I'm not stubborn. I'm just right.

It has come to my attention, over the years, that on the Geiger counter of emotional reactivity, I rank somewhere between Radium and Polonium.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the pinball game that is my continuing effort to manage blood sugar levels. It's not called stubbornness any more. Nowadays, I can simply decide to say I persevere and don't mind failing. Often, I get caught in Rita Mae Brown's definition of madness. You know. The one that's often misattributed to Einstein.

If diet and exercise alone could yield a gently undulating blood sugar pattern with no spikes, I wouldn't have type 2 diabetes. Most of the time, I eat healthily and exercise as regularly as crazy work hours permit. Diabetes is a good problem for a control freak like me. The trouble is that repeated medical intervention has confirmed a diagnosis I've dreaded since childhood: apparently, I am human.

This is a bad problem for a control freak like me. It is at odds with my expectation that diet and exercise alone should fix the sugar levels. Humans have feelings, you see. They (I haven't reached the "we" acceptance stage yet) also have an endocrine system that produces something called cortisol.

Ever since I discovered cortisol, we have been locked in a skirmish over who's in charge of how I feel. We are joint tenants and cannot be separated, though I have tried. If I win, I get to live longer, weller. (Yes. That is a word.) If cortisol wins, I'll probably die in prison.

Cortisol is triggered under conditions of stress. These include things that are meant to be good for you, like fasting (which I do), exercise (especially high-impact - which I do), working (which I do) and interacting with other people (which I do only when absolutely necessary).

High cortisol is a particular problem for type 2 diabetics because it increases blood sugar levels in multiple ways. Sitting at my desk answering pass ag emails with forced courtesy feels the same as being chased by a hungry lion (high cortisol activity, in case you're wondering), because our brains are going to take longer to adapt to the way we've "evolved" than the time we have left on earth... How to rid myself of cortisol?

And breathe.

The other trouble is that when I see a higher blood sugar reading than I expect - after the considerable dietary, exercise and mindfulness efforts I make - I produce even more cortisol by feeling more irritated than other people might, because I'm half Palestinian and half Scottish. I am, in a very literal way, wired to react with high emotion and particularly forcefully so when thwarted. I needed an answer and fast.

I sought the answer in the Too Type Two laboratory that is my local coffee shop. Determined to find a solution to this rinse-repeat cycle with cortisol, my lab technicians (two mates) and I interviewed nearly seven people. The time of day may have skewed composition of our cohort, which may in turn account for the starkly binary results of this rigorous survey. Rigorous, I tell you.

Our survey revealed that there are only two ways of overcoming the production of cortisol in response to stress. They are:

1. Develop psychopathy

This is more attractive than it might seem, given the long list of people I would happily eviscerate without missing a heartbeat. Mine, that is. Theirs would stop and I suppose I wouldn't miss that either.

The main hurdle I have to overcome if I am serious about developing psychpathy is that I have a phobia. I am genuinely terrified of the possibility, one day, of having to eat home-made food cooked by a proctologist with poor personal hygiene.

Unless I can subvert that fear into a cold obsession that dehumanises people who are dirty through choice (which would be consistent with psychopathy), I won't be overcoming that fear any time soon (feeling fear is not consistent with psychopathy). You see my difficulty.

Perhaps, though, if I succeed in developing psychopathy, I would no longer fear the ingestion of faecal pathogens. Chicken. Egg. Poo. One of those is not something I ever wish to eat.

And just in case someone I love is reading this: let me be clear that I'm talking about designer psychopathy. Psychopathy with impulse control and a stunning wardrobe. There would be no cortisol then. And I would be manipulative enough for you not to notice the change inside. It's called a win win. Nope. No hyphen.

The second option is:

2. Master my mind like a Tibetan monk

This is less attractive than it might seem. A lot less, because robes in maroon with saffron accents are truly not for me. Like their icky cousin chartreuse (the colour, not that incomparably delicious elixir), maroon and saffron together make me look like I died the week before last, in a tepid swamp slathered in a shade of foundation better suited to Shrek.

Even more unattractive is the technique for achieving this state of inner serenity: among other things, I would have to practise a perpetual discipline (have you met me?!) of meeting everything and everyone with a mix of compassion and patience.

Anyone who's been divorced knows the only way to experience it while displaying a convincing level of compassion and patience is, in fact, already to possess traits of psychopathy. Find me a Tibetan monk who's been divorced serenely and then we'll talk about whether it's a realistic option for me.

Psychopathy it is. Except. Overcoming a phobia tends to mean doing the thing you fear most. Really not sure how I feel about eating poo in the short-term for the long-term gain of keeping cortisol levels low. But I think I would really enjoy feeling detached and emotionally unaffected by other people.

My blood sugar levels would stabilise immediately and I could adopt the insouciant affect of a Lego character. Yes. That's definitely what I should do. Even though my AI tool tells me that psychopathy "...is not a skillset... in reality it's associated with serious impairments in emotional connection..."

Yes, AI. Yes. That's exactly what I want, dammit. You've got a long way to go.

The experiment begins. Let's see how I fair in the emotional detachment stakes next time I interact with another person. Perhaps I can start with my curmudgeonly - and helpfully forgetful - neighbour. He thinks my name is Sarah. Because that's what I tell him.

What worked for me today: none of the people on my evisceration list crossed my path.

What worked for you?

Join the Conversation