Community

It's dangerous to go alone. Luckily, you don't have to.

Finding a community

Almost my first instinct on being diagnosed (after I'd done being irrationally angry), was to find a community. Communities can provide emotional support, solidarity, and information. I went straight to online communities, and have listed a few options in resources. There are also be offline local communities available. In the UK, Diabetes.org.uk local support groups may be a good place to start.

A word of caution

As with any other aspect of your diabetes, you have to take ownership and manage your community interactions. Two examples:

One: diet enthusiasms

At the moment, the keto diet is very popular. It's getting rave reviews for type 2 diabetics, and it may well be something you want to try. However, this has led to large numbers of people on some forums advocating for keto, regardless of individual circumstances, and as the solution to every problem, forgetting that each individual is different, and what works for one may not work for another. It can also lead to unrealistic or overly harsh targets for newly-diagnosed diabetics, such as people pushing hugely restrictive, 20g of carb a day diets - this is probably an unrealistic first step for most of us!

Two: the outright weird

I love Reddit, and r/diabetes is a decent resource. But it does contain some oddities, including the person who lives almost exclusively on a diet of beef, water, and salt. I'm all for the try-it-and-test approach to diets (try them out, test your blood glucose, see what works for you), but this is one to avoid.