Diabetes and stigma – Keeping up the energy
An interview with Dave Benson Phillips, children’s entertainer best known for Playdays, Fun Song Factory and, of course, the gunge game show Get Your Own Back.
If you are living with diabetes, you may very well have experienced ignorant, condescending or simply rude comments, not only from the public and even family members, but also possibly professionals who we would hope know better. Stigma can manifest itself in many ways.
As part of a two-part feature for the DRWF Living with Diabetes podcast series we look at the question of stigma in diabetes, including interviews with people living with diabetes and healthcare professionals and the different perspectives they bring to the conversation.
Although Dave is known as a very upbeat entertainer, comic and children’s TV presenter, he admitted he was his own worst enemy when it came to stigma. He has also experienced it from a healthcare professional.
Dave: “I think the only time I did suffer a stigma was a rather officious diabetes nurse who clearly had had a very bad day. She said, “Well, it’s your fault for being the way you are.” That was not helpful because it’s one of those things where if you’re from the West Indies or you have an Afro-Caribbean family heritage, you are more likely to have type 1 or type 2 diabetes.”
Living with Diabetes: In particular you said about not telling anybody about your diagnosis. When you do tell them, do you feel better about it?
Dave: “It was a slow process. It was this year that I decided to come out and it was simply because I did the needle prick tests like everybody does.
“I am quite conversational about this, so it all began to spill out. It seemed natural.
“The weird thing was I wouldn’t have called it a stigma. A stigma is one of those things where other people impose it upon you. Because I did a lot of the imposing of the negative stuff on myself because of what I had heard, rightly or wrongly, from other people, that’s where that came in. That said, it has become a lot easier.”
“I learned the hard way” – TV presenter Dave Benson Phillips held back from telling people about his type 2 diabetes diagnosis at first but said it has become easier
Has involvement with diabetes self-management skills changed your attitude to sharing information about type 2 diabetes and helped your own self-management and mental health?
Dave: “It has helped me. It is amazing how many negative things that you build up keeping it to yourself. In my case, I was hosting a broadcasting event so I was able to talk to other people. That was a big thing for me to be able to do that, to broadcast and hear other people having their problems and succeeding with it and living with it.”
How do you prepare for work if you are in the studio or you are on stage? Diet, hydration, managing the condition. Do you receive any support? Do you tell people in those circumstances?
Dave: “When I’m preparing for shows and things, I now have to really take care of myself because I have been in those situations. I make sure I have a fair amount of water before I go on stage. There’s always a bottle of water for me on stage. I also make sure that I eat some food and I make sure that I give myself enough time to eat a sizeable meal that I can digest, and I’ll have a few sweets on standby just in case. That’s how I get through the shows.
“The reason being, and I learned this the hard way, I felt okay right up until the bit where I got on the stage and I was about to sing a song. I’m still performing and my stomach feels a bit weird and I am beginning to feel a bit weak, and then I am realising that as I am performing, the next thing, everything kind of went from that to as if I was looking down the keyhole.
“It was very weird, very strange. I wasn’t getting a lot visually. This is the bit that I remember; I was singing the song, my mouth was moving, but apparently no sound was coming out. Then people saw my hands were wobbling and they got me off the stage. It was a really weird moment, and it was not until the stage manager, who looks after the show, said, ‘My boyfriend sometimes goes through this,’ and just bunged a load of barley sugars down me and a sandwich, and I was all right for the next half of the show, just barely.
“Now I make sure that when I go on stage that I have eaten properly, drunk properly and that I have got things in place just in case. Because as a performer you expend a lot of energy.”
Living with Diabetes
Listen to the interviews in full as part of the DRWF Living with Diabetes podcast series
This latest edition of our podcast Living with Diabetes was supported by Abbott.
Living with Diabetes is a Blue Aurora media production for DRWF. Copyright 2024 Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation. All rights reserved.
This article was produced as part of the DRWF Living with Diabetes podcast series and appeared in the Autumn 2024 edition of Diabetes Wellness News. To subscribe visit here
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