diabetes and guilt

Juicyj said:

Hey Holly, I understand where you are coming from, I have felt at times the same about hypos, I almost want to switch off once I have one and just go to sleep I find them very draining. I think it also depends on the severity of the hypo too. I very often inject with a bit of guesswork however I do low carb so even eating a high protein/veg meal is guesswork as i'll still convert to glucose, so in that respect I don't feel like i'm doing justice to my diabetes as it's hard sometimes to work it out.

It sounds to me like your running high a fair amount ?

Have you tried keeping a diary ? If you can do this you will start to take some control back, it sounds like you're feeling out of control so just guessing your doses and it's draining you mentally as you're then running high and then this is making you feel bad. If you can get a diary going to log your carbs/doses/times it will help you to see patterns and start to act on them, i use Diaconnect on my phone - if you have a smart phone this will help a massive amount. Taking control will help you feel much better.

Try not to feel guilty though, it's something that you can manage but it shouldn't define how you feel

Click to expand...

Bluemarine Josephine said:

Hello Holly!
There are people in this forum who are diabetic unicorns. Their blood sugar levels are beyond perfection.
I, too, would like to reach this stage of knowing my condition so well. But, I try to keep reminding myself that these people have had diabetes for more years than I am alive.

Do not be so strict on yourself. We will get there. It takes patience and observation and time.
Be kind to yourself. Things will, eventually, work out.

Like you, I also run either too high or too low… there seems to be no in-between and I have not managed to figure out how to achieve these beautiful, balanced numbers. I try to remind myself that it is a process. Diabetes teaches us patience and perseverance.

As for feeling embarrassed, please do not be.
There is nothing embarrassing in feeling tired from trying to help yourself and to balance your condition, even if this means that you feel sleepy in class and your teachers see you. You are sleepless or tired because you are tackling an important matter in your life (not because you were waiting until late for a phonecall from a random boyfriend whose name you probably won’t remember in 2 years time).

I cannot give you an advise on how to handle your diabetes as I am still in the process of trying to figure things out myself; but, I can give you an advise about your relationship with others in regards to your diabetes.

Do not allow others to set the boundaries for you when it comes to your diabetes.
Instead, you set the boundaries and force them to respect them and also to respect your condition.

Do not expect people to understand diabetes and what you are going through (unless they are diabetics themselves.)
Do not hope for people to be understanding, this will never happen (or, at least, has not happened to me.) Instead, force them to respect your condition even if they do not understand it.

To give you an example, there are people out there who catch a cold and have a stuffy nose and are complaining for a whole week that they cannot sleep properly and that their cold is such a torture! Everyone is usually so compassionate. But. God forbid, if we dare complain about our chronic, degenerative condition… we are described as needy, grumpy, attention-seekers… you name it.

So, do not expect to be understood (if it happens great! But do not aim for this).
Aim to be respected for the effort you make.

And if your teachers don’t understand, or your friends don’t understand, or your peers, family, colleagues don’t understand well, that’s not the point. Make them respectful towards your diabetes. If you need to sleep and skip morning class, if you need to take a break, if you need to calm down and focus and check in the middle of the street, class, cinema room, if you need give yourself time, do it. And force people around you to respect your needs.

No one is more important than yourself.
Nothing has greater priority than you feeling well so as to keep the good fight!

Regards and compassionate hugs
Josephine

Click to expand...

Auckland Canary said:

Hi Holly,
This is not unusual at all. Different personalities will affect how we view and treat our diabetes. I am obviously a lot older than you as you mention school and have been T1 for a very long time. I have had just about every possible incident from paramedic attending hypos due to unconsciousness and convulsions as well as hospital admissions due to DKA. I was going through a stage where I was having a disabling hypo probably once or twice a month at night and still getting up and going to work the next day as I didn’t want to feel I was ill or that my colleagues at work wouldn’t understand. I deliberately abused my diabetes to hurt myself when suffering from depressive episodes as well as just trundling along doing the bare minimum to keep myself functioning without getting sick.
It has generally been a negative experience on my life but has also changed the way I am. But all the way through my life I have felt guilt and even sometimes shame about being T1 even though it is obviously not my fault. You are shaped by your own experiences and if these are negative they affect the way you are. In my first few days in hospital I was severely reprimanded by a nurse for doing my own blood test without supervision (I was 9 years old) and was always told by relatives and family that I was “not supposed to eat that” etc . I have had strangers make comments to me about “injecting myself being disgusting” My wife is the only person who has ever engaged properly with me about the condition in my life. My parents, siblings and friends don’t ever talk to me about the condition and as a result I pretty much carry this difficult thing around with me the whole time like a monkey on my back.
It was only in the last few years when I was having therapy for anger issues that the realisation came that a lot of my issues are related to carrying the burden alone and constantly punishing myself for it. I am far better controlled now than I have ever been due to carb counting, pump and the help I get from this forum but still almost daily I will have a BS reading either above or below what I would like and I beat myself up about it. My wife tells me that I am too hard on myself because of this and I know I am. But every little thing makes me feel like a failure with T1 due to my own and other influences.
But the point I am trying to make here is that neither you nor I am a failure. If anything we are both actually bloody superheroes. I would love some of the “normals” to come and walk in our shoes for a week to see what it is like. And when the week is up you could say to them “Nah go on do it for another week and then another and then another ad infinitum” until they had years and years of seeing what it is like.
You sound like you have your head screwed on and don’t worry about thinking you are worse than anyone else. Just concentrate on doing your own thing and remember there are probably millions of T1’s around the world that are doing a far worse job of it than you. You’re brilliant and don’t forget it!

Click to expand...