Type 1 Mental Health Problems

[InsulinAddict1310]

Hi People,


Just posting to see what kind of mental health issues people had accrued since their diagnosis/a changing point in the course of being diabetic? I am 24 years old diagnosed when I was 21. Had a whole year not looking after myself almost had a coma twice because of this (learnt my lesson….) but as of the last year maybe less I have really developed some issues mentally and it’s taking it’s toll? Diagnosed with agoraphobia and have been really struggling with anxiety. More commonly for myself is a weird toilet anxiety which I have never experienced before. I am currently looking into CBT as hopefully a solution but was just hoping I was not alone in this situation and possibly hear some other peoples stories/guidance

Thank You

 

[Fairygodmother]

Hi @InsulinAddict1310. Glad to hear you’re now taking more care of the diabeast (I’m assuming you’re T1, am I right?).

There are quite a few ways in which blood sugars can affect mood, in other words mental health. I think that most T1s will tell you that they feel best when blood sugars are as close to normal as possible. Add to that knowing that we’re going to spend the rest of our lives living with all the extra considerations and paraphernalia T1 involves and it can sometimes feel like one big overloaded backpack we cart around with us everywhere we go, day and night.

Then there’s Cov-Sars2, bless it. We know that we’re vulnerable, we know that the UK’s not the best place to be during this pandemic. What surprises me is that so many of us keep trundling on. I’ve had a few very weak moments myself, one of which is in a thread on here. I sympathise with your agoraphobia, where can be safer than your own home, especially since the advent of Freedom Day. The pandemic isn’t over and seeing so many people behave as though it is can create big concerns for the more vulnerable.

I really don’t know enough about neuroscience to comment on your toilet issues, but I do want to say for goodness sake don’t blame yourself.

Are you working? Have you been asked to return to your place of work? I hope that the medical professionals you see are sympathetic and that you’ve friends and family who on’t tell you to snap out of it.

 

[lodavyes]

This problem is familiar to almost every person who has found out about his incurable disease. It isn't easy to realize. When my brother found out he had diabetes, he stopped talking to all his friends and relatives, stayed home, and did not communicate. He fell into a deep depression, and no one knew how to help him.

 

[rpchebden]

Hello, my warmest feelings for your concerns. I'm type 2 rather than T1 like yourself and for me diagnosis wasn't pivotal to my mental health story; but I hope there is something of value for you from my experience.
First, we're all weird and I've known a number of people with something that they might have described as 'weird toilet anxiety'; I will say what lots of people will say because it bears repeating often: 'be kind to yourself.'
I have suffered from anxiety and depression for more than half my life, probably since my late teens. It's only now on reflection that I have the suspicion it might have been physiological and to do with metabolism and blood glucose.
I think CBT is good and its practice has helped me enormously, sometimes though, practitioners have been awful; there was a lot of kissing of frogs along the way. I have tried lots of different drugs to marginal success, for me mirtazapine worked the best but with horrible side effects. CBT helped me manage, live in the world but I never felt like it made anxiety go away. I had a therapist who said the book 'feel the fear and do it anyway' was great if you only read the front cover. CBT never made the fear go away for me.
I had good and bad times which came and went and I wondered about being bipolar: having euphoric highly productive times and having deflated times where I was looking at reality through the wrong end of a telescope. I never came to any conclusion. I managed but I was disappointed at not feeling right.
Five years ago I had my diagnosis of T2DM hba1c 66mmol/mol, in the last year or so I've have reflected on the past and I find it plausible that fluctuating metabolic processes were a prime suspect. I think disposition, who I am, affects the prevalence; in the midst of lockdown my hba1c was 109mmol/mol.
My recent hba1c was 44mmol/mol which coincides with a period of serenity I don't recall having for a very long time; I mentioned mirtazapine earlier: this period of glucose control is much better than when I was taking that drug.
I don't wish to say that my mood is a simple function of glucose control, there is so much complication. I also can't really say which way the causality goes, probably a vicious cycle or virtuous loop depending on the direction.
I wish you well with CBT, if you trace back you can follow it all the way back to the stoics, so thousands of years of testing. I'd also support keeping an open mind: test other therapies. I believe I got stuck thinking my my mental health was purely rumination and how I thought about things. Now I suspect a physiological component. I was told a story of someone's mental health problems being down to a carbon monoxide leak, I wish I could find something so definitive.
Life may be easier without anxiety and depression undoubtably but it is part of me and I don't want to be at war with part of me. I hope you can be sanguine about your mental health trials.