down fat to survive. It’s a dangerous diet of dry mouth, itchy skin, urinating, hunger and eventually organ and circulatory failure. Limbs are cut off.
When I was diagnosed, my father flew in to visit me. I remember looking in the mirror in the hospital bathroom and seeing his face. I ran to him and cried. I felt special; I had been given something. I had not yet experienced low blood sugar, though I had seen his — the confusion, anger, unconsciousness and ambulances. Still, I had no idea the extent to which this disease would come to rule my life.
I learned to inject myself with two kinds of insulin, mostly in my stomach, where there was fat: long-term lantus and short-term humalog. Lantus releases slowly so you have a base amount of insulin in your body at all times and humalog is taken when you eat. It works for approximately four hours from the time you take it. How much you take depends on how many carbohydrates you ingest. Both types are equally dangerous if you take too much/don’t eat enough.
Like hallucinogens or opiates — mushrooms, acid, heroin — low blood sugar is an altered state difficult to describe. I know, I try. Sometimes it is purely physical: shaking, sweating, flashes of light in the eyes, convulsions, collapse. Sometimes mental: the wall is melting, I am saving the world, the cat’s water dish is a toilet. Other times it is both. Regardless, I am at the mercy of those around me to help me re-enter reality. I need sugar. I am embarrassed. And usually, I am angry.
Shame
I have listened to more than 30 years of stories from friends, family, coworkers, neighbors and partners retelling the things I’ve said and done when my sugar is low. Especially my mother. She needs to debrief; it’s almost performative when she launches into her recount, as if I am not humiliated enough, as if I am not there. I have to give her this. I give it to everyone. It’s about them and what they suffered in my delusional state. Nobody asks me what it feels like to be crazy. I don’t know that I could tell them. My throat is raw and body bruised. Mostly there is spent rage. I understand how I left them; that fear is love.
Nights alone, I have regained consciousness on the floor with no movement in my legs, muscles convulsing/cramping, soaking wet with