Last week we had a woman in our diabetes class. She was extremely nice and one of the rare people in class who stops by my desk to talk. She was newly diagnosed with diabetes.

She suddenly was telling me that growing up, her mother was very opinionated and not always very nice about it. She said that one thing her mother always used to tell them was that people with diabetes were horrible people. They were people who lacked self-control and purposefully didn't take care of themselves. If she found out if someone had diabetes she would put them down as being fat and disgusting. Then, when she was in her 60s, she was diagnosed with diabetes herself. She dropped into a deep depression and stayed in denial, making it a huge secret that she had diabetes.

So now, her daughter was standing before me. A woman in her 60s, also newly diagnosed with diabetes. And she said, "It's hard to get passed feeling like I'm worthless even all these years later."

I just looked at her and said, "Just remember you're not a diabetic, you have diabetes. You're still the same you."

Her mouth dropped open, and she was stunned. She said, "Wow. Thank you."

And I said, "That's exactly why we don't say 'I'm Diabetic, or You're Diabetic anymore. You're not your disease. You have a disease." And I thought she was going to cry. She thanked me again and said she wished her doctor would have said that to her, because she needed to hear it.

I've learned this truth by having bipolar. I am not my illness, it's part of me but it is not all consuming of me. Thinking this way helps me from victimizing myself. And it works for all illnesses, not just bipolar or diabetes.