Depression with diabetes

So very true

I am often wakened by my hubby doing the same thing!

Then it is a battle mentally and emotionally to drag myself up
to check blood sugars .
Treat accordingly - whilst he slumbers big ZZZZZZZ's on .... !

Scrabbling about to locate BG kit and focus bleary eyed to use kit .
Then stagger out of bed to treat any range too high or too low .
Sometimes cursing this ruddy condition too in middle of the night .

Worst is when I CANT get back to sleep afterwards

My hubby just accepts the diabete's is in our marriage yet it IS all
my responsibility to self manage it 'all'
Sometimes I wish - he had to do it in the middle of the night 'instead'
Only to give me a "break" from it - for a change!

Before going through my depression, I really didn't understand anything about it. I knew that bad things happen to people and there are times when we all feel low but someone having a "breakdown" or having to take anti-depressant tablets didn't make sense to me because we all have things that we love or enjoy doing but I found out the hard way what people go through.

I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes a week after my 3rd birthday. Growing up with diabetes, it was never a problem for me. Having to inject and test my blood was just something I had to do, like eating or going to the toilet, even though I knew normal people didn't have to inject and so on, it never affected me mentally and physically, I was very athletic and loved playing sports and was a talented runner.

Things changed for me though when I turned 16. I had just left school and felt like I was becoming a man, ready to take on the obstacles of adulthood but physically, I was struggling. I had noticed in the previous couple of years that my athleticism was decreasing but didn't take too much notice but in the summer after I left school, I started to feel physically tired. Walking up hills or walking at pace, my legs would ache from a build up of lactic acid and I would pull up with cramp when playing football. I knew my diabetes was starting to affect me and that's when the nagging thoughts started. I tried to combat it by exercising more regularly and training hard but this only highlighted how much I was struggling and the bad thoughts which had started as a snowball, were now becoming an avalanche in which I was consumed and struggling to breathe.

All I could think about was leg amputations, going blind, kidney failure, strokes, heart disease and dying. I couldn't go more than five minutes of my day without worrying about these things or just feeling the anxiety surging through my veins just like an adrenaline rush, except it didn't fade away after a minute or two. Nobody knew about it as I was pretty good at hiding my emotions. After about six months, I started to get horrible pains in my chest due to the stress and this went on for another six months where I couldn't get away from the bad thoughts and feelings until one day, I was sitting in my front room watching something on the telly which really made me laugh. I sat back and all I could feel was was my heart, pounding away in my chest. It wasn't beating fast like I had been exercising, I could just feel every single beat. Bang, bang, bang, bang.

It was at that point when I thought to myself the depression was doing me harm. If I was going to suffer from one of the many complications diabetes can induce, if I was going to die in the near future, I did not want to "go out" feeling the way that I did at that time and secondly, if something was going to happen, the depression was only going to make it happen sooner. From that point on I started to pull away from the grip which my depression had over me. Every day that went by, I felt like I would have those bad thoughts or feelings, five minutes less than I did the day previously. After four to five months I thought "I haven't been in that position for about a week now" and even though I was relieved, I knew it wasn't the end. I still get physically tired pretty quickly but I think "that's just the way things are, get on with it." I am different person now, I don't do stress. I remain calm and collected when the sh*t hits the fan because stress doesn't do you any favours and I calm those around me when I can see them ready to blow a fuse. Maybe once or twice a year I might go through those emotions that affected me in the darkest time of my life but I use it as a reminder of a position I don't want to be in and after a few minutes I concentrate my thoughts on something, anything else that I can and get it off my mind.

I have only told a handful of people about my fight against depression but this seemed like a good place to share. I hope anyone that has been or is going through it can take something from my story. I wish you good health and the best of luck.



D Mills

I know how you feel too! My boyfriend just ALWAYS asks if I am okay every 5 minutes....and acts as if something bad is going to happen to me even though it isn't! I get that they only care about us etc but it is rather annoying and suffocating too! If that makes sense!

I guess he always asks too because I have depression due to so much going on in my life, but I can manage without being treated like a child thats the worst thing I think!