Diabetes Camp: A mold for identity

Today I interviewed a friend of mine, Danielle, for my inquiry paper. Danielle has type I Diabetes and has had it since she was six years old. After our interview the things she told me where playing over and over in my head. I was trying to think of a way to connect her pre and post diagnosis emotions and view of her identity to the research theories I had found, but could not help but to keep coming back to the role Diabetes Camp seems to have played in her view of her identity as a young child. Diabetes camp is a camp set up by different foundations, such as Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, American Diabetic Association, and the National Kidney Foundation. I started to question the influence these programs can have on a child with Diabetes. These programs are set up with the intention of bringing children together who all have the same disease in an attempt to show them that they are not alone, and give them an opportunity to become friends with other children "like" them. While these programs are fantastic at educating children about their disease and showing them that their are many other people in the world that have the same condition that they do, the idea that these children are all "alike," is what makes me skeptical. I would have never even considered this if it weren't for all the research we are doing in class about identity and my individual research looking at the affect chronic illness has on the perception of the person with the illness' identity.

Although, yes these children all are around the same age and all do have type 1 diabetes but this idea that these children are "alike" seems to categorize their identities as being similar. In this case it seems to imply that their disease is who they are and what makes them similar, when it reality it is just a condition that they all must learn to live with, but by no means defines their personality or their identity. This just seems to place children in in a category or group that distinguishes them from other children who can get the wrong idea. As my other friend Jenna noted, her father was taught in the hospital to call her a person with Diabetes, not a Diabetic person. The same idea applies, people who have type 1 diabetes are still people and as such still have an identity separate from their disease. Their disease is not what makes them them. Danielle actually said that going into the camp at age 8 she checked her blood sugar about once or twice a day, but once at camp the counselors made them check their sugar 5 times a day and monitored what they ate and when. She felt uncomfortable and as if these people were forcing her to revolve her whole life around her condition and made her feel sad. She felt that they placed her in a category with other children with diabetes and tried to instill being diabetic as a primary categorization, when she wanted to be her own person.

At the same time though, Jenna, who went to Diabetes camp at a much older age of 16, saw it as a fun opportunity to make friends with people who all had the same condition as her. She did not see this as a defining aspect of their identities but rather just a fun and social way to meet people who had to do the same daily tasks, such as checking blood sugar that she did. In light of this fact, I wonder if the age of diagnosis may play a role in whether or not one percepts the disease to change one's identity. For Jenna who was diagnosed at 12 she had already defined most of her identity, and just saw this as a new condition she would have to live with. However, Danielle who was diagnosed at 6, thought that it was more a part of her identity but struggled to realize that it was not before she developed her own identity. In addition, though Danielle felt this way, she also said that she thought that since she developed the disease at such a young age she was able to develop with it and it just became a part of her early on. She said that she felt with a later diagnosis she would have already defined her identity and having to include this additional aspect would have been harder for her to handle. Overall, the role Diabetes camp plays on children with type 1 Diabetes may actually vary depending upon age. Younger children may perceive the camp in an attempt to define them as Diabetics while older more mature children already realize that they are individuals first and Diabetics second, and see the camp as a more fun and social way to meet people who live with a similar condition. The idea is questionable.