Get Jacob involved with other teens with T1!!! There are camps and other programs out there by various organizations which will give him the acceptance and socialization he needs to feel normal with T1. I have volunteered at these camps and am a mentor for several teens and young adults with T1 (I am 28 and have had diabetes for 5 years).
Message me if you want help finding the right group or mentor in your area!
Emily
This answer might already be written but he needs a support group. I am 38 and had diabetes since I was 11. One of my best friends is a T1 and this has been a great support to each other (she is in the picture with me). We have supported each other through college, after college, getting our pumps, through pregnancy. It make s a big difference. Also I really enjoy this website... especially when I realized that are people doing it longer and successfully. That was really hard for me to imagine before this.
Yes apparently depression is a "side effect" of diabetes. Every time I went to the clinic for a Diabetes check-up, they'd ask "Are you sad" like I was supposed to be or something. Um, no. And for a time they handed me a survey with an assortment of 'depressing questions' which I soon discovered a)don't think anyone reads them,since I stopped turning them in b)surveys stopped Im guessing because their funding stopped
I know for some: activities like biking & sports or whatever are supposed to a help with our moods.
Get 'em involved in some fun activities, hobbys or sports?
This isn't quite advice, but a remark on my limited experience with young people (early twenties) with type I. I met the first two long before I was diagnosed, and the third before I was on insulin.
1. A pretty, cheerful young lady who gave the impression of being in perfect health, and who somehow got involved of telling me the story of how, as a child, she learned to inject herself.
2. A young man who was studying in the same place I was. (He was by far the best student there, but that is totally irrelevant.) Once, in the kitchen where we drank coffee, I found a strange-looking object. Two of our fellow students were chatting there, and I asked them what and whose it was, and they said that it was something of So-and-so's. I went to return it to him, and he thanked me, but he said it doesn't matter, that it was an insulin pen and he gets them free when he buys the insulin. He did add, though, that he ought to be more careful about losing them, because they might frighten someone. Note that he was so casual about the whole thing that he used to inject himself in the kitchen, where people were walking in and out all the time.
3. I know slightly a young lady with an insulin pump who occasionally helps her mother out in the shop, so I run into her. She wears the pump outside of her clothes, but I never noticed it until she and her mother made some joke about it in my presence. As far as I understand from her mother, her great (overwhelming) interest in life is her acting career, and her only problem in life is the possibility of conflict between here acting career and the religious opinions which the three of us have in common. She is always so cheerful and optimistic about life and the universe that I'm tempted to strangle her; nobody should be that cheerful and optimistic.
The big point about these three is that they don't care about being normal; they simply are normal (except maybe for the cheerfulness of the third). In other words, it's quite likely that he will learn to adapt, and realize that socially, diabetes doesn't have to be a big deal.
Good luck,
M.
thanks for sharing, nice stories about some amazing people, that is the way it should be leading with your heart and bright spirit not your broken pancreas or all our other combinations of brokenness and bad experiences! on a positive note he had friends up this weekend and he maturely brought up his D, tested and bolused in front of them and carried on with their fun, neither friend judged, they asked some quick questions and continued to like jacob for jacob! his mood has been less heavy since hoping for more good moments on his journey into adulthood!
If you feel that it would benefit your son, please check out my blog at http//www.whoneedsbetacells.blogspot.com
I am an eighteen year old freshman in college and started a blog as part of a scholarship program! I have had T1D since I was 7 and in my blog, focus on everything that Diabetes doesn't stop me from doing!
I hope this can be of help to y'all!
hi ashley, thanks for your concern and support, i checked out your site, so glad diabetes does not define who you are and are following your dreams! best wishes, amy
thanks so much! jacob loves coffee so i think he will like this, i will check out the website this came from as i love this type of thing and like to share with friends, it is through stories like this that we see how simple things should be and how everything really is ok! thanks for the warm sentiments! blessings, amy
I hope this doesn't come off too mean but I can totally understand him not wanting to come to tu. Teenagers don't like their parents talking about them. If he came here he would be defined by all the things you said about him already - he would have no chance to be his own person. This might be different if you hadn't defined yourself through him by using his name and photo.
I wonder if you discuss his diabetes with friends outside the family that he knows. I could see this really bothering him. I think you need to be very sensitive about bringing up his diabetes in public places like when eating out for example. He needs to be the one to expose his diabetes to the public - if you do it for him it could lead to much resentment.
I also think it would help if you changed your name and profile picture to represent yourself and didn't use his name when discussing him - "my son" is all you need to say.
It could take him many many years to come to terms with his diabetes - it did for me. Trying to push it on him could very well make it worse and cause him to rebel even more.
i was not going to respond to this because it rattled me a bit, but since it is still on my mind i will try to clear it out. jacob probably will never come to tu, he is a treat it and forget it live in the moment kind of kid, i am so proud he is sharing about his diabetes with a group of like minded boys at school, i think these boys will be keepers and are honestly not to concerned about his D but ask appropriate questions and like jacob for himself this is the healing he needs. as for me i have never been into social network this was my first endeavor and did it for support for me, sometimes i feel being a parent of a diabetic can be more heart wrenching at times than having the control to deal with it myself in myself. i came to learn, gain support, and along the way i feel like i have supported a lot of other people here. of course i do not talk down to jacob about his D, we will discuss it together if say we are out to dinner or at a family members house, he is getting much more independent and can handle himself in social situations without me. i am very aware of the teenage mind. i am working toward being an available, empowering parent. he does rely on me, we are a team for now and this makes us both comfortable. as far as the idea of me taking his name and picture on here, like i said i have never been a social networker before and saw other parents doing this here, i wanted to come across as a parent of a type 1 this makes it very clear. in anycase, sorry if i took this all a bit personal, it is all close to my heart, i have been wondering if i have been spending to much time on tu and that maybe other activities might serve me better, we will see. amy
I picture the teenage boys sitting around and complaining to each other about their parents' social networking efforts! It sounds like you are doing everything you can to help him figure out how to make the right choices and that's the most important thing!! Hopefully he won't turn out like I did, guessing how much to bolus for more beer at 2:00 AM but, if he hits those spots, making good choices can be very important! Don't apologize at all for taking anything personally, diabetes is a *very* personal disease.
thanks AR a few kind words go a long way! we have talking briefly about the drinking thing i dont think he is there yet, but yes knowledge would be power in that situation, luckily for me he does not seem to have your rock in roll side! he prefers aquascaping for now and dreams of fish tanks and surfs the web looking at fish and plants for his tank, yes i am sure he has other thoughts too! thanks again! amy
I should have been more clear about a couple things. I think it's great that you are on here and taking an active role learning about diabetes and getting support from other parents. I wish my mom was more like you when I was growing up!
When I mentioned going out for dinner I didn't mean you shouldn't discuss it but just be sensitive. Let him bring it up. I remember being out for dinner we would order and 10 minutes later like clockwork my mom would say "Saren maybe you should take your insulin now?". It drove me nuts - I knew I needed to take my insulin soon it wasn't like I was going to forget! In a scenario like this I think it would be much better to just wait. It dinner arrives and I had forgot tell me then.
Don't take it too personal about my commenting on your name and pic - as you said a lot of mothers seem to be doing it these days. I think it's a really bad trend and you just happened to be the one and only mother I mentioned it to (so far). Teenagers are just really concerned about their public image and having one forced on them by their parents is horrendous.
Again I think you are doing great being a part of his diabetes. I should have said that earlier! I think parents just need to be careful about pushing their kids to be more public about it and let them "come out" in their own time.
I was diagnosed T1 when I was 14. I was a sophomore in high school and I missed about 2 months of school because of it. It was really tough, and sometimes it still is. But, it gets better. I don't have any miraculous words that make it all better, and I can't tell him or anyone else that it is always easy, but I can tell him that as time goes on, things do get better. He will find people who accept him for who he is, despite medical concerns and that as he grows up, he will care less about what people think.
Diabetes is a life long thing, unfortunately, we don't outgrow it. What I had to learn is that I have diabetes, diabetes does not have me. I control the disease by refusing to allow the disease to control me. But it's also okay to get frustrated to feel like giving up. I don't know a single diabetic who has not felt that at least once. I hope your son can realize that diabetes doesn't have to define who he is a person, and that he is ultimately the one in control of his life and his disease.
i got you on that, jacob is a sensitive kid so i let him lead the way on this, honestly though one of the most stressful parts of having diabetes for him was not telling people initially and having the anxiety about someone seeing him bolus, bump into his pod, ask him why he goes to the nurse everyday, so he is out now with a bunch of boys at school and as i suspected they are more interested in him than his D, now that they are aware there has been a big burden lifted off his shoulders and i am hoping he will continue to grow into himself accepting all parts and maybe someday supporting others or simply leading by a good example! thanks! jacobs mom aka amy lol i am far to lazy to change or post a pic of myself!!
thanks for the good advise jamie, i think he is on his way up, as you know with D the path is rocky, thank goodness he likes to hike! amy
So I been diabetic for 11 years now. Got it when I was 11. Honestly, pretty much anything you or anybody else says is most likely going to go in through one ear and out the other. I spent about 2 years in denial and being totally p***** off at the world, my doctor, myslef. It was horrible. Being 11 years old and not being able to eat cake and ice cream at a friends bday party, having to try to explain to ignorant and very mean kids (kids are meaner than we think)and still having to count carbs, exercise, check your bg several times a day. Its tough but basically the way I got over it was by seeing other very ill people with diabetes. It may sound harsh but what woke me up was when a nurse gave me a hospital tour after falling into DKA for about the 7th time. You see diabetics with no feet or even their whole legs. I saw people had to go thru dialysis everyday. It was so sad n scary. Thats when I realized things could always be worst. You should never take life for granted. It is a gift. Life will never put you through things you cannot handle. Theyre simply tests. One last thing to make him laugh, I remember a counselor at diabetes camp once told me: Were going to start a petition. The new name for diabetes will be LIVABETES ;) hope this helps some
so glad you found your way niela, you have a great attitude, thanks for sharing! amy
i am not sure if i will be able to catch that live, but thanks for turning my attention to it, i can probably watch it later, i just noticed the speaker is from joslin at boston, we switched jacob over to there about a year ago and couldnt be happier, his doc. and np are so kind and caring and address jacob not just mom and dad and a bunch of numbers, at his other endo we would wait forever i mean it hours sometimes and jacob would practically be crying dont ask any questions lets just get out of here, no big help from his docs there because his aic was acceptable to them... he loves going into boston too so we make it fun, he is heard and understood and so are we win-win.
I can remember my mother trying to be so supportive when I was first diagnosed...all the encouraging words and pep talks...but heres the thing...I was angry and sad and just wanted to be that way...I didnt want to hear "your going to be ok" or "your not different" or any of the other wonderful things that she tried to tell me...There were times that I just wanted to be angry. And I wanted her to be angry with me...it helped me to know that I was not alone in how I was feeling...and your soooo right about it being in part due to his age...trying to process life as a teenager is hard enough, add in D and its a recipe for turmoil...maybe it would help to share your true feelings about it...that your sad that he has to go through this...maybe angry at times as well?? Its hard on the whole family...