Good question - why hasn't there been a study done?

Good answer - because diabetics and their families would not be honest.

It's about as simple as that.

I could never answer questions honestly.  Heck, I can't even identify myself in this blog - for fear that if he ever found out he would be pissed beyond belief.  He would deny that anything I write is true.  And he would hate me for speaking my mind here.  So how could I begin to answer a study truthfully???

And he couldn't possibly give an honest report:

When he's in a low....he doesn't remember anything he says or does.

He's in denial (well, he was until this last hospitalization) about what all is wrong.

He gets terribly confused.  Just tonight, he was telling friends that 5 years ago, he did not have diabetes.  I jsut about fell out of my chair.  I've been blogging about his diabetes for at least 6 years (but of course I couldn't blurt that out!!!)   I sat here and calmly siad, "now, sweetie, 5 years ago is when you started taking insulin shots, but you were taking pills when I met you and that was 12 years ago, and you told me that you have had diabetes since you were 22." He said, "oh yeah, that's right."

But imagine if it were a study and I wasn't there and he said he'd only had this disease 5 years instead of 30?  I just think that sometimes he has no clue what he says to other people!!!

Knowing all this, if someone did do a study, I would have to question it's accuracy and validity.  Because I would know that the diabetic couldn't possibly be reporting accurately....and that the spouse probably had a million reasons why she would have to alter the truth in order to stay with her husband.

Interesting quandry, isn't it?

But I really think that's the bottom line.  If our spouses are abusing us, we write it off to a sugar low or high, to some medical issue and thus, we deny that we are being abused.  So we'd never report it as abuse.....verbal or otherwise.  I mean, I can think of times when he has made me feel so little, so humiliated, so put-down.  He has robbed me of every ounce of self-esteem.  But then there are the moments when the old husband shines through and that's what we all live for.  So we deny everything else.

Truly sad.  But really truly how it happens.

And that's why there are no studies involving spouses.  It would take an impossibly great interviewer who saw past the manipulation, who could reach deep down inside and get the spouse to admist the abuse and get the husband to understand that he is the one who is abusing.  And if the person doing the study is that good......they are already making way too much money to do a study!  LOL!!!

*******

Today was a travel day.  Wheelchairs are wonderful!   We breezed through security at the airport.  We will always use a wheelchair for him from now on.  I'm planning on a week of peaceful rest.  We are staying with friends who are going to take over and take care of him and I will get a break!  Starting tomorrow!  I can't wait!

DW

2 comments:

sar said...

I have tried to get some attention to these issues at the world famous diabetes hospital where H receives his care. No luck there. part of it may be HIPAA but there seems to be no interest in what we wives got through and the only interest is in the diabetic.

H's denial is huge and always has been.

Lilly said...

Yup, confusion and denial sound very familiar. I honestly never know what he will say next. I can't even imagine my DH giving truthful answers for a survey if he were interviewed. As for me, I would tell it like it really is, but only if he weren't in the room . . . and then, who would they believe?