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If you’re telling someone you just met about having T1D, which phrase(s) are you most likely to say? Select all apply.
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I would never tell someone I just met that I have T1D. They should judge me on me, not some annoying disease that I live with. Discrimination happens, especially agains diabetics.
The question puts this in a live-conversation context. In a written context or something where I’m trying to be formal about it I’d be careful to say “I live with T1” rather than saying I “am” T1. But in conversation I wouldn’t bother most of the time. T’other thing is that I DO tend to stress the type, because it’s hard to get people to understand that I’m dealing with a more acute situation than just having to restrict carbs to lose weight or whatever. Most commonly it’s someone offering hi-carb food and I want to be clear that I’d love to have some but I’d have to take a lot of insulin for it and it’s mostly simpler if I practice avoidance. Sometimes that leads to a more detailed discussion, which can be interesting, though I try to avoid boring people with the ins and outs of it unless they seem to be actually interested.
I will often add “
Which formally was called Juvenile Diabetes as most people don’t know what type 1 means.
I usually wait until a conversation gets to a point where mentioning a medical condition is a good fit. For example, discussing the issue of access to health care etc. I never use the word “diabetic” as a noun – just like I don’t use schizophrenic as a noun (a person is dealing with schizophrenia, etc.).
I do make the most of an opportunity to educate when I can and I take care to include info regarding T2D as well (such as “no type of D is self-inflicted, describing the auto-immune nature of T1D, and the hereditary of one’s own family tree as being the highest risk for T2D, or the idea that the insulin resistance that is the hallmark of T2D is a root cause of the weight issues).
I “have” this disease, I am not this disease.
I have a condition or disease, it’s nice that (some of) the public is aware of the different types.
This website does not seem to want to accept answers until almost 20hrs after the question has been posted for the past few days.
“If you’re going to get an incurable chronic disease that’s most likely going to kill you, get TYPE 1 DIABETES! **You can manage the hell out of diabetes** – not like similarly acute permanent conditions of liver, lungs, kidneys, heart … (P.S. i don’t get into organ transplants for any of these, for simplicity and IMPACT on their thinking.)
Also, I might say “I have long-term Type 1 diabetes”. Saying “long-term” may change the interaction with the person. A mother with a Type 1 child may be more willing to talk to you about T1D if they know you’ve lived with it since childhood. Many people assume an older person (over 50?) has Type 2 and cannot relate to those with T1D.
I marked “I am…” but have said “I have” as well. I hold a similar