Diabetic labels

Rachel wrote:  I don't think you can blame it on Diabetes. I am a type 1 diabetic, have been through two separate major rounds of chemo, almost have lost my life and hand to infection, and have had countless surgeries. My kidneys are failing and I have heart problems. I NEVER use any of my health problems as an excuse, if anything it's just the opposite, I work until I am ready to fall on my face. I can work circles around any healthy person even on a bad day. I usually work 60 hours a week and have a farm for a hobby. If people play that kind of manipulation game, they will find any excuse. Giving another label to diabetics is cruel. Although some may disgrace us with this behavior, it is not a characteristic of all diabetics. Please use care when placing labels, and good luck.


 You claim you are not manipulative.  However, by saying it is cruel to give another label to diabetics....aren't you being manipulative?  The definition of the word is:  to negotiate, control, or influence (something or someone)cleverly, skilfully, or deviously.


If you tell me it's cruel to use a label - you are trying to influence me to do something else.  That's manipulation.


And that, my dear, is the problem with diabetics.  So fast to make accusations.....so slow to accept responsibility.  The fact that you can work circles around a healthy person has very little to do with it....it's how you treat those healthy people, what you expect/ask/want them to do for you.  


Do you:
ask someone to carry glucose tabs with them in case you go low?
expect someone else to give you orange juice or something when you go low?
ask someone else to eat at a specific time because you need to?
ask someone else to limit carbs, sugar....any foods they might like because you don't eat it?
think someone else should call 911 when you pass out.....because the love you?
think that the person you are in a relationship should want to help you because they love you?
ask someone else to make room in their refrigerator for your insulin, or make room on the shelves for your medical supplies?  
do you give consideration for what other's might feel when they see you injecting yourself?
do you expect someone else to assist you with your injections?




I think you get the gist.


Diabetics as a whole seem to think that the people around them that love them are mandated to assist them with the day-to-day operations of this disease.  Based on "love".  I contend that it's your life, your disease, you deal with it.  I'd feel that way about any disease.  


Finally, remember, this is my place to vent so that in real life, I can support my husband as a loving wife.  I don't say these things to him.  I say them here.  And remember that he has had 35 years of non-compliance so I'm sure the outcomes of his daily life are much, much different from anyone younger, with less years of the disease ravaging their body.


Still....I'm going to stick with my "label".  He is manipulative and I suspect there are a lot just like him.

Manipulation

Does it go hand in hand with diabetes?  I have to wonder.  Is it connected to any type of disease or disability?  Is it just the nature of some people?  Is it magnified in some people because they have a disease?

"I'm sick, so I can't do that"
"My back hurts, I can't do that"
"I have a headache so I'm just going to lay here and watch TV"
(I never fully understood that one - you have a headache yet you can watch the motion and noise from a TV?)
"I think I'm going low, we have to stay home"
"I don't have the energy to walk through the grocery store, you will have to do it"

get the pattern?  And because they have all these "excuses" they don't have to do a thing.

I told hubby 6 years ago that the windows in our house were starting to get bad.  Paint stripping away form the wood.  Leaks.  The house is just 17 years old now, so only 11 years old them.

3 years ago I pointed out to him the water coming in from one of the upper windows during a rain.

A year ago I told him I thought we had mold in one of the windows

This week, I took down the blinds, started stripping paint, sanding, recaulking, painting......

We have a huge house.  Enormous floor to ceiling windows.  5 in the breakfast nook alone - where I started.

It HAS to be done.  We cannot sell this place the way it is.

I asked him if he would help me.  He said, "You know I don't do stuff like this.  I hire it done."  I SCREAMED at him, "you know you can't afford to hire it done!"

He picked up a piece of sanding paper and said, "what do I do?"

I YELLED at him to get out of the kitchen - to just go upstairs and get out of my sight.

So there he's been all week until today - he parks himself in the family room off the kitchen with the TV on blare.  I asked him if he  would go to Lowes and buy me a new sander.  He said "no".

I am livid.  Again.  He has manipulated this situation to the point where I am sanding and repairing all the windows, painting the walls and baseboard as I go, while he sits in his recliner watching TV, eating nuts and petting the dogs.

I just want to scream my head off.

My pain level is excrutiating today.  I am ready to simply walk out of here.  And I may yet.  Just go back to my sister's for another week.  I am so pissed off at him.

But then, we all know he does not want to sell this house.  He does not want to move.  So this is intentional on his part.  To not repair or fix a thing and thus, he can't sell it.

He is such an asshole.  Diabetes is his crutch.  It allows him to manipulate me, plus everyone else he knows, into doing things for him.  I hate this disease.  But today, I hate him even more.

And I now honestly know why he doesn't even try to take care of himself.  If he were healthy - he wouldn't have this crutch and he might actually have to get off his ass and do something.

Horrible human being.

DW - really pissed off today!