Negative emotions because of your medication

We know that many people with diabetes experience negative emotions because of their diabetes. These negative emotions can be any negative emotion, such as anxiety, anger, shame, guilt, failure.
Sometimes these negative emotions are directly related to high or low blood sugar. When having high or low blood sugar, many people experience negative emotions. Research even shows a relationship between higher HbA1c’s and negative emotions.
Many negative emotions, in various diabetes related situations can arise.
You may think that taking your diabetes medication (tablets or insulin) gives you negative emotions.
Try to ask yourself: is my negative emotion a direct consequence of my low/high blood sugar? (‘’Do I feel physically uncomfortable, and therefore emotionally negative?’’)
Or is my negative emotion a more indirect consequence of my diabetes (such as feelings of disappointment or failure)?
If your negative emotion is DIRECTLY the consequence of high/low blood sugar, the best thing you can do is focus on optimizing your blood sugar, and not on the emotions. When experiencing high or low blood sugar our brain is negatively influenced and more vulnerable to negative emotions. We just cannot prevent them… The only thing we can do is try to prevent the higher and lower blood sugar (and we will not always succeed…), and tell the people who are close to us, that these negative emotions are part of dealing with diabetes….  This is no fun, but it is good to be realistic about these negative emotions, and to understand that they are just temporary. As soon as our blood sugar stabilize, our emotions will stabilize as well.
Click here if you want to learn more about emotions that are more Indirectly related to diabetes.