When you have to endure a mental illness along with diabetes, you spend a lot of time wondering if the two are connected in any way. Obviously there are days where diabetes is just an annoying pain in the ass and affects my outlook, but is this monster of a disease at least part of the reason my brain is broken? There is a huge correlation between having diabetes and having depression. Because my depression has been presenting with suicidal ideation, I have spent more time than I'm comfortable with contemplating whether or not life is worth living with a body that requires not only round-the-clock glucose monitoring, but also 8 pills daily to keep me functional. On my bad days, it's a no, then it becomes a struggle to talk myself down from the proverbial ledge.
Interestingly enough, I still can't decide if my diabetes and mental health are totally linked. Most of the time my diabetes doesn't bother me on a conscious level. Even when I have days where I can't get my blood sugar into target range, I'm mostly able to brush it off. That's the best part of running a Twitter devoted to diabetes jokes: it forces me to look at this disease and everything surrounding it in a totally different light. It really helps my outlook when I feel like crap and try to come up with something silly to say about it.
Interestingly enough, I still can't decide if my diabetes and mental health are totally linked. Most of the time my diabetes doesn't bother me on a conscious level. Even when I have days where I can't get my blood sugar into target range, I'm mostly able to brush it off. That's the best part of running a Twitter devoted to diabetes jokes: it forces me to look at this disease and everything surrounding it in a totally different light. It really helps my outlook when I feel like crap and try to come up with something silly to say about it.
I hate to repeat comments because this is what I recently said to Mike Hoskins. but it's appropriate. When things get bad, just take the dog for a walk and come home with sh*t in a bag instead of in your head. Amen.
ReplyDeleteThey are only linked when they are. I know that sounds dumb, but that is how I have come to explain it to myself.
ReplyDeleteI referred your blog to the TUDiabetes blog page for the week of May 16, 2016.