Psychology: Psychological support

Your post shows your loving concern for your mom. Have you always had a close relationship with her through life? Is your dad alive?

=====No and no.

Concerning her, why not buy her a good book on the subject and begin reading it to her, page by page every time you see her? I'm thinking of the one called "Diabetes Without Fear" by Dr. Joseph Goodman. He lays out the essential facts in a small, easily digested book.

=She has trouble reading now. She has a large reading glass, but she says it's so cumbersome that she just gives up.

Making her foods doesn't sound like it's working. Is rhere a better managed care facility available that you could afford? One that has, not necessarily an expensive psychologist, but someone she can talk with? Maybe with you? There are serious grad students who do counseling based on the ability to pay at the local universities. Can you go there with her to find a guy or gal you both feel close to, preferably very quickly?

=I'm not making her food, but I do make sure she has a few healthy snacks. My mother is mentally ill and been in and out of professional therapists offices all my life -- they don't help her. She complains and I will make an effort to help her work through those issues, but eventually, she'll either figure it out or she won't. If she doesn't, my efforts will stop. I'm not an enabler (which is why we don't have the happiest of mother/daughter relationships) nor a mascochist.

Are you into poetry? I wish you could make a little poem for her, make it look fairly nice if possible, and put it on a wall where she could see it. Let each poem, in the beginning, be about a different aspect of the diabetes self-management.

=Can' t write poetry, but she would like that.

But what, specifically, might you want to write about? For that, I suggest a really wonderful book by Dr. Neil Fiore, "Awaken Your Strongest Self." In Fiore's book you'll read about different functions of the Strongest Self, a part of us that helps us to succeed in any area. For example, one function of the Strongest Self is to provide security.

=She' ll either adjust to the new surroundings, foods, etc., or she won't. It's up to my mother and she's 73 years strong in her ways. I've been here with her before. I'm not anxious, but I found the subject interesting -- the psychological pull of food versus the real symptomatic hunger diabetics often struggle with. If I sounded upset or lost, I apologize -- I'm neither. However, I have knowledge about type2 that she doesn't. I'm willing to share that with her, if she's willing to listen -- right now, she's listening, but whether she puts any of it into action or not, is totally up to her.