Breakdown

You might call me a man of few words (a MOFW?)  Much to the frustration of the Pretty Lady In My Life I am just not a talker.  Sure I'll talk about football, the weather, my feelings on politics or the injustices if the world, even the ins and outs of diabetes.  But when it comes to feelings, the words aren't really there.  One of the reasons I started this blog was to give me an outlet for some of those things that I struggle to talk about out loud.  However, looking back I don't know that I have really done that as of yet.  I don't know exactly why, but I think a lot of it is because that often leads to real life conversations and that scares me.  I had a bad day yesterday.  A really bad day.  Partly diabetes related.  Partly depression related.  Partly just plain old life.  I didn't really want to talk about it for various reasons.  It lead to one terrible moment that I am kind of disgusted about.  But last night as I read some other blogs and found myself on the Hedgie Pricks Diabetes page which is trying to extend the conversation about depression and diabetes I found that one of the problems about situations like mine is that it doesn't get talked about.  That leads myself and others to feeling like we are the only ones going through it.  But I am not alone.  And neither are you.  No matter what a person is going through, there is surely someone else out there who has gone through that as well.  But how do we know that if no one is talking about it?  So, as hard as it is, today I'm going to talk about it.

Wednesday night I went to bed with a blood sugar of 81 which is usually not a problem.  I slept fine through the night and woke up Thursday morning at 67, which is unusual.  Low numbers in the morning are very rare for me so I'm thinking I was probably low through the night but I felt OK at that point.  I ate a granola bar for breakfast with no bolus and thought I was out of the woods.  Then at about 10:30 I felt the beginnings of a migraine coming on.  One of the feel your heartbeat pound in your head, nausea inducing, sit in a dark room kind of migraines.  The kind low hangover kind but amplified.  I tried to treat it but it was getting worse and by the time I left work and picked up my kids from daycare it was almost more than I could take.  So when the Boy Genius started in on his usual routine on the drive home about not wanting what was being cooked for dinner that night, how life isn't fair, and anything else he could find.  Head pounding and irritated by traffic, I snapped.  I turned around in my seat and yelled.  LOUD.  It felt as if I was outside my own body seeing this happen, not recognizing the person in the drivers seat.  The crying stopped but I immediately regretted my reaction.  Both kids sat quietly in the back seat with stunned looks on their faces.  I couldn't help but feel like my own kids were now scared of me.  And I definitely didn't feel any better than I did before.  The rest of the ride home was silent with kids not even able to look me in the eyes.  When we got to the house the Boy Genius went straight to his room.  Even after I tried to apologize and explain why my reaction was what it was I got no reaction from him.  He just laid on his bed silent.  When I got the Princess out of her carseat she simply had a sad, defeated look on her face that tore me up inside.  As a father, seeing your kids that way and knowing you are the cause is one of the worst feelings in the world.  Even later in the night after I received a paper airplane that said "I'm sorey," and things were more or less back to normal the sting of what happened was still there.  When I closed my eyes I saw the heartbreaking look on their faces.  When I laid in bed going to sleep all I heard in the silence was the sound of my voice, louder than it ever should be with my kids,  Even the next day all I could think about was how out of line my reaction was and how out of control of my own body I felt.  It was hard to focus on anything else and I felt anxious about not being able to control my emotions.  Tears came whenever I thought too long about it.  It was tearing me apart.

I'm not trying to make excuses for my behavior or say that it is cause by diabetes or by depression.  Both things played a part but the reaction was my own.  I have a short temper at times and not feeling well or being already somewhat down shortens that even more.  I'm not really sure what I am looking to gain with this post.  I just know that I feel like it should be talked about.  I hope I am not the only one who experiences things like this.  And I also hope that maybe someone else out there who is going through it might find this and not feel quite so alone.  Type 1 diabetes has it's own stigma.  Depression has it's own stigma.  I really feel like the only way to eliminate that is to talk about it and correct stereotypes.  Even when it seems impossible