Jeanne...

In a way, I can understand how your friend feels. Face it...it sucks to be diagnosed with a chronic illness, especially when you're still a teenager with your whole life ahead of you. Even when you're [ahem] forty-something, it still sucks.
BUT...throwing yourself a decades-long pity party doesn't do a darned thing about what's going on inside your body; then you're just a depressed person with a chronic illness and you're still no closer to doing anything productive about it.
As I see it, there are several options that a person in this sitation has:

1) Sit around feeling sorry for yourself, do nothing about the problem and get worse.
2) Sit around feeling sorry for yourself, do something grudgingly and halfheartedly about your disease and hope you don't get worse.
3) Feel sorry for yourself, do something about your disease (diet, medication, whatever it takes) and at least get better physically.
4) Forget about feeling sorry for yourself, face your disease head on, do whatever it takes to keep it in check and resolve to do your darndest to not let it deprive you of a long, healthy and happy life.

Option 4 sounds like the best option for me.

This is one of the few diseases where the person who is sick has a great deal of control over how sick they will let themselves get by either chosing to do nothing or by chosing to make the lifestyle changes needed to gain and keep good control (diet, exercise, medication). Diabetes is no longer a death sentence as it was as little as 80 years ago. There have been great advances in what we know about how to treat it effectively and with the right program, many diabetics go on to lead long and happy lives. Yes, you will need to change some things, like what you eat, but if it actually makes you healthier and helps you live longer how awful is that???

When life hands ya lemons, grab some Splenda and make some low carb lemonade.