Mood swings!

[Annon56]

My partner says some awful things to me in the most of a hypo it a hyper and their words are hurtful and upsetting. I don’t feel like I can express any feelings because I’m not the ones with diabetes and nothing I have to deal with can be any worse than that. I’m very understanding, 9/10 I take the sh!t and forget about it, sometimes I get an apology, sometimes I don’t. I often worry am I being a pushover or can they truly not control what comes out their mouth?

 

[Duncan Mackay]

My partner says some awful things to me in the most of a hypo it a hyper and their words are hurtful and upsetting. I don’t feel like I can express any feelings because I’m not the ones with diabetes and nothing I have to deal with can be any worse than that. I’m very understanding, 9/10 I take the sh!t and forget about it, sometimes I get an apology, sometimes I don’t. I often worry am I being a pushover or can they truly not control what comes out their mouth?

Being on the receiving end of unjustified verbal abuse is crushing.

Having had hypos and been hyperglycaemic (40 mmol/l) without hitting out at my partner, I don't believe that these conditions can ever be used to justify bad behaviour to loved ones. No excuse saying that they have no control over what is said. Your partner needs to appreciate that you are also adversely affected by their diabetes and so should modify their behaviour towards you accordingly.

 

[Zhnyaka]

Do you think he says bad things to his boss when he has hypoglycemia? No, because we are well aware of what we are doing. Although the level of bg does affect mood, you can simply tell your partner, "please leave me for 15 minutes while my bg returns to normal."

I don’t feel like I can express any feelings because I’m not the ones with diabetes and nothing I have to deal with can be any worse than that.

I think any diabetic will say that there were things in his life unrelated to diabetes that were worse than diabetes. This disease is sometimes annoying, but in general diabetes is just diabetes, not something really terrible and definitely not the worst thing in life.

I want to say that if a person allows himself to snap at you, then the reason is not diabetes, but that he does not appreciate you enough to control himself and just covers his actions with a diagnosis.

 

[Jaylee]

It’s kinda strange how some hypos release “demons” in people?

I had a nonsensical argumentative customer 30 years ago. (He was clearly confused.)
I asked him if he was drunk. “Certainly not I’m a diabetic.” Ascertaining he was hypo he then lunged across my counter & grabbed me by the throat.
I fought him off slamming the guy against a partition wall grabbing a Mars bar from the merch to the side of the counter & hitting him squarely on the forehead with it. He promptly left..

He came back an hour later looking sheepish & apologised.
We shock hands…

Personally when I go low with what feels like the life force draining from me..
The last thing I’d want to spend dwindling energy on is a tantrum.

 

[Nicola M]

I don't necessarily say unkind things when I'm hypo/hyper, but I definitely get shorter with my replies. I'll usually be a little more "rude", for example, I'll tell someone in my way to move or hurry up. Growing up, my mum took the brunt of my shortness, and she always knew from how I was behaving that I was either hypo/hyper. I do think there's definitely a switch in my brain when I am, and I just don't have a patience filter anymore, I always know afterwards though that I have been ruder than usual and always apologise as I know it's not nice to be on the receiving end of someone telling you to move etc and I know I don't truly mean to act in that way.

 

[Tony337]

Hi
I'm very short tempered when very low.
My wife has been on the receiving end of my short temperedness as have one or two work colleagues its not something i'm proud of but it does happen occasionally.

Tony

 

[Fairygodmother]

Hypoglycaemia leads to the body releasing adrenaline, the fight or flight hormone that also stimulates the liver to release glucose. It’s an essential survival response.
Unfortunately sometimes the ‘fight’ is more in evidence than the fight.
Don’t take it personally, @Annon[emoji6][emoji6].
Hypers make most of us feel utterly awful and in those circumstances for some the whole world’s unbearable.

 

[jnk001]

Being on the receiving end of unjustified verbal abuse is crushing.

Having had hypos and been hyperglycaemic (40 mmol/l) without hitting out at my partner, I don't believe that these conditions can ever be used to justify bad behaviour to loved ones. No excuse saying that they have no control over what is said. Your partner needs to appreciate that you are also adversely affected by their diabetes and so should modify their behaviour towards you accordingly.

when I had hypos in the past I started talking gibberish and it was out of my control what I said - my wife told me to check my sugars , I wasn't nasty but I suppose it affects different people differently

 

[Duncan Mackay]

when I had hypos in the past I started talking gibberish and it was out of my control what I said - my wife told me to check my sugars , I wasn't nasty but I suppose it affects different people differently

Fair enough....talking gibberish is understandable, however being sufficiently with it such that you are able to construct sentences of hurtful meaning is a different matter. The OP's partner clearly isn't talking gibberish.

 

[Grant_Vicat]

however being sufficiently with it such that you are able to construct sentences of hurtful meaning is a different matter.

I can only tell as I find. I have reacted (according to people present) in different ways when I used to have hypo's. On one occasion I was laying barely conscious on the floor when I was a student. When one of the attendants spoke to me I told them in the vernacular to go away. I was completely unaware of this until the following morning. On another occasion I had a sequence of bad hypo's and ended up punching my father in the face because he was trying to force sugar into my mouth. I also burst into tears when a relative was firing suggestions at me which demanded rational answers. Elevated blood sugar regularly made me leave the situation since the slightest irritation would have caused me to react regrettably. I am normally a patient and calm individual. As @Fairygodmother says adrenaline plays a major role in hypo's and a cognitively impaired diabetic can translate well-meaning assistance into being attacked.

 

[Fairygodmother]

Your memories of hypos are similar to mine @Grant_Vicat. One time I gave my poor husband an upper right cut to the jaw, and another time I bit him as he tried to administer glucagon. I also said some nasty things. Like the OP, he worried that I meant them, that in hypo veritas was a thing. Of course I didn’t and we’ve now been married for fifty-two years.
If the OP’s partner wears a sensor, setting the low alarm to something like four point five might head off the nasty hypos.
(I need to write the numbers as the site doesn’t like my phone.)
Thank

 

[Grant_Vicat]

Your memories of hypos are similar to mine @Grant_Vicat. One time I gave my poor husband an upper right cut to the jaw, and another time I bit him as he tried to administer glucagon. I also said some nasty things. Like the OP, he worried that I meant them, that in hypo veritas was a thing. Of course I didn’t and we’ve now been married for fifty-two years.
If the OP’s partner wears a sensor, setting the low alarm to something like four point five might head off the nasty hypos.
(I need to write the numbers as the site doesn’t like my phone.)
Thank

Just to keep our perspectives balanced @Fairygodmother my future wife was my girlfriend at the vernacular occasion. We have stayed together and celebrated forty-three years of marriage last week! In sickness and in health etc. Congratulations to you both!

 

[Tony337]

My wife of 30 years has only known me as a diabetic and have no idea whether that is relevant.

Tony

 

[Grant_Vicat]

My wife of 30 years has only known me as a diabetic and have no idea whether that is relevant.

Tony

I think this is very relevant @Tony337 especially since she has witnessed short temperedness caused by hypo's at first hand. I am sure that none of us is pleased to admit verbal or physical aggression but it is important for people to know that low blood sugar can cause not just unconsciousness but also behaviour similar to a drunkard. I have been conscious with a reading of 1.1 but thinking was reduced to ripping open a tin of pineapple chunks in a supermarket and eventually paying for an empty tin! All the best.

 

[Jaylee]

I think this is very relevant @Tony337 especially since she has witnessed short temperedness caused by hypo's at first hand. I am sure that none of us is pleased to admit verbal or physical aggression but it is important for people to know that low blood sugar can cause not just unconsciousness but also behaviour similar to a drunkard. I have been conscious with a reading of 1.1 but thinking was reduced to ripping open a tin of pineapple chunks in a supermarket and eventually paying for an empty tin! All the best.

I went low in a supermarket once..
My wife caught me staring at a starwars “stormtrooper” action figure trying to work out how many carbs in the doll’s helmet?

I told her I would be “gone for quite some time.”
Exited the busy place & found the sweets in my pocket.

 

[Grant_Vicat]

I went low in a supermarket once..
My wife caught me staring at a starwars “stormtrooper” action figure trying to work out how many carbs in the doll’s helmet?

I told her I would be “gone for quite some time.”
Exited the busy place & found the sweets in my pocket.

I probably shouldn't laugh but some of the most comic moments have occurred in serious moments. Seems similar in your life! I would imagine there are more carbs in the head... But at least there were no signs of aggression.

 

[Jaylee]

I probably shouldn't laugh but some of the most comic moments have occurred in serious moments. Seems similar in your life! I would imagine there are more carbs in the head... But at least there were no signs of aggression.

We’ve had a few.
I once led a conversation at a dinner party thrown by my wife’s boss with all the management team & “plus ones,” about the difference between pagan & satanic metal..? (Mistimed my dose whilst waiting to dine. & got held over chatting over wine? Before I made my excuse to disappear & slip a couple of sweets.)

As the end of the night, is asked my wife, “did I do well?” I kind of felt they thought “yah weirdo.”
Wife’s response, “you did beautifully, my dear.” (It’s a running gag we got asking each-other how did I do. Oddly a line lifted from the “wicker man” & used in a cult comedy we both enjoy?)

Lol, the logistics manager gave me a warehouse job a couple of year later covered the CSR stuff & even wanted me to put in for a HGV licence. Overlooking the fact I was T1, obtaining the license?

I was also videoed during a gig fixing myself with cola. Rambling about “David Cameron & Ronnie James Dio appearing in a dream & giving me the idea for the next song?”
Whilst laughing at getting royally heckled by the crowd..

To be serious. I see the cognitive symptoms of a hypo a little like a brief form of dementia? (Till BGs are stabilised.)
Some can get anxious, cantankerous & aggressive.
My mum has Alzheimer’s.. she seems to laugh at anything.

Maybe I’m lucky & inherited my mum’s “default setting.”