Its been almost 30 yrs I have had Type 1 Diabetes and for 15 of them I have had a condition of mental disturbance. So what does that mean? For the last 15 years I have suffered, no, survived depression. I don't believe that I suffer from it. I live with it and I manage. But for these 15 years why hasn't my diabetes management included this "disturbance". It wasn't until the last 3-4 years when my specialist introduced the idea that until "I FIX ME", my diabetes will suffer and so will I. I have 2 children and a wonderful wife. I want a wonderfully long marriage and I want to see my children grow up.
My point is, like it says above, no manage out there for diabetes is successful if the patient themselves is not in the right frame of mind.
Is diabetes mental for you?
I believe that a big part of anything is the mental issue. I am not worried about the diabetes right now (had a pancreas transplant 3 years ago) but I have a host of other medical issues and between therapies and meds I have a lot going on. Sometimes it’s so hard to wrap my mind around taking yet another pill on yet another schedule. People often don’t realize what a huge amount of energy it can take to get yourself going to properly take care of yourself. I did find that my diabetes was easier while I was pumping. I had become needle-phobic and being able to bolus without a shot was a huge relief for me, both mental and physical.
Like, LIFE is mental? Our brains are hard-wired to have emotions, and there is no way having to deal with diabetes could NOT impinge on our emotions. Why do you think depression is twice as common among diabetics as in the general population?
I have Major Depressive Disorder along with diabetes, and I’m not so arrogant as to believe I can deal with it alone. I learned that the hard way. For me, it includes taking anti-depressants, and seeing a psychologist. For you, it might be different, but it DOES need to be acknowledged and dealt with.
YOU ROCK BRIAN!!! I just wrote a “Thank you to EVERYONE” note primarily based on thier honesty about how, why and what some of thier struggles are. What you have highlighted is as important as the diabetes itself. The number of people who are depressed and suffer in silence is staggering. This of course is part of the downward spiral that diabetes waits for.
I have said many times that you sleep, and diabetes does not. It is very efficient at wearing people out HOWEVER it despises honesty and comradrey. It is mainly passive but can be aggressive, and passive aggressive as well. It is continually looking for every loophole or crack in our plaster in order to exploit them. It does not have a voice because it is silent, sneaky and severe. If it did it would say "How dare you expose any part of what I do to you in an effort to get help?
Well I have a voice and I will take this oppurtunity to say I am very proud of you. In the moments when it kicks you, and this will happen, kick it back twice as hard. Without driving yourself or others crazy, just do your very best and know that you are NOT ALONE!!! Always look for better strategies that allow for reasonable blood sugar management and ALWAYS carry a kit (like the one in my picture) that will allow you the freedom that you deserve to be in control. Your old enough to remember the Karl Malden American Express commercial where he said “Don’t leave home without it”.
The advantage we have is that we have the ability to think and make positive change. When we take this kind of action we have it on the run because it can’t complete it’s mission until we bow to it. Although it will get a shot in every now and again, we are the master and it waits for us to help it which I can assure you, will not happen easily.
If you make small changes and an error occurs (which is easy to do) at least it is small. You and Cora are quite right my friends, the mental aspect plays a huge role, and I want to thank you very much for stating an extremely important part of any strategy that will have a huge impact on the result. Well done Brian, very well done and on behalf of all of us thank you very much.
Love Always
Anonymous Diabetic.
P.S. You will be there for your wife and kids and by the way, plan on what you are going to do when you retire.
Love this post. Thanks Anonymous Diabetic.
It is very rare that I am at a loss for words but RIGHT BACK AT YA!!! Yes I care, you see to know is only to be aware, to experience is to understand. And we certainly do. It is my/our honour to help those navigate through the very rough waters of diabetes however there is no way I cannot. I have so much to learn but will share whatever, whenever I can.
One of the things that diabetes cannot stop is it’s ability to teach and unite people. It hates you (ha ha). Me? I love you so please continue to do your best and give it a boot for me every now and again, and thanks for bringing what is really the central focus of ANY success .
Love Always
Anonymous Diabetic.
I agree it’s superstructural and very situational. A lot of times, conversations revolve around “what number is good” and “what number is bad” but it’s sort of beyond good and evil, and you have to be active and engaged ALL the time or it can be a huge bummer. And really, even if you are active and engaged, it is still a bummer.
Even as a non-insulin T2, diabetes has been very much a mental thing for me. Mostly in a good way. When I got no doctor support and had to do my own investigation, I took charge of my own life. On a low carb diet, my control has been great, my vision improved 2 whole diopters, I’ve lost weight and kept it off (not easily though), and I’m healthy as a horse. EXCEPT I have an ongoing battle with neuropathy and my feet. I liken it to a ball and chain. I look outside and see something that needs to be done and while the mind is willing and able, and the whole rest of the body is, too, the feet are not. The times I’ve had to be in a wheelchair were sometimes the best. Costco in a wheelchair rocks! Stumbling around that place on my own pissy feet is a trial. So while I don’t have to deal with food, insulin, or high blood sugar issues, I still have this weight I have to drag with me everywhere. For most of my life I was overweight but active. I walked, I jogged, I rode horses, I was strong and self-reliant. Now I look good in clothes but I can’t do ■■■■for myself. I have never been depressed, but I do get bitchy when I’m frustrated and haven’t figured a way to cope yet. Reading all the stories on this forum has also been a big help because I’ve been able to see that everyone has their own version of the same ball and chain and in general we’ve all dealt with it pretty well because we’ve taken charge of our own lives. I know folks who have nothing wrong physically who blame all bad things in their lives on some imagined slight, or on their spouse or their kids. I know folks who blindly do whatever their doctors say. And I think, now THOSE folks are a mess. Diabetes is no picnic, but it has helped me get my mind and body in a better place.
Get a new specialist?
Diabetes is a depressing problem, pretty much all the time.
Is your specialist a Type 1? The last one I trusted was.
Non-diabetic human beings demonstrate a range of happiness levels. My non-diabetic wife is terminally happy, before I met her I was continually depressed. You have a wonderful wife and a specialist of dubious merit; perhaps you should dump one of them? Perhaps it is not you who is in the wrong frame of mind?
Diabetes is completely mental, both on a physical and emotional level. Physically, rapidly changing blood sugar has a HUGE impact on my emotions. I get cranky when I’m too high or too low, and downright weepy when I get low (especially if I’m having a bad low). In addition, the stress of managing this 24/7 disease can be downright overwhelming and mentally draining. There are some days where I swear I don’t have a single bit of mental energy to give up to anything else because all of it has been consumed by diabetes - carb counting, bolusing, changing basal rates, changing infusion sets, testing, etc…it all just takes up so much time and energy. Then there’s the stress of thinking not just about the immediate issues that need to be addressed, but the bigger, looming issues. Will I develop complications? Will I be blind before I’m 40? What else will I have to deal with in the future? Will I be able to handle it?
Sadly, I don’t think endos have done a good job of acknowledging all of this. My endo is great, but she has never asked me how I’m doing emotionally. I understand that to a point, because she is more concerned about things like my vision and my A1C, but still, the ability to ward off future complications depends on my ability to manage the disease now.
Finally, there’s also the emotional stress that comes from society’s perception of diabetes, particularly all the confusion between T1 and T2. I rarely tell people I’m a T1 diabetic because it’s so stressful…they don’t understand how I could be “diabetic” because I’m not overweight, or they say something like, “Oh, you have the bad kind of diabetes.” Every time I hear that, I get a pit in my stomach.
So, yeah, diabetes IS mental for me in that it takes a huge toll mentally. BUT, I am trying really hard to deal with all of that and not let it get to me.
when they tell me I have the “bad kind’ I say " All kinds of diabetes are BAD… but we can live with it and its challenges"
I said it just today , this morning during a chat with my neighbors… This comment Inspired an informative discussion, for them, on what to look out for and what they could do to prevent or delay full-blown diabetes onset , as they are both diagnosed, i found ou, today, as “pre-diabetic”. They were both curious about the causes of diabetes, and one believed that they had became 'prediabetic” by eating sweets. I said that just excess carbohydrate consumption alone wil lnot MAKE you a diabetic, it was combined with other factors. I emphasized the genetic component and risk factors,particularly in non- autoimmune Type 2 diabetes, which is prevalent in their families… However, they are both of normal weight and exercise daily, and are eating healthy diets now… So it looks promising for them to never develop diabetes. If they eventually do, I assured them they would be able to “handle it”. This is what makes the negative mental aspect of diabetes better for me, helping, encouraging, and sharing with others…
God Bless,
Brunetta
Its been about that for me too, 15 or 16 years I guess and 35 now, Dr. says I’m over reacting but what used to be a once and a while funk now seems like an everyday thing. It affects my sugar too, cause I feel as though I have zero energy lately or even desire to do anything. I check my sugars all the time but I just stay in the house so its hard to stay level when you don’t excercise. This is also how I got plugged in to tu diabetes, I was kinda trying to find a place where people were like me and throw around ideas on what to do to get your self going and motivated again.
Cheers,
I think just the word diabetes is mental for me… I hate the word and all that it takes to manage it. There are a lot of people who know me that don’t even know I am a diabetic… My best friends didn’t know until I went on a pump, and it was finally told to them in case something happened. I don’t want to be considered diabetic… I am a person, human first and foremost. I didn’t choose this, I don’t even want it… BUT it is 24/7/365 and support or not, most don’t understand it. As I carry my pump and all that goes with it testing kit - strips, meter lancets, Emergency supplies - insets, wipes, sanitizers, insulin, cartridges, batteries, and spare caps. Oh and wait there is a pump attached to me day & night. Mental is a nice way of putting it. When my dr put me on the pump, It was mental and my DH didn’t and really still don’t get it… I have been fighting with depression for several years only to recently talk to my Dr. about it. I managed it on my own for 3 years and finally at a breaking point at the beginning part of this year. the good news it was a mentally low time for me, and I think depression along with diabetes is a series of waves that are high and low… Just don’t forget the highs in the valleys of the low… Making it all meet somewhere in the middle is what it all seems to be about.
The word “diabetes” doesn’t bother me (too much), but boy, the disease sure does! I would so love to go eat a HUGE chocolate sundae with nary a worry about either how much insulin to take, or what it’s going to do to my waistline! Just not to be THINKING about it all the time! It’s no wonder that diabetes and depression go hand in hand. But keep on trudging, dear – there IS more to life than diabetes, even for us OCDiabetes folks! 
I do the sugar thing once in a while, when I’m pissed about something, just because I feel I need to to remain me.
It helps, partly because it hurts but mainly because it proves to me that I’m still in control, at least of diabetes. Everything else in the world (like, love, money and drugs) seems to be controlled by someone else, but diabetes, I can still do that.
There is a silver lining, you just have to be in the right place (I admit, a place no one in their right mind would want to be) to see it.
I agree with you,i think the mental aspect of diabetes is most harmful if you let it take control.i think the mental part takes over because it makes it easy for the brain body connection.the human system likes easy not difficult tasks IE great diabetes care.
What does specialist FIX ME there is no fixing diabetes. You’re stuck with it just like I have for 55 yrs. As far as complications go I have 35% of kidneys left which has been a fact for 2 yrs. Lately I’ve had a craving for sweets like chocolate covered donuts and anything with chocolate. I sometimes eat chocolate and then take the prescribed insulin through the pump. I have never weighed my food. I just eat a balanced diet and take the insulin for the number of carbs. Does anyone else have these extreme cravings and what do you do to stop them. This is a mental craving chocolate. Marion
Diabetes is definitely mental for me. I have lived with severe chronic depression for over 25 years of my 59, I have been T2 for almost 11 yrs now. During the last 11 years, I would say that at times the depression seemed to get worse. But my research and in talking with other people who live with depression, and Diabetics’ it’s not unheard of, that at times, a long term disease does get you down…but as you said, you learn to live with it, manage it, and manage yourself. I am not a person who will cry about what I have been give or not given to deal with…more so, I am a fighter, and I will NOT let these things get me down and definitely out. I have a son getting married this Nov. and I will finally get another “girl” in the family to share life with…I will also get the opportunity to see grandchildren I want to be there for all of those events, and much more. So I don’t allow many pity parties in my life…and if I do, I don’t allow them to last long. I guess you would say I was a fighter x 10.
You are right. Thanks for sharing.
I liked your “OCDiabetes”!