The confusing contrast between my blood sugar numbers and how it feels is that the numbers are high but the feel is most often low. Think the numbers crept up over time, despite the daily critical lows and my habit of not letting things remain at high feelings.
Admittedly, my system was poor blood sugar control, mostly because I was always reacting to the sugar rather than actively managing it. I still tend to do this. The diabetic recommendation of stopping to eat small meals six to eight times per day is not practical and not one employers would ever favor.
I maintain those bad habits. Even when trying to "live better," I revert to the old ways without noticing. I’m Type A personality with some level of attention deficit disorder. Get too engrossed in what I am doing and want to get just one more thing done before I eat. I lose track of time when I get absorbed in what I am doing. Stopping to eat seems counterproductive, inefficient, and can be interpreted as a form of lazy slacking to coworkers.
The dangerous result of waiting for signs of low blood sugar before eating is a tendency to overcompensate and eat too much. This can create a roller coaster effect of highs and lows. When control any urges to overcompensate, I sometimes stay at a perpetual low throughout the day and can’t seem to raise the sugar level to a healthy feeling
In the days of pork and beef insulin, they physical symptoms of low sugar would give me clear indication that I needed to get something in my system. Those days are long gone to the interests of the pharmaceutical companies’ manufacturing agendas. The humulin varieties, perhaps because they do work in the body more like "real" insulin, show their first signs in me through mood.
Contrary to the impression other people get, (in part because I don’t often take shit that happens because someone else just wants to dole out shit for the sheer love of shit or self-centeredness at other peoples’ expense,) I don’t have any anger management issues. Things that would get other people angry are things I can deal with in a level-headed, often stoic way. I’m actually good to have around in a crisis.
Frustration is something else entirely. I do have frustration management issues, and I cannot hide these when my sugar levels are down.If I print a novel manuscript and realize the ink ran out and most of it has to be reprinted, I would sigh "Oh, damn it," and get to work on changing the cartridge and reprinting. No emotional reaction. But if I have been typing a manuscript for too long and the sugar has fallen, every successive type I make because a point of frustration. The repetition builds, and with it, the frustration. The reaction is not Oh, damn." There’s a horrible biochemical reaction and I become insane. The "damn" becomes shouted streams of language that would make sailors and the dockside whores who service them blush. If I get stubborn and stupid and insist on finishing what I was doing before eating, I can turn violent against inanimate objects or myself. Somehow, I have a very solid mental block against turning this on other people or the innocent cats that reside with me.
This ends when I eat, but if I really lose control, guilt shame and embarrassment will linger and trigger a depressive state that may last a day or two, until the next too-low moment.
Even in the low sugar state, a major crisis will not affect me, although I am more vulnerable to people who may want to instigate because the repetitious frustrations trigger something different in me. The sugar is the key factor to that, but I do not deny that there’s some otherwise hidden character flaw involved.
Without frustrations, the dropping sugar level will proceed to the physical symptoms without the psychotic interlude.
No comments:
Post a Comment