My Journey Through Type One Diabetes

8. How I Handle Questions and Jokes

Questions

I have had a lot of questions asked to me about my diabetes, "Is that a tattoo on your arm?" "This is probably the wrong question to ask but did you get diabetes by eating too much sugar?" "Is that birth control on your arm?" "Ca.. can... you... have this?" *Holding ice cream* "Is that beep bad?" "Do you need to go somewhere to treat yourself?" Too many questions. I do not mind answering questions because if someone is miss informed, I like to let them know, like hey, that is not how that works, I fight for my life every day and it is a struggle. That "tattoo" is helping me stay alive right now and I can eat whatever I want as long as that "tattoo" is there to give me insulin or keep track of my blood sugar.

Sometimes it is hard to not be mad at the person especially when they say something like, "Oh yeah my grandma has that, I get what you are going through" or "Did you get diabetes from eating too many sweets?" or my absolute favorite "Have you tried XYZ (usually spices like cinnamon) to cure it?" Then I ask them oh does your grandma have types one or types two? They usually have no idea, ha ha ha you idiot you have no idea what I am going through! I literally never had candy or other sweets before I was diabetic like no, just no you silly little person, look up what diabetes is, and you will see. This is my most hated question and not many ask it but still, you are just wrong. It is like April fools! This disease is not curable dumb dumb, my pancreas is literally just chilling in my body doing nothing.

After the whole field trip incident, a girl in my class asked me at lunch why I was crying outside the bus, this is when I was waiting for the cookies to arrive, and I felt awful as one does when they are low. This ended up being an horrible question because how do you explain to a person without diabetes what it feels like to have low blood sugar. I was also panicking because I never expected anyone to ask a question like that. I tried explaining as best I could, and I could not tell you what I said because I do not remember anything I said. I probably said something along the lines of I was dizzy, and once I get so low for so long, I just cry because I feel terrible and there is not a whole lot else that I can do. Apparently, my explanation was too long because she eventually stopped listening and engaged in some other conversion.

For a long time, this conversation made me never want to talk about diabetes again. It still hurts to think about this event, but I can now look at it from the point of view that we were all stupid kids back then.

Jokes

Jokes are so much harder to response to and correct because if you do correct someone, they just say it was a joke. It is very annoying because you are hurting people's feelings but whatever it was "just a joke." Actually, it is not just a joke you are generalizing and incorrectly making fun of a group of people that go through a lot every day.

I have heard people make jokes within friend groups, but my main story happened in the classroom and the teacher told it to the whole class. I had a male world history teacher, he was one of those teachers that needed to be friends with all the popular kids, and so he made jokes. One day he made a joke, and it was something about the people were starving and the queen from that time period said "Let them eat cake!" The teacher said, "And let them get diabetes along in the process." He actually apologized the next day to me in private and said it was wrong of him to say that. I accepted his apology then but realized later on that he still tells that joke to classes, it made me sad. I have never really had anyone apologize to me before so I appreciated what he said, I liked that he made the effort, but I was still upset that he tells that joke to everyone.

Author's Note

Chapter started: 5/30/2022 @1:53am

Chapter ended: 5/31/2022 @11:25pm

I hope you liked my stories from this section, and yes, those are all real questions people have asked me over the years of me having diabetes. Hope you guys are liking what I am writing, let me know what you think.

If you would like, go to the comments and share about a question and/or joke you have heard of from someone.

I know everyone goes through their own challenges with T1D so please no hating on me or anyone else, thanks!