When I’m high, especially for extended periods and several unsuccessful correction attempts, I feel irritable and frustrated. My skin feels greasy and dirty. My thinking is muddled. I feel like I have syrup in my blood vessels. I know that high BGs cause damage and I hate that I can’t fix it five minutes ago!
As bad as dealing with all the physical aspects of diabetes is, the social side remains a mystery to me. When I was married, I hated when my spouse asked me, “Are you low?” It was an innocent enough question but I always read more into it than was really there. I was hearing, “Are you low, again?” Or perhaps I felt like a child that needed special deference because of my disease.
And sometimes I read into the question that whatever provoked my emotional involvement was not a legitimate concern of mine. It’s as if I thought she thought my objection was not real; it was just my low talking! Sometimes when she asked that question, I was not low, just emotionally invested in my position.
I read into the question way more complexity than was actually there. I just felt that my autonomous agency as a person was threatened. That I needed to be treated with “special understanding” because I had diabetes. I hated that and never did figure it out. I’ve now lived alone for 25 years and have finally learned how to deal with this disease but the social aspects still perplex me to some extent.
