Category: blogging

it doesn’t take too much to be overwhelmed

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, depression, mood disorders, suicide, suicide attempt

****WARNING MIGHT BE TRIGGERING****

I didn’t mean to start off the day like this, I don’t think anyone does. But I am feeling miserable and when I am miserable I write. This darkness has invaded my soul. I am no longer a good person but just an empty shell off what was, if that makes sense. I haven’t had coffee and wouldn’t you know it, I forgot to order cream with my groceries? Figures. Guess no coffee today, unless I go to Walgreens and buy it when I pick up my prescription. I also need a case of water. I need to try and keep myself hydrated which I have not been too successful at, if my lips are any indication. My lips are wicked dry and chapped, like a desert. I never made my chamomile tea last night. I got too sleepy and wanted to stay in my nice cozy bed. I will have to change the sheets after I take a shower. It is going to suck as I hate changing sheets but if I smell, I know my sheets do, too. I don’t know why everything has to be a struggle. I am struggling to stay alive. Struggling to do normal living activities. It is just so overwhelming. I hate being overwhelmed. But then, it doesn’t take much to become overwhelmed.

I had my therapy session tonight with my pain in the ass therapist. It’s funny but today I was reminded that even though we have been working together for years and years she still fricken panics whenever I get into a suicidal state. It’s like the blog I wrote a few months ago, Mentioning of suicide, therapist panics. Instead of asking me what my story was that went behind my suicidal reasoning, she didn’t want to hear it. She just wanted to listen to my reasons for living, my reasons for dying, and what I was going to do to get me through the next four days until we talked again. It is the SAME THING every single time. Nothing changes. I can hear the panic in her voice soon as I divulge my plan. It’s like she cannot tolerate listening to it. I don’t know why it is. It makes me feel better talking about it. But she doesn’t want to hear it so I don’t speak of it. I keep it inside and I think that is where Mr. Hyde is born. Mr. Hyde is my suicidal part that like to come out and write suicidal notes.

Tonight I was reminded that my therapist is not Aeschi in the least because I scare her. I don’t mean to scare her. That is not my intention. But my suicidality freaks her out. I only have a voice here on my blog to talk about my suicidal plans and thoughts and feelings. You would think, that a therapist office would be the place to divulge this information but it is not. It freaks them out too much. Maybe that is why there are so many suicides. The talking about suicide doesn’t get talked about so the client feels more alone than they already feel. I think that if I was a therapist, I would want to know my client’s thinking about suicide and why he wanted to throw himself out the window. Maybe in talking about it, there would be some underlying thought process that could be explored and then, maybe the feelings wouldn’t be so intense. But my therapist doesn’t want to hear about it. She wants to know where it hurts but not really. It is too scary for her. Where it hurts is where I want to put the rope around my neck. Where it hurts is where I am hopefully dangling out my bedroom window. I want to know what it feels like to lose the oxygen to my brain and lose consciousness permanently. But no one wants to hear that part. She just wants to know that if I want to act, I will call her first or someone else or go to the ER. Those places will not help me. They do not want to hear my story. They do not want to hear my plan or know of my pain. They will just hear that I am suicidal and should be in a safe place for a few days and hopefully in those few days I won’t be suicidal anymore, like it’s a magic cure. They do not want to know the depth of my sadness, the depth of my pain, the depth of my intolerable despair that has come upon me with its unrelenting hold around my throat. I am being suffocated. And no one can see it. No one can bare it. So I say what is expected of me and move on to another session where the same things go on. I am not saying my therapist is a failure. She is not. She is just a person who panics with the mention of suicide like the rest of the world.

Horrendous day, just for a cup of coffee

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, depression, mood disorders, suicide

Horrendous day, just for a cup of coffee

There was supposed to be a 13:25 bus out of Sully Station but it didn’t show up until 14:00. Talk about being late. I would have reported the bus to twitter had I thought about taking the bus number down at the time but I was too discombobulated to think of it. I caught the next bus to Davis so all was good but I was so mad that I couldn’t sit and edit my book like I wanted to. I just didn’t have my brain power, even with my mocha. I might do some of it at home later but for now I am just going to rest and wait for my friend to go to the gym. We are supposed to meet up today and I hope that we do as we have not seen each other in months.

I am feeling a little better emotionally today, though still feel the depression is over me. I don’t have a lot of physical pain today though I am sure after waiting forty minutes for the stupid bus my leg is going to flare up soon. I hope it doesn’t but you never know. Part of the reason I got up so late was because my leg was in contorting pain last night. I was having weird dreams again and kept waking up from these dreams in pain. I didn’t keep track of the pain meds like I do when I am awake so I guess I will have to figure it out later on.

I just got an email from Medscape or in the news that the FDA wants to change my pain medication to a schedule II class. I don’t know what that means but I know it isn’t going to be good for me if they succeed. If I can’t get my pain medication, I know my doctor might as well sign my death certificate. There will be no way for me to function with NO pain medications at all. I know just the thought of having no pain medication is enough for me to become suicidal. I know I don’t really need no prompting as my thoughts are there anyways but at least if my physical pain is controlled, I can usually handle my mental pain. It is when BOTH are raging that I am in a suicidal crisis. Lately, my mental pain has not been too bad. I haven’t been as hopeless as I have been in a LONG time. I am not saying that I am thinking about a future or stuff like that but I do look forward to tomorrow more than I have in the past. I don’t know why that is or why it has changed. Frankly I don’t really care. I know my therapist would love to tease it apart and analyze it to death but I really don’t care. Being a little hopeful is better than being hopelessly depressed. Maybe one day I will think about my future but I am not there yet.

Today is my youngest sister’s birthday. She is at the Patriots game and I just got a text saying that there will be a special pre-game ceremony for the Red Sox as they are WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS!! I still cannot believe it. I have not watched the game in its entirety yet. I am still in the inning where Stephen Drew hits his solo home run. I could watch that over and over and over again. This guy has been in a slump and soon as he gets his first pitch he drills it out to the bullpen. SO FRIGGEN AWESOME! Then to watch Ellsbury miss his home run was so cool. He got a double on his first or second pitch. Then they intentionally walked Ortiz. I could go on about this but I won’t. It just makes me happy that I lived to see the Red Sox win another championship. That is three in my lifetime. So awesome.

I wish I could say that my suicidal thoughts have been gone since baseball season came to an official close but it hasn’t. I don’t really think my thoughts will ever stop as they have been with me for so long. I guess it is just another thing I have to learn to live with.

A Special Blog Post

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, suicide

This is my 500th blog post. I wanted it to be memorable. And it will be, I hope, to me anyways.

I thought I would talk about David Jobes. He is my idol in the field of suicidology. I talk a lot about his work on my blog because I want to spread the word that there are treatment plans and assessment scales available for those who are suicidal. It took twenty-five years for this to happen. It might not catch on like DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) did for borderline personality disorder but I am hoping that through my blog, someone has at least an inkling about it.

His work is CAMS: the Collaborating Assessment and Managing of Suicide. It is a framework that allows the suicidal patient/client to work with the therapist in his or her treatment plan. By working together, therapist and client, it is hoped that suicidal thinking will decrease enough so a completed suicide is avoided. This does not mean that the suicidal thinking will go away completely. Nor does it totally prevent a suicide. During one of his talks, he spoke of a clinician in Texas that followed the CAMS and the assessment tool, SSF (suicide Status Form) to the letter with one of his suicidal clients. The client ended up killing himself. The clinician did everything that he could. But sometimes, there is still the risk.

The SSF is a seven page form that uses an initial, tracking, and outcome form to monitor and assess suicidality. It is based on the work of several clinicians. I won’t go into great detail about this because you can find out more in Dr. Jobes’s book, Managing Suicidal Risk. The link it to the Amazon website where you can purchase it. I would love to post the SSF one day but I would be violating copyrights, though in the book you can make copies of the form. I just can’t do it electronically, yet.

The wonderful thing about this form is that it is a self report about the client’s thinking about suicide and also has clinical information in the end so that both client and clinician fill it out to assess and document the suicide risk. It doesn’t take more than 10-15 minutes to fill it out (might take longer if the person has trouble understanding reading and writing English or has a disability that prevents that from happening, such as dyslexia). It is individualized for the client and that is a huge thing Jobes tries to do. It is not a fit all in one box, so to speak. It should broaden the thinking of the client and clinician to help bring together and work together to prevent the client from committing suicide. In the SSF, it talks about reasons for living and dying, assess psychological pain, hopelessness, the need to escape, and also asks the question, what would make you not kill yourself? I have used this form in my therapy sessions and that is the first question my therapist asks me when I am in the throws of a suicidal crisis, which happens more times than not for various reasons.
Mostly it has been my word that has kept me alive and I do hate myself for it at times. I have told my therapist that I would keep myself safe and I have, though sometimes, I overmedicate to do so.

Background information of Jobes is that he is a professor at the Catholic University of America and also has a private practice in the Washington, D.C. He has written in at least a half dozen books (some of which I own, if I could afford it I would own all) and countless research articles relating to his work and also to the field of suicidology. He not only write about his work but also about the legality and ethical matters of dealing with a suicidal client.

World Series Champions…AGAIN!!!

by Midnight Demon, posted in baseball, blogging

I am still not sure I can believe it. My beloved Red Sox have won the World Series…Sadly I did not watch all of the game as I was out with friends tonight. I had to recluse myself from social media (Twitter, mostly) and text messaging by turning off my phone. I didn’t turn it back on until I got home and made sure the game was recording first. If it didn’t I would have been beyond pissed.

This has been the third World Series win of my team since the dreaded 1918 curse. Today we kicked 1918 by the wayside again by winning the Series at home. To say that everyone in Boston is in BOSTON would be an understatement! The public transportation around Fenway Park have been closed due to heavy crowds. The place is not going to sleep anytime soon!

I did watch the game, from the beginning. I saw that Pedroia missed a home run in the first inning. Then I saw the lowly Drew step up to the plate and blast a homerun into the bullpen! He has struggled all postseason at the plate. He has some GREAT defensive plays and that is why he is in the lineup despite his offensive struggles. I then saw my buddy Jacoby Ellsbury miss a homerun by a foot. I am really going to miss him on this team. I don’t think he will be back in a Red Sox uniform next year and that will be too bad. I love his speed and his Centerfield glove. I will try and follow him where ever he goes but usually once someone leaves Red Sox Nation, I don’t keep track of them. Once the six runs were scored, I heard fireworks go off and knew that the game was over and a victory was secured. I cried tears of joy but not until I saw the last out by KOJI!! I think he should have shared the MVP with Ortiz.

I live near Boston, about 5 miles away. I wouldn’t be near the city even if you paid me. The crowds are unreal and I hope everyone stays safe. THREE WORLD SERIES CHAMPION RINGS IN 10 YEARS. There is nothing more I need to say.