How diabetes forum-users complain about others’ expectations: Troubles-telling and troubles-receiving

Abstract

This article offers a qualitative analysis of two instances of troubles-telling threads on a diabetes forum, with a specific focus on how these instances contribute to constructing a way to manage others’ expectations concerning how persons diagnosed with diabetes control their condition. From the perspective of conversation analysis and discursive psychology, this article shows some recurrent features of both troubles-telling (namely announcement, stake inoculation and self-deprecation) and of troubles-receiving (namely appreciation, second stories, escalation). Our analysis furthermore shows how inadequate expectations from family members are judged differently from those of health professionals. The latter are judged more harshly for what seems a lack of professional competence, whereas the former are more easily pardoned but pose a particular challenge in that patients do not wish to remove these persons from their lives. Through this analysis, we contribute to showing a particularly important function of patient fora, namely allowing patients to tell troubles about others’ expectations and to receive support and advice for these circumstances that put a heavy emotional burden.