Depression with diabetes

[donnellysdogs]

I was just discussing diabetes with my hubby (non diabetic),

He has been married to me for 18 years but never realised just the impact it has on my thoughts.

For example... Every rime he goes to loo during night he cones back and wakes me and says 'test ur blood'. He the goes to sleep. I then have the thoughts:

I want to sleep
He thinks I'm low or hi
I got to find a stick in dark
Check blood in dark
Oh, i'm low, normal or high
May have to change things now (bad set etc)
May have to give more insulin
May have to have dolly mixtures
May go back to sleep
May not...
Will have to remember in morning to check what machine said
May have to change in morning...
Try to go back to sleep..
Hubby is asleep...

For every one thought of a non diabetic who does care enormously, I recon I have 10 others... And this is at least 10 times a day.... Is it really any wonder we are tired, or depressed? Those that care about their diabetes have at least 10 times the thought processes of a non diabetic....

Is it any wonder that we can get depressed and anxious and scared??

My hubby is brilliant, but he'll never feel the depths of thought that I do.



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[anna29]

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!

 

[donnellysdogs]

Oh so agree... Then after the night time, we have to deal with day time.

Find blood kit
Cook
Add up carbs
Do test
Serve
Let food get cold whilst others tuck in!! (This really cheeses me off)
Am I going to eat all this food?
For pump.. Switch on, type in bolus, type in carbs, press bolus, confirm without blood test.. Yes, hit bolus or multiwave confirm...
EAT!!!!!
X everytime you eat, or drive etc??

Is it really any wonder that diabetics can feel depressed or want a day off from it all??

Especially children... They really must feel so different to the majority of their friends and family.

Dear relatives and friends...
Please do not start eating before I can...

Sounds like a reasonable request!!??


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[Jaylee]

Hi,

I once had a relationship with a highly manipulative & violent drug addict... My own fault I know..
She had prior knowledge of diabetes due to her estranged mothers work in a care home? (You work all this stuff out after the fact.)
She would weasel out of an argument (normally about drugs.) when confronted with common sense in my effort to try & help the girl. by her throwing a teenage style strop accusing me of being like the "police" or her "dad" then telling me "you need something to eat, your getting argumentative." The fact is I am a passive when low hypo aware T1.

I lost track of my friends & she hated everybody I introduced her too....

At the near expense of my own health I nursed this girl through "cold turkey" & lost work over preventing her staged suicide attempts...there was a pattern to this behaviour which you could **** near set the clock by.
She faked pregnancy... Though by this time our relations had long ceased on a physical level. Though suspecting a fudged result on a home pregnancy kit I had thoughtfully supplied. It wasn't until an overdose & an ambulance trip to the hospital which after another conveniently orchestrated "hypo" detection on her part to stop me finding out the result of the tests in the cubicle, that I had confirmation on the truth on that score.

When I finally left she "retained" my insulin.. In an attempt to appease her & get my medication back I let her beat her "helpless" fists on my manly chest... It actually took 3 coppers to get me out of there after a neighbour who happened to be a special constable dialled 999.

I never went back..
3 days later i felt like my rib cage was kind of falling apart & quite painful... I was diagnosed with a "cordial condrical strain of rib three"... I was asked by a doctor if I had been in a car accident.. (It's where the seatbelt catches you.) you guest it she'd busted my rib.


I can take the diabetes in my stride....& I found a happy ending... (I call my own shots as far as my Diabetes is concerned.)

 

[innilus]

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

 

[Deleted member 83869]

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!