Mental Health & Type 1 Diabetes: The Connected in Motion team surveyed the community to find out the topics and themes that were top of mind as we launched into 2021. This is what we’ve learned from you and what we’ll be focusing on addressing in the year to come. Did we miss something? Let us know in the comments!
Giving & Gaining Support from our Community
We heard loud and clear that access to the diabetes community is incredibly important for a lot of people, and beneficial to maintaining mental health. We’re not surprised by this, considering how much support we see people giving one another through CIM’s Facebook Groups on a daily basis. Nor are we surprised when we remind ourselves that less than 0.1% of our time managing our diabetes is spent with access to Health Care Providers. We lean on one another a lot.
We also heard that the community is hungry for tools to better support our loved ones and their mental health. We affectionately call these folk our Support Crew or our 5.5ers and we know that they can be our cornerstones – important pieces to our diabetes puzzle. We heard you asking for ways that we can better communicate with our Support Crew about life with diabetes, ways to reach out when we need help and to lovingly tell someone to back off when we need space (happens, right?)
Interested in this Mental Health & Type 1 Diabetes topic? Check out the following Virtual Slipstream sessions:
Building our Community: The power of peer support
With Anna Norton, Diabetes Sisters
Saturday April 24th, 2021 5:30pm EST
For many people, peer support has become a crucial part of a successful life with diabetes. Join us as we learn and discuss effective tools that we can use to support one another and help make our community stronger.
The Importance of Supporting Your Support Crew
With Dr Mark Heyman, Diabetes Psychologist
Saturday April 24th, 2021 1:30pm EST
We are lucky to have awesome partners, family, friends and others who support us and our T1D, but how are we supporting them? This session highlights the feelings that members of our support crew may experience and covers ways that we can ensure they are also supported.
Confidence and Body Image
For some, living with Type 1 diabetes means being attached to devices. For others, it means injections at the dinner table. Some of us deal with lipohypertrophy. Others battle with weight. We learned from you that diabetes and body image are intertwined, and that confidence is a huge building block to living a (mentally) healthy life with diabetes.
Interested in this Mental Health & Type 1 Diabetes topic? Check out the following Virtual Slipstream sessions:
Feeling Sexy with T1D: Building the confidence to live out loud
With Dr Beth Braun, Wellness Coach
Sunday April 25th, 2021 1:30pm EST
In search of a confidence boost? This workshop is designed for you! Learn how to change your mindset so you feel sexy with (not despite!) diabetes.
Body Image: Tools to create a positive relationship with your body
With Julissa Rolon, Psychologist
Saturday April 24th, 2021 5:30pm EST
Why do we struggle so often with accepting the way our bodies look and function? This session will address some of the negative thoughts we hold about our bodies and why they are harmful. Learn practical ways you can make peace with your body instead of fighting against it.
Self-Compassion
We often hear from the community about the extra stress we carry living with diabetes. Especially in the age of data and technology, we are often bombarded with numbers. It can be hard to not associate value, worth and justement with those numbers.
Over the past years, the idea of the importance of self-case has been blossoming. It’s something that we don’t often learn about from our diabetes care team. It’s not often a part of our diabetes essentials toolkits. Perhaps it’s time for that to change. What health benefits–diabetes or otherwise–would we see from incorporating self-compassion and self-care into our routines?
Interested in this Mental Health & Type 1 Diabetes topic? Check out the following Virtual Slipstream sessions:
The Art of Self-Compassion
With Lauren Moore
Saturday April 24th, 2021 11:30am EST
Showing yourself compassion doesn’t always come naturally. We’ll cover why this approach is important to develop, and uncover the positive difference that being more gentle to ourselves can make.
Men's Mental Health
A few year ago, a gentleman walked into Ontario Slipstream, surrounding himself for the first time with other people with diabetes. Despite the overwhelming feelings of connection, community and support, there was one question that he came back to after the weekend–Where were all the men?
As CIM heads into its 13th year of programming, the lack of male participation in programs is something we’ve noticed and tried to tackle in various ways. Research suggests several reasons why male participation in support-like programs exist including societal attitudes relating ‘seeking help’ to ‘weak’, a lesser interest in health when compared to women, and a lack of research in general, relating to men’s mental health. [1]
Michel began speaking out about men’s mental health in diabetes not long after his first Slipstream and has been the catalyst CIM needed to bring more attention to the topic and create a safe space for male-identifying folk with diabetes to connect and discuss mental health.
Interested in this Mental Health & Type 1 Diabetes topic? Check out the following Virtual Slipstream sessions:
Men’s Mental Health Corner
With Michael Roberson
Thursday April 22nd, 2021 8:30pm EST
Male Identifying folk living with T1D, this breakout is just for you! Connect with other men to talk about the (often) unique mental health challenges that men with T1D deal with and strategies for dealing with them. Get support from other men with T1D and grow your network. Come to this session ready to brainstorm ways that the diabetes community can create more space for discussion about men’s mental health.
Anxiety and Depression
It has been wonderful to see resources surrounding mental health and diabetes becoming more accessible to the community, be those presentations, peer support groups, psychologists and mental health professionals specialized in diabetes, social media accounts dedicated to the topic, the list goes on. As mental health becomes a cornerstone of diabetes health, in general, we’ve seen opportunities to dive deeper into topics that we’d only scraped the surface of as a community in the past.
We have learned the importance of creating space for people who are living with mental illness and diabetes to connect, share and learn. Research suggests that 1 in 5 people with Type 1 diabetes also live with clinic depression, and 1 in 4 experience anxiety. Providing opportunities for people living with both diabetes, depression and anxiety to connect can help build our support networks and create relationships with people who ‘get it.’
We have also learned that there is an extra-special sort of anxiety that many of us experience related to low blood sugars. Often coined ‘fear of hypos’, this anxiety many people live with has tangible impacts on life with diabetes including impeding diabetes management and decreasing quality of life.
Interested in this Mental Health & Type 1 Diabetes topic? Check out the following Virtual Slipstream sessions:
Anxiety & Depression Support Drop-in
With Rebecca Redmond, Blogger, Speaker, Artist
Friday April 23rd, 2021 9:00pm EST
For those living with anxiety and depression, find support and connection at this drop-in session! Come for an informal chat with others who have similar experiences.
Anxiety & Depression Support Drop-in
With Rebecca Redmond, Blogger, Speaker, Artist
Friday April 23rd, 2021 9:00pm EST
For those living with anxiety and depression, find support and connection at this drop-in session! Come for an informal chat with others who have similar experiences.
