Scott Benner 5/14/21 Scott Benner 5/14/21

#479 Teen Talk

The Psychology of Type 1

Erica is a licensed marriage and family therapist who herself has had Type 1 diabetes for over 30 years and who specializes in working with people with diabetes and their families and caregivers—from those newly diagnosed to those experiencing it for decades. She and Scott discuss giving teens autonomy. http://erikaforsyth.com

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello and welcome to Episode 479 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today, Erica Forsyth this back. You know, Erica, she's the licensed Marriage and Family Therapist from California. She's been on the show a number of times, and she's here today to answer a question from one of you about something very prevalent with teens living with type one. Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. Please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin.

California residents if you're looking for a therapist, look no further than Erica forsyth.com. I'd like to remind you that if you're looking for the diabetes pro tip episodes or the defining diabetes episodes, they are right here in your podcast player. But you can also find them at Juicebox Podcast comm or diabetes pro tip comm if you're listening in a podcast player, please hit subscribe or follow. Thank you very much. The T one D exchange is looking for type one adults and type one caregivers who are us residents to participate in a quick survey that can be completed in just a few moments from your computer or phone. This survey is 100% anonymous, completely HIPAA compliant, and does not require you to ever see a doctor or go to a remote site. Why you say what a survey require that? Well, because this data is actually helping people living with type one diabetes, and I wouldn't want you to get confused and think oh, this is a trial. I might have to go see a doctor, huh? No, no, you can actually help people with type one. Without being in a trial without visiting a physician. You just go to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. Click on join our registering now, and then simply complete the survey. Once you've done that, your information, which again is completely anonymous, will be used to help other people living with type one diabetes, and it supports the podcast. Past participants like you have helped to bring increased coverage for test strips, Medicare coverage for CGM, and have broad changes in the ABA guidelines for pediatric a one c goals. Eric, I have a question here from Aaron. And she said she's trying to give her preteen son some freedom by not micromanaging everything. And he is very capable of calculating his carbs and doses knowing what to do, etc. But he gets lazy about it. It feels wrong to punish him. But if there's no consequences, then there seems like there's no incentive for him to try. Where's the line between keeping preteens accountable and not making them feel punished for having diabetes?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 3:19
Great, great question. And obviously, this team's and type one is it's a challenging season. And I know in my professional work, I do work with a lot of teens and families who are kind of battling this this dynamic between the what the parents wanting to offer and give some independence. And teens either asking for it. Or, or sometimes as in this question, maybe not following through the way they said they were going to. And it's it's an all around challenging, excruciating experience, sometimes for some families, and I do want to offer hope that it's a season right, it might it's not going to last forever. But I know when you're in it, it can be feeling it feels really overwhelming and stressful. I would initially in response to this question. I think trying to find ways to incentivize instead of punish if that works, and maybe you've already tried that in your family, but I would sit down with with your teen and talk about Okay, how how can we either incentivize or offer rewards I wouldn't, I wouldn't necessarily structured around food or which could be complicated in and of itself, but maybe maybe the child the teen wants to have a sleep over or the team wants to learn how to drive get get their permit or get their license or maybe work towards earning. You know, whether it's some kind of reward A video game. And so maybe building in incentives for okay if you keep your your blood sugar's in range. For this percentage of time this week, we are going to do X. And if you do it again next week, you're going to get Y, something that but sitting down with them and asking for their participation engagement in that this is a big, kind of like a behavior chart, so to speak, but to incentivize instead of punish, because I think if that cycle begins, where the teen is feeling like, okay, I already feel punished enough for even having type one, which can be a thought, then how come and now I'm being punished for not taking care of something I don't even want

Unknown Speaker 5:46
to have.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 5:48
And, and so if that is the case, I would really get allow the child to allow your team to talk about that too, if you've if they're open to it. So that's just one one thought here in terms of instead of punishing, trying, incentivizing. I'll pause there, I can keep going.

Scott Benner 6:06
I have a question. Have I ever told you about chainsaw? About what the chainsaw? No, okay, I just said chainsaw because you would have known if I said it. So I have an episode that I don't believe is out yet. And I know that sounds funny that I'm not certain if it's out yet or not. But I'm a one man show over here. Okay, so I'm a little busy. woman has a teenage son, who really you know, wants to graduate from high school and start a business cutting down trees. And the kid wants a chainsaw. chainsaw is kind of expensive. And while we're talking, she also brings up that she can't get him to Pre-Bolus. And I said, and this is important to remember when you hear me talk that I have no training whatsoever. But what I said was, Well, listen, let me ask you a question. He'll never hear this. Are you gonna get him the chainsaw? And she goes, yeah. And I said, Okay, I said, Why don't you just give him $1? Every time he Pre-Bolus. And tell him Look, I know that sounds like it might be forever, but it's really not. If this sauce, $400, you can Pre-Bolus three times a day, in 30 days, you know, you could be a quarter of the way to your chainsaw, and the money will pile up quicker, and I'll pay you to priests, I'll pay you to Pre-Bolus a snack like you might end up Pre-Bolus and seven times a day. And and I said just I make you're going to spend the money anyway. And that became important to me, because she didn't have a ton of money. He didn't mean she couldn't just go like, leave in a golden trail of dollar bills around the house for the kid. I said, if it's money you're going to spend Anyway, you know what I mean? Like, I was like, let's repurpose that for this. And and I said to me, that's, I mean, the kid doesn't want anything more than that in the whole world, right? And I said, so if you have to trick a 16 year old into learning to Pre-Bolus, then who cares? Because after you get to that the cost of the chainsaw, he really will have done it long enough for to form a habit, I would think, did I give that person bad advice? Or do I do okay, no, I

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 8:04
think it's great. And I think what's important is what the carrot that you're dangling, has to be something that they are longing for. Yeah, it's not just like, Can I go to the movies or whatever? Like, I think it has to unless you want to start small. You know, some people do want to have smaller incentives. And they they get that kind of immediate gratification, which is important in the teenage years to like, they want to know that what they're doing, they're going to be rewarded for a Ross, what's the point? So some, some teens can hold out and say, Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to save and save and save. And I'm going to be incentivized by this, this chainsaw. I love it. So really sitting down with your teen and saying, Look, what is something and you probably already even know is the parent at that point. What is it that they are really longing for? And it could be something

Unknown Speaker 8:58
that they

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 8:59
say what is something you're really wanting, but you think you're never going to be able to get or afford? Or ever made to like something that's really thrilling to could be helpful? Yeah, everyone's great.

Scott Benner 9:10
You got to stop and give the horse some of the carrot. You can't just expect it. Yeah, get right. And to be honest, I see a lot of parenting like this, like you're just constantly mentioning things are gonna happen in the future. Even if you just set them up as psychological payoffs. Like, you know, if you do this, this is going to happen, that needs to happen then, you know, like, because, you know, I have to like just to kind of divert for a second. My son's played baseball, like his whole life, like he really has, and since he was three years old, right, right. As he was turning four, he started playing organized baseball, and he still plays now and he's 21 organized. And I used to have this horrible feeling while I was little, that a big a big moment never came to him. He was never up in a big moment. He was never like, and when he was 11, he caught the last ball of a championship game. And I'm telling you, there was a bigger smile on his face than I'd ever seen. And it had something to do with the fact that that game felt more important that it had some, you know, gravitas attached to it. And that he felt like he's the one that ended that. And so sometimes you got to get paid back, like he played just as well on all the games before that, but he never got the feeling that he got out of that one scenario. And so you got to get that feeling once in a while. Or the incentive to keep trying is harder and harder to cultivate,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 10:38
I think. Right, right. Because as as a teen, particularly, you're not thinking about the future. You're not saying oh, well, if I don't Pre-Bolus now, yeah, I'm gonna have a high after I eat. Yeah. But I'm not thinking about oh, maybe I'll have long term complications when I'm 40 or 30. Whatever.

Scott Benner 10:56
Well, it's their brains work that way. There wouldn't be any teen pregnancy cuz, cuz I cuz as an adult, you know, how scared you are when you think you're gonna get somebody pregnant? But no one, no one feels that way. When they're 17 for some reason.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 11:10
There's, it's impulsive. And you know, instant gratification. Yeah. And I think they're, yes. So allowing them to receive some sort of reward, whatever that is, if you're working towards that, if they're needing to incentivize, I think it's important to do that. Yes. Well,

Scott Benner 11:28
I am glad that I did not lead that person astray. Yeah, no, it's good. Sometimes I'm just like, I get done. Sometimes, like I say, a lot of stuff. I wonder if it's all okay. But I felt really comfortable about that. And it was one of those things. Actually, that was one of those great episodes where we were just talking through a thing. Like she didn't have any reason to come on. She's having like some sort of like a thing. And I was like, come on, and we'll just talk about it, like two people on the phone together. And let's see what we can come up with, you know. Okay, so I have a question here from Bridget, it says, I'd like to understand how to foster a growing independence in a teenager while still keeping a safety net. And I imagine, as you do, I guess, the safety net, she means is the Health Net of safety. Not getting too low or too high or? Yes, yeah. Okay. Yes.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 12:14
So I think it's important to understand that it's a great and very common question as well, that what what teams are going through, and we might have all have a general idea that, you know, they want to be independent, they feel like they're, they know everything they know what's best for them. One analogy that I've read in a book years ago, and recently came across from a book called the yard sticks, is it talks about the analogy of the particularly like the 12 1314 year old, and the significance of their room in the house, like it becomes if they don't have their own room yet, or if they do have their own room, their own personal bedroom becomes very significant that they get to decorate, they get to become kind of the, the king or queen, so to speak of their of their territory. But it's significant to think about, that their bedroom is still a part of the house, right? So they're saying, I'm here, but I'm separate. And, or I'm here, but look who I am now. So they're able to kind of exercise some authority control independence over who they are. And they get to kind of make all those choices, right. But with that, then as a parent, you get to have these conversations with your team saying, Okay, if you are, if you are kind of owning your territory of your bedroom, I'm going to be handing over some responsibility, I'm not going to be coming in there and cleaning up your room or doing your laundry. So with that sense, along with their increased freedom, and their need for freedom. And these years, also comes the responsibility. And I think that is the struggle, right, as a teen as they're trying to create their own identity is how do I how do I balance this? Is the team thinking or not thinking about acting? Well, at the time, how do I balance this freedom and responsibility. And also just kind of thinking through and I'll apply this to type one in the second hair, that a parent, they are they shouldn't be afraid to knock on the child's door, right? The bedroom door, but it should be allowed. And so you're kind of shifting slightly, this locus of control, right? If the bedroom is off limits, the parent is knocking, and the child's going to let them in. But you're not relinquishing parental total parental authority, but you're shifting that locus of control. And ultimately, teens, they want to talk to their parents, they really do. And parents want to talk to their teens, but they really don't know how. And so I think going back before addressing the type one I think it might be really significant for for you as the parent and caregiver to understand what it is They are actually going through as a teen to not relinquish parental authority, but to shift some of that control over to them. And then they're you might need to initiate that conversation. And I think remembering that as teens, they just want to be heard. And so I would strongly suggest that parents say little, and listen a lot. And if you do need help in that department of just kind of going back to the basics of re establishing a relationship with your teenager, a really excellent book is by Adele Faber and Elaine Maas lish. The book is titled, how to talk so kids will listen and listen, so kids will talk. Again, that's by Faber and mazlish. So that if you are finding that you are having this battle with your teen around type one, I would maybe take a step back first is the parent and say, Okay, how can I enter my child's world through their lens as a teenager? So that's just kind of my first my first thought.

Unknown Speaker 16:04
Can I add? I can pause? Yeah, go ahead. No,

Scott Benner 16:07
I want to add there that I think I found for myself, I guess I should say that my recollection of my young life is probably not 100%, reminiscent of what it was actually like, or what I was thinking back then. So when you're kids going through a thing, it's so easy to think like, Oh, I remember this, like, but you probably don't, you probably don't really remember what it was like to be that age. And to have those feelings. Um, it's funny, you brought it up as an example about the room. Because when COVID started, and I started noticing a Kelly and I both started noticing art and going a little stir crazy. Arden said, I want to, you know, I was thinking I'd like to redo my room. And there's that first reaction really is nothing wrong with the room you have now and I would like to keep the money I have in my pocket, if you don't mind. But But yeah, but fair enough. She's older now. And she wanted to redo it. And we we let her repaint we let her replace her bed. And she wanted like a table with chairs. And she set it up. It's very much like a studio apartment now and not like a kid's bedroom. She's

Unknown Speaker 17:14
Yeah, How old is she?

Scott Benner 17:15
She's gonna be 17 this summer.

Unknown Speaker 17:17
Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Scott Benner 17:19
Yeah, it's got a little round table with four chairs around it and a lamp which she said when my friends are over and we eat, we can eat around this table. And there it's easy as an adult to listen to that and go I bought a table. It's downstairs.

Unknown Speaker 17:31
Dining? Yeah.

Scott Benner 17:34
Well, we were like, okay, and she said in the bed takes up too much space, I'm gonna get a smaller bed. And your first thought is, well, you have like a double bed. You want to go to a single. And wouldn't that be less comfortable. But that's not what she cared about what she cared about was making more space. She got rid of her dressers and put a system inside of her her closet and moved all of her clothes into her closet. And and she made it exactly the way she wanted it. If I showed you Arden's room, you'd say it doesn't look anything like any kid's bedroom that you've ever seen. And she loves it. And I, the way I can tell is that every couple of months when I'm in there, she'll make, she'll just, she'll comment a little bit, ask me a question. Do you still like the color I picked? I said, I do. It's great. How do you like it? She's like, it's good. I was like, Okay, he's still like that I took up the carpet. I said, I think it's nice, it's easier to clean. What about you know, I hear the noise from downstairs a little more now. And, and just to let her have that experience, it was a really big deal. And, you know, bonus, it took months. So it can write a capper focused on something she was, she was like the project manager of her room redesign, you know, and what ends up costing us in the end, not very much, you know, it was good,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 18:52
right? And how much, you know, like we were talking about earlier, like authority and agency that she feel over her life of being able to do that, like what and you know, it's such that's an excellent example of finding those opportunities to relinquish control. I mean, with within, right, then you probably had a budget and you had some probably constraints around that. We did, but you said Go Go for it. Yep. Right.

Scott Benner 19:17
Within this amount of money, you can do whatever you want. Right, right. Also, what it led to then, was I used to separate her clothing. I don't fold the kids clothes, but I'll lay them in like flat piles so they don't get wrinkled and give them to them. But ardens would sit in my room. And then once she had more space in her room, I was like, Oh, well, I can sit in her room now. So I know I take it and I put it in this spot. And I've noticed her being more diligent about putting her clothes away, and it didn't happen all at once. It took a lot of time for her to go Okay, I guess no one's gonna put this away. It's on me. Then she's got to find time in her schedule. Then she got to find the energy to actually do it and then she's gonna have to care about it. enough to do it. That took months and I, I think very fervently about parenting, that my job is really to repeat the same thing over and over again without sounding annoyed until somebody figures it out. And, and that's sort of how I saw this thing. Like I didn't, I didn't say, hey, look, you're now in charge of this, take care of it. You know, do it right now. And if you don't do it the first time, I'm gonna yell and scream at you. I just kept piling the clothes up. And one day, I think the pile fell over. And she's like, dude, I guess I got to do this. And right, that's how it went.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 20:29
Well, and that's, that is like, such a great example of she was going through that struggle of like, Okay, I've got increased freedom in some areas. But now I've got this responsibility of putting my laundry away. So she kind of went through that struggle until it became like, okay, it's bothering me, I'm going to show some responsibility and put it away of my own things, right?

Scott Benner 20:48
Yeah, it is unreasonable to expect it because you tell somebody to do something, they're suddenly going to shift everything in their brain that tells them what to do and just start doing it. It doesn't, you know, things don't work that way, I don't think.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 21:00
Right. And I think then, applying that to the type one, we were in lies the fear factor of oh my gosh, okay, my, my teen wants his independence wants the freedom in management, and making choices and you know, all of it, but they're, but they're going through this struggle, this identity struggle of, they don't quite have full responsibility. And yet they're wanting to freedom, right? And so,

Scott Benner 21:34
I was gonna say, and when they do it wrong, it's not a pile of clothes falling over, it's a blood sugar going to 55 or 355. And then how do you manage the the slowed necessity of transition with the immediate need of safety and health.

Just gonna jump in here real quickly and remind you of three things. First thing, p one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. If you have type one, or you're the caregiver of someone who who has type one, and you live in the United States, this is something you can do in just a few minutes. That will immeasurably help other people living with Type One Diabetes. You can do it from your phone, from your tablet, from your computer, from your sofa, you don't even have to get up. Go take the quick survey. The information that you leave behind will be anonymous, HIPAA compliant, and help a lot of people living with Type One Diabetes, T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. also want to remind you that if you're looking for the diabetes pro tip episodes, they begin in Episode 210, your podcast player. You can also find them at Juicebox Podcast calm or at diabetes pro tip calm at diabetes pro tip calm you'll also find the defining diabetes series. And of course, Erica for Saif Eric is available to California residents at Erica Forsyth comm links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox. Podcast calm. Now let's get back to Erica. The slowed necessity of transition with the immediate need of safety and health

Unknown Speaker 23:28
there Yeah,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 23:29
therein lies the struggle for the parent, child and parent teen relationship, right where you as the parent as a caregiver are fearful. So you see that the numbers going up or down. And then the next thought is fear. And you want to you know, you want to protect your child, as a caregiver, you want to do everything you can to protect your child no matter what age. And I think going back to Okay, is this is this a one off? example? Is has my team demonstrated kind of general patterns of independence, I think I think just kind of like with anything, you need to let them earn your trust. And so maybe it's okay. You know, Bobby is saying as a 14 year old or whatever age but around 14, he's saying he wants to be able to look at his numbers and Pre-Bolus without consultation, right? Like that's what they ultimately Well, they want to be able to make decisions independently, right? So you say okay, we are, we are going to give you this opportunity for us to earn trust in you that you can do this. And so you try it for you start with whatever. And you can chart it out to I've done this with families were like okay, we're gonna try this out. You're gonna do it on Monday afternoon, and then we're going to do Wednesday afternoon and then we're going to increase kind of the frequent the time, the length of time and the frequency to say okay, you did great job. No Knowing that just like as caregivers, there are going to be, you know, mishaps. So I think, offering them these opportunities to demonstrate that they can do it. So then you're saying, hey, I want to I want you help me to trust you, right? You need to earn the trust, just like with anything like with driving, taking other, you know, kind of adult life decisions, and building in a plan with them. Yeah. And having their input i think is always significant of like, what do you think feels fair? Should we let you make decisions for all day on Monday? Or should it just be for dinner?

Scott Benner 25:34
What do you think about when to step in? Because, so I'm a long Yeah, I'm a long range guy. Like, I'm, I'm definitely one of those people. Like, if I'm gonna rob a bank, I'm not gonna do it for five years, and I'm really going to get it right. And so, you know, during this pandemic thing, there's been times where Arden's in a room, you know, doing classes in the morning, and I'm in here working. And once in a while she's here, she walks by doesn't say anything, I see her go downstairs, she comes back up with a arm full of food. And I look at her, I go, Hey, and she goes, I got it. And she doesn't got it. Like, I know she thinks she does. But she'll never Pre-Bolus enough, right? Because she's 16. And so I go, okay. And then she goes, and I think of that is like, I'm building trust. She knows I trust her, she'll take care of it. But then there's a moment where if it doesn't go, Well, Bolus wise, I kind of roll up to her and I go, Hey, that Bolus was pretty good. I said, I think it just maybe wasn't enough here. We're gonna have to add a little more now. No big deal, this will be fine. And I let it go. And I let it go. And I let it go. And I've been doing that for six or eight months now. And with the long range goal of her understanding, oh, I am trying but it's not quite working. But it doesn't seem to be too bad. And then it kind of culminated into this morning where she wanted Cinnamon Toast Crunch where we didn't have time to Pre-Bolus. And I mean, it's now been an hour since I told you that. So it's been so long ago that I told you about this in a different episode of the podcast. Okay. Yeah. And and Arden's blood sugar right now, if I told you that she had cinnamon toast crunch, without more than a seven minute Pre-Bolus and then I did not measure the milk or the cereal. What would you guess her blood sugar is right now

Unknown Speaker 27:17
that you didn't that you didn't measure that? She did? No, nobody

Scott Benner 27:20
measured it. It just got poured into a bowl, and then poured into the ball. If you had to guess in most situations, what do you think our blood sugar would be an hour later?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 27:28
Oh, I would probably say in the to 200 300. Yeah, it's 118.

Scott Benner 27:35
So yeah, but I that. But I wanted her to see that there was a way to Bolus something that she thought of as vicious on her blood sugar without such a Pre-Bolus. So So now in my mind, she's got a connection, she knows she Pre-Bolus is but not enough when she's on her own, and that it needs to be fixed. But today, she gets to see no Pre-Bolus that doesn't need to get fixed. I just want her to see. While there's a lot of possibility in here, maybe this isn't as strict as I think it is. And maybe this old man knows something he should be telling me that I maybe should be listening to like, And to me, that's a long term plan because I could have walked up to her and told her that but I don't know what good that's gonna do. Anyway,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 28:19
so what kind of Yeah, so teaching, you're, you're you're teaching, you're modeling, and you're you're giving her opportunities to see different variables to write, I think that's helpful. Like you can, within reason, and if you're able to manage, eat quickly, or you know, not waiting for whatever your Pre-Bolus, designated tinus. And then she gets to gain that independence over time. That's it, and you guys have a great relationship to trust. It sounds

Scott Benner 28:46
like you know, and I haven't had to give away any of her long term health to accomplish this hurry one still, or a one C is still in the fives. So it's not it's not like that's the one thing that I see people say that always like, turns the screw in my heart the wrong way. It's that, well, they want to take over now. So okay, they're a once he's gonna go from six to nine. But at least they're figuring out I'm like, I don't that doesn't seem like a good idea to me. And there's gotten that me seeing other people do that made me think long and hard about like, how are we going to do this transition without that happening? And I don't know that I'm going to be successful. Yeah, but I'm just these are the steps I've taken so far. And I yeah, I mean, and our relationship is good. I mean, but she's still 17 like, she still you know, says horrible things to me and treats me like I'm a moron. You know, sometimes, and, and I still like, you know, go off the handle sometimes. And I'm like, Oh, my God, like, you know, like, everything seems irritating. I'm a person too. And I didn't exactly grow up. Well, if you're listening to this podcast into this many episodes, you realize I'm almost feral. Like it's it's weird that I ended up even okay. So, uh, you know, anyway, that that's pretty much it. I think that's smart. Well, I

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 30:03
think I think you were asking you had brought up, you know, when when do you intervene, right? So to prevent either the increase, you know, the raise in your agency or to prevent, you know, the long term complications, I think going back to always asking inviting your team into the conversation of like, okay, on Wednesday, we're going to allow you, or, you know, we're going to give you this opportunity to earn our trust. Now, what? together, let's determine what number Am I good? Okay, am I going to intervene? And getting to and you write it down, and you have that agreement with your team to say, okay, is it gonna be 150? With the arrows, you know, diagonally? Or is it gonna be whatever it is? Right, like, it'd be very clear if you're on a CGM, is it?

Unknown Speaker 30:53
You know, now we're in 20 minutes

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 30:55
isn't an hour at the time, the arrow position and the number? Yeah. And then you say, okay, and I'm going to text and then what? And then really clearly as inviting the teams, okay, what is our text message going to be like, if they're at school, and one thing is interesting, but I have heard that you've kind of noted during COVID, teams have have done a little bit better. And this is not obviously, across the board, but from what I've heard at home, because you can just kind of you can all manage it together. But you also don't have that pure factor. And so if you are finding as your teams are re entering into school, and you know, so called normal life, and you're seeing maybe a little bit more of this, either defiance, or desire to be independent, or forgetting to Bolus number one, that's, that's just normal. And then number two, kind of inviting your team back into that conversation of like, Okay, this is how we were doing during COVID. I know, it's not always going to be this way. But how can we how can we kind of reestablish what was happening at home and create kind of those expectations and boundaries, but it is, it is a constant challenge. And well, I don't have I have two little girls. I don't have teens yet. But I've worked with a lot of teens professionally and I know what I was like as a teen. And it wasn't always pretty. And so I just I, I cheerlead you, and support you. And just remembering that it's not going to last forever. That is important, too.

Scott Benner 32:29
It is hard when you're younger, because everything I mean, as a younger parent, like everything feels like now is forever. And it really isn't like I you know, I'm almost 50 and I have a 21 year old son and I guess I might be young tab a 21 year old a little bit but I you know, you you look back and you're like, Oh, I remember being so worried about that. And it didn't end up mattering. But it didn't matter in the moment. It just, it doesn't matter now. Like there's a there's a now there's micro and macro to everything. And there's there's what's important now and what later you'll be like, Oh, I guess not nice. That wasn't really important. I can't believe I spent so much time on that. Do you have enough time to talk about kids burning out on technology in this episode? Or do you have to go

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 33:12
Yes, yes, no, we can. And I before we transition into that, I was just gonna I was thinking I just listened to the episode of the three girls in the Cayman Islands, which was just fabulous. And it made me think of you know, this here they are, they could be feeling isolated on the island as as a type one but yet they have each other and the significance of for your teen if they really are struggling with that, you know why me I feel so isolated I just want to be like my friends. If they are open to it, you know I do encourage you to kind of maybe their outreach through your your endo or whatever your treatment team is to see if you can connect your team with other teams whether and now with you know, every everyone's very comfortable of with remote and virtual correspondence. To integrate that into your team's life whether it's just a phone call or a zoom or FaceTime, whatever it is just to kind of decrease that sense of of isolation and like an I don't feel normal type feeling right. And I want to be like my parents I just that was just my life. What

Scott Benner 34:17
wasn't interesting to see the three of them they you know, you hear kids like I just want to be like my friends. There's these three girls living on this island with not that many people and they are just like their friends.

Unknown Speaker 34:27
They have so beautiful. Yeah,

Scott Benner 34:29
yeah. Yeah. wasn't a great too, that they were too young to feel trapped. Like when I was like, No, how would you get away like and then I like a ramped it up. I was like if Godzilla came How would you get away and they're like, I don't know. Like, they don't even think of it as that way. me as an adult. I'm like you are trapped in a tiny rock in the middle of the ocean. You're gonna die. If they didn't see it that way. They were really lovely. Actually. Yeah, yeah, I enjoyed that a lot. Okay, so, you know, Heather's like how? Yeah, she says, How do you help your child work through burnout. She says she has a nine year old who was diagnosed just over a year. ago. They're using you know CGM and pomp for almost a year. But she feels like they've hit the wall with technology. I hear people say this a lot. I have to admit, I don't know that I understand it. And because then they say, I think we might need to take a break. And even though As parents, we don't want to,

Unknown Speaker 35:18
yes, yes.

Scott Benner 35:19
I'm always weirded out by that, like, so I I'm a bad person to ask because I really have a, I really have a 1978, northeast version of an answer for this, which is kids don't get to make medical decisions in my house.

Unknown Speaker 35:31
Right. Right, right.

Scott Benner 35:34
Because I will always like what else you're gonna put the 14 year old in charge of paying the mortgage, like, you know, they're 14. But right, what's the rest of it that I don't that I don't think about?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 35:45
Well, I Well, two thoughts. Yeah. For number one, personally, I have felt that way. I actually was on, I did what we used to call just shots without a deal MDI, I gave myself shots and took my blood sugar, a finger pricks for the kind of first third of my so called diabetes career. And then I transitioned to a pump and college. And again, I'm not giving medical advice, you want to do this with consultant, you know, if you ever decide to do this, consult with your doctor first. But I remember feeling like I just wanted to take the pump off. And if I did that, and I would say, Oh, I'm gonna take the pump off for a week, and I'm gonna go back to injections. And I and I did consult with my doctor, and they told me how to do it giving, you know, do the lantis this amount and do this, you know, I was taking I think regular at the time. And I didn't even last a week, because it was so irritating, to like have to be constantly giving myself injections. And the same and so I probably put the pump back on within the next day or two. Because I'm like, you know what, I'm kind of irritated by having my pump. Because really, it's just like, it's the thing that's on your body that can get annoying, and I get it. And so you feel like mentally if I remove this pump, I'm not gonna have to be thinking about it. Maybe my type one is much. But then then you're having to constantly go back to what you used to be doing. And it's kind it's irritating, too. And I had this experience with the Dexcom or the CGM. I have a Dexcom. And I don't know when this was, but I think I think my time had lapsed, it was 10 days, I was gonna remove it. I'm like, You know what? I just I kind of want to have a break mentally from having it on wherever it was on my body. And I'm gonna do finger pricks, and I did not last through a full 24 hours. So I'm like, What am I thinking? Like, I don't know, I'm so used to knowing my trends and where I am. And I'm having to fingerprick you know, and I would do it 10 or 15 times a day like pretty. It's a lot, right. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I cannot wait to get the CGM back on and so I don't know again. only do this with the with the support of your doctor. But it might be worth trying. Because then your child might wonder like, Oh my gosh, it's so much easier having these my pump or CGM on me. Anyway, that's my first. Sorry. Go ahead.

Scott Benner 38:14
any correlation? I'm glad you had a personal experience with it because it makes it so much more real. But is there any correlation to you know, when you see somebody break up with somebody? They're like, Oh, this guy's my problem. And then three days later, you're like, turns out he wasn't why I was upset now. I miss him. And you know, like, Is there any of that? Like, is that true? That's called transference in the business. Right? Like, were you mad about one something? You put it on something else? Yeah, every married guy right now listening is laughing their ass off. They're like, Oh, is that what that's called? That's what that's called what happens to me is it? But But yeah, like that, that idea of like, I'm just like, I'm irritated. And I'm aware of this must be my problem. And, and I just I'm so thrilled that that's what you said. Because, yeah, go ahead, break up with me. And I'll wait over here. For you to realize maybe that wasn't a good idea. Like maybe your pump is just sitting in a drawer go and she'll be back. You know, like,

Unknown Speaker 39:10
absolutely, yeah, yeah. Wait, yeah, she let's just count down. Yeah,

Scott Benner 39:14
I'll take a break. She'll be back soon. Don't you worry. She doesn't like, that makes so much sense to me. So don't fight it.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 39:22
I mean, that would be my suggestion. And because I think there is something too, though. Yes, it is the like, Okay, I'm frustrated with like, it's, it's can be annoying having type one, right, like you're having to think about all the time. And then you have this visual reminder. And it can get caught on things and all you know, all the and it can fall off. And that can be frustrating. But I think ultimately, once you take a break from all of the incredible technology that we do have and you go back to, you know, the injections in the fingerprick. So you kind of realize, wow, I still have type one. And doing all this is is more frustrating and irritating than actually just having the pump on or the CGM on but then That's kind of a nice thing, because then you're like, Oh, I'm so grateful for this. The thing that I couldn't wait to rip off, I go back and say, Oh, I'm so grateful for this CGM. Yeah. So it's kind of this beautiful process and allowing that to happen i think is okay. Given you know, your own know if you feel you feel safe doing it right, yeah.

Scott Benner 40:19
When one day Kelly kicks me out, right? I know that like a month or two later she's gonna be walking around is like dust bunnies collect around her feet. And she'll go, Oh, I didn't know he was taking care of that. Right? I should be like, Oh, I wonder what else he was doing? I have to tell her if she's ever listened to this? Where do you find out all this stuff I do that you don't have to do? You know, like, it's um, and I do think that about the technology as well. And you made me think a little bit about I know, we're wrapping up. But you made me think a little bit about people who have other medical issues where they can't get away from their technology ever. And it made me realize how lucky you are to have diabetes, that there is an alternative treatment method where you could at least experience it without and by the way, for people who don't use the tech who are doing fine. I think that's terrific. This is just Oh, yeah, this is for people who this was specifically the idea about burnout about technology about like, Oh, I have to get away from this or it's bothering me. But maybe it is just a reminder of the fact that you have diabetes, and you're just going to find a different reminder when those are gone and make your maintenance more, you know, heavier. We're Yes. cumbersome somehow.

Unknown Speaker 41:33
Yes, yes.

Scott Benner 41:34
And you said, I'm sorry, Jeff, another thing you want to say about that? Did I cut you off in the middle of getting a no?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 41:39
No, I think? Yeah, I think that that was kind of the gist of it. And allowing, allowing your child to be angry at the technology is okay. Because ultimately, we know, we probably are just angry and frustrated and sad about having the LMS. And so sometimes it's easier to be angry at the things that we need to take care of ourselves. And to say, gosh, you know what, allowing, allowing for those emotions, and giving your child space to maybe they're not verbalizing it, but they're saying it by like, please rip this thing off with me. It's that's okay. And then just to kind of give space to that. Yeah.

Scott Benner 42:22
And they'll likely get back to it.

Unknown Speaker 42:24
Yes,

Scott Benner 42:24
I think so. Because you realize that, that the anger doesn't go away. And then you need to, then that's a new thing to address.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 42:32
But so right. Right. Right, then that you allow that whether it's through your conversation with your parents, or or therapist, or whomever your support group, yeah, let that come out.

Scott Benner 42:42
Yeah. And it? I'll tell you, it exists. And I think we'll probably answer this question another time when we record but it exists at ages that you don't expect, because there was a time when Arden was maybe five or six, where she told me just out of the blue, and I would have told you that Arden does great with diabetes, I don't see her thinking about it too much. Like all the, you know, when people are like kids are so brave, I always think like, they're not really brave, they just don't have another choice. You know, like there's a difference between bravery and not having a choice. bravery is, you know, you're across the street and a car blows up and you go pull somebody out of it, even though there are other people that are helping and, and not having choices, you're in the car, and you need to get out anyway, you know, like that. There's right there. And so she says to me, we have a friend who has a child who's I don't even know what the correct term is, but has some some mental deficiency that that impacts a child's life. And she said, I'd rather be him than me. And she was like six or seven. I was like, why? And she goes because I can die from this. He's not gonna die from that. And I was like, wow, I did not know that my seven year old had the bat grasp of all this. And so and so it's easy to say kids don't understand deeper things. But I think they do. And I think they're good at hiding it. And I think you could end up seeing that as bravery. So just because they seem right doesn't mean they don't need support, and they don't have deep understandings of the situation that they're in.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 44:19
That's how I feel, right? Yeah. So we often say you know, that children are resilient and we've been talking a lot about that right through COVID and that they are going to transition and be okay. But underneath Yes, they are resilient, and they can persevere, but they still can have that. That sadness underneath their resilience and that's that's okay. Yeah,

Scott Benner 44:38
just because your eight year old doesn't turn to heroin doesn't mean they're not under pressure. It just seriously because that's what you're talking right. Yeah, right. resilient because they don't have another choice and you're in charge of their life and they're stuck in a room like you don't mean like they're not. If you if you let an eight year old out on the street and put too much pressure on it. It I can't believe I said it him or her. It they'll fall apart just like a 45 year old would have that situation. They just don't have the opportunity all the time. And that's why I'm imagining. You see kids internalize, internalize, internalize, and then it turns to something much more drastic when they lash out Finally,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 45:16
is that fair? Right? Yes. Yeah, I wouldn't know. And maybe they have the the ability, the develop, they've developed to a place where they can identify and express you know, their emotions, then that will come out. Yeah. Well, Erica, thank

Scott Benner 45:31
you very much for doing this with me again, I am having a great time, I think of you as emotional journey. so

Unknown Speaker 45:38
wonderful. I appreciate that. Thank you guys. Seriously.

Scott Benner 45:48
Hey, huge thanks again to Erica for coming back on the show. She'll be back again. So look out for it in upcoming episodes. You can find her at Erica forsyth.com. You can find the diabetes pro tips, the defining diabetes series, and so much more at Juicebox Podcast calm or diabetes pro tip calm. And please take just a few minutes out of your day to go to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box and fill out the survey. All they're asking you to do fill out the survey and your answers will help others living with Type One Diabetes, you have to have type one or be the caregiver of type one. And be a United States citizen. Head over there now support the Juicebox Podcast support people living with Type One Diabetes. T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with more episodes of the Juicebox Podcast.

#473 Sneaking Food

The Psychology of Type 1

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to Episode 473 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today, Erica forsyte this back. You know Erica, she's the licensed Marriage and Family Therapist from California. She's been on the show a number of times, and she's here today to talk with me about how to address sneaking of food. Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. Please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin.

California residents if you're looking for a therapist, look no further than Erica forsyth.com. I'd like to remind you that if you're looking for the diabetes pro tip episodes or the defining diabetes episodes, they are right here in your podcast player. But you can also find them at Juicebox Podcast calm or diabetes pro tip calm. If you're listening in a podcast player, please hit subscribe or follow. Thank you very much. The T one D exchange is looking for type one adults and type one caregivers who are us residents to participate in a quick survey that can be completed in just a few moments from your computer or phone. This survey is 100% anonymous, completely HIPAA compliant, and does not require you to ever see a doctor or go to a remote site. Why you say what a survey require that? Well, because this data is actually helping people living with type one diabetes, and I wouldn't want you to get confused and think oh, this is a trial. I might have to go see a doctor, huh? No, no, you can actually help people with type one without being in a trial. And without visiting a physician. You just go to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. Click on join our registering now, and then simply complete the survey. Once you've done that, your information, which again is completely anonymous, will be used to help other people living with Type One Diabetes and it supports the podcast. Past participants like you have helped to bring increased coverage for test strips, Medicare coverage for CGM, and have brought changes in the ABA guidelines for pediatric a one c goals. And I'm excited to imagine what your participation may lead to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. There's also a link in the show notes at Juicebox. Podcast comm a bunch of people who listened to the show sent in questions for you. And you distilled them down into topics. Is that fair? Yes. Okay. Great. Great. And so as I'm looking at them here and trying to decide where to start, I feel like I want to start with sneaking food. Are you comfortable with that?

Unknown Speaker 3:18
Absolutely.

Scott Benner 3:18
Okay. I am at a, I'll just say that I'm at a loss when people ask this question of me. And it does get asked of me a ton. You know, Mike, I don't know what to do. And I'll tell you what, it's almost heartbreaking. Because it usually ends up being these people who have figured out they think they've got it all figured out. And then they keep seeing these like anomaly type blood sugars, and they kill themselves. Maybe it's the basil, maybe I didn't Bolus the meal at lunch, right? And it's protein coming. And they really they just they're killing themselves trying to figure out what it is. And then one day they realize that their kids are eating innopolis thing for it. And it's um, it seems heartbreaking when it happens to them to the parent, you know, but I want to understand I mean, obviously I want to let you talk your way through it but I feel like what we want to understand here for the parents perspective is why does this happen? And how do you work through it? Does that make sense?

Unknown Speaker 4:20
Yes the why and then the house okay

Scott Benner 4:22
yes great. So I mean go What do you think

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 4:26
first of all, I think removing type one out of the equation this can happen in you know with children and teens anyway. of sneaking food but with looking at it through the lens of type one. I would consider has it become has a certain what type of food are they sneaking Is it is it just sweets? Is it crackers? You know what is has a food group in your house become known as bad or forbidden? And is that what the what your child sneaking. Okay. So are they, they're feeling like oh my gosh, I'm not supposed to eat candy. And that's just eat crackers, whatever it is, I would want to examine, has it become a forbidden fruit sort of speak in your household? And is that why the child is seeking it? Because they know they're not supposed to have it? And, and really just looking at, okay, why? Why has that? If that is the case? Why has that become forbidden? Is it because you don't feel comfortable? bolusing for it, is it that your child just you cannot figure it out, and your child reacts in a certain way? So I would look at is it? Is it something that they have learned, or they've been told that they're not supposed to have it? And that implies, like some excitement around maybe it's like, they don't really even care, but it's exciting to sneak it. And so that's kind of I would look at that is those first two things? Is it? Is it forbidden? And maybe they're getting some kind of emotional response out of it to?

Unknown Speaker 6:05
Go ahead?

Scott Benner 6:06
Is it not possible that it could have become forbidden by mistake? Meaning maybe the kid has seen you have some weird reaction to a number at some point. And you've said like, Oh, this, you know, cereal? Always does this? And then maybe they think, well, I don't want to put that on my parents.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 6:26
Yes. And I think they're trying to avoid maybe any shame that has been, like placed on them by accident. Or, you know, gosh, I when I eat this cereal, and I go high, and then mom or dad gets frustrated or angry. And maybe they're not frustrated or angry with me, but they're angry at the number, but it's pretty common then for the child to internalize. I've been a bad kid. I've been a bad, whatever. I've made bad choices. I'm not supposed to eat this food. I don't want mom and dad to be angry. I don't want to see that number. So I'm just going to sneak it and pretend like it didn't happen. And then to avoid the shame, but then we know that you know, shame can just creep in and grow. So yes, I think it can happen by accident. Absolutely. Not necessarily just by like clear, don't eat this food ever write statements.

Scott Benner 7:23
So what you just said made me think of one thing. And I have a second question. But then Couldn't it be possible that adults living with type one who have no one watching them? Like you're not even like a spouse? Like somebody that's there could end up in some odd way stealing food from themselves by not bolusing for it? Is that the same problem? Like I do you see what I'm saying? Like if you know that this Bolus is going to go poorly. Is it easier to just like say, well screw it, I'm just going to eat this anyway. And I'll deal with it later. Rather than put myself as a scenario where I make a Bolus, it doesn't work. And then the whole thing feels like a failure throughout.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 8:00
Yes, I would say yeah, and there's a lot of right, there's a lot of steps that you're going through in your mind. And it may be just becomes a pattern to behavior, where I somehow have either learned or establish this pattern in my life, where if I eat this certain food, whatever it is, I can never get it right. I'm just going to eat it. And then I'm going to figure it out later, I'm going to try and correct it later. Or I'm just going to avoid the whole thing. And just move on without my day. And then you're running high. And you kind of go to the next thing, right? So I think even as adults, you can if as a kid, you have learned that you weren't supposed to eat a certain food group. And this, this happened for me for sure. As a child, 30 years ago, I wasn't allowed to eat sweets. And so of course, I snuck them. And then in that pattern, I became like, it became shameful to eat. And then the other issue that I think is maybe ask answering the question, why is that maybe as a child or even as an adult, you've been eating a cookie in public, and maybe some kind of peripheral friends or peers or colleagues know you're diabetic? And they say, Are you allowed to eat that? I mean, this happens to me still. And it depending on how I want to respond, I'll just say yep. And keep going. Or if I feel like I want to give a response, I'll explain how I can eat it. But that can if you're hearing that question all the time, particularly as a child who might not have all the development, developmental, you know, ability to kind of process through Yes, I can eat it and it's okay. They're not trying to shame me.

Unknown Speaker 9:47
That happens and so you that you then feel like oh my gosh, am I supposed to have this? Why does everyone keep asking if I can have this?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 9:53
So forget it. I'm not going to eat it in public. I'm going to go hide this and ate it in my room.

Scott Benner 9:57
So So shame Right is, in this scenario, the diabetes, like the function of the diabetes and how it impacts blood sugar gets commingled, it gets melded with who you are. And that's why you feel shameful about it. Is that I mean, yes, because I hear people all the time talking about, especially like old time type ones, they're very careful to warn people about not conflating you with your diabetes. And I've always understood, like, I've always felt like, I've understood that, but in this specific scenario, I can see now as you're discussing it, where the impact comes in, if I am my diabetes, then the failure of my insulin use is a failure of me. This all gets pulled together into one thing, and therefore, I'd rather not have this experience even for myself, but I but also not let somebody from the outside see it.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 11:02
Yes. And and then equating, if you're saying, Okay, and then I'm bad. I'm a bad person, not even just even a bad diabetic. Yeah, I'm a bad person. If I've eaten this cookie, and I didn't Bolus correctly and now I'm 300. And I, I'm a terrible person.

Scott Benner 11:21
And inside in your brain and your psyche, there's no difference between that number and you at that point.

Unknown Speaker 11:26
Correct. Correct. And so

Scott Benner 11:28
when you hear somebody who loves a person whose, by the way, is sneaking food the right way to say it? I'm not usually the word police. But is, is that? I guess it really is. Right? It's

Unknown Speaker 11:40
it's eating? Well, I

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 11:40
think Bolus Yes. Yeah, I think eating without bolusing is one thing. But if you're doing it, or even bolusing correctly, but if you're doing it in a way that you you're taking food, and either you're actually physically hiding while eating, which I know happens. Or you're sneaking it without kind of if you are under that's I'm thinking from more from the lens of like a child, and you're eating something without disclosing it. Which sounds so terrible, right? Like without saying, Hey, Mom, I want Hey, Dad, I want to have this apple. So are you sneaking it? I guess it just that it's a tough? Yeah, eating without your eating without bolusing. But then I think there is a category for you actually are sneaking the food, hiding it because you've you've learned and you're hiding and you've learned and you feel like you weren't supposed to eat it. So you're going to hide it hide it

Scott Benner 12:36
you for a moment, if we take a side shoot here for a second, if we take diabetes out of this for a second. People sneak food, right?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 12:44
Absolutely. I mean, particularly if like, let's say you're on a diet, you will say oh, I'm not supposed to have this, I'm gonna sneak this in into my diet, or as a kid who knows that they can have maybe one treat a day. But then they find, you know, some old Halloween candy in a cupboard. They might sneak it because then they feel like it's it's like forbidden. It's not allowed.

Scott Benner 13:07
What about adults that hide food from family members and co workers and stuff like that? Are we really just replacing the acceleration of blood sugar with the acceleration of of weight? And so all the rest of it's the same. It's the it's just the thing that you're trying to hide is different. Does that make sense? Well, yes,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 13:27
yes. And I think then you ask the question, Well, why is that person hiding? whatever they're doing? Yeah, because they have developed this kind of shameful pattern thinking that, like, I'm bad. I'm not supposed to do this. So I don't want anyone else to see it. And so I just, I need to hide and do this. before. It's sad. You know, it's It is sad.

Scott Benner 13:47
I have one more question before I go to my next. My next question, which is okay. In a person's psyche. Is it possible to hide something from yourself?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 13:58
Interesting, is it? Well, you can think that you're hiding it from yourself, right? by either mind mindlessly doing something, right. Like if we're staying on the topic of sneaking food, and you're thinking in through the lens of also diabetes, like, Okay, I'm going to pretend like I'm not eating this. I'm thinking about, like, let's say you have a piece of pie, or a whole pie. And people just say I'm just, I'm just cleaning off the edges, right? Like, you think that you're not really having a piece of pie because you're just having a little bite, but then by the time you go back and do that 20 times you've had the piece of pie. Yeah, I think they're, you're kind of like trying to pretend and not trying to sneak or hide it from yourself, but

Unknown Speaker 14:43
kind of make it like you're not

Scott Benner 14:44
really eating it. Does that make sense? It's excuses. That's like it. Yeah. So there's a thing when I'm when I'm eating lower carb for myself, I get a sweet tooth. I try to have a little dark chocolate. Right. And that works great for me. But it's a little bit of dark. If there's a time where I started seeing myself having the dark chocolate too frequently throughout the day, like Normally, it would just be once there is there's a part of me that's like, Oh, I just used the dark chocolate too. But there's the, the rational part of me is like, you're about to break this diet you're on. And this is the way you're getting into it. Like, I can feel it happening. And I'm intellectually I understand it's happening. But I am able to lie to myself for sometimes a day or two, before I go, Oh, come on, you know what you're doing. And put a stop to it. It's just, it's really I mean, you're not lying. You can't lie to yourself, right? Like, you can't, you can't punch a hole through a wall and tell yourself, you're picking flowers. But you but you, you can say, It's okay, if I punch this hole on the wall, I'm giving myself permission to do it. I know it's wrong, generally speaking, but I'm not going to punish myself over this right now. And and I wonder if that because because like, with so many things with diabetes, sometimes we look so hard at the type one, or the diabetes in general, that we forget that, like, people who don't have diabetes go through the same thing. It's like exactly what I mean, like the that's where the idea of real people set comes from, because people, right, because people with diabetes, tried to blame everything on their diabetes. And sometimes you just, you know, there's a difference between sneaking food because you don't want somebody to see because of a blood sugar thing, etc. Because it's become verboten somehow in your life. And maybe just the fact that you're just sneaking food for other reasons. And I just wanted to be clear about that. So then, here's the next heartbreaking part of this, especially when it's a child. Someone will say, I, I've been working on this for years, I figured out there, basil. I know how to Bolus for anything asked me I can Bolus for anything. I figured it out so that they can be healthy. It's not hard. It is not difficult to do we do it every time. Why would they sneak food and cause themselves a problem? When it's not even necessary, when we're so good at this, that it wouldn't be a problem to eat whatever thing it is they're thinking of. And that part for me is particularly interesting. Because I just I'm gonna tell you the 20 minutes before I came up here, Arden and I intersected in the kitchen. And she's hungry, but she didn't know for what she's like, I don't know what I want. And she's kind of there's nothing in the house like that whole dance. Like you're like, Well, what about you name nine things now? Like no, right?

Unknown Speaker 17:30
Yeah.

Scott Benner 17:32
And so then I was like, you just want a bowl of cereal. And she said, I don't have time to eat that. And I was like, What do you mean? I said, Sure you do just Bolus and we'll we'll do it. No, there's I don't want to wait. I don't want to wait for the Pre-Bolus She told me. So I was able to say Don't worry, we won't wait for the Pre-Bolus will over Bolus it. But I know how to handle not Pre-Bolus even even for something like vicious like cereal, right. And so I know how to over Bolus that meal, so won't cause a big problem. And even if it gets out of whack a little bit, we'll I'll knock it back down and show it or show Bolus again or however, you know, whoever intersects with first. But why would a kid knowing that you are proficient at diabetes? avoid something still, like that, to me is the thing that I watch parents, they can't make any sense of it, especially after they've put so much time and love and effort into figuring it out.

Unknown Speaker 18:31
Mm hmm. What do you think?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 18:33
I think it's Yeah, it's a very common question and concern and struggle really because I would look at I would want to know, it's hard to kind of give blanket say without like, choosing an age because I would say Are they they had an age of trying to demonstrate some independence or control over their life and is this one way of them feeling like hey, I can eat this on my own without anyone telling me what to do or how to Bolus or you know, feeling like is it that is it the wanting to have some control over their own life and decision without consultation? Is it is it wanting to maybe be like their peers if it's in a peer group situation and they're all quickly deciding to go eat whatever it is hamburgers or ice cream? And they just don't want to deal with it? Are they Is it is it I want to I don't want to be different I want to be like appear. Or maybe going back to the basics of you know, when this worked for one family where they went shopping with their child to the grocery store, and they said pick out everything you'd ever want to eat, you know, from all the aisles, whatever, no judgement, nothing. And just really kind of demonstrating to this this exercise helped for the family and for the child. The See, look, you can eat anything, I mean, Grant grant it within the guidance of maybe the family's expectations of eating or protein, vegetable and car, or whatever, whatever they're well about nutrition looks like. But to say you can also you can eat the Oreos, you can eat the Doritos, whatever you want, whatever kind of, quote, junk food or food that you think we don't approve of, you get it, buy it, let's fill up our cart, and take it home. And let's lay it on the counter. And you just get all we need to know is, you know, before you want it, let's Pre-Bolus or whatever, whatever the decision that works or to do what you're you're able to do with Arden. And so really kind of going through that exercise of allowing the child to see to feel to have control over picking what their favorite snacks are at the grocery store, and giving giving them some control of their life in that way. I guess. Yeah, I'm saying, and that bleeds

Scott Benner 20:53
into everything, right? Like, you know, what you're making me realize, like, You're making me think of something. So when I was growing up, there was a public school and a private Catholic school, kind of in the neighborhood. And as you got older, this thing would happen when the Catholic school girls would graduate, they'd all cut their hair, it was the strangest thing, right? Or they would start dressing completely different. Or in some cases, like having a lot of sex that they didn't have in high school, like they they made, like, big changes to their life. And I always felt like that was because they had grown up. So I kind of controlled, and I carried that remembrance into my parenting. And, and I did, I didn't give my kids like, you know, drugs when they were 10 and stuff like that. But but I tried to let my kids have a lot of agency over themselves, and to make as many decisions as they could on their own. And I'll tell you, it's a pain in the ass. Sometimes when you're raising kids, and you give them a lot of input, because there are times where you're just like, Alright, well, let's go figure out what the seven year old wants. Now, you know what I mean? And you're like, and you just need to go where you need to get something done. But it ended up paying off long term. Because my children do not feel like they're being controlled by us as much as they could. And trust me, they still do because they're young people. And you're always gonna feel like there's something to break away from. But is this another place where we're conflating diabetes with just being alive? Is what made me wonder when you were discussing it, like, I get the I get the Pierce thing, we're all out, we're gonna stop somewhere real quick, I don't have time to Bolus for it, or to count the fat in it, and then do an Bolus for the fat like, you know, you're 14 trying to decide how much fats in french fries, you know, like that kind of stuff? Like, hold on a second, there's a simple equation my mom taught me. Oh, my God, let's go over that while we're joy riding. You know what I mean? I understand that I understand. But I do also understand just the idea of wanting some sort of control over your life. And I'm wondering if you're able to hand that control to them in other places? Would it lessen their desire to find that control in this?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 23:17
Absolutely. And I think yeah, that's, I think we, we've talked a little bit about that. In our we talked about teens. I know, we'll probably talk about that as well later. But I think, yes, giving them finding the opportunities and the kind of Windows where you feel like you can hand over that control instead of micromanaging every aspect of your child's life and gret. And obviously, this changes over time and developmentally what they you feel like your child can handle and demonstrate that responsibility? But yes, I think giving them some other opportunities to say, okay, you can decide whether you want to wear your pink sweater or your blue sweater, you know, just like building that in letting them have those decisions in their lives where it doesn't really matter, I think will help in the long run. Yeah.

Scott Benner 24:04
So from a caregiver perspective, I, my two questions are, how do they approach this problem and address it? And what could I be looking in to myself for that would get in the way of me handling this? Well? Because I feel like that, like why would they do this, to me, is a vibe I get from parents sometimes, like I put all this into this, why is this being like, why are they doing it? And you need to understand like, your kids are not doing anything to you. Like it's not an attack, but it feels like it. You know what I mean? And I think sometimes it feels like it more to some people than others. And I would imagine that has something to do with their problems growing up. But those are my two questions that I'm interested in what you think about the rest of it?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 24:47
Yes. Okay. So how how to kind of move how to address the issue. You've seen your child, Snake food just based on either evidence of the blood sugars or you've caught them in the act so to speak. Or they've shared with you later, I think the first and foremost, I would always want to, if your child does come out and say, Well, yeah, you know, I did eat this two hours ago, to immediately go to just being grateful and thankful that they were being honest, as opposed to kind of going down the pathway of punitive. Because I think when we Google grant, we don't want to punish, at least from my perspective, personally, and then from my experience, collectively, professionally, working with families, children, if they are punished for making bad choices, or high blood sugars, that is going to spiral into the shame and avoidance and sneaking further, but saying, gosh, thank you so much for for sharing this with me. Let's How can we and having a dialogue, even if they're five years old, or two, or even three, I mean, granite younger than that might be challenging. But let's say 345 10, whatever age your child is, even up into teenagers, like how can we avoid this wetter and asking them like, are there? Are there foods that you feel like mommy or daddy or whoever's your caregiver doesn't allow you to eat? Because they might make a list of things that you have never, like we talked about in the beginning, you have maybe never have said you cannot eat these foods. But somehow they have learned that from yet externally public shame or questioning or from your response that you weren't aware of when you saw the number. And so asking them, are there things you feel like we can't You can't eat in this house? Right? I would start there. And then I would also go to, okay. What if they're a little bit older? If they are able to break it down? Like, were you thinking anything before or was I not around, and without assuming that they were sneaking to, maybe you were on a phone call, maybe you're busy, maybe they were just really hungry, and just were like, I need to eat this food right now. They get you know, they can be impulsive.

Scott Benner 27:10
I have a note here right to myself to remind my to say at the end of this, that to be careful not to blame people if you're not 100% certain to because you could actually cause the problem. And you're just saying like, what if I just got so hungry, and I'm four years old, that's not sneaking food. It's right, I'm hungry. Yeah. You also made me remember that this might be a little too much. But um, when I was growing up, when I was 13, my father left my mom. And my brothers were five years younger than me, and five years younger again. So I'm 13, that makes my middle brother eight, and my youngest brother three. And my mom goes off to work to try to make up the difference. And I'm basically raising these two little kids after school. Now, I'm 13. Trust me, I did not know what I was doing. And you know it now in present time, I'll joke with my brothers all the time. And thank them, because I really got a lot of my bad ideas out on them. And really saved my as a

Unknown Speaker 28:09
child parent,

Scott Benner 28:10
is it Yeah, as a 13 year old parent, teaching myself to drive and take care of a three year old and stuff. But nevertheless, I saw that with my younger brother, I didn't know what to do. And punitive was the way any bad thing was addressed. Because it's all I could think of. And I will tell you that that was tough for him. And all it would do is cause him to hide things. Like we used to have this joke like Rob's either in trouble, and you're aware of it, or getting in trouble and you haven't found out yet. And and as we joked about that, and that rang in my head while you were talking, it really made me realize that all he was doing like, I didn't curb his behavior. He just hit it better. And that's not a resolution for him or me. He's okay, right now, for anybody who's listening. He's Yeah, he's not jail or anything like that. But that is, that's what you were making me think of when you were saying that. I don't know why I said that. But it felt like Yes, yeah.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 29:11
Because you think you know, as a four year old who's coming home from preschool and needs a snack, they and they know where the snack buck bin is, or whatever, and they eat and that's it, you know, the child doesn't have type one, then you're not going to say well, how could How dare you go and get a bag of pretzels without telling mom? Yeah, I'm assuming mom, baby as we know, it could be dad or whoever is in the home. But I so I think we have to remind ourselves like okay, how would I yes, he has type one and I want to prevent the highs and I'm fearful of long term complications, because I think that's the sequencing. You know, your thought pattern, is that right? Or at least from what I've been told, and so going back to like, Okay, he's four, he's hungry. How can we How can we address this next time? Is it like, okay, like, and maybe going back to like, why as your second question is, okay, why the parent has clearly has solid competence and confidence and Bolus and for any food. And you've told your child time and time again that they can eat anything. And reminding them that we just need to Bolus beforehand whatever the timeframe is. And okay, so why is the child doing it couldn't be all of those factors. And now it's a you had all those conversations you've eliminated, okay, the child knows he can eat anything the child knows, he just needs to tell the parent that he wants to eat something. And yet he's still doing it, I think I would then look at Okay, how often is that happening? Is it is it a one off experience, because you know, just like, as caregivers, we are going to make mistakes, we are going to, we're not going to Bolus enough, we're not going to Pre-Bolus in enough time. And we have to practice that grace and forgiveness towards ourselves. We can offer we can model that for our children, and seeking from like a caregiver lens. And then we can also offer that to our children, because they're going to make mistakes. Now, if visit isn't happening every day, then I would go to my first two points of Okay, the child must feel like he can't have it. Or maybe he's just hungry, and we need to figure that out. But if it's a one off occasion, then I would just say you know what? We need to you know, offer that grace and forgiveness and you correct and move on.

Scott Benner 31:41
Right? Hey, and if it happens over and over again, as a parent as the adult, do you at some point have to look at yourself and say, there must be some way I'm impacting this, it's causing this behavior to some degree.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 31:54
I think that would be a helpful first or second step. Yes. If you've asked all the questions and say, Okay, how am I? What kind of messaging Am I giving whether explicitly or implicitly whether it's my facial expression, or noise, like you're looking at the if it's CGM, or meter, and you're like, right, like these simple things aren't, you know, toddlers can pick up on those noises and those size and even your body language, right? And so maybe kind of checking in with yourself is what is your your kind of gut response when you're looking at the numbers? Yeah,

Scott Benner 32:30
so you and I haven't recorded together that much at this point. But I have learned one thing about you that I can't ask you to make a blanket statement because you won't do it. And but I do want to ask you because I want to close out this episode, but I want to just do one thing. How much of an adult's actions are they unaware of? Like, how many times do we do something for what we think is one reason, but really, it's not for that reason? Is it frequently throughout the day?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 32:58
even as a child, how much are they aware of no idea

Scott Benner 33:01
as an adult person who thinks that we're control of what we're doing? Like? How many how many times? Are our actions driven by something that we don't understand?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 33:12
Wow, yeah, that's a whole nother episode. I don't know. I think it depends on how self aware are you?

I mean, have you done the work in learning what your your thought patterns are? And how your thoughts affect your feelings? which affect your actions?

Scott Benner 33:28
Let's say no. Right?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 33:28
Like that. That's all connected? Yeah. Let's Oh, no, then yeah, you probably don't have a whole lot of self awareness. And so everything from you're raising your eyebrows, very subtle things that others can pick up on, you know, eyebrow raises size hands, like you haven't said a word and you've communicated a lot. Yeah. And so I think if you're not aware of, of your thought patterns, which connect to your actions, and also your feelings, then you probably are, you're communicating a whole lot more than you might even you are aware of.

Scott Benner 34:02
Okay, and I want to add to that, thank you. I want to add to that, that it takes longer to fix than you think it would, because I've been absolutely I've been battling with this for a decade and a half now. And I'm much better today than I was. But at the beginning, anything that went wrong with diabetes, I was like, like it, like I just edit. And it just felt like it felt like you were trying to conquer something and you were falling off of it all the time. And I never had any intention of mirroring that to anybody in my life, but I did the people around me were like, Oh, my God, he's upset. And so I never felt upset. I just felt like God dammit. Like those little micro things. So anyway, I just wanted to make sure to put that in there. Thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 34:40
This was wonderful. He welcome. Thank you.

Scott Benner 34:52
I want to thank Eric again, and remind you that if you live in California and are looking for a therapist, go to Erica Forsythe Calm, there's links in your show notes. If you're looking for the diabetes pro tip episodes, they begin at Episode 210 in your podcast player, or you can find them at diabetes pro tip.com or at Juicebox Podcast comm if you're just finding the show and getting started with management ideas, I really think you should begin with the defining diabetes series, which is also available diabetes pro tip comm or in your podcast player. And if you're listening in a podcast player right now you haven't subscribed or followed the show, please do. If you're enjoying the show, please share it with others. If you'd like to find some good conversation about type one diabetes, I suggest you check out the private Facebook group for the show Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, answer a couple of quick questions to make sure you're a real person and you'll be let right then and there you will find GS over 10,000 listeners just like you talking about type one diabetes. I'm going to remind you again to go to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box and fill out that survey just takes a couple of quick minutes. If you're a type one yourself, or the caregiver of a type one, as a US resident, you'd really be helping other type ones and the show if you took the time to fill it out. And I thank you very much for considering that. This episode did not have any ads today. But I still want to thank the sponsors the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump, g Volk hypo pen and touched by type one.org. There are links everywhere to all the sponsors. And all I ask is that if you're looking for a great CGM, an accurate meter, a tubeless insulin pump for some really cool glucagon use my legs and of course, touched by type one is it touched by type one.org. They're also on Instagram and Facebook. I hope you go find them and check out what they're doing. Because what they're doing is wonderful. So if you're considering getting a Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, please use the link in the show notes or type in dexcom.com Ford slash juice box hey you know you may be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash tubeless insulin pump on the pod comm forward slash juice box Arden uses the Contour Next One blood glucose meter and I find it to be the most accurate and easy to use blood glucose meter she has ever had. Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box find out about the G vo Kibo pen the glucagon that my daughter carries g vo glucagon comm forward slash juice box. I want to thank you again for listening to the show for making it the most popular type one diabetes podcast around and for sharing it with others because that is truly how it grows. There are days and today is one of them where I wish I could give you everything that I have recorded right now. Because there's so much good stuff coming. I feel weird, not just releasing at all but things don't work that way. And if I did that you'd never find it. So come on back next week, where there'll be three new episodes of the Juicebox Podcast just like every week. We'll see what we can find that fits your needs. I hope you know how much I enjoyed making this podcast for you. I'll talk to you soon.

#454 Touched By Type 1

With founder Elizabeth Forrest

Elizabeth Forrest has type 1 diabetes and is the founder of my favorite type 1 charitable organization, Touched By Type 1!

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Friends Hello, and welcome to Episode 454 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today we're going to be speaking with Elizabeth, who has had Type One Diabetes since she was a child has just become a new mother herself, and is the founder of touched by type one. Today Elizabeth and I are gonna chat about how we met her Foundation, and living with Type One Diabetes. I think you're gonna like it. Please remember, as you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. were becoming bold with insulin. If at any point today, you become interested in learning more about touched by type one, you can go to touched by type one.org. They also have a Facebook page. They're on Instagram. And generally speaking, there wonderfulness is available everywhere that they are touched by type one.org that's touched by type the number one.org.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries g vo hypo Penn Find out more at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. This episode is also sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. You can learn more about the meter, and so much more at Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox links to all the sponsors and today's guests are in the show notes of your podcast player and at Juicebox podcast.com.

Elizabeth Forrest 2:07
I am Elizabeth forest. I have Type One Diabetes was diagnosed in 1999. This is year 22. For me, I am a chief operating officer of a law firm in Central Florida and for fun have run a nonprofit for many years called touched by type one.

Scott Benner 2:26
Because that's what people do when they have the very low impact job like they look for. They look for other things to do in their spare time. How in the heck did we meet? Do you remember? I don't think I do.

Elizabeth Forrest 2:41
Yes, I do. So through the nonprofit through touched by type one, we had a committee meeting for the first ever conference we were going to put on. And one of our committee members who has also been on the podcast, Samantha Arsenault, who was incredible. She said, Oh, you've got to listen to this podcast. And so we're listening. And she said that we need Scott to speak at this first event. And so we reached out and you came to Florida and you spoke at the first event. And here we are,

Scott Benner 3:16
I will tell you that the Sam is somebody I still keep in touch with. And she was on the podcast so long ago that I think her episode only has like two numbers and it's in it she was in the 50s or something like that. And it's still it's still an episode that people use all the time it as a matter of fact, somebody referred me back to it the other day, like I was talking on the private Facebook group to somebody about an insurance problem. And someone jumped into it. Oh, yeah, you have to go to this episode with Samantha, because she has an uncanny grasp of how health insurance works for people. It's it's fascinating how she understands that it feels to me that she just sat down one day and taught it to herself.

Unknown Speaker 3:59
Yes, absolutely. That's what it seems like.

Scott Benner 4:01
Yeah, she's just like, I'm gonna understand this now. She really does. And I still to this day will, like privately, like tag her in something. And I feel bad every time I do it, but I'm just like, I bet you Sam could help.

Unknown Speaker 4:17
Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 4:18
I do the same thing. I we send people to her.

Scott Benner 4:20
And then she just takes care of it. And then I hear back from somebody a month or so later is like, Oh, we got the insulin pump. It's all good. Now, Sam, she fixed it. Yeah. So I have to thank her. My recollection, I have like a couple of like spotty recollections. But one of them was that I chose to rent a car for the first time I was there, because you guys were like getting an Uber and I was like, I don't do that. So by the way, I still don't do that. I'm still the only pain in the ass who shows up at your event and is like, I will get in a cab and you will reimburse me but I am not like I'm not doing this. But I decided to rent a car and I think I put it on myself. I didn't and I took care of it. So because of that I made it like as cheap as possible, and I just remember regretting that the entire time.

Unknown Speaker 5:06
Yeah, absolutely. That would definitely happen.

Scott Benner 5:08
Yeah, the entire time, I thought I really should have just gotten it and

Unknown Speaker 5:13
make it so much easier. Yeah.

Scott Benner 5:15
But your your event grew. And I have to thank you like, let me let me stop for a second and say thank you. And you know, by extension to Sam, I, you were the first people who were like, come to our thing and talk. Yeah. And so that's a risk on your part. And I remember having that conversation back then where I was like, Look, I can do a really good job of this. But here's the thing. I've never done it before. So

Elizabeth Forrest 5:40
Well, what's what's really neat about kind of anything, and everything we've always done is if we don't believe in what we're talking about, or we don't believe, and have tried and tested what we're bringing to the table, you know, what are we doing? And I remember having had type one diabetes, for as long as I had at that point, I can't remember how many years ago that was. But when I first listened to the podcast, and was kind of reading more on the blog, and really understanding what was your concept? I was like, This makes so much sense. Why has no one told me that as hell have I not figured this out yet. And then I told Samantha, we absolutely have to have him at our events, more people need to understand this. And it's, I mean, it's been a game changer. For me. I remember, I think I texted you after my next endocrinology appointment, after I had started kind of being bold with insulin, right. And it was a dramatic change. And, I mean, we'll talk about it, but it played a major part in having a very healthy, very successful pregnancy. And I my agency is still continues to go lower and lower every time and it's the lowest it's ever been in almost 22 years. That's really

Scott Benner 6:57
good. That's excellent. I love that. I remember, I can picture where I was standing in my kitchen. When I got a text from you which and to be fair to everybody unite, don't have some like super close personal relationship. Yeah, we know how to text each other. Because once a year, I come to Florida and I talk, which by the way, your thing has grown and grown the last time I did it in person. I mean, my goodness, it was in a giant place.

Elizabeth Forrest 7:24
It was a wonderful hotel, we had hundreds of people there the my opinion, the best speakers, we could we could have gathered in one setting. And it was such a fun but informative and impactful event. So I can't wait till we can do those again.

Scott Benner 7:39
Do you think I realize you're not you don't have a crystal ball? But do you think it's 2021 or 2022? Before stuff? Like that happens again?

Elizabeth Forrest 7:47
I think for I know for us for touched by type one. It'll be 2022 at the earliest?

Scott Benner 7:53
Yeah, yeah, I don't see trying to squeeze something in this year. Because even if suddenly like if magically, everything was just okay. Which obviously, that's not how things work. Even even if that happened, I don't know how you would put something like that together so quickly. Yeah,

Elizabeth Forrest 8:06
you know, and we're all such in the high risk category. Our lives are impacted by so much already. There's no need to add stress and things we don't even know about. I mean, we're all everyone in this world is learning about COVID-19 more and more every day. So there's no In my opinion, there's no pressure to rush something when our lives are at stake.

Scott Benner 8:27
At this point, after putting this much effort into helping people with type one, you don't want to your your long lasting feeling to be that Elizabeth was the one that figured out if you bring 300 people to type one together, they all get COVID and dropped it right.

Unknown Speaker 8:39
I don't want to be that person.

Scott Benner 8:41
That's that won't look good on your tombstone at all. No, definitely not. So I appreciate being you know, being patient with it. I and I tell you 100% whenever you start it back up, I'd be thrilled to be there. Awesome. Yeah, absolutely. One of the not one of the it's the best event I've ever been to. So thank you. No, it's terrific. Anyway, so you are how old when you were diagnosed?

Elizabeth Forrest 9:05
I was 11 years old. Hmm,

Scott Benner 9:07
you're definitely not 11 anymore. You said 20 years. So you're 33

Elizabeth Forrest 9:12
I turned 33 this year later in November. Yep.

Scott Benner 9:15
Is anyone impressed that I was able to put the 22 above the 11. And in my head, add to it one and two and one that quick? I'm not

Elizabeth Forrest 9:21
a math person myself. So yes.

Scott Benner 9:23
Like I said, I'm always like joking. And then people are like, I am kind of impressed. It's just plus one do it again. But so 33 give it a long time. Tell people a little bit. I know you probably tell the story more than you. At this point. You can probably tell it your sleep. But how did you start helping people with type one like what was the first thing you did?

Elizabeth Forrest 9:43
The first thing I did, I was a very, very, very, very and can't emphasize how much shy child but through the diagnosis of type one and having to be more comfortable speaking around adults and talking about Type One Diabetes for mild Safety. I got comfortable talking more. And I was in a dance program at a local Magnet School in Sanford, Florida. And we had put on a dance production through that school already. And so when that happened through the class curriculum, I thought, why don't we do this again, and invite our friends and family to the school theater, charge a few dollars, and whatever we collect, we'll give it to a diabetes organization. And we have fun in the process. That was the first thing we did. And I know it was a rather large idea at the time, but I was very lucky to have people around me that bought into it. I thought, Yeah, that's a great idea. Let's do it. I mean, I was a kid when I came up with it. But that spun into a huge event, dancing for diabetes is the name. And this past year in 2020, we celebrated our 20th annual show. With COVID precautions in place, it was a virtual shows very different than we've ever done. But it started really tiny all those years ago and grew into this huge production and later, a much larger, more comprehensive nonprofit organization that reaches a lot of people. So the first thing was dancing for diabetes, you did

Scott Benner 11:22
something? That's I mean, literally, from a small child's idea, by the way, anything else you ever tell your parents, they should diversify their 401k? No, I think we need to protect ourselves a little more. I'd like to get you a will data separate one. It is a big I mean, it's a huge idea. Like it's easy to say stuff out loud, I guess is my point like, Yeah, but then to make it happen, is, is a different level of focus and drive.

Elizabeth Forrest 11:52
Absolutely. But again, I mean, I have to give credit to there's so many people involved, and, and the fact that my school principal said yes. I mean, if he could have said no, most people would say no. But he said yes. And here we are. So it's it was definitely a little luck as well.

Scott Benner 12:08
Yeah. And you have to run into the right people on the way. This has nothing to do with that. But when I was in high school, a friend of mine, who was maybe a year or two older than me, told his English teacher one day that he wanted to start a landscaping company. And then he needed 20 $500 to buy a truck and a mower and a trailer to get started. And the English teacher gave him the money. And a number of years later, he had to buy the English teacher out of the business for $25,000. And to this day, the man runs one of the largest landscaping companies in the northeast.

Elizabeth Forrest 12:44
Are you hearing these sounds? No. What's wrong? Okay. Okay, my computer just made a sound. I'm sorry. I wanted to make sure you weren't hearing it in the background. No,

Scott Benner 12:54
I'll bet you If I hear noise, don't worry. Okay. But I just think that I think about that, like, he didn't come like he just be. I mean, he was like an 11th grade, you know what I mean? And he found a partner and bought a truck and turned it into a massive Corporation.

Elizabeth Forrest 13:09
I think that's awesome. It's so impressive. And there's so many stories like that. And it's pretty inspiring to hear those sorts of things. Because then people get ideas if Oh, I can do that, too. And maybe, maybe it's different, because something completely different. But it gives people the idea of you know, what is what is what am I good at? What can I bring to the table? And what can I create for good.

Scott Benner 13:30
And it's so different than, like, now I hate to say nowadays that, that I gotta find a better word than that. But like, you see somebody like, I'm gonna do a thing, like, what are you doing? Like, I got an Instagram account, and I'm gonna change the world. I'm like, Huh, I don't think you're going to. But that's not how all that works. You have to, I wish people would never understand probably the level of detail that goes into to something like that. So tell me a little bit about like when you set up, you know, when you know, how soon before I show up in Florida? Do you guys start thinking about it? for that year? Oh,

Elizabeth Forrest 14:03
gosh. We started a year in advance on on our conference on the show. In and those are things well, the show we've done it 20 times so far. So it's something that's relatively turnkey for us other than COVID throwing a wrench in but even when we have done a good job of creating a pretty good template, we still start a year in advance of thinking and brainstorming and what more can we do? How can we make it better? How can we reach more people? So minimum a year in advance?

Scott Benner 14:35
You do constantly have that feeling? Like Like, the way I describe it for me personally is excuse me what once you once you see that you have a thing, whatever it is that idea or a thought or something you can hold in your hand that make someone's life better. The next thought is how do I reach more people? Yeah, right right away. it's it's a it's a it's a burning feeling inside isn't it?

Elizabeth Forrest 14:58
It is Yeah. Because I know that there's, there has been so much productive positivity through through what we do. And it's like, you know, there's so many people that don't have access to, to really great resources or information, let alone the programs that we can help them with or the people we can connect them to at the very least. So it's we're constantly thinking, how can we reach more people? And how do we do it?

Scott Benner 15:23
Yeah, it's, um, it's a driving force behind me. Like, I always just think as long as the feedback is coming back from the podcast, the way it is, it's it's incumbent upon me to find more people to at least give the opportunity to hear it like I don't exactly I'm not trying to force it on anybody. Right. But they should know, like, because you said something earlier, like, why would know, like, Why is no one ever told this to me? Which is, is is insane. Because, you know, a couple of years ago, I don't know how your health was prior to the podcast, but it sounds like it got a lot better.

Elizabeth Forrest 15:59
Yeah, I mean, it was I would say I was average, and for being in this world so long, it shouldn't be average. It should be better. You should learn more along the way, but it was there wasn't getting any new information or any new help. I was also looking for it and so that I think that kind of comes with diabetes burnout at some point, you know, you get kind of in a point of being settled and Okay, and I'm getting by, but I was approaching a point in my life where I was thinking, Okay, how, how do I get better? How do I make this better? I talked to people every day, all day about type one diabetes, I need to be on the top of my game. So it was timing for me.

Scott Benner 16:54
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If I gave you a simple choice between having an accurate blood glucose meter, and one that wasn't as accurate which one would you choose? Well, I think you're right I couldn't hear you. But I think you're saying Scott I would take the more accurate blood glucose meter this seems like an easy question. And it is also easy could be getting that Contour Next One blood glucose meter head to Contour Next One comm forward slash juice box when you get there, you're gonna see big words that say, What do your test strips really cost you? Maybe too much. Insurance may not be the best way to buy test strips. Find out if contour next test strips over the counter might be cheaper. Can you imagine cheaper? How much money can you save? Go find out at Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox. While you're there, you can look into the possibility of getting a free Contour Next One meter by clicking on the meters and strips savings link where you will also find out about their test strip choice card. That's right, the contour choice card. There's a lot to find out here at this website. I would like it if you go take a look. When you go use my link in the show notes. Contour Next One comm forward slash juicebox. This meter is going to be easy to carry. Easy to hold in your hand. It's going to have a bright light. When you're using it the dark. It's going to have an easy to read screen. There's an app that you can connect to your phone to use it to give it even more features or you don't need to use it with the app. That's your choice. It's the bomb diggity, the bestest meter that Arden has ever used. It's also the most accurate one that we've ever had. Contour Next One comm forward slash juicebox g Volk glucagon comm forward slash juice box and of course, even though we didn't talk about it right here, because we're talking about an all episode long, let me just throw in touched by type one.org go find out what Elizabeth built, but first, finish listening to how Elizabeth built it.

I feel like I should be telling you something here. top of my head. I like submarine movies. I don't know if you do or not but I really do. My favorite modern one is Crimson Tide. I think

is the idea of talking about management directly? I'm not saying that I've, I'm genuinely not trying to say like, I came up with something, but I'm, it's uncommon, like I've found it in the space to be uncommon. I think that i think that that's part of the reason why the podcast excelled, is because I felt like one of the places that people were lacking was they would always tell you like, Oh, yeah, I know, it's hard to have diabetes, or you know, I have burned out, you have burned out, like, it was always a lot of that, like, here's what's wrong. And let's all commiserate a little bit. So we feel like we're not alone, which I genuinely feel like is a is a massive value for people. But I always thought that the people who were doing well, like who really had it, like kind of dialed in. I never, I never saw people like that. But I couldn't imagine that they didn't exist. So how come they weren't out in this? If there's a space? Like, why not be in the middle of it and ring a bell and tell somebody? So I just don't know, that doesn't happen more?

Elizabeth Forrest 21:12
Yeah, I don't know, either. And, you know, one of the bigger things for me with being bold with insulin is, I think it really opened my eyes to the fact that I could be in charge of my type one diabetes, and I could think outside the box, and I could be ever evolving. And I shouldn't be settling for what I've was told 1015 years ago, and still trying those same things and seeing the same results. And I think it was kind of like an eye opener, a light bulb went off of Oh, I can do this differently. And up until that point, no one or nothing out there led me to think that i think that that's a huge part of everything you do is just opening your eyes that you can think outside the box.

Scott Benner 22:01
Yeah, I've just I don't know another way to say it. Like it wasn't on purpose. Meaning like, I, I always did look at the space and think, I don't know why more people aren't just saying what works like I was I started seeing and I'm like, I'm gonna say it. But I think it's more. It's something that I can for myself, trace back in my whole life. Like if you were to come up to me when I was eight years old, and say, you know, Scott, this is my friend, Jim. And my dad was introducing me to someone and then Jim ended up being an idiot, or an ass or something like that. I would not curtsy to Jim because he was older than me. And then my dad would pull me aside later and say something like, you know, you got to be respectful. He's older than you. And I always thought to myself, like, why does that matter? Right? Like, why? Why? Because he's older than me. Do we have to pretend he's not a dumb ass? Like, like, I don't I don't get that part of it. Right. And so I've just never really felt like, I don't think that I live in a space in my head where you telling me this is as good as it gets? And I just go okay. Yeah, you know, that's great. Yeah, I just feel like what's fight back against it and see how far we can beat this thing back. And around diabetes. You know, I really do kind of believe and I hope, I mean, I guess I should knock on some wood. I hope I never find out. But I don't know if I would have gotten type one. If I would have come to any of these ideas. Or if I would just be another person kind of lost in the sea of average I'm getting by this is okay. Hopefully, like that would have been good luck. You know, I think I think it was because it was for Arden. And I just was like I can't let her live like this, you know? Right.

Unknown Speaker 23:37
Right. Well,

Scott Benner 23:38
anyway, I appreciate you having me down there. That was a really big deal for me. Because, you know, someone said, Look, we have a thing and this guy saying something reasonable. And it was it wasn't easy, right? Like, let's be honest. Like I stand up in front of a group of people. And I say a lot of things to them that they've never heard before. Yeah. So you I can't imagine there wasn't a little bit of hand wringing on your side real like, somebody stand in the back of the room. Make sure he doesn't say something.

Elizabeth Forrest 24:06
Well, I definitely set upfront for your session, because like, I need to hear it. I need to know what's going on. And I loved every minute of it. Great. That first one? Yep.

Scott Benner 24:15
But honestly, had I gone wrong? Was there like a hook on a long pole that was gonna yank me off?

Elizabeth Forrest 24:20
No, I had a lot of faith in you. There was no backup plan.

Scott Benner 24:25
So I get a text one day from you. And it's, I think you're telling me that you're in the parking lot of your endocrinologist office, and you're telling me about your a one c? I'm never going to forget that. Because after we kind of went back and forth real quickly, I'm not good at those conversations. I don't think cuz I'm always like, like, there's a little voice inside of my head that goes Yeah, well, you've just probably Pre-Bolus to get your basil right. And it's not that big of a deal is a good job, you know? And so I feel like I'm bad at those conversations, but it made me smile. I thought it was really terrific. And then you know, When the text conversation feels like it's going to end, but you get one more, and I got this one that said something like, if you remember, you'll tell me, but it was sort of like, never tell my husband that I told you this before.

Elizabeth Forrest 25:11
Yeah, I think so. Because normally I'll leave and I'll tell him and yeah, I told you first, you're the first to hear it

Scott Benner 25:17
really stuck in my head. And first of all, it was it was, it was heartwarming, like, I was like, wow, like, I did, like, here's how it feels like, if you're going on, like I did said, or something, something that led to a person who I know, you know, professionally, to reach out to me personally and say, Hey, I just want to let you know how this is going.

Elizabeth Forrest 25:37
And well, I mean, you know, this is someone with type one, it's just, it's so impactful to have finally found something that makes sense, right. And it wasn't overly complicated and wasn't very involved. But it just it took some a new a new approach to thinking about it. And it made a huge difference in my health, which, obviously, our health affects so many things. But it was just like, I don't even know how to describe it. But the feeling of having had Type One Diabetes for so long at that point, and something new coming in and fixing it. There was just, it was great. And I just was so appreciative that the podcast is out there. The blog is out there. The information is out there. You're out there doing all this and trying to reach as many people because I'm healthier today because of it. I'm healthier today because of our Dan essentially. Yeah,

Scott Benner 26:32
I I try to tell her sometimes, but she's still not old enough to. She's still 16. So she's like, Yeah, tell those people they're welcome. And oh my god. I like when people are like you should bring her to an event. I'm like, Yeah, I don't think so. Like, that's what you're looking for. But really try to imagine my sarcastic like wit inside of a 16 year old girl who's not alive. Yeah, who didn't raise a girl with Type One Diabetes, so she doesn't have any of those soft feelings that I have. So funny. It's um, I'm forever gonna wonder. And I'm going to try to help her as long as I can, obviously, but she grew up in a world where, like, she just doesn't have in her mind. She doesn't have any of the things holding her back that other people who grew up with like, I'm not kidding you. Yesterday Arden's I say the words Arden's period too much on this podcast. But artists definitely premenstrual right now. And she got on her online schooling, she comes downstairs, and she says, I'm not hungry. And I'm like, okay, but I'm very hungry. And I was like, okay, but nothing in the house seems right. And I was like, Oh, god, it's gonna be one of these, like, you know, and I was like, so we're going through everything. And she finally says, here's what I want to do. And I'm like, okay, she goes, I want grapes. a banana. And chicken is like, yeah, and she goes, Yeah, and I'm gonna have chips with it. And I was like, Okay, now, health issues aside, like with this food choices. I never thought, well, she can't eat that. And more importantly, to me, she never thought I can't eat. I can't do that. It never occurred to her. And I guarantee you, she's had diabetes since she was two. If she was 16, and we didn't figure out the things we figured out, she would have those thoughts, and then swallow them. Oh, absolutely. Like, absolutely, yeah, I'm gonna have a banana and grapes and chips and chicken. And then she thinks, no, I have diabetes, I can't do that. And I think that's where the, where some real problems come in, like, Oh, yeah,

Elizabeth Forrest 28:42
I mean, I, I think that I understand it now. And I look at it differently. But for the majority of my life, food was medicine. It was a, it was a tool that I had to use at different times for different reasons. And that leads to a whole other set of issues and topics to or could, I should say, but But yeah, I mean, you know, it's, we talked about this amongst ourselves that touched by type one, that, you know, it's a blessing and a curse to be diagnosed so young, because, you know, with the, with the right family and the right resources and information, by the time you're more aware of what's going on around you, it's kind of second nature, but at the same time, you know, you don't want your kid you don't want yourself to have had Type One Diabetes for that long, or to have it period. So, you know, I can I can remember times without type one, but unfortunately, most of my life is, is with type one.

Scott Benner 29:41
Yeah, I the only time I can feel myself, I'm gonna use the word frustrated, but I don't mean it that way. When feeling frustrated with an interaction between Arden and diabetes and food, is when I see her go, Oh, nevermind. I can't have that right now. I feel like I let her down that she thinks that and we don't like it. We are very obviously not limiting with one sheets. Also, I think I should be clear Arden doesn't have potato chips and bananas and chicken. Like for lunch usually, but it just, you know when those those hormones hit people, and when I say people I think I mean women. It's fascinating. Like she's like, you know, it sounds good and like, that doesn't set okay. Yeah. But But if I see her say like, oh my blood sugar's you know 150 I can't have that. And then I'm like, are no, no, you can just here's what we have to do if she goes no, forget it. That makes me feel sad. And I think it comes out as frustration because I'll stop. And I'll say, look, we can do this. Like, I don't know, like, Alright, your blood sugar got to one. I know that sounds crazy to some people, but like are your blood sugar got the 140. And it's not where we want it to be. But we're gonna make a big Bolus right now, I'm going to crush that 140. And I'm going to use it as a Pre-Bolus. And we're going to go right into the food. And you can do this, like you can be eating this food in 10 minutes. And most of the time, she'll go for it, but it's when she says no, I don't want to wait. That I'll say, well, then don't wait. Let's just do it, then. Like I like I would rather her blood sugar be higher than for her to have that thought.

Elizabeth Forrest 31:10
Sure. Yeah. That's, that's the best way to approach it.

Scott Benner 31:14
It just makes sense to me. I can't believe that. I even have common sense. But around this I actually, actually. So what are you trying to do with touch by type one? Like, what's its goal? Because when I do like, Listen, I know it's no secret anybody's listening. You buy ads on the podcast, I think after I was down there, the first or second time, you reached out to me and said, I want to find out if I can get an ad on the podcast. And I was excited. I tell people all the time, I genuinely mean it. There are a number of advertisers on the podcast, I feel 1,000,000% comfortable standing behind every one of them, whether they're a device and what they do, or if they're, you know, a medication and how they work or an organization and what it does. But I have a hard time telling people what because I'm always just like, just go check it out, you'll see like, they're helping people find out. But what would you you know, what's the longer idea of what touched by type one is,

Elizabeth Forrest 32:12
so it really is connecting with people that need us. And that's what it comes down to at its core. We've all found through our different experiences, that different programs or services or resources weren't available at different times or for specific people. And so we just want to eliminate all that all that and, and get the information out to those that need it or that wanted, I should say. And if if we can connect with one more child or one more adult that was just diagnosed with diabetes, and give them the tools and resources so they can independently thrive with diabetes we did. We did everything we could have ever imagined. And so it's really just connecting with people so they can have a good experience. So they don't have to think their Type One Diabetes diagnosis is going to limit them from anything. And I it's how I've lived my life is I don't let Type One Diabetes get in the way. It's it's a huge part of who I am. And it's led me to a lot of interesting experiences and people, but it does not stop me from anything. And I want that for everyone. I want everyone to go after whatever it is they want. I like

Scott Benner 33:22
it. It's not when you talk about it, it doesn't feel like a corporate pamphlet. I don't know, I don't know. Just like we're gonna do good things for people who have type one diabetes.

Elizabeth Forrest 33:33
Yeah. And we're we're, we evolve every day. I mean, it's, we have such a great group of people that are connected and, and part of different committees and on our board. And we always talk about Okay, what more can we do? Like I said before, but what's what's not happening in our community? Or who are we not connecting with? And how do we do that? And what information is missing? And we're constantly listening to people in our communities to find those answers out. And all of our programs are because of that, because we were listening to what other people needed, right? Because we all have our own experiences and have different needs. But that doesn't mean those are the same for everyone else, either. So we are constantly evolving and changing to make sure that we're providing what people want. Because if they don't need what we're offering, or what are we doing?

Scott Benner 34:26
Yeah. And if and if I don't offer the thing that they want, I hope they can find it somewhere else. I have to say I've, I've taken that. So I started a Facebook page at the behest of people listening. So I always had like a public page where I'd just be like, there's an episode out or you know, that kind of stuff. But I'm not very social media focused. To me, the podcast is is the thing. And so enough people asked for a private group so that they could find other listeners to talk to and I just thought like, okay, like, What do I care, you know, like I was like I'm making for you. So I built this private group and You know, a builder takes 20 minutes, and you put it together. And I think it's been up, and not for a year even. And there's like, almost 10,000 people in it. And they're just all helping each other. And at first, it made me uncomfortable at first I was like, Oh, no, like, am I? Like, I'm not really sponsoring this. But like, what if somebody says something in here, I don't think is right. But so many people who listen to the show came into it, that it just, it's fascinating how quickly they come to a consensus together, they don't fight. It's it. And I never imagined how valuable it was going to be. And some days I watch it, do things that I know, I don't accomplish with the podcast. And that just made me feel like, wow, like, Look, the podcast made this thing, we've brought these people together, and these people are solving problems for each other. I could not I'm only one person, like I could never have done all this. It's very cool to watch it. Grow. I that's there's a better world,

Elizabeth Forrest 36:03
you you created a community. And and that's what people need. And that's what people want, when they want to kind of take charge and see a better outcome. And one of our board members is always talking about how you know if I could change my daughter's diagnosis to never happening? Sure, absolutely, I would. But look at this great community that we've been a part of, because because of it, it's kind of the silver lining. And so I see see that Facebook page as your silver lining as well. And one of many, but creating a community is so impactful on so many people one that they want. Yeah,

Scott Benner 36:41
yeah, it's so difficult when you're driving the bus to see everything that's going on in the bus like and saying, I can look over my shoulder sometimes and think like, that's really good. But I don't have enough time to, like really dissect it and look at it. I just think it's running well. And that's great. And let it go. I have to be honest, it's something about bringing enough like minded people together on a subject is why it runs smoothly. Because, you know, sometimes there's stuff that flares up in the world that's political or social or something. And you can see for a split second, these people don't have a lot else in common besides this diabetes thing. But look at how they get together on the diabetes thing. Very cool.

Unknown Speaker 37:27
Yeah. Yeah, it is.

Scott Benner 37:29
Yeah, I just I love it. And you're doing it in a it's funny that, you know, I used to think when I very first started, like doing an ad, I always thought like, well, I'm doing an ad for an organization. It's a local organization in Florida. And then the last time we were together, you told me like, I'm starting to, like you started to hear from people outside of your area. And

Elizabeth Forrest 37:52
oh, yeah, we have with with some of our programs, we reach people beyond Central Florida. And so we have people that are connected to us now and have been for a while all across the country. And we connect with people more so in the past year, mostly because of COVID. internationally. Now, I mean, I don't, I don't want to dive, unless there's time to dive too much into some of our programs. But the one I will say is our D box program is a free kit to those recently diagnosed, has a ton of information has material samples, products and programs that we believe in wholeheartedly, that are productive and living with Type One Diabetes, but we offer this program for free to anyone that wants one and and we've been able to reach so many people that way and get them this information that they might not have been able to get without this program. And last year 2020 we distributed about 2000 boxes across the country and had so many requests internationally. But you know, we're a we're a relatively small nonprofit organization and to provide something for free right now. We can't do it internationally as well. But we're we're working on something that we'll be able to reach across the globe Pretty soon, which is pretty exciting. So excellent.

Scott Benner 39:14
No, I it's just really, to me, it's it's a it's uplifting, and I will never forget the first time I was at your thing, and there were kids dancing in another room. I'm like I slipped in there for a second. So like I go in, and I realized that I have no connection to dance. I can't dance. First of all, I'm and my children don't dance. I've never been around it. And I walked in. It's a completely new experience for me. And these kids were just they were joyous. Like they had so much life in their face and they were having such a good time and the people who were directing them and helping them. Were having such a great time. And then I really looked at I was like, man, all these kids have diabetes. Like this is really cool. You know? It just really felt great. So I know there are tons of people who love dance. And so I'm like when they you guys have to see their program like I would imagine if you're a dance person, this is just the craziest thing that I started seeing video over the years. I was like, this thing's amazing, like, I

Unknown Speaker 40:15
think so.

Scott Benner 40:16
Like Elizabeth pull this all together from like her house when she was like nine or something like

Elizabeth Forrest 40:22
it has evolved that is for sure. It is not the first show. Our most recent show is far from the first show that was in my parents driveway.

Scott Benner 40:31
It's come a long way. You know, it's funny, as you told the story, I was like, she's not getting to the part where it happened in their driveway.

Elizabeth Forrest 40:38
I always forget to mention it. I don't know why. But I guess I imagine I relate the first show with being in the theater. And so even the first show that was in the theater is drastically different than what it is today. But But yeah, I mean, this show literally did start on my driveway, my my dance class came over to my house, we warmed up, surrounding my swimming pool in the backyard. And when all of the family and friends that were in the front yard lined along our very long driveway with like a grill going face painters, it was this very interesting little event we put together. But my I remember my dance class, warming up by the pool, and then walking from the backyard to the front. And we performed two or three dances on the driveway for everyone that was there is like entertainment. And and that is what led to the idea, along with having produced to show through the school of let's call it dancing for diabetes and put on a show. But yeah, it started on my driveway. It's so crazy to think back to that time.

Unknown Speaker 41:46
You remember how much money you raised that day?

Elizabeth Forrest 41:49
I think we raised like, maybe $1,000 maybe we had we had things like you had to guess how many jelly beans were in a jar. I mean, it was it was so different than everything we do now. But it's really cool that it started that way.

Scott Benner 42:04
Yeah, I would say so. I mean, like last time, we were all together. I thought like this is like this is like walking through Disney World. There were a lot of like, there's just a lot of people there. And there were people coming from distances. And yeah, I have to say like I do a fair amount of speaking things. And that's the thing that like always shocks me is that when somebody says they traveled a distance to get there, I just think wow, like that's how desirous they are of like camaraderie community help, whatever it is they're looking for. It's so valuable, and at the same time unavailable to them that they that they can make a day travel a distance, you know, spend the night in a hotel, sometimes I've seen people do

Elizabeth Forrest 42:45
yeah, I mean, not not 2020. But in 2019, we learned of a family that had traveled from Connecticut, to come to Florida, in Orlando, to to attend our show downtown Orlando in a theater. And I want to say they heard it on the podcast. And maybe I'm just connecting the Northeast with class, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure the connection was there. And that was that like blew my mind that they traveled that far. And then in 2020, when we basically when I made the decision to still ensure dancing for diabetes would continue but do it safely. Through a virtual show, we had people able to tune in again for free from anywhere in the world. And we had people viewing from 22 different countries and until we reached more people and watching our show production than we ever have. And that was really cool. And you know, it's another positive that came out of 2020. But it was incredible to me that so many people got to see the show, which is a baby of mine to an extent, and that we reach so many more people than we ever have. And that was just really cool.

Scott Benner 44:02
It's just the greatest thing. I did an online thing last year for like a small group is like 30 people. But they were all in Japan. And I was just like, I'm like, how is this happening? Like, I don't know that people would understand completely but I didn't start a podcast and go you know, what I'll do is I'll start a podcast about my ideas around type one diabetes, and soon it'll just be listened to all over the world. Like you don't think that's going to happen, you know, and I interviewed a woman recently he is living in Israel. Oh geez, I just didn't I just interviewed a woman from Iran recently. Australia, New Zealand like those like the obvious places like, I can't believe how big the podcast is in England, and stuff like that. And when that happens to me, like there's a moment where you're just like, Oh, it's working and that like the the business part of it feels good. But then you really stop and think that these people like who are living a life similar to yours. My daughter's there everywhere. And you know, you're still only reaching the ones that can be reached like there are plenty of places in the world that people have Type One Diabetes right now. And they don't have internet access, or they don't have a cell phone to listen to this with or the time or again, how would they even find out about, you know, about touched by type one? Or about a podcast or something like that, right? I just Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 45:22
no, I am,

Unknown Speaker 45:23
I

Elizabeth Forrest 45:24
can tell you with 100% certainty that when I was a middle school student, I never imagined having that show, whether it was on my driveway or the school, that it would ever evolve to anything near as close to what we have today. And I always tell people, if you have an idea, you know, as little as it might seem, because that seems really small to me at the time. Do it, try it? If it works, it works. If it doesn't, you tried, and you never know where it's gonna go. But yeah, I definitely understand your thought of never imagining how big it would grow. I can definitely relate.

Scott Benner 46:01
What is it like, personally for a second, like taking the organization out of it and everything? Does it feed you in a certain way?

Elizabeth Forrest 46:09
Oh, absolutely. It is. It's kind of, it's a hobby for me at this point. It's fun, it inspires me because I get to see whether it's daily or on a monthly basis how productive and impactful it is. And it just it really just brings me so much joy, to know that we're doing something so good, despite something so awful. So yeah, it touches me personally, all the time, when I take a step back and reflect on everything.

Scott Benner 46:39
Yeah, I can't imagine it wouldn't. I mean, I can tell you that at the beginning of the episode, where you said that you felt like what you learned on the podcast, like led to a healthy pregnancy? I don't that that makes me feel like I always like it makes me uncomfortable. And then so I joke about it. And I'll be like, you should have named your baby after me. But that's really just to deflect from the fact that I have a lot of emotions around it. And I I don't even know how to respond to something like that. You know, but what what do you end up having a little boy, right?

Elizabeth Forrest 47:09
Yes, we have a little boy, he is just about five months old now. So it's been quite an experience and journey so far, a wonderful one. But when I could have never really fully prepared for

Scott Benner 47:22
what would my name have had to have been for me to get a baby named after me? Because my name is things. That's the problem, right? Like, no, it's

Elizabeth Forrest 47:31
not a bad name at all. And I mean, this is going to sound like an excuse. But we did name our son after my husband, his father, who's also named after his father. So he's a third. So we were kind of keeping it in the family that makes you feel bad. I

Unknown Speaker 47:47
mean,

Scott Benner 47:48
you know, maybe I got a note from somebody recently that said, we're not going to name our baby after you. But I think they're going to name their pet after like, my last name, but I was like, I'm totally taking that.

Elizabeth Forrest 48:01
That's nice. I mean, pets are part of the family. So that's a big deal, at least to me,

Scott Benner 48:05
I honestly was thrilled. I was like, this is a major accomplishment for me. Someone's dog is named with my last name. I was like, I've winning, dammit. But now it's just so it described to people a little bit like you've had diabetes for a good long time you had it? Where are you? Like you said, you were doing just Okay, you've had it where you were doing better? And you've had it where you're doing better, and you're pregnant? What's it like to go from? Like those? those segments? I guess? Like, what's it like living at? Okay, first of all, what's the downside?

Elizabeth Forrest 48:38
You know, it's, it's kind of, for me, it was I felt like I was in a rut. And I felt like, I couldn't see the light to get out of just being okay. And in every other aspect of my life, I'm not someone that just settles for. Okay, so that was really frustrating for me. But I will say that, getting out of it and finding resources and a way to make myself better. I feel like that was almost like a reset button, and kind of a new chapter in my diabetes life. And one, there was a point years ago, someone asked me the question, does diabetes get easier with time? And I said, No. And I said that, throughout my life, like everyone's life, we were constantly evolving and changing and growing. But there are things that happen in our lives that force us to change and to grow for, for better or for worse. And, you know, when you're a teenager, and you have to learn how to drive a car, and then you go off to college, you're dating, you're interviewing for jobs, I mean, diabetes has a play and all that. And so learning those things are new and challenging, but then throw diabetes into it. And that's a whole other layer of a new challenge. And so diabetes Constantly part of the mix. And so that's why I say no, it doesn't get easier. You might learn some things along the way. But then there's more to learn in life itself.

Scott Benner 50:10
I found for me that it didn't, it doesn't get easier, but I got so much better at it, that there are times when it can feel easy. And I'll take Yeah, you know,

Elizabeth Forrest 50:20
definitely I agree with that,

Scott Benner 50:21
I'll take that as a win. Like, I it's always gonna be a grind, right? Like, it's always gonna be the same stuff over and over again. And there are definitely days where you're just like, oh my god, like, How could my infusion set have gone bad? Like right here? Like, like, right, you know, like, I'm looking at art. And I'm like, now like, not now like, Oh, my God, all right, like, but you don't say those things out loud anymore. And eventually you don't feel them. You just see the you know, oh, the pods out of insulin, let's change it. And you do it. And you're right back to it again, and you just go back to life. It doesn't, it doesn't take a big chunk out. But I'll tell you, the IRS prior like a long time ago, just something like a you know, a pump change, or something like that. You're just it felt dreadful, like ah, and I and I don't feel like that anymore. And I don't think Arden does either. And it's not because she got accustomed to it. I think it's because we chose to think about it differently.

Elizabeth Forrest 51:18
Definitely, you know, and I was just going to say, I don't know if it's the same for you. But my kind of thought process on it all has been that, you know, diabetes throws curveballs. And you can do the same thing one day, and it's different than next. But those moments where I have to wake up in the middle of the night and change my sight because something's not working. Or today, my salad spiked my blood sugar to this amount, those sort of moments where you have to rethink the next move. Even though everything up to that point has worked. I feel like I've been able to apply those sort of lessons and thoughts in my non diabetes life, if one exists, if one could exist. But whether it's work or back when I was in school, it's it kind of teaches you an interesting life skill of adapting. And I always try to find those sorts of tools and lessons when I'm especially working with the kids with diabetes in our dance program is, you know, this is awful. This is horrible. I wish I didn't have diabetes. I wish you didn't either. But we have it. So what can we do in a positive approach to live better with it? And, and part of that is your mentality and thinking, Okay, this bad thing just happened? Well, how can I make it better? And I just I think it's been an interesting approach for me coupled with that your tools of living better?

Scott Benner 52:39
I have to say that, at one point, I'm always kind of evolving how I think about it. And at one point, if you said to me, like, Scott, I only have a couple of seconds. Like, what's the secret here? I would tell you got to get your basil, right? You have to learn your Pre-Bolus time, you have to understand the impacts of different foods. And I used to stop at that. And now there's a fourth thing, and I think it's that you have to remain flexible. Yes, absolutely. It's it. There's an agility that's mental, that you You just have to embrace. And it has to be that dammit, a salad has never made my blood sugar go up before but this time it did. So stop thinking about the salad. Now start thinking about the number How do I fix it without causing a low do that thing? Move forward? Exactly right. Just like that not not stand around for three hours going? This doesn't make any sense. My blood sugar shouldn't be high. This has never happened with salad before. Oh my God, is this going to be a thing that happens with salad now? Like you can't like you can't fall down that rabbit hole. Because the truth is the next salad you eat, it's probably not going to happen that way.

Unknown Speaker 53:43
And so exactly,

Scott Benner 53:45
right. Right. And and if Listen, if you want to try to dig into why one salad in six months, major blood sugar pop up, I'm sure you could figure it out eventually. But in the moment that is not valuable for you it is it is absolutely the opposite of valuable. it's maddening. And so you know, stay flexible. It's get your basil, right? figure out, you know, the lead time your insulin needs to work, and it's going to be different from one meal to the next, you know, to the next. And then you know, learn the difference between 10 carbs of rice and 10 carbs of watermelon and etc, etc. And then stay flexible. Because when we started really talking about variables, like when, so when I made the pro tip series, I started up I got Jenny side privately and I was like, Jenny, listen, like I want to take these ideas I talked about on the podcast, I was like I make them a little less scattershot. The way I talk through them. Like I think they should live somewhere in the road episodes. Could you come on and like, like be my equilibrium a little bit so I don't get carried away talking? And she's like, sure. And then she started getting involved. And I was like, Oh my god, she's like, brilliant at this. Like this is fantastic. And so at one point, I was like, Is there anything I'm not talking about that you think I should and she's like Well, I'm glad you asked and Gina and she gave me a couple of ideas. So some of the pro tip episodes are our journey building on to the pro tips as well. And the one thing she said is like, we have to talk about variables for people. Because some people will, you know, you see it online, sometimes they'll make this list of things that you know how people like to be like, like, Oh, my diabetes is just easy, I count my carbs. And I do this except if this happens, and then they make this long list of things. And the inference is that there are so many variables, I couldn't possibly know them all. And that's true. But I think like, what's the next part of that sentence? And I think is, so you don't really need to know them all. You need to know what to do when they pop up. Exactly. Right. And you need to know like this, like, quick, you don't want to have to sit around for an hour rain, you know, figuring it out.

Unknown Speaker 55:48
Yeah, you know,

Scott Benner 55:50
you said something earlier that I wanted to loop back to for a second if I can, you are a go getter, like you are not a sit still person. And you know, I think that, you know, you said earlier, you're an attorney and you run a nonprofit, like, this is obviously not a person who's, you know, who's just happy to like, sit around for a whole Saturday afternoon watching the sun. So I really want to ask, like when your blood sugar wasn't doing what you wanted it to do? Like, how does that impact you personally, when that's your personality?

Elizabeth Forrest 56:22
Well, let me say this first. I'm not an attorney, I am the Chief Operating Officer, I run the firm. I've been at this company almost 10 years. So I manage attorneys, but I'm not one. And a lot of people think I am because of my position. So I just want to clarify that. But to go back to the question. So. And the question is just because I lost my train of thought on

Scott Benner 56:44
when you're a person who does what you do, right? So and you're a person who is very driven inside? And and and you still have results and things like that when

Unknown Speaker 56:55
you're

Scott Benner 56:56
putting that kind of effort into diabetes and not getting those results back. How does that impact you psychologically? I

Elizabeth Forrest 57:01
guess? Yeah. So I would say how it affects me now is definitely different than how it affected me 678 years ago, so 100% it's frustrating, because I am absolutely someone that goes after something gets it done, I have goals, we're going to reach it. Whatever needs to happen, we're going to find a way to get to that. So when you use that same thought process for diabetes, which will do whatever it feels like doing, I remember one one comment my endo asked me years and years ago, I have a great relationship with Him been seeing him a long time. But he asked me one time, you know why your blood sugar is so high. And my immediate response without thinking was I have diabetes of type one diabetes. That's why they're so high and it does whatever it feels like. And he laughed. But my, my thought process and now is that I just keep trying something else. So I'm frustrated. But if my blood sugar's high, then I'm going to give myself another little bit of insulin, I'm going to go grab a water, I'm going to set a timer to look and see in 510 20 minutes, has it come down at all? Or I'm going to look at my site. Is that okay? Did I eat something weird today? I mean, these thoughts are constantly going through my mind of what can I do next, if this doesn't work? And and so I find myself being less and less frustrated, because I kind of have the tools in my toolbox now that I never did before. of, Okay, this didn't work, well, maybe this will and eventually it works. And if it doesn't, the next day comes along. And it's a whole whole other set of challenges with diabetes. But I think that I just I looked at my toolbox a lot. Yeah,

Scott Benner 58:51
I that's terrific. It really is I use you just were talking about like setting a timer and looking back in 10 minutes or so. There's so much of I did this I made a Bolus here. I know what I want to happen and what I expect to happen. If that doesn't happen. It's not happening. So I have to do it again.

Unknown Speaker 59:10
Right. You know, I

Scott Benner 59:11
have to I have to re address it. I know people be like, Oh, well you're stacking insulin. And I always say like, you know, it's not stacking if you need it. That's bolusing you know, like there's a difference. There's a difference. It's a theoretical, like you have to really kind of pick through it like you can't just keep giving yourself insulin over and over again because it will jump on you at one point yeah,

Elizabeth Forrest 59:30
of course do the wrong well one thing that I think scares a lot of people a definitely scared me and something I quickly got over and listening to your podcast is if if you can fix it with a juice box or Gatorade in my case or a fruit snack, do it. What's the worst that's gonna happen? It's gonna drop really low, but I'm monitoring it. I'm not ignoring the fact that I've diabetes. So if I can fix it with something nearby, I'm going to keep giving myself a little bit more insulin with certain amount of time in between, because because I can't and so that when I understood that concept, I definitely saw a little bit more results to have of not being scared of below. I was always terrified of lows I still am, I don't want to get low in the middle the night and not realize it. But knowing that you don't have to be all the time is really empowering. And then I will just say because I know that a lot of times even listening to the podcast and listening to other speakers, sometimes it could sound like the other person knows exactly what they're doing. I right now my blood sugar is is high. I'm 171 Today has been so challenging. I couldn't tell you why. But I have right now my agency is about 5.7 when I was in a few weeks ago, so not every day is perfect. But most of the time, I'm in a certain range. And so I think that's really important for other people to hear. Because when people are doing well, they don't necessarily talk about what's not working or what's bad or that because people want to see the good, but it's really important to know that you don't have to be perfect to be better at diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:01:13
I try to tell people all the time that at least twice a day Arden's blood sugar will make it to 160 sometimes 180 or something like that. And her a one C is still in the mid fives consistently. Yeah, the difference is the little pieces like you've been talking about for you know, throughout the whole hour. It's it's not like just going Oh, my blood sugar's 180. And then not thinking about it again. It's Oh, it's 180 I'll bring it back down. You know, not that I wonder blood sugar, it'll be 180. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if it should happen, you can't just go Okay, well, diabetes, and then walk away and leave it there,

Unknown Speaker 1:01:45
you got to do something, you have to do

Scott Benner 1:01:46
something about it. It's just it's a it's not a difficult concept. But there's something about the way standardized diabetes education is has been built over the years. That makes it feel like oh, it went up, it'll come back eventually. And I used to think, well, maybe it's different now. Because, you know, glucose sensing technology, like, you know, Dexcom, and stuff like that. But now I wonder more if it wasn't the just in the past, because that stuff didn't exist. And the idea was, well, if he's has too much, you're gonna burn yourself out. So don't test too much. Just test. Count your carbs, give yourself in some wait three hours check again, correct that if it's high, you know, if that whole thing didn't just come from the idea of, you can't, the concept of Well, you can't really control it anyway. So you might as well not burden yourself with it. You know what I mean? And if somehow that doesn't end up morphing into the direction that people get current day, that really isn't as valuable anymore. So I don't know. Like, I just think that at every one of these events, you know, I go to I eventually will meet one family whose kids blood sugar is just insane. It's like over 400 most of the day, and you talk to the parent, and they just they don't they don't understand why. And I don't see how, as long as that exists in the world, anywhere. I don't see how you and me and anybody else who has a voice that's valuable. wouldn't try as hard as they can to reach a bunch of people. Absolutely.

Elizabeth Forrest 1:03:22
That's exactly what we're all doing. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:03:25
So So watch this, you're gonna be very impressed. It's not written down anywhere. Watch this. If you'd like to do something great for people living with Type One Diabetes, you should check out touched by type one.org and find them on Instagram, and Facebook. I was that it's not bad. Awesome. I can do that in my sleep. Elizabeth. Just

Unknown Speaker 1:03:45
that's so cool. I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I wouldn't be surprised if Kelly wakes me up one day and goes oh my god, fine. I'll go to touch by type on.org Leave me alone.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:54
Fantastic. I

Scott Benner 1:03:54
really appreciate you doing this. How can you have listened for the past hour and not love Elizabeth the way I do? It's not possible. So now follow through good at touched by type one.org and figure out what's going on over there. See if you can get involved. If you can get help. Or if you can help touched by type one.org. And thanks so much to you guys for listening, for sharing the show for leaving the great reviews for helping out so much in the private Facebook group for all the things you do to support the podcast. You have my sincere thanks. We'll be back very soon with another episode. If you wait until after these ads, I'll tell you who the guest is going to be.

A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors g Vogue glucagon, find out more about chivo hypo Penn at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash Use box, you spell that GVOKEGL Uc ag o n.com forward slash juice box. Go find out about the blood glucose meter that Arden's using that I find to be the most accurate that we've ever seen. Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box. Don't forget to look into the test strip savings program. Find out if you're eligible for a free meter. do all the things that that website offers. It's going to be good for you. Okay, thank you for listening to the two ads. Next episode Jenny's back, Jenny's back, back from space. Yeah, she's

Unknown Speaker 1:05:50
back. Back again. Jenny's back journeys back journeys back journeys back