Trigger warning: suicide

hollyslot

Well-Known Member
Messages
167
Type of diabetes
Type 1
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Insulin
Hello,

I have t1 diabetes and have done for 20 years (I'm 23.5). Since the age of 11, I've had suicidal thoughts and wishes to end my life, I do currently. I just wanted to ask, does anyone else with diabetes and can this be linked/ because of it? It's not that I think 'I'm diabetic, I want to kill myself' its more like, I am tired of life and everything is too hard and I cant see my future (in the most basic way). Can this be caused by my diabetes? Sorry if that sounds stupid.
 

therower

Well-Known Member
Messages
3,922
Type of diabetes
Type 1
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Insulin
@hollyslot . Diabetes finds many ways to infiltrate our lives. Far too often people think it’s all about the numbers.
BS, carbs, dosage and HbA1C. It’s far more than that.
I wish I could offer some advice but having never been where you are anything I say would have no real value.
Type 1 makes life challenging at least, and I that it has the ability to take us to some very dark places.
Posting what you have here is a big positive. We are all in this together and hopefully someone will be able to offer advice, support or suggestions. @Kim Possible as already come up with a good starting point.
 

Antje77

Oracle
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LADA
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I don't know how your blood sugars are usually, but there is a very clear link between high bg and feeling horrible and depressed (I had been treated for depression for months before they found out I had diabetes. Depression got a lot better after diagnosis and getting healthier blood sugars).

Apart from high bg, diabetes seems to give you a much higher risk of depression than non diabetics, so yes, it can be linked. Not proof though, of course. Who knows if you would've struggled with depression if you hadn't developed diabetes?

Does it really matter if it's related? Apart from trying to manage your diabetes if you tend to run high a lot to see if that helps, it doesn't make much of a difference if diabetes is the cause or if it's just coincidence.
A nasty part of diabetes and depression is that often the depression keeps you from doing diabetes things and the diabetes makes the depression worse and so on.

Have you talked to your GP or someone else about your depression?
 

hollyslot

Well-Known Member
Messages
167
Type of diabetes
Type 1
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Insulin
I don't know how your blood sugars are usually, but there is a very clear link between high bg and feeling horrible and depressed (I had been treated for depression for months before they found out I had diabetes. Depression got a lot better after diagnosis and getting healthier blood sugars).

Apart from high bg, diabetes seems to give you a much higher risk of depression than non diabetics, so yes, it can be linked. Not proof though, of course. Who knows if you would've struggled with depression if you hadn't developed diabetes?

Does it really matter if it's related? Apart from trying to manage your diabetes if you tend to run high a lot to see if that helps, it doesn't make much of a difference if diabetes is the cause or if it's just coincidence.
A nasty part of diabetes and depression is that often the depression keeps you from doing diabetes things and the diabetes makes the depression worse and so on.

Have you talked to your GP or someone else about your depression?
I used to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder as well but then was undiagnosed. I find it really hard to know if I am 'depressed'. I know that might sound silly, given what I've just said. I worry I'm just bad at 'life' hence why I feel suicidal. I find it hard to say I'm depressed because I feel like I might not actually be, does that make sense?
 

Antje77

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I used to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder as well but then was undiagnosed. I find it really hard to know if I am 'depressed'. I know that might sound silly, given what I've just said. I worry I'm just bad at 'life' hence why I feel suicidal. I find it hard to say I'm depressed because I feel like I might not actually be, does that make sense?
Yes, makes perfect sense to me from my own point of view :)
I feel I'm pretty bad at life, even now things are relatively good for me.

Looking from the outside, though, feeling like you're tired of life and everything being too hard and not seeing your future perfectly sums up having a depression. Especially with wanting to end it all thrown in as well.

But it's perfectly fine to try to find help and say just what you just said here: "I don't feel I have a depression but I do feel I'm pretty bad at life, I'm tired of it, everything seems too hard, I don't see my future and I feel suicidal sometimes, so I think I may need some help with this".
If your GP/whoever you reach out to doesn't take that seriously they are an idiot, depression or not.

Good luck!
 
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Jaylee

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Hi @hollyslot ,

I feel there is a correlation with high BGs & negative emotions.

I have memories at the age of 10 doing some interesting thinking.
Nobody's "bad at life'" there are just too many unobtainable expectations & statuses levied by society using it's variety of media platforms.

Seek help. Talk to someone. Get a professional assessment.

....& please, Keep us posted on how you're getting on?
 

Diakat

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@hollyslot talk to someone about this, you friends, family, a doctor, nurse, or helpline.
Please don’t feel alone.
 

hollyslot

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167
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Type 1
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https://papyrus-uk.org/get-in-touch/

Please keep the above info close to hand, @hollyslot , and use it if you need to.

As I remember you are studying at university. Surely you have a bright future ahead of you.
Be well.
thank you that's kind of you to remember. yes I am and I'm in my final year. I often feel like I don't have any future but I try not to act on my suicidal thoughts. Thank you for the link I will have a look x
 
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Pipp

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thank you that's kind of you to remember. yes I am and I'm in my final year. I often feel like I don't have any future but I try not to act on my suicidal thoughts. Thank you for the link I will have a look x
I’d like to know how your study goes.
Please keep us informed. Folks here really do care.
 

Juicyj

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Hello @hollyslot well done for being brave and coming here, there’s a common link between low mood and diabetes, there’s a lot to think about all the time which is over whelming. My personal tip is to focus on the here and now, forget about thinking about what’s been or what could be, living mindfully in the present with type 1 is important, it lightens the load as you’re dealing with the day to day and not the future which we can’t control to some degree. Please talk though, your not alone and people around you will want to help if you let them in, take care lovely and please pm me if you need to chat x
 

bmtest

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Messages
141
It's never easy the odds can be stacked against you but you need to change thought pattern. Life is life and better than nothing simple as that find something you enjoy and build on it no matter how small. I one got very low i had been diagnosed with type 1 8 year later damaged back took 5 years to heal something like recovered from that then got ME took another 5 years or so to beat that. My advice no matter what stay positive life is good its better than nothingness.
 

ickihun

Master
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Hello,

I have t1 diabetes and have done for 20 years (I'm 23.5). Since the age of 11, I've had suicidal thoughts and wishes to end my life, I do currently. I just wanted to ask, does anyone else with diabetes and can this be linked/ because of it? It's not that I think 'I'm diabetic, I want to kill myself' its more like, I am tired of life and everything is too hard and I cant see my future (in the most basic way). Can this be caused by my diabetes? Sorry if that sounds stupid.
Oh @hollyslot. I could cuddle you.
This is normal with depression. Go to your GP and get some immediate support. Don't think too much about it. Tell them what you posted. They will want to help.
In the mean while contact the samaritans on 116 123. They are excellent and hugely experienced in depression and support with what your going through.
Keep us informed.
Use here too but remember no one here is medically able to help. You do need medical support.
 

Alison54321

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,221
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hello @hollyslot I agree with what others have said, I just want to flag up one other thing, as it MIGHT be worth thinking about, but then again might not. T1D can maybe force us to focus too much on negative things about the future, as there is a tendency to try to scare us into controlling our blood sugars by telling us about all the bad things that will happen if we don't. If you've been hearing this since you were very young, you may have internalised a negative perception of the future, not a positive one.

In the 20 years since you've had T1D there have been lots of changes in technology, and the future is much brighter for someone with T1D now. Though there have also been over the years been many people with T1D who have led very happy and successful lives, but we never got to hear about them much.

It just may be worth exploring whether that negative view of the future has become too predominant in your thoughts, not through your fault, but just circumstances.

Technology has made the lives of people with T1D much better, and there is lots to look forward to, as you live. and grow, with the challenges it creates.
 
Messages
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Hello,

I have t1 diabetes and have done for 20 years (I'm 23.5). Since the age of 11, I've had suicidal thoughts and wishes to end my life, I do currently. I just wanted to ask, does anyone else with diabetes and can this be linked/ because of it? It's not that I think 'I'm diabetic, I want to kill myself' its more like, I am tired of life and everything is too hard and I cant see my future (in the most basic way). Can this be caused by my diabetes? Sorry if that sounds stupid.

Hi @hollyslot , so sorry to read you are feeling so low :( as depression can take many forms and it can be associated with diabetes. Here's a good link that may help :
https://beyondtype1.org/depression-and-its-relationship-to-type-1/

I wish you all the colours of the rainbow, except blue x
 

hollyslot

Well-Known Member
Messages
167
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Oh @hollyslot. I could cuddle you.
This is normal with depression. Go to your GP and get some immediate support. Don't think too much about it. Tell them what you posted. They will want to help.
In the mean while contact the samaritans on 116 123. They are excellent and hugely experienced in depression and support with what your going through.
Keep us informed.
Use here too but remember no one here is medically able to help. You do need medical support.
thank you x
 

Grant_Vicat

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1,176
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Don't have diabetes
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I do not have diabetes
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thank you x
Hi @hollyslot I thought I should include some (I hope!) encouraging observations and experiences. Like you I got diagnosed very young and went to University (King's College London) where I probably experienced my worst depression in 61 years:

I have a whole battery of warning signs when I am low, sugar-wise. The most obvious is sudden excessive yawning. Many times in public I have been tempted to ask total strangers whether they are diabetic, simply because they yawn incessantly. Is this because the brain thinks it needs bucketfuls of Oxygen to create unattainable energy? I can also feel unnaturally depressed. Red stars can dance within my eyes and if I walk into a darker area, what look like giant sunflower heads blot out my vision. Tingling affects all my mouth, my hands shake, and I have a raging headache. I have often been alerted to low readings because I am unable to make decisions. Ironically this is often at lunchtime, in a food shop, when I am trying to work out what adds up to 60g of Carbohydrate.
and then:
Recently there has been research taking place in Cambridge to find out whether depression increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes. Certainly many depressives comfort eat and this usually leads to obesity, which one might expect would raise the incidence. Interestingly 20% of cases of diabetes can be attributed to depression in people with both conditions. The authors, Martin P. Cosgrove, Lincoln A. Sargeant and Simon J. Griffin state that further research is needed. Whatever their findings, I always feel irritated when some condescending “perfect bodied” member of the public or Press point accusatory fingers at obese people. They have no idea what chemical imbalance could be the cause.
The following took place in my 1st year:
It was at this time that King’s College Hospital noticed the first signs of retinopathy, a word I had not yet encountered. I was well aware that many elderly diabetics were blind and I was reminded of this every time we drove past the iconic 1930s St Dunstan’s Home in Ovingdean, a little east of Brighton. Their Website has a section on diabetes. With this in mind it is remarkable that I am writing these words some thirty years later (now forty). One evening, in my first year at King’s, I was sitting at my desk, amazingly doing some work, when I was suddenly unable to see out of my right eye. It was as if a bottle of drawing ink had been poured into the eyeball. Various ideas flooded into my imagination, almost as rapidly as the real substance into my sight. Blind panic took control. I ran down Champion Hill and across Denmark Hill, straight into the Hospital, I would guess in under sixty seconds. Arriving at Accident and Emergency, I was greeted by the ubiquitous unsympathetic gaze of a receptionist:
“What’s your problem?”
“I can’t see out of my right eye.”
“Who sent you here?”
“I did.”
“Did you contact your GP?”
“Listen, I’m an outpatient here and I’m diabetic” (magic words).
“Oh, I see, do you know your Hospital Number by any chance?”
“Yes, A153034.”
“Fantastic. Ah, Mr Vicat. I see from your notes that retinopathy has been noted. I’ll get someone to attend to you.”
A doctor duly appeared and informed me that I had had a haemorrhage and that nothing could be done until it had cleared enough to see what damage had occurred. I was put under the care of Mr E.W.G. Davies, a short, wire-rimmed-bepectacled man with whispy grey hair, twinkly beaming eyes and an everlasting supply of Fox’s Glacier Mints stuffed into his white coat. I found this ironic, seeing that the majority of his patients were diabetic! During one of his consultations in my second year he asked me about my life. I told him that I was living in Kensal Rise; that I cycled into King’s College in the Strand every day; that I played squash; and that I drank moderately (I’m sure he didn’t fall for this). His response was that I should stop burn-ups on the Edgeware Road, that I should avoid squash, moderate my alcohol intake, and that I should shun aerobic exercise or anything that would make me red in the face. If I did not heed his words, I would be blind by the time I reached twenty-three.
“Thank you” I said. “Do you realise that in one sentence you have ruled out all the finer points of living?”
To say that I was depressed would be accurate, but somewhat insufficient. What was the point of carrying on in London? Was I likely to experience any of the ambitions I might entertain? Would I ever see my children? Worse still, would I ever have any? Would I ever drive and explore my country, let alone the World? How could I learn any more music? These were just some of the thoughts that spun round in my head, as though my brain had been sucked into a tumble dryer.
.........
Fast forward 40 years, and I can say that I am glad those dark days didn't overwhelm me completely. I still have very good vision - only wearing glasses for reading. I still drive, still explore,still play the organ an piano and sing in a choir I started in 1987 and best of all, have a wonderful wife, daughter and granddaughter. I hope you get at least as much out of life and manage to meet the people who will help you do so. I think you stand a good chance. Good luck!