We, The Undersigned. D-Blog Week Day #2

Today's D-Blog Week topic is "We, The Undersigned"
"Recently various petitions have been circulating the Diabetes Online Community, so today let’s pretend to write our own. Tell us who you would write the petition to – a person, an organization, even an object (animate or inanimate) - get creative!! What are you trying to change and what have you experienced that makes you want this change?" (Thanks to Briley of inDpendence for this topic suggestion.)

So, what I would propose is a petition to educate the general public on what life with Diabetes is really like. To end the stigma, the ignorance, and the idiotic questions we're asked on a daily basis. What that would include is telling people some of the following:
1)Yes, I can eat that. I can eat a lot of that. That is what my handy dandy NovoLog pen is for.
2) No, there is nothing that I ate or was fed that "caused" me to get diabetes; In fact, before I was diagnosed I ate healthier than most of my classmates and I had the most balanced diet of any 8 year old around. Hell, I didn't even know what white bread was.
3) "You have diabetes? But you're so skinny and healthy looking!" Yeah, that's because there is more than one type of diabetes.
I have nothing against anyone with any type of diabetes. We can all understand one another's experiences. I may come across as pretty blunt here(it is my blog), but the main point I think I am trying to make is that there is more than one type of diabetes, but "diabetes" has become a generalized term with more than one definition and as a direct result of that there are stereotypes that a particular group of us have to deal with that does not apply to us at all. Type 1 and Type 2 are very different things, but are grouped together because of a common name. I think that causes ignorance and idiocracy from our non-diabetic peers... But it's not their fault. The two different things sharing the same name causes confusion, so really, as annoying as it may be it isn't their fault. The general public is confused, and uneducated about the difference. I want people to know that there is a difference. It is caused by different things, it effects us in different ways, it effects different kinds of people. We can all relate to one another's experiences, both type 1 and type 2. But at the end of the day these are two different things.

 I strongly believe that people should be educated on these differences, and that all diabetics(myself especially) should try to be patient with our non-diabetic peers while explaining things to them. Trust me, I know it gets tiring and irritating. But we can educate people so that they better understand, and so they are no longer confused. Nothing can change until we put forth an effort to help administer that change we wish to see.

Never Surrender,
Sam