Friday, July 18, 2014

Day 19 - Don't be Depressed About Diabetes, See it's Opportunities

Depression with diabetes can certainly exist. We may become depressed at the prospect of losing limbs, of kidney disease, of blindness, of heart failure and at a life being controlled and limited by insulin dosages, lows, highs, testing apparatuses, a limitation on medication hindering self from travelling for extended periods at times, and the heavy heavy reliance on money to be able to effective manage and take care of self. There are many factors to consider within diabetes that when looking at it are not fun, they are not enjoyable experiences and overall diabetes can be an absolute bitch to live with.

For me depression does occur from time to time when looking at the overall equation of diabetes. Looking at living my life in relation to diabetes, looking at always being reliant on insulin, looking at the fear of losing a limb or another health problem, looking at the sleepless nights, looking at the interrupted activities, looking at the things that I cannot do because of diabetes. It can be like, I've had enough of living like this, I have had enough of diabetes, I don't want to do this any longer, it is annoying, it is relentless, merciless and unforgiving - I give up, I am not caring any longer, I am just going to disconnect from reality and disconnect from my environment and sit and wallow in a state of depression. This can also lead to suicide where I have also considered this point in the beginning of being a diabetic, I thought why the fuck live if I have to live like this or with this disease? Overall Diabetes CAN be depressing yet it doesn't need to be

The depression, if you take a look at it, is a decision within self to not support self, to not remain in consideration of the physical body and the new role that you have to play in/as care of the body = it kicks you the FUCK out of the mind and brings you to the physical reality to start to consider the body more = the body is not on automated pilot any longer and thus we cannot abuse the body any longer with the choices that we make = every choice that we make is going to have consequences on the physical body and it is a new responsibility to start to consider those consequences as we have previously not done - so when depressed we decide that we not longer want to take a bit more extra care and consideration for the physical body, more than we have in the past in pre-diagnoses. This means that this depression is not a valid point to consider within our lives because it is only an emotional reaction to having to consider a few more things in our reality and let go of a few points that only consider what we want in order to consider the body and the consequences of our choices on the body

What I have found within walking this point for a while is that with living with diabetes, it can really be a gift because we're able to consider more than the normal human being. We're able to consider how and what it is that we're choosing to do is going affect the body and the blood sugar levels, affect stress levels, affect the metabolism of sugar and insulin rates, and I have found that these are really cool things as I take a look at it without any emotions getting in the way. Diabetes is a REALLY cool support tool to take a look at where we are within ourselves, like I have a notebook full of recordings that as I take a look back I can see where and how I was not dedicated to myself and living because there is a gap in information = I didn't care enough at that point in time to take effective care and consideration of myself and when/as we're not taking care of ourselves and the blood sugar is going wildly out of control it gives us a kick in the ass to check out where we are at in the state of ourselves. Like take a look at ourselves when we're depressed, we stop caring and then the blood sugars start to get out of hand, they start to correlate to the state that we're in within ourselves and thus we get a kick in the ass to pick ourselves up out of the shit that we're allowing within ourselves and correct it, get us back on tract to considering and caring for the physical body, not only ourselves but it can be applied to the rest of the world, it can be applied to all humans on this earth - we have to understanding of what/how our actions directly relate to the body and the pressures it puts it under - like with depression again, I've found that I need a lot more insulin to correct any sugar fluctuations and if it was not for diabetes I would not be able to be aware of how depression affects the body, how emotions and stress really fuck with the body - I most likely would have been ignorant to this point because of my allowance of myself in the past with emotions and feelings and stresses and ignorance of the body and what I was doing to the body.

So with depression and looking at life living with diabetes, sure, there are going to be a few hard times, but those hard times are always going to provide you opportunity to consider more things than we have been previously aware of. They allow us to gain more of an awareness of ourselves and how the body reacts to certain situations and scenarios and it gives us the opportunity to investigate ourselves and correct ourselves to best support the body and thus best support ourselves = like stresses, stress does raise the blood sugar level and instead of saying I've had enough of this disease and the stress rather say that I've had enough of the stress and then look at solutions to the stress = it provides us points to support not only diabetes but our entire existence - so stick with diabetes and don't let the ideas/emotions get the best of you - rather than looking at the problem look at what it is showing us and how we're able to change ourselves to support ourselves

Friday, July 4, 2014

Day 18 - Diabetic Depression Part 2

With depression and Diabetes there is another dimension that will drastically alter the way insulin and carbohydrates reacts within the body and that dimension is the depression itself. When one goes through depression there are chemicals running through the body and the body itself is usually stagnant and that means that there will be no exercise and the processes that the body normally uses to regulate and process the chemical that is the insulin is affected by the chemicals being produced via depression. I have noticed this myself as with my experience within depression and diabetes I have noted that the effects of insulin and carbohydrate usage are drastically altered when/as I am depressed and the moment I bring myself out of that depression it changes dramatically.

For instance, I was working a dead end job that was absolutely monotonous - I could do it without being aware of myself at all. Now during the nights that I would work my diabetes was fairly easy to manage with food as it was a physical job and I would be working off much, if not all, of what I ate, even if I was going relatively slow in comparison to other days. The days that I did go slow the sugar levels would still be stable - I just would not go low as much as other nights. Now when I was depressed and working this job I would go slow, drag my feet and be in this state within myself where all I could see and think about was the thoughts that I was being depressed about and the experience of being depressed. When I was in this state the body feels heavy and unmovable - as many people who go through depression are aware of - and in this state, even though I was moving and working at a rate that should have managed the sugar levels well but when I got to break and tested the blood sugar was WAY above normal and this was solely because of the depression that I was going through at that moment.

Another example was when I would be depressed and procrastinating doing some course work. Now when I was doing this I would sit slumped, I would be resting on my hand and in a very `slackerish` position with my body and in my mind. I can remember one clear memory of when I was high (blood sugar) and things were not responding the way that they normally would. I had to inject at least 50% more insulin for the same carbohydrates that I would eat and this was certainly a notable change. In the same moment I was able to simply take myself out of that depression through a choice to start working on the assignment that I was resisting and from this choice the body changed it's position and so did the mind. Once I started to move myself even within the small tasks of typing the body started to respond by starting to utilize the insulin effectively and efficiently and the carbohydrates were being processed more because I was using myself and the mind.

There was an article that I was reading online about the causes of high and low blood sugar and one of the causes was socialization - now I questioned why it was that socialization could alter the blood sugar in those moments and what I've found out recently is that when/as you use the mind in a way with effort, a similar effort to that of physical exercise the body responds in a similar manner. I've found that when I would be doing sales and talking to people that the blood sugar would respond in a similar manner as if I was doing physical exercise and that is because I was exercising the mind in those scenarios. The same thing applies to depression where within depression the mind is not being used efficiently nor effective and this can be easily seen within the body language that one goes through within depression - so here depression directly correlates to blood sugar levels and the effectiveness of insulin and the consumption rate of carbohydrates through the body because the depression does affect the body as all emotions affect the body = anger increases heart rate = it is easy to see how emotions, such as depression, can and do affect the homeostatic process of the body

Practical Assistance with this point is to be aware when/as you're going through depression and then correct the insulin dosages and carbohydrate intake when/as depression exists but to also not accept depression from yourself and to always look at solutions to depression rather than only looking at the problem so that the compromise of the body does not need to exist


In the next post I am going to look at the point of Living with diabetes and how that may trigger depression