Type 1 and BPD - Struggling

Neonpossum

Neonpossum

Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
I have had type 1 since I was 16 and now I am 35, and I still haven't come to terms with it. I struggle with calculations, I forget to take insulin and meds, binge eat, I'm overweight. I don't have any complications specific to diabetes except bad eyesight but I have things I suspect are because of it. I have insomnia, I haven't had a good night's sleep for years and years, I have restless leg syndrome, aching joints and have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. On top of this I have BPD, OCD and depression and anxiety.

I've been told that my lack of care could be because of BPD as self-harm in any form is one of the main symptoms. I try again and again to get my BG under control but it only lasts a little bit before I fall into depression again. I did the DAFNE course which helped me for a few months but a loss in the family sent me back into bad care.

COVID has meant that I haven't been to the clinic in over 2 years, only a brief phone call every 6 months that don't ask for glucose or anything like that.

I feel utterly alone. I don't know how to stop my over-eating or my self-destructive behaviour. I am on medication and have online therapy, though I have been on a waiting list for more personal BPD-specific therapy for 3 years now.

I don't know where to start with 'starting again' anymore. I don't know what I am supposed to be eating either. I keep hearing different things.

Balancing BPD and Type 1 is impossible for me
 
Sorry to hear you’re struggling @Neonpossum Its hard when you get down because everything can get on top of you and make it even harder to deal with.

Are you on any medication for your depression? Have you spoken to your GP recently?

There are online support groups for eating problems eg BEAT. There’s also BERTIE which is similar to DAFNE and all online that you could do. If you’re finding your making poor food choices, sometimes removing the thought and following a meal plan can help. You don’t tend to dwell on food so much then.

As to what you should be eating, the diet recommended for Type 1 is the same healthy diet recommended for everyone - low sugar, low salt, low fat, plenty of fibre, etc. Eating good amounts of veg is healthy but also fills you up. If you can tell us a little more about your food likes and dislikes, you’ll get some suggestions.

The main thing to say is that you’re not alone. We understand and there are lots of friendly people here who’ll listen and support you.
 
Inka said:
Sorry to hear you’re struggling @Neonpossum Its hard when you get down because everything can get on top of you and make it even harder to deal with.

Are you on any medication for your depression? Have you spoken to your GP recently?

There are online support groups for eating problems eg BEAT. There’s also BERTIE which is similar to DAFNE and all online that you could do. If you’re finding your making poor food choices, sometimes removing the thought and following a meal plan can help. You don’t tend to dwell on food so much then.

As to what you should be eating, the diet recommended for Type 1 is the same healthy diet recommended for everyone - low sugar, low salt, low fat, plenty of fibre, etc. Eating good amounts of veg is healthy but also fills you up. If you can tell us a little more about your food likes and dislikes, you’ll get some suggestions.

The main thing to say is that you’re not alone. We understand and there are lots of friendly people here who’ll listen and support you.
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Hi, yes I am on medication but I am on the max dose and it doesn't seem to make much difference lately. It's as if the covid stress and anxiety just over-rode it. I will check out BEAT and BERTIE thank you. I think a meal plan might help me. I have an intolerance to onion, garlic and anything in that family, so that makes many meals difficult. They give me stomach issues and migraines. I also cannot stand mushrooms, though I have tried so many times.

Because of this, I find many meal plans unsuitable though I could try and do some swaps I suppose. It's just a horrible thing trying to balance both mental and physical health
 
Hi and welcome from me too. Starting with a meal plan and doing swaps for your intolerance and tastes is a good start.

Whilst I don't have bipolar as far as I am aware, I do really struggling with mental ups and downs and eating disorder and particularly comfort eating and horrendous cravings. I had become a sugar addict as a result of this but at diagnosis (originally assumed Type 2) I went cold turkey and changed to a Low Carb, High Fat (LCHF) way of eating. For me this really helps both my eating disorder, cravings and mental and physical health. The fat stabilises my BG levels and keeps me feeling satisfied and most importantly, the low carb stops the cravings. I tried eating a few carbs over Christmas this year and even just a couple of slices of bread and butter sent me absolutely crazy with cravings and not only that but it took masses of insulin to get my levels back under control. Having been low carb for nearly 3 years, this was my first major wobble and it has taken me weeks to get back on track. I enjoy my low carb way of eating but I think I just wanted to try being normal for once, but it really did not help me at all. My gut has been really upset and emotionally I have been all over the place. There have been other health benefits for me to this way of eating including lowering my cholesterol, despite eating more fat, no longer suffer migraines which were a regular and debilitating event (I can even drink red wine now which was my only known trigger) and I feel fitter and healthier and younger than I have in years. I think I am a bit like a recovering alcoholic in that once I start eating any significant amount of carbs, I can't stop and the glucose rush triggers my anxiety and makes me want more comfort food. Of course I do still eat some carbs (roughly about 70g per day) but I choose wisely and as I say the fat helps to slow things down and keep me feeling full. I am just regaining control after my minor indulgence over the festive season derailed me and it is such a relief to be feeling more relaxed about food again. Just had half an apple with cheese for breakfast today with a couple of cups of coffee with cream and just feel quite satisfied but with plenty of energy and mentally much more positive.

Anyway, just wanted to say that if a regular meal plan doesn't work, there are other options which can help. I know it probably sounds extreme but having low carb foods that I can eat without considering my diabetes takes some of the strain out of that too or just small doses where just a couple of units is all I need.

The other thing that really helps is walking for me. Getting into a good brisk rhythm with my legs and breathing really improves my mental and physical health.
 
rebrascora said:
Hi and welcome from me too. Starting with a meal plan and doing swaps for your intolerance and tastes is a good start.

Whilst I don't have bipolar as far as I am aware, I do really struggling with mental ups and downs and eating disorder and particularly comfort eating and horrendous cravings. I had become a sugar addict as a result of this but at diagnosis (originally assumed Type 2) I went cold turkey and changed to a Low Carb, High Fat (LCHF) way of eating. For me this really helps both my eating disorder, cravings and mental and physical health. The fat stabilises my BG levels and keeps me feeling satisfied and most importantly, the low carb stops the cravings. I tried eating a few carbs over Christmas this year and even just a couple of slices of bread and butter sent me absolutely crazy with cravings and not only that but it took masses of insulin to get my levels back under control. Having been low carb for nearly 3 years, this was my first major wobble and it has taken me weeks to get back on track. I enjoy my low carb way of eating but I think I just wanted to try being normal for once, but it really did not help me at all. My gut has been really upset and emotionally I have been all over the place. There have been other health benefits for me to this way of eating including lowering my cholesterol, despite eating more fat, no longer suffer migraines which were a regular and debilitating event (I can even drink red wine now which was my only known trigger) and I feel fitter and healthier and younger than I have in years. I think I am a bit like a recovering alcoholic in that once I start eating any significant amount of carbs, I can't stop and the glucose rush triggers my anxiety and makes me want more comfort food. Of course I do still eat some carbs (roughly about 70g per day) but I choose wisely and as I say the fat helps to slow things down and keep me feeling full. I am just regaining control after my minor indulgence over the festive season derailed me and it is such a relief to be feeling more relaxed about food again. Just had half an apple with cheese for breakfast today with a couple of cups of coffee with cream and just feel quite satisfied but with plenty of energy and mentally much more positive.

Anyway, just wanted to say that if a regular meal plan doesn't work, there are other options which can help. I know it probably sounds extreme but having low carb foods that I can eat without considering my diabetes takes some of the strain out of that too or just small doses where just a couple of units is all I need.

The other thing that really helps is walking for me. Getting into a good brisk rhythm with my legs and breathing really improves my mental and physical health.
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This sounds like it was a big and sudden change but wow you've got some mad discipline keeping it up this long! I am also a sugar addict, I am addicted to chocolate and sweet things and they just make me worse. I think because of mental illness, small things like chocolates just seem to help me (at the time) feel a bit better.

What kinds of fats do you eat? I've tried low carb in the past and I've always just felt that I end up eating the same three things over and over.
 
Actually, being on low carb long term doesn't need willpower for me. Quite the opposite. I find I need almost no willpower. The problem comes when I stray off course like when eating out over Christmas and then the cravings start. I need to learn to stick to my low carb WOE even when out rather than compromise because I don't like to waste food by leaving the higher carb elements on my plate or eating things because people have made them specially.
I admit the first few months were difficult but that was mostly logistical...... bread is a carrier for so many foods and piling my plate up with spuds was cultural and of course I had got used to large portions of everything..... as well as all the chocolate and sweet rubbish I was eating.... So learning to eat without bread and potatoes was quite a radical step mentally. I think it helped that I followed the NHS low fat advice to start with which made it 10x more difficult but I was really motivated in those first few weeks to put my "Type 2" into remission. It felt like eating cardboard by the time I started on insulin and was told to eat normally, but I had no idea what normal was for me as I had gone from one extreme to the other. I tried to start eating sandwiches and stuff again but couldn't cope as I started losing the control I had gained quite quickly and that scared me as I knoew I couldn't go back to the way I had been eating before diagnosis.
Then I started reading about people eating more fat and the more I read, the more it made sense. I started to slowly increase my fat intake and then it all just became sustainable for life rather than a short term "diet". It is still a learning curve but I experiment much more with food now than I ever did before.... New recipes, new foods, different combinations of food. I don't generally follow recipes but I think about what I can use to add flavour and texture and fibre which I think is incredibly important. My tastes have changed as a result and often I only have one or two meals a day, maybe with a chunk of nice cheese or some veggie sticks with sour cream and chive dip, or a square of dark chocolate with a spoonful of peanut butter, or a boiled egg with a spoon of mayonnaise or a guilty pleasure... pork scratchings. When you eat more fat and find the pleasure in those little luxuries like double cream in my morning coffee and fresh raspberries with creamy Greek style yoghurt and a really nice chunk of special cheese with a glass of red wine at bedtime, it doesn't seem difficult at all.
I buy fatty cuts of meat like a rib-eye steak and have it with a salad and a huge dollop of cheese coleslaw, or belly pork or lamb chops. I make a ratatouille and smother it in olive oil. I eat olives and feta or feta stuffed peppadew peppers almost every night. I have a nice recipe for Halloumi and cauliflower curry which has lots of coconut milk and I either have it on it's own without rice or I throw in a few chick peas although I have to be careful as I am one of those people who can extract twice the carbs from legumes than they are supposed to contain, or I use Konjac rice.

I eat so much less food now, following this LCHF way of eating and I don't feel hungry and despite all the extra fat I am not putting on weight and can fit into dresses I bought in my 20s, which is not bad at 57! Learning what to buy and how to cook and serve it is probably the most difficult bit. Once you get into a routine at the supermarket of which aisles have the stuff you want and how to avoid the lure of the bakery section, you have it cracked and also making sure to buy lots of low carb treats, so that if you need some comfort, you have something other than sugar to get you through it..... having treats is really important for me and I relish them.
 
Neonpossum said:
Hi, yes I am on medication but I am on the max dose and it doesn't seem to make much difference lately. It's as if the covid stress and anxiety just over-rode it. I will check out BEAT and BERTIE thank you. I think a meal plan might help me. I have an intolerance to onion, garlic and anything in that family, so that makes many meals difficult. They give me stomach issues and migraines. I also cannot stand mushrooms, though I have tried so many times.

Because of this, I find many meal plans unsuitable though I could try and do some swaps I suppose. It's just a horrible thing trying to balance both mental and physical health
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An obvious thing to ask, but have you checked whether a change of meds or an additional med might help? Also, have you tried looking at something like Mindfulness? I know it sounds trivial and ‘nothing’ but when I was going through an extremely stressful time in my life, I found Mindfulness along with Tai Chi really helped me - and helped far, far more than I was expecting it to.

Although onions and garlic are in lots of recipes, omitting them is usually fine. I find that the best diet is one with plenty of green veg, fruit and wholegrains, along with protein and moderate healthy fats. I personally wouldn’t eat high fat because I don’t believe it’s good for you, and, with heart disease being the biggest problem for people with diabetes, is potentially risky. As with most things in life, extremes are usually a bad idea - both physically and mentally.

The simplest diet is to keep breakfast and lunch fairly similar each day because that’s less effort and less thought. It also means your brainpower is freed up to think about your evening meal. I eat a good-sized bowl of cereal for breakfast most days, which keeps me full and provides vitamins, fibre and keeps my gut happy. I then have a sandwich for lunch or a salad plus carb accompaniment, usually aiming for the same carb amount as my sandwich would have been (less thought that way) and I have fruit and yoghurt after. Very occasionally, I’ll have soup.

My evening meal varies a lot more. Planning out a whole week is a pain, so I either map out kinds of meals eg 2 days vegan, 2 days fish, etc, or sometimes I pick a recipe book and choose meals from that that do two days. So two such meals is four days sorted out, making it easier to fill in the other 3 days. All of my meals have plenty of veg and/or salad. Concentrating on fitting in lots of healthy food is a positive way to look at it, and really does help you feel better, and reduce binging and picking at food.

So, it’s not a diet, more a ‘how much veg and other healthy foods can I fit in this week’ kind of thing. I still have treats but because I’m eating well, I don’t feel that compulsion to eat them all so much.
 
Like @Inka I tend to do a kind of weekly food plan.
I get a veg box delivery on Monday which ensures I eat plenty of fresh veg and use that as inspiration to create a menu with a shopping list for the week and head to the supermarket. It is a bit of a pain on Monday but then I am prepared for the rest of the week.
I hate having everything pre-ordained so I think of it as a "weekly menu" from which I can chose each day rather than dictating what I am going to eat on Tuesday, Wednesday, ... Yet, I know I have the ingredients and have pre-counted the carbs so not much brain power involved.
 
Nice to see you back @Neonpossum

Sorry to hear how tough you are finding things.

It sounds like you have plenty of knowledge, but find it difficult to apply that consistently? Especially with your MH challenges :(

Like @Inka I also wondered whether mindfulness or CBT might be helpful to you - you might be able to get a referral for some introductory sessions, or there are a number of book/CD courses available that you can try.
 
Thanks for all the help, I'm more inspired to try a LCHF diet. I need to collect some recipes and make a shopping list.

@everydayupsanddowns I have had CBT in the past but never really talked about my diabetes. I have some DBT sessions coming up which I will talk about it.
 
Would it help if I sent you a list of the things I buy regularly to get you going with your shopping list. Obviously it would be a question of adjusting to your taste/food restrictions and what is available in your supermarket, but might give you a "starter for 5".... In fact maybe a new thread for "low carb supermarket shopping" might be helpful for any "Newbies" trying to get their head around it as I know I bought loads of foods when I first started that I then found were not as suitable as I thought when I got them home.
 
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