depression...

I suffer from depression. That's kind of a lame statement to my way of thinking. Doesn't EVERYONE have moments in their lives when they feel depressed about something? Especially if you have survived the teenage years!

And I know there are different levels of depression; clinical, major, et cetera. I also have diabetes. Type I, not Type II, which are two totally different diseases, by the way. I've had it for almost 40 years. It sucks. But there it is, and I do the best I can to live, day after day, minute by minute, with this disease that has no remission.

I know people who have had transplants and now are no longer classified as diabetic, but the disease has left its mark on their bodies, not to mention they now must take anti-rejection drugs, so I'm not sure I'd be jumping up & down wanting a transplant. And of course, that leaves out the fact that MOST of the time, you are not "eligible" for a pancreas transplant unless your kidneys have failed & you need one of those too, so you see, transplantation is not the "cure" it would seem to be.

It is proven that diabetics almost across the board, suffer with major depression. Not just diabetics, but anyone with a chronic disease. And why not? Dealing with an ongoing disease, for which there is no cure and no easy treatment ought to depress anybody, right?

Even someone who is naturally upbeat and positive will succumb to depression to some degree at some point in their lives. It's just the nature of the beast.

Your body doesn't work correctly when you have diabetes. In Type II, it's "usually" because you have been overweight OR you have simply not been good to your body, feeding it a consistently unhealthy diet, and the pancreas just reaches a point where it can't go on your body no longer reacts to insulin as it should. Again, that's "usually". Sometimes people get mad when you infer that their Type II diabetes is kinda sorta their own fault and they could have avoided it had they just watched their diet and maintained a healthy weight.

And just to be perfectly honest, I get a little offended when people try to place Type II on the same playing field with Type I. For those of us with Type I, there was nothing, not one. single. thing. we could have done differently to avoid having this disease. NOTHING. Our pancreases are faulty, we don't produce any insulin in most cases, so there's no chance for us to change our lifestyle and get back to a non-diabetic state.

Type I isn't reversible, no matter what book titles you've seen in Barnes & Noble, okay? That's what happens when you confuse Type I with Type II... you get idiotic books that tell you if you'll just eat raw whole foods, you can become un-diabetic.

Whatever. It ain't gonna happen. There's not one single case.

Okay, so now that we're clear on the main difference between the two so-called "types" of diabetes, let's move on to the depression that inevitably comes along with it.

Do you realize that for a diabetic, there is not a single moment when this disease is not affecting our bodies in some way? Every morsel we put in our mouths, every half-hour we delay eating or the times we forget to eat altogether, the times we are more active than usual...or less active, the fifteen minutes we sleep in and delay that first finger prick to see how much insulin we should take, or the times we forget to take it... There is no respite from the demands of diabetes.

Most of you know, I now use an insulin pump, which is a wonderful device, acting as a sort of external pancreas, except that I must tell it what to do. The thing is this: after a few years of living like this, with this "thing", this disease constantly "in your face", so to speak, one tends to get tired.

I reach a point where I simply don't give a flip what my sugar is. That's the danger zone right there. And normally it is the precursor to a round with some pretty nasty depression.

Now, I have taken antidepressants in the past. They never caused any of the horrible side effects I've heard about on YouTube...although there were a few way back when I was first put on them that we discovered DID NOT WORK. But even when you find one that works great, they're not free, nor are they cheap.

So, when push comes to shove, or more precisely, when money gets tight, I start looking at my long list of meds to see just how many of them I can do without.

And also, I don't WANT to be dependent on anti-deps, either. Even though I know I feel better and get along better when I'm on them.

So anyway, the kind of depression that comes shortly after or maybe along with the "who gives a flip" attitude is vicious. I feel so desperately alone and useless. I know I'm not taking care of myself, and with each passing year, I know that my body can't withstand me getting into this kind of funk as well. I know I'm doing damage to my organs and shortening my life. But somehow, SOMEHOW I just don't care.

So I ask you, how do you deal with that? Once you get to the point where you KNOW that you KNOW and you still don't care? You can't seem to MAKE yourself care. How do you rebound from that? How do you climb out of a hole that dark and that deep?

I'm not sure. But I sure need to know. God help me climb out of this hole, help me to stay out of it. Show me how. Amen.