My life has changed since my diabetes. I don’t expect anything good anymore. I am consistently unwell, sitting or lying. I am entirely dependent on my family members for even my daily activities...I have stopped working; my days pass at home thinking about my future and the other diseases yet to come. Even now, give me any stressful situations at home, my sugar levels shoot up, and then it will take many days for them to come back to normal. This is vicious cycle of very poor body and mind I don’t socialise much. I don’t discuss my disease with friends and relatives. We don’t talk about all these health problems with one another (Participant 4, female, age 46)

I miss the way socially I used to be before. I don’t have the confidence to mix with people in the community, since I often feel lack of confidence and overwhelming worry that prevents me to be easy enough to exchange with people in my society (Participant 5, female, age 42)

I don’t go anywhere, I don’t mix with friends or relatives, this is only me and my diabetes. (Participant 19, male, age 49)

To start with attending social gatherings was an embarrassment, and as time went by, I have become immune to it. If people ask me now, I am quite comfortable with it. Now I see that sharing things about self to the people made sense since only through this I get to know other people's experiences, and it eases your mind a lot. (Participant 10, female, age 52)

I am able to do pretty much what I wanted to do with my social life. I have close friends and family and I feel satisfied with the interactions that I have (Participant 11, male, age 42)

I have not been a very sociable or popular person. I like to keep to myself and also read a lot. I do not have several friends that I interact regularly with. I think that being diabetic has hampered or stopped me from doing stuff that I am interested in. (Participant 25, male, age 55)