You are not alone, Cathy. We frequently get caught up in and emotionally react to our numbers.
The usual advice to people upset about their BG numbers is “It’s only a number. The number is not you. You are not the number.” All true, but not real helpful.
What helped me was to remember that the number is just data, little different than the outdoor temperature. What is important is not what the data is, but how I use it.
If the temperature outside is 36 degrees I put on a coat. if I go outside and I’m still cold, I add a scarf. Or a sweater or a hat or change jackets. If the temperature rises, I take them off.
Similarly with my BG. If it’s too high, I react by taking some insulin. If it’s too low, I eat something. Then I try to think back to what might have made it go too high or too low.
This is the primary difference between the data that is the outside temperature and the data that is our blood sugar. We think that we should be able to have absolute control over our blood sugar. Uhn-uhn. We can’t control it, we can only influence it. But at least we have some influence. The jacket I wore yesterday has no influence on the outside temperature today. But the food I ate yesterday will influence my BG today and in the future, like the next time I eat it.
This is why it’s important to keep a log of our food, our activities and our BG. So we can look back and see what has influenced our BG.
If you can afford the strips, I’d recommend talking to your doctor about testing more often. Three times a day won’t give you much useful information. Talk about ‘testing in pairs’ - test before you eat, then test again 2 hours after you eat. This will give you a better idea of how the food you eat influences your BG. If you test before breakfast and not again until lunch, four or five hours later, you really don’t have any useful information on which you can act. You won’t have any idea at all what your breakfast did to your BG. Testing in pairs might mean testing six times a day. It’s worth it to have more influence over your numbers.
That won’t necessarily help with your emotional response, which is hard to let go of. But it might help you take a more clinical and cold approach to the numbers, because they’ll be more like data and a reflection of the food you ate, rather than a reflection upon you.
They don’t reflect on you at all. You are not the number. The number is not you.
Best of luck,
Terry
Feeling better yet?