We didn't do it to ourselves. Type 1 diabetes is an incurable autoimmune disorder, and type 2 diabetes has multiple potential causes or precipitating factors, ONLY ONE of which is the result poor lifestyle choices. Others include a previous history of cancer and treatments, variations in gut biome, physical and psychological stress, heredity, ethnicity (some groups are at greater risk), and non-diet-related factors related to obesity. Yes, overeating can aggravate BOTH type 1 and type 2, putting stress on the pancreas and creating other problems. But there are people out there who are overweight and NOT diabetic. Similarly, there are folks with diabetes who are not overweight.

We don't lack self-control. You would be surprised just how much effort goes into counting every single gram of carbohydrate that goes into your mouth, carefully trying to dose just enough insulin to cover the food you ate, and adjusting food and insulin on the fly when the family dog decides to walk half a mile further than you had planned. In fact, just getting through the day is a balancing act, with the specter of death or hospitalization on the tightrope behind you, bouncing gleefully.

We're not all unmotivated. Like you, we want to live healthy lives, unfettered by stress and disease. In fact, unlike you, we work harder at achieving blood glucose control than you do, because YOUR pancreas still manufactures enough insulin for you to store the sugar you don't use. It's not your juice cleanse or weekday-night yoga routine that makes you better -- it's that all your organs still function.

We're not all sedentary. Just talk to Scott, a Clydesdale (heavy-set athlete) ultra-endurance triathlete with type 2 diabetes who swims 3 miles twice a week at the local lake, only to have his doctor tell him he "needs to start an exercise program."

We're not all fat. Talk to the elite marathoners and cyclists like Dave, who complete in top endurance events across the U.S., are at normal body weight, and nevertheless have sub-functioning pancreases and must take medications like Metformin.

Yes, we can eat sugar. In fact, if we've had even slightly too much insulin (an easy mistake when dosing for a restaurant meal), refusing us sugar or lecturing us on what's healthy to eat can delay a lifesaving intervention, leave us in the hospital, cause brain damage, or kill us.

We live in fear, not insouciance. Fear that a little too much insulin will kill us. Fear that a low blood sugar in the middle of the night will cause us to "sweat out" a critical amount of potassium, cause heart arrhythmias, and kill us. We even have a tradition for when that happens -- lighting a blue candle in memory of a lost brother or sister diabetic. Fear of losing health coverage that other carefree and apparently genetically perfect Americans take for granted. Fear that we will have to choose between making the rent or paying several hundred dollars to replace a month's supply of insulin that was in that tiny glass bottle we just dropped on the floor -- because even when we do have insurance they won't pay for another bottle. To say nothing of the fact that without that bottle of insulin, we will most certainly die.

And yet, despite all this, we persist. We keep our hopes up. And we continue to endure the judgment of others.