Category: blogging

adequate pain relief and suicide

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, chronic physical pain, suicide

Was going through some old journals and came across an article on pain and suicide. This was the “first” study to find that moderate to severe pain caused suicide to happen. **clap, clap, clap** Tell me something I DON’T KNOW. I don’t get how they have to do a study in order for doctors and other mental health professionals to realize that any type of prolonged pain (physical or mental) is going to result in suicide. It astounds me, it really does. And the worse part is that these people are not being treated. That’s the other thing that drives suicide, untreated pain. Granted you can’t treat psychological pain like you can physical pain. There just isn’t a pill you can take to relieve psychological suffering. That is the sad part. But you can assess it. You can hear the person talk about their pain. That is all the person wants really, is to be heard.

Physical pain is ambiguous. And the study didn’t focus on any particular pain in the body. The researchers just asked have you had pain in the last four weeks and then they rated it. So there is no telling that this pain was coming from the head, back, legs, stomach, etc. Does it matter? I don’t think so. I just think that more doctors should ASK their patients if they are experiencing pain and how severe it is to them. And also ask if they are thinking about suicide because of this pain. But most doctors don’t have the TIME to ask these questions.

In the months after my psychiatric hospitalization, my doctor asked for three months if I was suicidal because of my pain or for another reason. Then, the questions stopped. He began to ask more about what was causing my pain and try and help me there. A few months ago he asked me again if I had suicidal thoughts. He then told me that he cares a lot about me and that he would miss me should I kill myself. That took me off guard. I know I have a good relationship with my doctor but do other patients have good relationships with theirs? And are the people that are prescribing narcotics regularly checking to see if their patient is at risk for suicide? My doctor has stopped asking me if the pain medication is adequate for me. Sometimes it is, other times it is not. And I think that finding an adequate pain relief regimen is key to saving a life.

I know that I am constantly complaining on my blog about my pain. But I have pain meds to control it. Even if at times it is inadequate. Do I think about suicide? Yes, I do. But I have protective factors that are preventing me from going through with my plan. And I hate these factors because I wish I could kill myself. I know that I will be missed by my blog readers, my family, my therapist and my psychiatrist. I have a sense of belongingness to these people and as much as they drive me crazy, they keep me here. So all I can do is write about my pain and hope that it helps someone to know they are not alone in their pain too.

research and school

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, depression

The sound of a million dreams has been running in my head the last few times I have been up in my room. So I had to play the song sung by David Nail. I love this song very much. It has some pretty cool lyrics.

I didn’t know if I would write today. I have written a three page letter to my therapist on the events of the day and feel pretty worn out. I then wrote a few pages in my journal. I left off in my journal about grief affecting my suicidal state. Then the bus came and disrupted my train of thought.

Today’s mail brought me the latest journal Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. It had a few articles of interest. One article was about treatment resistant depression. Another dealt with the future aspect of time in relation to suicide. The other one that I read with interest was Suicide of the patient, the experience of a Flemish psychiatrist. I find it interesting that most male psychiatrists had a higher proportion of suicides as opposed to female and that Belgium had the highest suicide rate than the US. There is also an article on escape theory that I have not read yet. I get excited when I get this journal. I feel connected to the suicide people through it. I wish I still had access to my work’s network to get research articles on my favorite researchers. I feel so left out because I have to rely on doing pubmed searches but sometimes I don’t get it all because it focuses more on medicine than psychology. So if it is not in a medical journal, I will have trouble finding it. I loved to use psychLit for my searches. I know I need to go back to school but it isn’t practical right now because I just can’t afford it.

It saddens me that I can’t go back to school and I know it is my fault. All the should have’s go through my head and if Only’s. I could have been a PhD by now if I didn’t have my illness and setbacks as much as I have had. It really kills me that I should me further along than where I am right now and I am not. My niece will probably get her doctorate before I can even finish my bachelor’s degree. It’s so messed up.

clinical marker to suicide attempts found

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, depression

Just read an article that has me pissed off and I don’t know why. To me, it’s just another nail in my coffin. The article is about how researchers in Ireland found a Biomarker for suicide attempts and drum roll…it stems from whether you are psychotic or not. Great. Just. Fucking. Great.’

Is it too much to ask that I kill myself now before the illness will just kill me anyways???

If you want to read about it, here it is

baseball and a suicide

by Midnight Demon, posted in baseball, blogging, suicide

I just realized it has been a long time since I wrote about baseball. A lot has been going on in the baseball world, mostly centered on one stupid, arrogant, idiotic player. For those that are in the US, you got it. I am Talking about A-Rod or Alex Rodriguez. I like to call him other things as this F***er is destroying the sport and I am not happy that despite his suspension, he still continues to play. THEN he gets beaned by one of MY pitchers and he gets suspended. Did this pitcher appeal? NO. He took it like a man and that was that. This punk (A_ROID) used PED (Performance enhancing drugs) after the MLB (Major League Baseball) ban on them and is still allow to play because he is fighting his appeal. I really hope that he get screwed big time and has to pay back the money he is getting paid for the games he has played. He is a loser and has been since he became a Yankee. I do not feel bad for him in the least and I hope that he becomes banned from baseball.

On another note, my heart has been heavy since learning of a suicide of one the actors from the TNT show Rizzoli and Isles. He has to be the what fourth actor to die in the last few months by suicide. He was African-American and only 29 years old. I don’t know how they are going to write his character now. I feel for his fellow actors and actresses and the rest of the crew. It really comes to mind the song “how do you get so lonely, and nobody knows”. A fellow blogger posted that song the other day and it reminded me of the lyrics to this song. I can’t think of the name of the person that sings it right now. He was popular for this song only. I don’t think the artist has made an album since this song. He is another one hit wonder.

The actor I am talking about is Lee Thompson Young. He played Detective Barry Frost. I loved his character. I just wonder why he didn’t reach out and get help. I guess we will never know as there was no suicide note found. Not like that makes a huge difference. A suicide is a suicide. He was handsome and talented. And yet he felt, I am assuming, in so much pain. Maybe there was another reason. No one will ever know. As far as I do know, there were no drugs involved. Not like that will matter when you think about suicide. People I think, in my honest opinion, would rather have the drugs or alcohol as a scapegoat to killing oneself to make them feel better. It helps to blame the drugs/alcohol more than anything else because even though no one is to blame for a suicide, people still think it was their fault when it happens. That if they just talked a little more to the person, asked questions, or did something different they could have prevented the person from killing themself. I don’t know if anyone knew he was depressed. I have been going over the suicide blogs on WordPress to see if anyone wrote about this. And one person just chocks it up to the race and the downside of how blacks are killing themselves. I don’t know it is true. I know what the statistics show. So this case fits perfectly within the statistical model of suicide. Yay, does that do anything to help his family? I doubt it.