Working on Diabetes and Depression
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Werel
reboot
Enail
Hirundo Bos
Aggrax
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Wondering- Posts : 1117
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Join date : 2014-10-01
Re: Working on Diabetes and Depression
Had another visit with the Nurse Practitioner at my Endo's office yesterday. Basically it boiled down to:
Her: "Have you been doing *insert all the things I need to do?*
Me: "No, but I found out that you can save a lot of money on medication as long as you never take it."
I made the first post here back in February and actually did a lot of stuff then, even though I was probably sicker over all that I had ever been in my entire adult life. I saw my primary doctor for the first time in a while, started an anti-depressant and got back into therapy. Now it's 3 months later and I feel like I'm completely stagnant. None of those changes feels like the really amounted to anything.
Her: "Have you been doing *insert all the things I need to do?*
Me: "No, but I found out that you can save a lot of money on medication as long as you never take it."
I made the first post here back in February and actually did a lot of stuff then, even though I was probably sicker over all that I had ever been in my entire adult life. I saw my primary doctor for the first time in a while, started an anti-depressant and got back into therapy. Now it's 3 months later and I feel like I'm completely stagnant. None of those changes feels like the really amounted to anything.
Aggrax- Posts : 189
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Join date : 2014-10-02
Re: Working on Diabetes and Depression
Aggrax wrote:".No, but I found out that you can save a lot of money on medication as long as you never take it."
Humor is a good thing to do with bleak feelings, good job.
Sorry to hear it's feeling like a standstill these days. That's one of the most frustrating parts of improvement, for sure: the million times you fall off the wagon and/or backslide. And for the most part, there's just nothing to do but get back up and start doing the right shit again. But it's kind of comforting to me that every time I fail, it's always the same solution: just do the same better stuff you were doing before, dummy! (Me dummy, not you dummy, unless that's motivational to you. ) As soon as you have any effort or motivation to do stuff, at least you've got some paths for progress already set up for yourself (therapist, meds, etc). You have made progress in making it easier for yourself to get back on track once you've got the spoons for it.
That sucks that the meds/therapy aren't helping much. Are you able to work with your therapist or insurance to switch up either one of them?
Werel- DOCTOR(!)
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Join date : 2014-09-25
Re: Working on Diabetes and Depression
I have an appointment with my Primary some time in the next month to follow up with the meds, so I'll talk to him then. Tomorrow I'm supposed to go to a DBT Group session, so I'm stressing out about that. I went to a few of them before on a different day with a different group and I had trouble getting up in the morning and motivating myself to go. Now I have to do it again with a whole new group of people, plus I'll be staying for an extra hour with the part of the group that works on addiction to see if it can help with my eating issues.
My last session with my therapist ended on a rather sour note. Part of the reason that I feel so stagnant lately is that all my co-workers are high school seniors that are constantly talking about graduation and college plans and future dreams. It reminds me of how much of a disaster my time in college was. My therapist brought up the idea of maybe just doing a single class and I kind of ranted a bit about how it would just be a waste of money and unfortunately that was where we had to leave off because we were out of time.
EDIT: And of course I overslept and completely missed going. Par for the course.
My last session with my therapist ended on a rather sour note. Part of the reason that I feel so stagnant lately is that all my co-workers are high school seniors that are constantly talking about graduation and college plans and future dreams. It reminds me of how much of a disaster my time in college was. My therapist brought up the idea of maybe just doing a single class and I kind of ranted a bit about how it would just be a waste of money and unfortunately that was where we had to leave off because we were out of time.
EDIT: And of course I overslept and completely missed going. Par for the course.
Aggrax- Posts : 189
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Join date : 2014-10-02
Re: Working on Diabetes and Depression
Ya know, it occurs to me that people with university degrees who are probably at least making good money and have culturally impressive jobs are the least likely people to understand "I just don't care anymore" because things obviously worked out for them and they just learned about this stuff out of books.
That's probably how I would explain it to them.
That's probably how I would explain it to them.
bomaye- Posts : 3069
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Join date : 2015-01-29
Re: Working on Diabetes and Depression
Heh, don't worry, some people with degrees and culturally impressive jobs still have periods of not caring at all about anything. Nobody's immune to depression and/or despair-induced apathy.
Re: college regrets and being reminded of them by co-workers: do be careful not to get so swept up in senioritis that you forget what college is actually like. They're super stoked because it's all an exciting unknown to them, and they're probably conflating "college" with a general sense of "MY FUTURE IS SO BRIGHT!!" That blind optimism is a fine thing to be a little jealous of, but separate it from the actual experience of college. Do you actually want to go back to school for its own sake, rather than to recapture the sensation of being 18? If yes, then a single class isn't necessarily a waste of money; if no, then there are cheaper ways to rekindle a sense of excitement about the future.
(Also, re: sleeping through shit: I feel you so hard on that. Have you talked to your doc about adding or switching to a medication with a stimulant effect? Provigil helped me a bunch in my early 20s, and antidepressants with "upper" qualities have also been a lifesaver.)
Re: college regrets and being reminded of them by co-workers: do be careful not to get so swept up in senioritis that you forget what college is actually like. They're super stoked because it's all an exciting unknown to them, and they're probably conflating "college" with a general sense of "MY FUTURE IS SO BRIGHT!!" That blind optimism is a fine thing to be a little jealous of, but separate it from the actual experience of college. Do you actually want to go back to school for its own sake, rather than to recapture the sensation of being 18? If yes, then a single class isn't necessarily a waste of money; if no, then there are cheaper ways to rekindle a sense of excitement about the future.
(Also, re: sleeping through shit: I feel you so hard on that. Have you talked to your doc about adding or switching to a medication with a stimulant effect? Provigil helped me a bunch in my early 20s, and antidepressants with "upper" qualities have also been a lifesaver.)
Werel- DOCTOR(!)
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Re: Working on Diabetes and Depression
Werel wrote:Heh, don't worry, some people with degrees and culturally impressive jobs still have periods of not caring at all about anything. Nobody's immune to depression and/or despair-induced apathy.
Yep but you're only going to trust they know what they're talking about and not just responding via what they learned from a textbook in this case
bomaye- Posts : 3069
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Re: Working on Diabetes and Depression
bomaye wrote:Ya know, it occurs to me that people with university degrees who are probably at least making good money and have culturally impressive jobs are the least likely people to understand "I just don't care anymore" because things obviously worked out for them and they just learned about this stuff out of books.
That's probably how I would explain it to them.
My brother is like that. He is probably the family member I am the closest to, but he doesn't understand anything about mental health.
Werel wrote:Re: college regrets and being reminded of them by co-workers: do be careful not to get so swept up in senioritis that you forget what college is actually like. They're super stoked because it's all an exciting unknown to them, and they're probably conflating "college" with a general sense of "MY FUTURE IS SO BRIGHT!!" That blind optimism is a fine thing to be a little jealous of, but separate it from the actual experience of college. Do you actually want to go back to school for its own sake, rather than to recapture the sensation of being 18? If yes, then a single class isn't necessarily a waste of money; if no, then there are cheaper ways to rekindle a sense of excitement about the future.
(Also, re: sleeping through shit: I feel you so hard on that. Have you talked to your doc about adding or switching to a medication with a stimulant effect? Provigil helped me a bunch in my early 20s, and antidepressants with "upper" qualities have also been a lifesaver.)
For the first part, I never want to go back to college. While I did make a good number of friends while there, overall, it was a time of my life I associate with complete, utter failure. That's honestly something people in my family don't seem to understand. Even if I did choose something that I wanted to get a degree in (which nearly sends me into a panic attack when I think about it) I don't feel like I would be able to succeed. I associate college with failure and I can't bring myself to believe I could possibly succeed there.
I'm not sure if a stimulant will help since my sleeping issues are more related to my cycle being very off. I had so much trouble getting up that, last week while my family was away, I would stay up all night for things I needed to do in the morning rather than sleep and try to get up.
Aggrax- Posts : 189
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Join date : 2014-10-02
Re: Working on Diabetes and Depression
So, I feel like I'm going to jinx this, but the past week I've actually been doing a pretty good job with basic care. I've started using my night-time insulin consistently again and I've taken all of my pills every night as well. My anti-depressant dosage was upped by my doctor and it seems like it's been keeping me from sliding back into a depressive state.
I've been going to the DBT group for three weeks in a row now. Unfortunately I can't attend a few of them for the rest of the month due to work conflicts, but I think it has been helping.
Also, I changed the title of the thread to better reflect my current state.
I've been going to the DBT group for three weeks in a row now. Unfortunately I can't attend a few of them for the rest of the month due to work conflicts, but I think it has been helping.
Also, I changed the title of the thread to better reflect my current state.
Aggrax- Posts : 189
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Re: Working on Diabetes and Depression
Hell yes, Aggrax! Way to go taking care of yourself this week! Keep it up, man, we're rooting for you.
Werel- DOCTOR(!)
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Re: Working on Diabetes and Depression
That's awesome! Keep up the good work!
Enail- Admin
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Re: Working on Diabetes and Depression
Way to go!
reboot- Moderator of "Other Relationships" and "Gender, Identity and Society"
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Re: Working on Diabetes and Depression
Okay, so one of the things my therapist told me to work on was a way to better track my progress. I had some trouble figuring out what I wanted, but tonight it hit me: I'm on tumblr all the time. I check it at least once every day. So I started a new blog that I'm calling Aggrax Alive. Everyday (I hope) I'm going to post how I did taking my medication, if I did any sort of binge eating that day (since my binge eating and possible eating disorder are something else I want to work on), a general examination of my mood that day, and something I'm calling One Good Thing, where I try to find at least one good thing that I thought about or did that day.
It's at aggrax-alive.tumblr.com if anyone wants to check it out. No pressure to follow or anything,, just letting you know ^_^.
It's at aggrax-alive.tumblr.com if anyone wants to check it out. No pressure to follow or anything,, just letting you know ^_^.
Aggrax- Posts : 189
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Join date : 2014-10-02
Re: Working on Diabetes and Depression
That's such a brilliant idea Aggrax! As someone who does DBT I'm supposed to keep a diary card every day, my personal variation being that I make a list of things that I did that day that were emotion mind (i.e. binge eating, giving up and returning to bed, lashing out or having obsessive thoughts and so on) and things that were wise mind (self-care, reaching out to others, choosing not to act on my impulses or harmful emotional urges, and so on) but I often really lack the discipline or get ashamed of detrimental things that I've done that I know I should know better about and not still do that I'll give up in the middle of the week and just stop recording it. So posting your personal record online for greater accountability I think is a great idea! Good luck and I'll certainly be checking it out--hopefully it can provide inspiration and help keep me on track for continuing to do my own diary cards!
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Prajnaparamita- Posts : 404
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Re: Working on Diabetes and Depression
Oh, that sounds like a great idea! I hope it's helpful!
Enail- Admin
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Re: Working on Diabetes and Depression
So far the blog has been pretty good for me. It, along with a "keep up the streak" mindset, has helped me keep up the regiment of doing my Lantus insulin and taking me pills regularly. I'm working on doing my meal-time insulin more consistently, but things have been getting better.
I also recently started attending a therapy group for addiction. My therapist thinks that approaching it from an addiction standpoint can help curb my binge eating. At first I was nervous about attending, since I wasn't sure if what I was going through would have much common ground with the other people in the group, who had been addicted to drugs and alcohol. I tend to think of other peoples struggles as more real than mine, where their issues are the result of poor circumstance while mine are the product of bad choice. This makes it easier for me to see another persons issues as being undeserved and therefore having more impact to that persons life, if that makes any sense. Thankfully, everyone seemed to welcome me and view my issues as something that is just as difficult to deal with, even if it might not, in most cases, be as bad in scope.
I also recently started attending a therapy group for addiction. My therapist thinks that approaching it from an addiction standpoint can help curb my binge eating. At first I was nervous about attending, since I wasn't sure if what I was going through would have much common ground with the other people in the group, who had been addicted to drugs and alcohol. I tend to think of other peoples struggles as more real than mine, where their issues are the result of poor circumstance while mine are the product of bad choice. This makes it easier for me to see another persons issues as being undeserved and therefore having more impact to that persons life, if that makes any sense. Thankfully, everyone seemed to welcome me and view my issues as something that is just as difficult to deal with, even if it might not, in most cases, be as bad in scope.
Aggrax- Posts : 189
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Re: Working on Diabetes and Depression
Glad you are doing this, Aggrax. The mechanism and underlying causes of addiction is surprisingly similar, whether it is drugs, alcohol, gambling, exercise, sex, eating, etc.. This might be very helpful because these people know what it feels like to do something and not be able to stop, no matter how much you might want to
reboot- Moderator of "Other Relationships" and "Gender, Identity and Society"
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