Ask D"Mine: Coping Skills for Diabetes Burnout After Retirement

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Happy Saturday, and welcome back to our weekly advice column, Ask D"Mine, hosted by veteran type 1, diabetes author and educator Wil Dubois. This week, Wil takes a look at how tough diabetes can be as we get older, especially in light of big life changes -- like retirement. In those times, we often need to refine our D-coping skills.

Got your own questions? Email us at AskDMine@diabetesmine.com

Cindy, type 1 from New York, writes:I am in my 33rd year of type 1. My A1C’s were always in healthy range (while I raised my three kids). However, I retired two years ago and for these last two years I have not taken care of my disease. I feel burnt out and don’t want to do this anymore. I have been trying to trick myself back into a healthy routine, but nothing sticks. I can’t currently cope. Is there anything that you do to keep on going?

Wil@Ask D’Mine answers: Personally, I drink too damn much. Smoke too damn much. And spend too damn much money on eBay. Oh, and some people say I swear too damn much. But that’s just me. Coping skills are very personal things. Some people might accuse me of coping rather poorly. Or not at all.

But hey, for what it’s worth, not being able to cope with diabetes is such a common thing that it’s been scientifically studied time and time again. One scholarly piece published in Diabetes Spectrum back in 2000 counted more than two hundred “articles in the literature” on the subject of coping and diabetes.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t cope with two hundred articles.

But skimming that one, I found the authors posing solutions that used words like “problem-solving skills training,” “social problem-solving,” “communication skills training,” “cognitive behavior modification,” and “assertiveness training.”

I assert that none of those is going to be much help in your case.

I think this is one of those cases where folks in the Ivory Towers aren’t going to be much help. And even in popular press, I’m finding that most of the published articles assert coping with diabetes is best accomplished by education. Know your numbers, we"re told. Learn to count your carbs better, they say. Exercise is supposed to help, I read.

Seriously? I’m sorry; I just can’t cope with this kind of advice. These things may help control blood sugar levels better, but I can’t see how they will help you cope psychologically. Other authors provide long lists of “coping skills” that include temporary tattoos, doing schoolwork, and rearranging your furniture.

Clearly no one is coping with the how-to-cope question very well!

And that could be because coping skills are just too individualized. What works for one person, won’t work for another. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. So let’s just sit back and think about you, can’t-cope Cindy.

Hmmm… Diabetes for more than three decades. Raised three kids (I’m seeing a trend here, make sure your lotto tickets always have a mess of threes in them). Also had a job. And coped during all of that. Now kids are grown and gone, you’re retired, and it’s just you and the diabetes. Yeah. I think I know what’s happening and why you are feeling burned out.

Some people say that diabetes requires constant attention, constant vigilance. I might even have been one of the idiots who said that in the past. But I now realize that it’s simply not true. If all you do is take care of your diabetes, even if you do it extraordinarily well, then all you are is a professional patient. And there’s no reward in that. In fact, quite the opposite. Being a professional patient sacrifices your basic humanity.

Health—in and of itself—can’t be your goal. Health for health’s sake is nonsense. We need a reason to be healthy, and once we have a reason to be healthy, we can usually cope just fine.

In the past you juggled your myriad responsibilities so that you could be healthy for your children, so that you could be healthy to preform well on the job. Now, retired and essentially childless, you need a new reason to be healthy.

Oh! I know. You should take a lover! No? OK, well, if not that, find something new to love instead.

You don’t need to trick yourself, Cindy, you just need a new lease on life. You need a fresh reason to live. It could be a new passion: Take up sailing, hiking, or skydiving. Or maybe you just need a hobby: Learn to do needlepoint, build ships in bottles, or plant a garden. Wikipedia has a mind-blowingly long list of hobbies. Personally, I didn’t know that baton twirling was a hobby. But, hey, it might be just the thing for you.

But on a serious note, this list provides excellent food for thought. Some highlights: Amateur radio, candle making, cosplay (costume performance art -- it"s a thing!), gaming, lapidary, origami, and web surfing. Wait a second… web surfing is a hobby? Really?

Wow. Who knew I had a hobby?

And that’s just the indoor hobbies. There are also outdoor hobbies (think astronomy, geocaching, rock climbing), collection hobbies, competition hobbies, and observation hobbies (i.e. bird watching). I guess in the past I’ve been guilty of thinking of hobbies as being artsy-crafty, but really a hobby is just something that you are passionate about, that you do for the sheer joy of doing it. And hobbies can run from crazy-expensive to completely free, so there’s one for every budget.

And don’t limit yourself to just one. For instance, not only do I web surf, I also collect diabetes action figures. Oh. Wait. No I don’t. But I’ll be the first in line to buy the Scott Johnson and Cherise Shockley diabetes-hero action figures when they hit the street.

Hobby doesn’t sound right to you? Maybe you need another living thing to share your time and space with: Buy a horse or get a pound pup. As I recall, fish tanks are almost as much work as diabetes, but more relaxing to watch.

In the past, Cindy, the kids and the job gave you purpose, which made you happy and helped you cope with the diabetes, because it wasn"t the focal point. For someone else, three kids, a job, and diabetes would be so overwhelming that they couldn’t cope. You, on the other hand, seem to have thrived on it. And now that life has slowed down, you can’t cope.

You need to pick up the pace. Look deep inside. What is it that you always wanted to do? I think if you can reboot your very life, the diabetes will take care of itself and you’ll cope just fine.

Disclaimer: This is not a medical advice column. We are PWDs freely and openly sharing the wisdom of our collected experiences — our been-there-done-that knowledge from the trenches. But we are not MDs, RNs, NPs, PAs, CDEs, or partridges in pear trees. Bottom line: we are only a small part of your total prescription. You still need the professional advice, treatment, and care of a licensed medical professional.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn"t adhere to Healthline"s editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline"s partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

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