When a "Joke" Crosses The Line

Today I saw something that was the inspiration for this post. On Facebook I am a member of the "I Hate Diabetes (Type 1)" group. It is nice to read posts from people that experience the same things I do. It reminds me that although sometimes I feel like the only person dealing with things related to T1D, there are so many others that can relate. Here is the post that caught my eye...

How true is this? There have been SO MANY times that I have experienced people say the stupidest things and make a joke out of "diabetes." For example, people "hash tagging" a sugary drink, candy, ice cream, etc. as #diabetes. Or a joking math problem along the lines of "Johnny has 3 cupcakes, 1 cookie and a hershey bar.. what does Johnny have? DIABETES, Johnny has Diabetes." Ok lets get one thing straight... DRINKING/EATING SOMETHING WITH SUGAR IS NOT, I REPEAT NOT GOING TO GIVE YOU DIABETES. First of all, Type 1 is an auto-immune disease. There is nothing people with T1D can do or could have done to avoid getting it. Although I lived 11 years without it, eventually it was going to happen since it was in my gene makeup. As for type 2, yes lifestyle can be a factor... and yes there are cases of people who are "pre-diabetes" and can avoid being fully diagnosed by changing their lifestyle. However I still do not know everything about type 2 and therefore not going to go any further as I wouldn't want someone making uneducated statements about T1D.

Really though, when you think about it, do you hear people making jokes about other diseases? Cancer jokes? MS? Cystic Fibrosis? I don't think so. And if someone did, it would be safe to say that that person is just plain old mean. So why is it ok for people to so easily pass out diabetes related "jokes?" 

 

Really? Since when does having diabetes mean I cannot have chocolate? All I have to do is take insulin whereas the ignorant person who made this' pancreas does it for them. They clearly know what they are talking about.

 

Those of us that live with T1D have our "meme's" and laughs to get us through. There are some diabetic made memes that actually make sense because it covers the emotions we feel with humor. Diabetes is really hard sometimes, but there is nothing wrong with a little humor to look on the bright side.

 

Here are a few...

 

 

As I said earlier, you would never make a joke about other diseases, so don't make diabetes related jokes. It is not your place and you just look stupid and ignorant at the same time. 

Feel free to share. It won't hurt passing this along and having people think twice before they speak.