Tips on Supporting Family Members

Family members are the only people in this world we should expect to have our back and support us through anything. This becomes even more important once diagnosed with a chronic condition like type 2 diabetes (T2D). However, there is no promise that your family will know how to support you the right way.

Navigating support for a loved one with T2D

As a family member of someone with type 2 diabetes, you do not want to become an enabler. Support is often met with lots of tough love and difficult decisions or conversations. It’s okay if these feel awkward or give you a little anxiety. You are doing the right thing. Just don’t let these decisions or conversations become a source of negativity that puts a damper on your relationship. Ultimately, the person with diabetes has to choose for themselves if they want to lead the same lifestyle or work on improvement.

Break the cycle of enabling

An enabler is a person who allows a loved one to continue with bad behavior without resistance or provides the means to continue living an unhealthy lifestyle. If this sounds like you, it’s okay. I don’t think many people realize they are enabling or how to stop it. The first thing you need to do is educate yourself on diabetes. Learn about treatments, medication schedules, dietary guidelines and suggestions, and anything else you can find on the topic. This will be the first step in changing your behavior and helping your loved one.

Model a healthy lifestyle

Making sure you support your loved one with a healthy diet and lifestyle is one of the best ways you can support them. This can be difficult for many people to change, but as their support person, you must encourage and help them through this transition. One way to help is to live the lifestyle with them. Not only will they see you are serious, but you will also be working on improving yourself too. Diet and exercise are very important ways to control diabetes and help keep complications away.

Reduce temptations at home

As I said, sometimes people don’t want to or aren’t ready for all the changes they need to make. If they are not, you may want to make it more difficult for them to continue their lifestyle. For example, some people snack on bad foods. If you are the primary grocery shopper, don’t buy those snack foods anymore. Make it so that if they want them, they have to go get them. If you are going to do this, make sure you have healthier snack options available so that hopefully convenience will win over the need for junk food.

This one has the potential to cause conflict, and depending on personalities, could not end well. You know your loved one best, and know what battles to pick and which ones to leave alone. If you choose to try this, do it in a supportive way and try to ease the transition. Junk food can be very addictive to someone, and it’s not always easy to quit cold turkey.

Final thoughts

Hopefully, these ideas on how to support a loved one with diabetes have helped. Of course, there are a lot more, but these are a few of the ones you can start now that will have a big impact. The biggest thing to remember is that you are trying to support them with diabetes management and transition them to a healthier lifestyle. Do so in a manner and speed that complements the person you are trying to help.