Coming to Terms with Diabetes

why can't I get a grip

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:37:07 +0200

I feel like crap. I've got to go back to work tomorrow, I can't have more time off or my pay will get cut, I won't be able to go ahead with the adoption stuff and I expect I would just get more depressed.

I guess the diabetes diagnosis is having an affect on me but so is my relationship with top cat. I feel so angry but I don't know how to express it. I'm so scared that if I make waves I won't have a relationship and yet I feel like I am just being taken for a ride. Yes she is talking about leaving her husband and says she has had conversations with him about it over the last few nights and she is going to try and see a solicitor on Wednesday but when I said to her today I felt insecure and worried that she was going to change her mind and stay with him her response was 'I can understand why you'd feel like that'. Why couldn't she say that's not going to happen? why does she think what I want to hear is acknowledgement of my feelings and not try and tell me things are different or reassure me in some way? is it because she thinks I need to be acknowledged or that she really might end up changing her mind again?

Why do I have to feel so insecure? I want to be this strong confident woman who has her own life and interests but I find it so hard as that's not what I've been like my whole life. I've always looked to others to know what I like or what I want and it's so tough trying to change that and work out for myself without regard for what someone else will think of me for my desires and hopes. I think that fighting against my desire to be independent is the fear that top cat won't like me or won't love me any more if I like or want the 'wrong' things. I guess really I am the only one making this difficult for myself by putting so much into each decision or desire that it feels life changing to wonder if I should have tea or coffee!! I know that what I find attractive is passion and desire regardless of what its about so why should I think those things would be undesirable in me? What I find really frustrating though is that I just don't know these things or somehow I think the things I want aren't good enough. I really want to be a mum but even that is feeling difficult as I am scared that having kids is going to impact on my relationship with top cat and also I am so worried about my relationship with Top cats kids and how she feels about it and how I can be with the kids. Everything is just so muddled and screwed up in my head I don't know how to unravel it.

Will it help if I just start acting like a grown up? keeping care of my house, keeping to a routine and making study time for my Spanish and bookkeeping courses? I really need to think about what I can do self employment wise to make enough money to survive on with flexible hours and not over stepping my personal ethics over capitalism and the evils of money.

I need to make a time table for my life and then stick to it. I need to do some meal planning for healthy eating and stick to it. I need to live within my means, as they are becoming very limited this month, and part of that is about giving up smoking as I can't be smoking for the adoption and I can't be smoking with asthma and diabetes and ultimately I can't afford to pay so much to slowly kill myself with such overt socially acceptable self harm.

I CAN do this
I CAN gain control of myself and my life
I CAN make wise decisions and be independent
I CAN be passionate about things:
My spanish course
Church
Bookkeeping
Adoption
I CAN do my job well and effectively
I CAN be organised in work and home life
I CAN give up smoking
I CAN maintain my current weight and stop obsessing about losing any
I CAN have a healthy relationship
I CAN get a grip!

Comments

I'm smoking in the lounge!

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:52:06 +0200

I never smoke in my house. Well occasionally I smoke in the kitchen but always with the back door open, I never smoke anywhere else in the house; I hate it. Why am I smoking in the lounge?! But then maybe I'm focusing on the wrong transgression. Maybe what I should be focusing on is why I haven't tested my blood or taken my insulin this evening. I know I need it, I know (somewhere in my mind) that I do have diabetes, and yet as I write this I am munching my way through a large bar of chocolate.

I've put on weight. I lost over a stone before I was diagnosed but since I've been on the insulin I've been gradually putting it back on. I think that secretly I think if I stop taking insulin I will be able to lose the weight again. I know that that is a stupid and reckless thing to do but yet I still seem to be doing it. I think I may be going slightly mad, slightly psychotic even, but I don't know who to tell. Truth is I'm scared to tell anyone, or maybe I just don't want to tell anyone. I'm scared its just attention seeking behaviour but I don't know how to stop doing it. Its compulsive, like the eating.

Today was supposed to be a new day but I'm messing this one up worse than yesterday!

It is possible that screwing with my body in this way is not to do with the diabetes at all. What if the reason I'm acting out like this is because of the state of my relationship with Top-Cat. Perhaps the diabetes is just a new way of self-harming.

I'm so confused and though I wish more than anything I could talk to Top-Cat about all of this I'm so scared of burdening her with this and also that she might just think I'm barking mad, be freaked out and decide that I'm too screwed up to be with ever. I also feel like its not good for me to be dependent on her emotional support right now, but maybe even that is just my insecurities surfacing?

Of course I am pre-menstrual. I do normally get a bit mad when I'm due on. Though that is more being irritable, eating lots of chocolate, and having sore breasts. Now admittedly I do have sore breasts, I am eating chocolate and yes, if I'm honest, I am on the slightly short-tempered side. However, this is a bit more than that.

I am seeing a nurse on Wednesday and maybe I could talk to her? I wonder what she would say though? God I want to scream. I want to scream and shout and pound my fists on something, or someone...

All in all I guess that smoking in the lounge is the least of my problems right now.

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food for thought

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 22:05:39 +0200

Its funny that expression, food for thought, I guess its supposed to mean that something you've read or heard gives you something to think about. well in my case right now I'm trying not to think and when i do that I eat - food for thought or, to put it another way, food in exchange for thought.

I just don't know how to stop eating. its a compulsion, and the more I think 'hey stop, you mustn't do this, you're diabetic' the more i seem to want to eat. Take today for instance. Did really well and ate porridge for breakfast. By 11:45 my blood sugar had dropped to 3.5 and so I allowed myself to eat the chocolate cake they were serving in church. Still OK as I was technically having a hypo and therefore needed something sugary. So lunch approaches and I grab some horrid filled pastry thing and a packet of crisps. my mistake was, of course, having to go back to the shop for fags which then meant I bought a packet of skittles in case I had a hypo (yeah right Kim who were you trying to fool?) AND a bar of chocolate - oh but justified as it was only small (so deluded!)

Didn't eat the sweets or crisps then but did go to a cafe and have carrot cake, followed by a trip to a friends house where a white chocolate and strawberry muffin found its way into my mouth. Did that make me eat less for dinner? Oh no. Full evening meal followed by TWO ice-cream cones and then the crisps and skittles. Only just remembered the chocolate so may eat that soon as well!!

Why don't I feel full? Why can't I get it into my head that I can't behave like this? I mean if I carry on like this not only am I going to become fat again - which I deeply don't want to do - but also I am seriously going to jeopardise my health. What is it going to take to get it through my head?

I despair of myself I really do. And amongst all of this I am still trying to get my head around a confusing relationship that isn't sustainable in its current format and yet its not going to be stable for maybe several years so what the fuck can I do in the meantime? I just want to scream and cry and for the whole world to disappear, or maybe just me to disappear.

I CAN'T COPE.

Maybe I am just thinking too long term. I think even thinking a day at a time is too much for me right now. I think I have to break down my day into time slots and think what am I going to do and what am I allowed to eat in the next hour. Keep telling myself I can eat next hour (not including meal times) if I still want to and try the delaying tactic. Also despite the fact I need to give up smoking I think I really need to cut myself some slack and try and deal with one thing at a time. I'm trying to do too much too soon. I am only human after all even though I like to tell myself I'm exceptional. I am vulnerable and scared and I don't like it. I'm trying to avoid my feelings with food and that is only going to make matters worse. I need to face this thing head on, one hour or even minute at a time. I need to stop hiding behind food and actually start engaging my brain.

But I don't need to do that till tomorrow do I? I can still eat tonight? I've got chocolate in my bag, toast is calling me, my cupboard is calling me...

Going to make a coffee and have a fag. All this is giving me food for thought...

Comments

what about me?

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:08:26 +0200

Its now two and a half weeks since I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. I am so not dealing with it. and then i have to care for my friend. i mean i know its not her fault. she didn't ask to have CRPS and nor did she have a choice over not being able to wake up from sedation but I so don't need this at the moment. Why do I find it so hard to focus on myself and admit that I need help. I feel like such a bloody fraud, I think I don't really believe I have diabetes. I mean I know I'm having to inject insulin 4 times a day but it just doesn't feel real and I'm afraid to ask for help or support in case they find out I don't really have diabetes and then it looks as though I've just been attention seeking.

I have just eaten chocolate, an ice-cream and 2 biscuits (after eating my dinner) and I feel over full and really angry with myself. Why am I completely unable to take care of myself? Why do I insist on abusing my body and risking complications if I don't get a handle on this? Am I being too hard on myself?

It's just too much. And how can I get support from the woman I love when she is deep in her own issues in therapy and trying to get her head around divorcing her husband? I so need her to be available to me emotionally and yet I can't even feel able to open up yo her about how I'm feeling. I'm hiding so much of the turmoil I feel regarding the diagnosis even from myself that it is no wonder I am choosing instead to go down a road of denial and avoidance.

But how to get out of this place and move forward? What should I do? I think I certainly need some me time but everyone else around me seems determined to take a piece of me and I don't feel in a position to say no. I'm useless at saying no, but partly that's because I know if I say no then there is no-one else. How can you say no to someone if you know they have no-one else to ask?

I want to bang my head against the wall and scream "WHAT ABOUT ME?" But it seems even I am not listening to myself so how can I expect anyone else to?

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