Day 21 - Highs, Apathy and Thought

Recently I have been waking up with high blood sugars and by high blood sugars I mean much higher than what would be `ok` for me to handle. For reference sugars should be between 4 and 8 mmol/l and I have been waking up with 20's to 25's in the past 2 weeks - not everyday but much more often than I would like. Like usually I am ok with one of those readings a week but the rate that they have been occurring is not ok with me at the moment. Anyhow what I have been noticing is that there is a specific mental reaction to those sugars and those mental reactions are of apathy, being unmotivated, and wanting to sabotage myself.

When I wake up with a high, I do not want to get up, even if there is something that I absolutely need to do in that moment. I wake up and I feel like shit, physically, and therefore I do not want to get up and start the day - I feel very apathetic and only want to sleep longer - this also might be because of the fact that the blood that the heart is pumping around is like a sludge and sleeping is the easiest state in which to pump it around the body - like if I become active, get up and start moving then the heart has to work much harder, but regardless of that point, the thoughts and apathy are still relevant towards the high blood sugars, because they work hand in hand - the thoughts of apathy attribute to the high blood sugars, and the high blood sugars attribute to the thoughts and influence the mind as well. I've noted that when/as I am depressed that as soon as I walk myself out of that depression the affects of insulin on the body dramatically change - same thing for this point - the thoughts affect the body and the body affects the thoughts.

Once again the relationship between mind and body correlate quite nicely and do affect and influence each other. I have not yet worked through the point of stopping those apathetic thoughts when waking up with high blood sugar, mostly because it is the mornings and I am not completely aware within the mornings, but it will be fascinating to see what changes when I move on that point. So like when I wake up with high blood sugars the body feels very sluggish and feels void of water, most likely is, and when that feeling exists within the body the mind goes into a state of apathy, lethargy and like an uncaring - and this is because of the change in the state of the body that the mind then reacts with the change.

This is another point for me to walk through because again it seems like the state of the mind is going to have an influence on the body, such as it does with depression, and it will be fascinating to see the difference as I walk through the emotions of lethargy and apathy and a point of uncaring because those emotions are something that I face in my day to day life, and it is clear that those emotions are not providing or giving what is best for all in this world because the microcosm of/as the influence that it has on the body with diabetes is not what is best for it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to follow the thoughts that are suggesting that I do not care about getting up when I wake up with high blood sugar and that I only want to sleep more, not realizing or seeing that by sleeping longer I am causing the body more harm because I am not getting up to inject insulin and correct the high blood sugar

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed a relationship to exist between high blood sugars and apathy/lethargy wherein I allow the mind to react with thoughts of lethargy and apathy when the blood sugars are high which in turn, as I allow myself to accept the thoughts, causes more harm to the body and creates negative consequences for my reality as I do not direct things or live the point of responsibility for my reality

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed high blood sugar to create thoughts of lethargy and apathy

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to follow the thoughts that I want to sleep longer and not get up because I physically feel like shit and do not want to feel like shit, so rather just ignore it and go back to sleep,

I commit myself to walk this process further in relation to investigating the relationship between high blood sugars and the influences that it has on the mind and what/how stopping the thoughts changes the body and/or simply what changes as I stop the thoughts and focus solely on the body and supporting the body

I commit myself to when/as I have the thoughts of apathy and lethargy when the blood sugars are high to stop, breathe, bring myself back here in awareness of the body regardless of how it physically feels and give myself the effort and time to correct the sugars within the body because I realize that as I accept the thoughts of lethargy and apathy I am harming the body more because I am not getting up to do anything and I am not correcting the struggles that the body is going through.

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

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

Day 14 - Anger and Frustrated when Hypoglycemic

It is quite common for diabetics to experience themselves as frustrated while they go through periods of hypogylycemia. I've experienced this myself many times. I would feel a low coming on or feel low in that moment and have to take myself away from what it was that I was doing in that moment to concentrate my efforts to go get something to eat, so in that one moment I would storm out of my room or move with haste to go get something to eat, and if anyone or anything got in my way and delayed me from getting something to eat I would blow up at them and experience myself as completely angry and frustrated at that person or thing for delaying me, for even a second, from getting the substance that I needed in that moment. In addition to walking/moving with haste there is another point of confusion and disorientation and the only thing that one wants to focus on when low is getting to that food, and one cannot effectively concentrate on much more then that, so if someone were to take me off track from focusing my efforts to go get food I would, again, blow up at them, because I was focused on that one sole point of getting food, and when someone would take my concentration away from getting food I would, again, blow up at them with frustration and anger for distracting me.

One thing to mention about frustration and anger in relation to being hypoglycemic is that in order for self to get angry and frustrated the anger and frustration would already have to exist in the first place. And as I take a look at it now I see that I never blew up at people who I did not know, mainly it was family members, people in my life whom I have allowed small reactions of frustration and anger to build up over the time that I interacted with them, so this is a cool point to see who/what/where self has developed and built up reactions to people because it certainly is hard to control those reactions when your low, it just comes out and bursts from within.

In the first paragraph I mentioned the need to remove self from whatever self is doing within a moment to go and get something to eat. Now this is where I see the frustration/irritation/anger residing from. As I take a look at myself when I would go low and need to take myself away from watching a movie or take myself away from doing a responsibility or take myself away from working, that initial point of needing to remove myself from an experience was the starting point of the frustration and anger and irritation. There was always a reaction within myself of not simply being able to sit down and watch something and enjoy it without being taken away from the experience or being taken away from the job/task that I was doing. So from being low and not being able to concentrate on the movie or being able to maintain myself working or doing the task that I was doing or the activity that I was doing I would immediately become frustrated, not in complete awareness, but the point was there for sure. It was only when someone would talk to me whom I've had a built up anger and frustration towards that I would explode and burst towards the person or thing that would get in my way.

If this were to continue without being directed then the frustration and anger would build up in regards to diabetes and then self would continue to remain in frustration and anger to the point where self may wake up frustrated and irritated and not know exactly why. As well, it would then define the relationship towards self and diabetes, where, anything related to diabetes that would separate self from an experience or that would distract self from working or doing an activity anger and resentment would built up within that one moment and throughout one's life anger and irritation and frustration would be the defining point of the relationship with self and diabetes, which is certainly not a cool way to live with the relationship to diabetes. This relationship towards diabetes can certainly develop through the point of reacting towards needing to stop work or to stop an activity, and for feeling weak during the activity and not being able to participate in the activity in the way that one would like to participate in the activity. Take for example when I was skateboarding - this is a sport that I enjoyed expressing myself within, there would be times when I would be enjoying it, doing well within it, and then comes on the low, I feel weak, and I need to stop myself from the experience of doing well within skateboarding to go correct the sugar level. So I would react to needing to stop myself, I would become angry and frustrated over feeling weak because the sugar level was dropping and not being able to participate in skateboarding the way I would like. I would then connect the anger and frustration to being a diabetic and create a relationship with diabetes revolving around the emotions that I was developing/creating, which then, over time, could've became the definition of the relationship between myself and diabetes

over the last year or so I have certainly noticed a change within myself as I am hypoglycemic. I am not as frustrated or angry at people around me and I do not react as much when someone asks me a question or as I am distracted from going to get food when I am low. I still react to needing to stop working in order to correct the sugar levels, because there are points of guilt that come up, and there are points of not being able to get things done on time, so I mean what I am saying within those moments is that I am not here to support the body unconditionally, that the support for the body within the relationship of diabetes is conditional based on what I want to do within a given moment, which is not a cool relationship to create with the body in relation to support within diabetes. So It is possible to stop the reactions and just stop myself within working, let whomever know that I need to leave for a second to go and support the body via eating something, and go and eat something unconditionally and without reaction - because in this one will be able to correct and change the relationship to the body/self within diabetes from conditional support where reactions come up - to unconditional support where, no matter what, self is here in support for the body

I will continue in the next post

Day 13 - Not Testing Blood Sugar Due to Fear

In the previous blog I was writing about how emotions can result with instability in care and management of diabetes because one is acting from the starting point of those emotions instead of acting/moving/directing from the starting point of consideration and care for self within diabetes. So in considering this point I have noticed a common tendency within myself to not check the blood sugar level when I am aware that I am high simply because I do not want to face the high number, so here it goes:

When I've been aware that I've abdicated responsibility for myself in diabetes and more or less `know` that my blood sugar is far too high to get a `normal` reading out of I will deliberately not test my blood sugar to not face the high numbers, because the numbers don't lie, showing me that I've abdicated responsibility for myself. I feared seeing the number of 16 or 20 mmol/l showing me that I've not participated in effective care of myself in diabetes and in this fear I decide to not check the sugar level and only inject insulin. Obviously this is not what is best for me because, for one, I do not know where on the scale the blood sugar in fact is - I may end up doing to little insulin and allow myself to remain high - or I may do too much insulin and cause myself to go low unexpectedly which may happen at a time that I do not have a form of sugar on my person to bring the sugar back up to normal.

As stated above this fear is related to the lack of responsibility that I've had for myself in diabetes and this I've had for, probably much of my life with diabetes. I didn't want to see/face the lack of responsibility that I had for myself, the lack of care, the lack of self love that I had for myself, and wanted to remain in the bubble of bliss in the illusion that I am doing `just fine` managing/taking care of myself in diabetes because I am still alive and no complications in regards to the nervous system or the endocrine system or the circulatory system have manifested yet - again not wanting to face that those complications build up over time and over an extended period of improper management of diabetes. I mean there was an entire year when I was living on my own that I did not test, I only went by the feeling of the body and whether or not I went low - because in knowing that I am low I know where the blood sugar is, but with highs it can be hard to judge where the blood sugar is - whether it is 10, 15, or 20 - there are quite large differences in the body's function and feeling when the sugar is at those levels, but there are gradients between each of those 5mmol/l intervals that are difficult to discern from one another.

In looking at this, lets take the psychological point of view - meaning, that as I fear looking at/seeing the numbers on the meter read out 15mmol/l or 13mmol/l or 20mmol/l - I fear seeing myself in a `negative` light, fearing seeing what I've in fact been allowing myself to do to myself and in this not wanting to bring myself down from the belief of being `fine` in regards to taking care of myself in diabetes and wanting to hold onto the ego definition of being in `good` care of myself or properly managing myself in diabetes, which simply is not so shown through the numbers of my blood sugar the past week, nor the amount of data that I've recorded in regards to amount of insulin or carbohydrates ate. I didn't want to face myself in how I've been treating myself in diabetes and through the feeling of the body's blood sugar being high I `knew` that I was high but did not want to test my blood sugar and confirm that I've been giving myself improper care. I did not want to see the physical validation of myself being irresponsible for caring for my health in respect to diabetes so I only inject; I estimate how much I think I am and then inject a rough estimate of insulin and then hope that it all works out, I will aim on the higher side when injecting insulin so that I have that cross reference of being low later on that my sugar is at a point that I know how to correct it enough to bring myself up to where I need to be.

So why is this an issue? Taking a look at the who I am within this point it means that I do not want to align or correct my actions to sit in line with being absolutely responsible for myself within diabetes in every moment - I do not want to let go of those wants/needs/desire, mainly revolving around ill timed sugar consumption, and decide to, once and for all, take a stand within this point of diabetes and decide to give myself the gift of unconditional care and support. So if this point was to be `blown up` it would lead into severe consequences through not taking absolute responsibility and can also lead to me, one day, deciding that I have had enough of living with diabetes and saying `fuck it all` resulting in myself not taking care of myself any longer

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear seeing the reading of my blood sugar be higher than what it is suggested to stay within the limits of, fear coming to the realization that I've not been giving myself great care of myself in diabetes, fear bringing myself down from the pedestal that I've placed myself upon in the definition of who I am within the ego of being a person who is taking proper care of themselves within diabetes

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to deny myself testing the blood sugar because I feel high in that moment and I do not want to see the physical confirmation of the numbers on the blood glucose meter stating that I am high and I have not done everything in my power to give myself the best treatment possible

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that yes, there are times when I am going to be high, but to purposely not test the blood sugar because I fear seeing the confirmation that I am high is an abuse to the body and a stance within myself in relation to diabetes that cannot stand the test of time within the principle of living what is best for all in/as the point of diabetes

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give myself improper care and support via not testing the blood sugar so that I can get an accurate reading and then correctly estimate how much insulin to inject to stave off any ill-timed lows when it may really put myself in a compromising position, such as driving a car

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to support the ego within wanting to define myself as being someone who takes proper care of myself rather then to support the body and take proper care of myself in fact even though testing the blood sugar unconditionally so that I am able to accurately measure how much insulin I will need to bring myself down to where I need to be and not only guessing where I am and how much insulin I need which can cause unwanted consequences and a difficult time managing the blood sugar levels

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear taking responsibility for myself in every moment, fear letting go of the moments wherein I know I should not be eating this sweet because I have not been active throughout the day and the body is going to have a difficult time correcting the spike , and fear taking preventative measures for any highs that I do not need to experience because within this point of fearing testing the blood sugar because I feel high, I usually have previously ate something that is not in alignment with effective support the hours before being high and thus I do not want to face the point of being high due to my conscious decision to do eat something that will make me high

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to face the point of myself eating things at improper times, like when I am aware that the body is going to have a difficult time processing the sugar, and correcting that point into what is best for all which would be stopping myself in that moment, breathing, and eating something that has a low amount of carbs and/or sugar within it so that the body is able to handle the sugar much easier than if it were a `heavy carb`

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear facing the consequences of my decisions when deciding to eat something at an `improper` time such as a day where I've had no activity and the blood sugar is already a bit elevated by not testing the blood sugar to confirm that I am living within the consequences of my decisions and in this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use fear to stop me from correcting the point of myself deciding to eat at improper times

I commit myself to checking the blood sugar regardless of what I feel about the blood sugar and regardless of whether or not I fear the point of believing that I have not taken responsibility for myself resulting in being hyperglycemic, and in this I realize that if I do give into the fear and not check the blood sugar then I am deliberately allowing myself to not take responsibility in that moment, and allowing myself to `ballpark` the insulin injection which can result in unwanted consequences

I realize that being hyperglycemic does not directly translate into improper care and consideration for myself within diabetes but that deliberately not testing because of the fear of being high is allowing myself to give improper care and consideration for myself within diabetes

I commit myself to when/as I see that I feel high and I am resisting testing the blood sugar because I am aware that I ate something earlier on in the day that I did not consider and did not inject an appropriate amount of insulin for and I am fearing taking responsibility for myself by deciding to not test, to in that moment let go of the fear of not being responsible for myself in managing diabetes and realizing that if I allow myself to not test then I am still existing within that pattern of not giving myself proper responsibility in effective care and management of the point of diabetes.

I realize that giving myself proper care does not include any emotions or reaction involved to seeing a number in relation to blood sugar level and it is about who I am within the point of diabetes and that if I am emotional within taking care of myself within diabetes I am going to move myself in relation to those emotions instead of standing within the principle of what is best for all within/as the point of diabetes and proper care and consideration within diabetes