No Diabetics Allowed

So … one of my dear friends is planning a trip to Vegas and chose not to invite me because I am diabetic. Basically, her excuse was that she can barely remind herself to eat when she’s in Vegas, and she doesn’t want to worry about me while I am there.

My intent with this post is not to bash my friend, but to inquire how many of you (or how many times) have you not been invited to something because of diabetes.

(Please save bashing my friend. I understand what the definition of a true friend is and what is lacking in this relationship.)

0 times. I am the planner of activities and trips. Since I plan the where and the how I get to figure out who goes and who stays. Since I make the plans I have not gotten left out. I like to be in control at all times.

0 times. I’m with PatientX on this.

Being the party planner also means being the food planner, which makes things much easier.

That has happened to me several times but two stand out in particular. My sister moved to live from the UK to San Francisco and invited me over to visit in January. I made the fatal mistake of posting something about having had to go to the Emergency Rooms in my local hospital because I had a chest infection and therefore soaring blood sugar levels to get checked out.

A day later my sister sent me an e:mail to say that I was uninvited because I had diabetes and she did not want to have to deal with me being ill and going into hospital! That is from my sister!!! She is well known for being unsympathetic to illness - she has dropped many a friend who has been ill and is highly critical. She even dropped me for 5 years because I was still talking to my mother, who is an alcoholic.

I had to send her a 5 page e:mail explaining that it is possible to control blood sugar levels to a degree (I am not very well controlled because of various problems, but I was not going to tell her that) and that all I have to do is to eat regularly and I can deal with that myself, and that hypos are easily dealt with. Just take a sugary snack and then eat. To cut a long story short I did go eventually and had a wonderful time and managed to stay out of hospital! I did have a hypo in her prescence and I could not impress on her the urgency to get something to eat enough. She was trying on clothes and was only bothered that my face was wet and that it did not look nice, and why did I not dry my face? The reason I went low that time was because she insisted on walking to where we were going, though I knew of a tram - and has anyone ever walked up those hills in San Francisco?

The other time was when I was wanting to help out in a restritution course in the local prison. I went once and thoroughly enjoyed it, and then I had an e:mail to say that I was no longer required - because I am diabetic.

I try to look at it that it is their loss - but the rejection does hurt!

Another time - my Mother refused to take me home to Latvia because I am diabetic and she would not want to deal with it!

My ‘friends’ have dropped asking me for meals because I am diabetic and won’t eat just anything ‘just this once’. Just this once causes me to go so high I feel ill so I eat out alone now.

Oh wow. Thank you for sharing that with me. It just sucks (to put it bluntly). We have so many things to contend with that having people add to it is sad. Of course, when they get the flu or sprain an ankle, we are supposed to be super sympathetic and drop everything.

Really? My friends will go overboard trying to find an acceptable place to eat. That actually drives me nuts because it leads to a 5-10 minute debacle about where to go despite me saying that I can probably find something on the menu to eat. Most places do serve salads these days.

Never, but I have been informed that there will probably be nothing served that I can eat. Then it’s my problem to figure out what to do.

Only been diabetic for a year and this has happened too many times to count. A few of them essentially told me that they “didn’t know how to handle me and my disease.” I found out real quick who my real friends are and just walked away from the rest.

SuFu

Are you sure your “Dear Friend” is just not using diabetes as a excuse not to invite you. I cant imagine a friend doing this. I am only saying that you should be asking yourself a few questions.

There are very few times my friends don’t include me in activities because of diabetes. I recall once being excluded in a camping trip, however the person who organized the event didn’t really know me at all. If someone I was close to had excluded me, I’d be upset because my close friends should know better… but when it comes to strangers, I find people are often afraid of what they don’t know and I try to let that go.



I think as long as you present yourself as capable of going anywhere and doing anything to your loved ones, ideally you never have to worry about them freaking out and excluding you. If they are educated, they shouldn’t mind.

There is a saying in the Bible “do to others as you would be done by yourself” and another, “God uses the foolish to confound the wise” (or the weak to beat the strong, depending on which version you read!). When they sprain an ankle or get flu we should drop everything and help them with a smile. It will get them thinking! Most of the time we do not need care with diabetes, just some slack to do what we need to do! Afterall, even a healthy athlete can get run over by a bus tomorrow, but that does not stop him going out shopping or having a party!

Can’t prove it, but I think it’s happened a couple of times. True friends would never do this, though. Especially mature, sane adults. Simply put, this isn’t someone who is your friend. Get new friends.

Diagnosed with T1 as a kid, it was like night and day. Birthday party invites before, no birthday party invites after.

How it is today, is nothing like the stigma that existed 30 years ago. I’m not claiming it’s perfect today by any means (and your example shows it isn’t).

Agreed. Forgot all about those times!! As much as it hurt when I was a kid, I can at least understand it (parents not wanting to be responsible for someone else’s kid, etc). Among adults, there is no excuse in my opinion. People should be mature enough to ask what you can/can’t do and leave the decision up to you. I have some very wonderful friends who, when they invite me over for dinner, always ask if what they are preparing is appropriate. I never ask for people to bend over backwards and am always prepared to bring a dish or two when I go over to someone’s house, but those friends who go out of their way to make sure I feel included are absolutely priceless in my book. Those are the people I keep in my life.

0 times that I’m aware of and recently had a great trip w/ friends last year to new orleans. your friend is a jerk

Tim, I can relate to that. Got it 29 years ago. At one time B-day party invites then after none. It was even to the point some parents of my friends did not want me to go over to their house unless my parents were there. Today I rarely hear anyone not wanting to invite me because of it. If we are headed to place where I may not find anything on the menu they may just let me know, but carb counting comes in handy at those places because I can alway find something to eat there!

Zero and it never will. Why? Because nobody except my wife, my mother and my two kids knows I’m T1. I will never tell anybody. My life is complicated enough but my health is fantastic.

It’s not that it hasn’t happened many times since I was a kid too, but eventually I guess most of us just get thick-skinned and put up with it.

(Of course Mr. Spock was my role model as a kid. I’m sure he didn’t feel left out when he wasn’t invited to any of the hip Starfleet Academy parties 'cuz of his pointed ears.)

I haven’t experienced this before. (But I also think my friends know that if they tried to use diabetes as an excuse not to invite me to something, we wouldn’t be friends much longer.) I think it also helps that within our group there are two other Type 1 diabetics…so if they used that excuse they’d be cutting 3 people total from the group. And of those 3, 2 are in relationships with others who are also a major part of the group…etc.