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Is it too late? I am losing hope (triggers)

bumblebee95

Well-Known Member
Messages
84
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
Diabetes
Hi, I am 24 and i have had diabetes for 15 years. I have spent 11 of these years abusing my body by cutting out insulin and having frequent DKA episodes. I have depression and diabulimia and these I am trying to get help for.

I feel a crippling amount of guilt and shame regarding what i have done to my body, my feet burn at night, my retinopathy screening results come back as 'signs of background retinopathy'... I fear that its too late for me, will my body ever be home to a baby? Will it ever recover? Are my kidneys next? Will I be able to live, like really live? Or will I have to face that im not cut out for this life?

I am desperate to get out of this but I dont know how to put myself first... I am losing it, I feel like i have nothing to give to the world anymore.
 
There is no need to give anything to the world - it provides for us, not only so we can exist but so we can do so much more.
If you expend all your energy living with fear and guilt there is nothing left for what else you might be doing - this week I have looked after my garden and the seeds for the things I wish to grow, worked on making clothes as I have shrunk out of quite a few things, I have cooked meals, written a bit more of a novel, done some repair work on a musical instrument which I have been trying out today, after the folk club where I went to sing - and I haven't really been all that busy.
I did have background retinopathy at the first inspection after diagnosis, but I lowered my readings and it went away by the time of the second one. It is not a matter of putting yourself first - just taking action throughout the day to achieve what is required to make progress. It is a surprisingly easy option when compared to the consequences of inaction
 

Bumblebee - It sounds like you're having a hard time a the moment.

Personally, I can't offer you any help from personal experience, as I'm not a T1, but there are members on here who have experience diabulimia, DKA and oaal those things you are descibing in the pasts, so I hope more folks may be along as the day gets under way.

In terms of your losing your hypo signals, there are a fwe threads on that too, but from memory the site's (free) Hypo Programme covers loos of hypo awareness. It could be worth a look?

https://www.hypoprogram.com/

I've just tested the the link and it's slow to load this morning, so do be patient with it. I have reported it to the techies, so hopefully it'll be resolved when they get in, in office hours.

Stay with us Bumblebee, there's al ot of support here.
 
Hi @bumblebee95 ,

At your age, I think we all hit a crossroads & evaluate our current position on the "map" of life & where we wish to be with a destination.

Past experiences on the travel can help others in the future at the point you are now.

Your story & potential achievements overcoming where you currently are, can be that gift to the world.

Get the professional help you need, focus on yourself for now.
On a plane when the "oxygen masks" drop, passengers are advised to tend to themselves before others.

Kind regards,

J>
 
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Hi @bumblebee95, As an insulin-taker for 52 years, not as professional advice or opinion:
As daft as this sounds, the Chinese word for crisis is also the word for opportunity!
It sounds like you have reached the lowest point in your life - rock bottom. But you have reached out for help.
You know that you are at a crisis point but you have not given up completely.
You say that you have nothing to give the world - but you have a story - one that you are struggling with - guilt, shame, fear for the future, loss of hope - but a number of us here on site have reversed the complications of diabetes. It is possible.
The damage was not permanent, they found a second chance.
You also have abilities, talents which for whatever reason have not yet appeared, or which have lacked for the chance for them to sprout and grow. I have known people feeling down and out, who have the greatest ability to use swear words. Yes, that is a talent. Some go into a life of comedy, others find they are good with certain people and work in nursing homes, youth groups and so on. These second chances and hidden talents are where crisis meets opportunity.
If you would like written proof, read book or e-book 'Dr Bernstein's Diabetes Solution' where he describes his own battle with diabetes, and his way as a Type 1 diabetic of getting and keeping things under control and reversing his kidney, eye and neuropathy-in -his-feet problems. He started out an engineer and ended up a doctor.
And others here and elsewhere have benefited from his work and advice. No one is saying his is the only way but he sets a great example of what is possible.
No one is saying it is easy street but it is possible, in his case even without an insulin pump and he is past 65 years on insulin !!
Nothing is more precious in our world than children. You mention that you wonder if you will ever be a mother.
Perhaps your own mother may have wondered at some stage in her life about whether she would ever be a mother, although not necessarily for the same reasons.
By seeking help you have the opportunity to hear how other diabetic women feel about motherhood, about pregnancy and so on.
Do you have any diabuddies, know other T1Ds about your age? People you could talk with, be supportive of each other?
Other support, whether family, friends, healthcare providers?
We all need a support network, and be prepared to rebuild it if somehow we have cheesed some of them off.
And we cannot change the past - the mistakes, the defeats, as well as the victories and wins. Worry of the past can steal our present away. We can learn from mistakes, we can try to make good whether it be with re-establishing a friendship, getting BSLs better, or finding a course in something we are interested in but never got around to.
Regret can eat away at us, whereas doing somethings to change helps us grow, heal - healing the past, living in the present (the here and now) and allowing the future the best chance to blossom.
I used to think that I had to make the present and future perfect otherwise why bother?.
A friend sorted me out right proper. Cheeky sod he was!!
He said: In the future, even a weed growing and covered with flowers is better than a burnt firepit.
The better weeds can come later !! (nobody, just nobody had had a go at my superb artwork like that0!!!
As that 'sod' above also illustrated: humour is a good medicine. Yes, used carefully. And the ability to laugh rather than cry about one's past (the parts that are not absolutely, unspeakably rotten and dastardly!!!) and about one's self, is healing also.
That may be difficult right at the moment but as a sign of healing it will appear along the way.
Time to wind up - the moderators should set me a word limit)!!
Tell us 5 things you or someone else had said your are good at. Anything.
I shall 'fess up 5 too, and maybe others will too. umm..will 'fess up 5 too (to, two) English language mumble, mumble !!
Listen to what other say, and offer. Find what resonates, vibes with you.
Best wishes and please keep posting - you are precious, unique. Hang on to yourself, others for help and life.
.............................................................................Nothing is impossible
........... ............. .......... .......
 
@bumblebee95 it's never too late honey. Just make the promise to yourself to take care of yourself and then other good things will follow.
 
Just a T2 here, but been depressed all my life. Turning 40 next month though, so still here in spite of it all. And you know what I've found? I may not feel like I'm contributing anything, but my husband doesn't agree. Neither does my family, my inlaws, and my friends. To them, I do make life better than it would be without me. It isn't something I understand, because I can't see what they see, it seems... But it is their truth. As it is the truth for the people around you. You have value, you have a purpose, even if you don't know it.

It's never too late to make a change. Just decide to do it.
Hugs,
Jo
 


First, there's no need to blame yourself. Diabulimia is frighteningly common - eating disorders are often caused by dietary restrictions and diabetics are particularly prone to them. It's not your fault that you're diabetic and though there are better choices that might have been made in the past it's completely counter productive to blame yourself for an illness (depression, diabulimia) which is a common side effect of the T1 diagnosis (particularly for your age group). There's even a sub forum of the T1 forum here which is devoted to it.

And most of us elderly/mature T1s (58 here and 49years of that was T1) have fallen off the wagon at some stage of our lives and I certainly did my body no favours in my teens. But I still have two healthy children (now adult) born after 18 and 21 years of T1hood.

Now the good news - lots of the damage you're describing is reversible or stoppable (I've had on again off again background retinopathy for decades and it encourages me to improve my control - no one's suggested I need treatment for it yet). So you haven't destroyed your body but you do need to try to improve your control. It's really good that you're trying to get help.

Have you spoken to your diabetic team? There's lots of diabetic help they can get you (maybe a libre?). I can't imagine how awful you must feel with frequent (any) DKA episodes. I feel bad enough just after a hypo.

But please remember - beating yourself up about this doesn't help - concentrate on the future - do your blood tests and inject that insulin. You'll be able to think more clearly and make better (more rational) decisions about your life if you can just push ypur blood sugar into more sensible ranges.

Don't give up, lots of us here are wishing you well.
 
It’s only too late if you’ve already given up. Otherwise no.

I can’t speak from a mental health perspective but I do know that even quite serious clinical complications can be reversed with effort. I know because I’ve done it.

I wish you the best of luck with your endeavours.
 
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Hi @bumblebee95 I fully empathise and am sending an account of something in my life back in 1979:
. 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 (london University), 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.
Forty years later, at the age of 60, I have a seven year old granddaughter, have been organist of our village for 32 years, founded a choir and only use reading glasses! It is climbing out of the pit of despair which takes the most effort, but you can do it! I hope you enjoy family life in the years to come.
 
Thank you for these words. My mindset is the same as yours once was, that my future has to be perfect, but i guess that is irrational.

I guess the 5 I can fess up to are
- Listening to others
- Empathising
- Supporting others
- Creative writing
- Cooking and baking

I was training to be a teacher but had to quit because I was getting really ill and couldn't keep up with the demands of the role.
 
Thanks, I needed to hear this ❤
 

Thank you for giving me hope, the greatest gift of all. I, like many, am used to hearing a narrative that is ladled with scaremongering and shame and it is hard to get out of that void, but I must try at the very least. It is refreshing that you were able to do all those things despite things not looking up for you 30 years ago. It tells me that I too can heal and in time, get to that place
 
It's great to be able to make a difference!
 
Hi @bumblebee95, What a great 5 pluses you have.! Awesome; Now you have really set a challenge for me too!!
- Making kites with children
- Listening to others, (high 5) !!
- Speaking up for others
- Machine Sewing
- I can make tabouleh, hummus, bean soup and cook an egg (which is some achievement as an Aussie male) !!
And one weakness: I really like Nutella but resist it.
If you had a magic wand what 5 things would you wish for ?
Best Wishes, O creative writer and baker!!
Magic does happen!!

......
 
Hi @bumblebee95, Aiming for perfection and trying to do everything absolutely right is a wonderful aspiration. I have tried it many times. But it is like coffee, the smell of it always tastes better than the taste. Although occasionally both are pretty good. But in doing this perfection thing I finally worked out that I was setting myself up for disappointment. It was like setting the high jump bar, or long jump length too high or long.
I came around to the idea of the Goldilocks zone. Yes, I borrowed it from the idea that when looking for a planet like Earth the astronomers searched for conditions close to what we have here, temperature wise, type of sun etc. The zone was not a thin line in space. It might be like a 3d ring thousands of kms wide and thousands deep. It is 'just right', as the story goes.
What i reckoned was that if i could achieve results for whatever the objective was, e.g. baking a cake, making a kite, composing a piece of writing that there was a point at which I had worked it as much as I could and would then accept that it was in that zone. If I over-worked it it moved out of zone, like a clay pot in a pottery weheel, loking good, even betrr and just a liile bit more and blah! pot twists and collapses, one tweak too much. As I got better at whatever the challenge was (but I do not include my fashion sense in this)! the zone was more easily reached and bettered. (I reckoned there was two outer and one inner region.)
It was not a case of being sloppy and just accepting something was 'good enough'.. It was a case of being kinder to myself, not beating myself up for not achieving that extra x %, being prepared to love myself (fashion sense and all)!! for who I was, without letting go of aspirations and dreams. Does that sound possible for you @bumblebee95 ?
At 13, before I was diagnosed with T1D, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut. T1D put that aspiration beyond Pluto for me.
But it lead to me having to re-evaluate me - who I was, what could I do ? in those days, flying planes, driving buses, diving in submarines (yellow or not)! etc were not possible, I would not pass the medical. I also knew that I needed to have work where I was not stuck at a chair all the time, behind a wheel ect all day, I had to move, obtain some exercise but not to the level of hard physical labour with its attendant risks. Something that exercised body and mind.
I chose and was lucky enough to get in to do Medicine. The GP that had diagnosed me early with T1D was a great example to follow as was the first diabetes specialist who looked after me as well.
Sometimes we end up doing what we like second best. I had thought of being a ranger in a National Park. Lots of walking, peaceful, looking at and after nature. But in the end I needed more mental stimulation.
Early on dreams have some reality and some unreality. That changes as you live and we have to readjust those dreams.
Whatever your dreams are keep them, work them, change them as needs be. It is not too late, @bumblebee95!!
None of us is perfect. We know that no one cake is likely to rise in a perfect circle and with an even top. But if every cake did that we might lose interest in them. How would we nickname them even? What if every cloud in the sky was a perfect sphere? We might be amazed for the first week or so and thereafter meh ! there go more cloudballs !! It is the differences between each of us in looks, behaviour, speech etc which make life and each of us interesting. Now as a guy do I really need plastic surgery for those droopy eyelids? Or are the 'hooded' eyelids better?? Which is in the Goldilocks zone ?? Um, maybe that is a fashion statement. Next !!! Best Wishes @bumblebee95. Please keep posting whilst I find my bright orange jumper!! The purple one belongs to @Mel dCP !!
 
Desiderata
Max Ehrmann
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
 
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