Just as hyperglycemia is but the tip of the iceberg when discussing the physical ravages of diabetes, depression is but the most visible diagnosis of how diabetes affects our minds.

I'm not talking about the temporary states of anxiety or paranoia, lassitude or somnolescence, that accompany our glycemic highs and lows, but the long-term, "you should get psychological help for this" effects of living with chronic disease in general, and diabetes in particular.

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Time and distance have also served to blunt not just periods of psychological distress, but also some of the everyday things I used to savor before.

As in, before I was diagnosed with diabetes.

Before I had diabetes, I didn't have to worry about eating a hamburger, pizza, Fettuccini Alfredo, or my favorite restaurant "cajun pasta" dishes. Now, any version I make at home is significantly modified to eliminate refined flours, reduce fats, and raise the vegetable count. You can hardly find the pasta in any of my "pasta" dishes.

Before I had diabetes, breakfast was a pint of orange juice and a bagel with cream cheese. Now, bagels are eaten in parts, and orange juice is a special-occasion item: a quarter bagel is one carbohydrate exchange, and a cup of orange juice is a huge portion of the daily calorie count.

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There's something that haunts every person who remembers Life Before Diagnosis. We describe it as spontaneity, carelessness, social acceptability, freedom.

What it boils down to are food and money.

For starters, diabetes robs from us the ability to "just" eat when we are hungry, not-eat when we're not, and not have to weigh, measure, and log every morsel that passes our lips. Then, it robs from us the (admittedly ill-advised) pleasures of the occasional ice-cream sundae or wolfing down half a pizza pie. And because we can't be certain of the foods that we don't prepare ourselves, it robs us of the ability to eat at friends' and relatives' homes, or even casual-dining restaurants.

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Last week, Kelly at Diabetesaliciousness blogged and tweeted about diabetes misconceptions she'd like the folk at Mythbusters to debunk. This past Tuesday, the theme for the sixth annual D-Blog Day was "Six things you'd like people to know about diabetes". Around the blogosphere we saw everything from "Don't tell me I can/can't eat that" to "don't pity me" and, most of all, "Don't assume that my diabetes is the same as your [cat's, aunt's, grandmother's, BFF's ex-lover's second-cousin's mother-in-law's] diabetes". (READ MORE)

In observance of D-Blog Day, diabetes bloggers all over the world have been asked to identify six things they'd like people to know about diabetes. The following are mine: (READ MORE)

Some years ago, I joined an online "healthy eating forum", expecting support in eating healthy (fresh, whole, medically-appropriate) foods in reasonable amounts -- the same sort of community support one expects from a community in which people are looking to lose or maintain weight. What I found instead was a community of young women in various stages of recovery from eating disorders or disordered eating, or progressing from one type of disordered eating to another.

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