Being Mean and Judgmental on the Internet

I just finished reading DW's blog and would like to offer a few thoughts:

1) DW - you have many supporters who agree with you. they know what it is like to live with someone who literally can't live without them. they see that the emails you received (and didn't publish) were just mean!

2) Personally, I find it sad that other people chose to use their time being so judgmental (of you -- and therefore me and all of your other readers) when clearly they just don't know what the specific circumstances are. For instance, Tom is type 1 and tries to be compliant. He is on a pump and monitor. But can that explain how it is that yesterday, as we went shopping in the morning his glucose dropped to 37; and his solution was to eat M&M's? When I tried to encourage him to eat a real meal, to get his glucose stablized, he started arguing with me that a carb is a carb and I should leave him alone. He wanted to drive the car. He was terribly angry and his bad mood persisted all day even after he did finally get a consistent reading around 97. I wonder if the people who were angry at you have lived through the terror of being in that car going 80 miles an hour on the expressway by a person who doesn't know what he is doing and is crazed with anger brought on by the disease. Do these people have any sympathy for what this does to you/us -- not because you feel that you, yourself, are in danger. But that this man you have loved for so many years is no longer that man and that he is putting so many other people in danger. Can such hurtful people even understand that for a single minute?

3) these people are entitled to their own opinions -- but I don't have to like their opinions. Before I found DW's blog, I scoured the internet looking for information and resources to help me. I thought I was the only wife on the face of the earth experiencing the issues I faced with my diabetic husband. It has been a true miracle to me to know that there are others like me. Others who panic and cry and worry and get scared and just don't know what to do at 2 am when there just is no one else out there. And yes, we worry all the time that we are "bad" people. But you know what? we are NOT "bad" we are human -- we are not sinking into any great depression -- although if we were, who could blame us?? Our husbands are sick! they need us to save their lives! And pompous self righteous people in the world -- and on the internet -- read our blogs and judge us and think we are wrong! But guess what? we aren't wrong, we just are!

4) I no longer read nor look for other sources of information to support me. I think about trying to find ways to help other spouses -- by the way they are in no way only wives -- but frankly I get defeated by these nasty attacks. then I get angry -- who are these people that they should stop us from helping each other?

NOW I'M ON A ROLL!

Frankly, I think the major diabetic support organizations should be out there supporting families of diabetics in a real way -- not just providing instructions on how to read glucose meters and inject insulin -- but dealing with the realities of long term diabetes and what it does to the person with the disease and their families. Because I really could be wrong, but I truly wonder what its like to live with someone who is "perfectly" in control of the disease. I mean, really, as bad as it is to live with someone out of control, do I really want to live with a smug, self-aggrandizing perfectionist who controls the disease and brags about it to everyone who will listen?

OK, that may have been a bit over the top, but too bad!

DW, keep up the good work, and know that a bunch of us are right behind you.

Tom's Wife