July 14, 2000
Behavior
Question from Seattle, Washington, USA:
My ex-girlfriend has Type 1 diabetes. She has been diagnosed since she was in 4th grade. Last year, she went into a diabetic coma because she wanted to lose weight. Fortunately, she was able to come out of this one alive and well. Several months after we started to date, her attitude once again changed. She maintains a good diet, however, at the tender age of 20, she is wanting to go out to party quite often. As an airlines employee, she has flight benefits. She makes frequent trips down to Mexico to party for 6 days straight. During my acquaintance with her, she made two trips in 4 months. On her last trip, she drank so heavily she was sick in the morning. After trying to convince her to seek counseling, she got upset and now refuses to talk to me even under friendly terms. I still care for her very much and would like to help her out. Is there any thing or anyone I could talk to about helping this person out? Apparently, she did not learn anything from her first brush with death.
Answer:
Your ex-girlfriend is lucky to have someone like you to worry about her. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything you can do to make her get the help she so desperately needs. You may wish to find the names of mental health professional from your local ADA that work with adults with diabetes and then give her those names. You may also wish to discuss your worries with her parents to see if you can get her the help she needs together. Finally, you can try and gather many of her friends together to all meet with her at the same time to try to get her to seek the help she needs.
JWB
