Forgive me if I think and talk like a programmer sometimes, it's an occupational hazard.
We could call it 'severity'. It's one of the variables. People tend to have trouble dealing with multiple variables, it gets complicated. Especially with things that you can't see directly.
Another variable we could call "effort". This is how hard a person tries to gain control. Yet another variable is "effectiveness" (of effort). This is how appropriate the effort is for a particular case.
I think that every case has it's own unique combination of severity, effort, and effectiveness and that it's not only difficult to compare these things from one person to another - but fruitless too. What's the point?
I've been thinking about this a lot because I feel that I am quite fortunate in that the severity of MY case of diabetes is less than a lot of people that have been diagnosed. Particularly people who find their way to DF. Many of them seem to "have it worse" than I do. Now make no mistake, the level of effort, AND the effectiveness of it have something to do with my success so far but severity certainly plays into it.
Degree of control is a combination of these three variables and more. It's complicated and maybe impossible to measure. Severity is what it is. You may be able to prevent severity from getting worse by effective effort. Effectiveness is what we can expect to increase by coming here to DF. Effort is entirely up to you. Fight the good fight!
Well, that's how I see it.
