Category: CES

weepiness and not enough sleep

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, CES, Chronic pain, mental disorders, mental illness, suicide, suicide attempt

Have not been myself the past few days. I have been wicked emotional since my TG piece got posted. I had 19 people read it so far and only 1 comment. No likes but it still is early. My first piece didn’t get anything until weeks later and then it was on fire.

I think I put a lot of myself out there and that is why I am still in a weepy state today. I just am emotionally drained from writing it as well as what my therapist says, I hide myself pretty well. I haven’t left my house. I have not showered in a few days time. I don’t think I have had the energy or inclination to brush my teeth. My eyes have been blurry today and I don’t see the head honcho of the neuro-opt until next week. It’s driving me crazy that I can’t see, even with my glasses on. My left eye seems to the trouble today. I just can’t focus.

Tomorrow I am supposed to go see my dad but I think I won’t. I don’t need his antics when I haven’t been having a good few days. He always makes me feel like a shitbag. But that is just the way he is.

I think the whole mess of not being able to work anymore and collecting disability has finally sunk in and I just have been so weepy. It’s hard because I have always been a good worker and now that I can’t it harder because I don’t have something to look forward to every day. I have my writing and blog but I don’t have the outside contact of being with someone or people contact that I normally get. And just when I think I can go back to work, I stand for longer than I should and have a pain attack that night. It’s really depressing me not having something to do except writing. I could clean my room but I don’t have anything or anywhere to put all my clothes. I don’t have bookcases for my books and other office style stuff. I can clean my office but I get so overwhelmed that I just end up not doing anything at all. My office has become one side of my bed, which probably has contributed to my sleep problems. A sleep doctor would have a coronary if he ever evaluated me. But then I always have had trouble sleeping. I had trouble getting to sleep, staying asleep, and going back to sleep. I know it doesn’t help that I have my laptop next to me in bed or my books or my journal or the 3 notebook/pads I have for writing my ideas down.

What ever is causing this weepy business, I hope it stops and I hope my pdoc calls me back. I want to get started on a new/old medicine to try and help me sleep better and stabilize my mood.

A Day in the Life of Midnight Demon

by Midnight Demon, posted in baseball, cauda equina syndrome, CES, Chronic pain, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, suicide, suicide attempt

Talking with Bozo, aka my therapist, 3x this week. Don’t know how that happened. I called her Thursday because I was in severe pain Wednesday night which seems like ages ago today. She asked if I wanted to meet Monday and like an idiot I said yes. We talked about M today as I am upset by the whole thing. People who are not in the situation are quick to judge about what to do. I had a response to M’s blog and one person said that I should do something as she obviously “wants help”,  as she opened up to me. Thing is she doesn’t know the battle it takes to deal with the effects of chronic illness day in and day out. No one knows how hard it is to deal with this unless they have been there like I have. I feel M’s pain as if it were my own because I have been where she is and I know what she is going through.

M is going to the doc today and I hope they do something for her but I doubt that she will open up to them about her plan or much less about what is really going on with her. She seems convinced to go through with whatever she is planning and it sounds like she has been poisoning herself slowly to die a slow death. It’s awful that she has to go through this alone. I feel so helpless. But I understand where she is coming from.

Now my Left foot is vibrating right now. It’s driving me nuts. And it’s not even night time. It’s weird that I would get nerve pain at 2 pm in the afternoon.

Today I also went to the bank and bakery for my mother. Also mailed her mail. Then came to Starbucks.

I’m getting a little bit tired like I can take a nap but I won’t. I got to stop taking naps even though it’s the only way I get the REM sleep. It really sucks to sleep during the day but I wake up sometimes restful, other times groggy. I really want another coffee, maybe a Blue Java from Indonesia! I really love that coffee. I had some yesterday. I love that I can make it whenever I want. But I’m at Starbucks so I can get another coffee if I want it dammit! And I did get it. Two cups of coffee in one day. I’m going to be up all night. Coffee is so much different than at home. But it still tastes as strong as home. I miss my Galapagos. That was the best mild full-bodied coffee. But the Pats game is on tonight so I will need all the caffeination I can get!!

I got to go home and find my Roxio cd so I can burn CDs again. I don’t know why I should be worrying about it. It’s not like the thing is going to work on my new laptop any ways.

If my father had a DVD player I could have made him a DVD of his pictures rather than his photo book that is crap. Jerk better like it or I will be wicked upset with him.

The sad truth about CES

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, CES, Chronic pain, depression, medical, mood disorders, suicide, suicide attempt

8-Dec-12

I’m faced with a dilemma. A friend of mine that I have known for the past year or so via email has just emailed saying that she is going to kill herself soon because she just can’t take it anymore. She feels no one will care and that Obamacare wants her to commit suicide anyway because she has a chronic illness and it will cost too much to keep her alive.

I feel I should let someone know but I don’t want to betray her confidence in me by telling people about her plan. She doesn’t want to be talked out of it. I understand where she is coming from and it troubles me that I can’t do anything to try and stop her. I know that if I do, she will probably not talk to me again and most likely be more determined than ever to try again or just attempt it without talking to me first about it. Her husband has neglected her emotionally. She has no one to talk to except via email. She has no close family members and is dependent solely on her husband for everything as she is in a poor state of health. I am mad at the husband for failing his wife. Maybe she is right and she will be better off dead. I often feel that way but I can feel the pain in what she writes and I know the agony and psychache she feels.

I just wrote her an email begging her not to go through with it and have me try and talk with her about things. To al least email me when she does so I can be with her so she isn’t alone when she dies. I don’t know what else to do or say to her. I know I could ask someone in the group to call her but like I said before I don’t want to betray her confidence. I know in suicide there is no confidences or promises but I hate just sitting here not knowing what to do. It really sucks to be in this type of position. Who am I to stop her? I know the pain she is going through. I know the misery it brings. I know the loss of dignity that this dreaded nerve condition brings. It’s awful that she has someone living with her that doesn’t care anymore. It makes me sad that she has to go through this alone. I hope that my email finds her and that she hasn’t done it yet. If I don’t get a response then I’ll know that I was too late in reaching out to a friend in need. I don’t even have her number to call her and check on her. I knew that she was suicidal in the past. We have talked about it many times before.I just didn’t know she would go through with it. Sometimes writing about what you are going to do puts you in a better frame of mind. It sometimes proves to be cathartic. I know that if I write the most horrible depressing, despairing letters I feel better afterwards. I don’t feel so suicidal afterwards. It sucks being in pain all the time and not having any relief. I get why she wants to do this and I respect her decision. All you can think about is death when you are in pain 24/7 because all you want is relief. Doesn’t matter how you achieve your death, you just know dying is better than living. It takes its toll on you that no one else can understand except for other who suffer with you. No one except someone with the same or similar condition can know the depths of despair, hopelessness, exhaustion, chronic pain, chronic worry that this condition brings. It’s an invisible illness as after surgery, you can’t really see the damage anymore on the MRI or x-ray but you can feel it. The constant burning, loss of sensation, loss of bowel/bladder, loss of sexual function all encompass this illness caused by stenosis, disc herniation, or trauma to the cauda equine nerves, the horse’s tail. It’s the bundle of nerves that begin where the spinal cord ends, usually at the L1/L2 vertebrae.

explanation of myths of suicide

by Midnight Demon, posted in CES, Chronic pain, depression, medical, mental disorders, mental illness, suicide, suicide attempt

Today I did nothing but sleep. I have been in pain the last few nights and today was the first reprieve that I have had since then. I am not entirely pain free but I am feeling better than I was.

I wrote a crappy paper about holiday myths surrounding suicide. The myth is that there is more suicides around the holidays than any other time of year. That simply is not true as July gets as many as 111 suicides. For December, it is only 98. Still very close numbers but what kills me is that they argue that suicides are less but they don’t focus on the attempters. Those ATTEMPTERS may be the ones to complete a suicide during the holiday because they now know what steps to do so they can succeed. I maybe wrong. I had a friend that attempted the day after Christmas and this person is never going to do it again. This person states that she can never go back there again. I hope that is true. Not that I don’t believe her. Most people who attempt once will never try again. It is the chronicity of those that attempt multiple times that need the help the most. They are the ones that truly need the extra support during this time because they simply cannot cope with another holiday that is supposed to be joyous but they are not.

Holidays suck. People put on their happy faces to pretend when they do not care less about this holiday than any other. This day and age has stepped far away from tradition and more on materialistic styles of life. The iPad, iTouch, the cellphones, the big screen TVs. And then in January, they get the bills so no wonder by July people are ready to kill themselves because they can’t afford what they purchased and their six-month grace period is over. Am I being sarcastic? Hell yes. Is there truth to what I just said, maybe. I cannot prove it. I just recently paid off a credit card and find some freedom in that. Meanwhile I still owe Uncle Sam big bucks for my student loans. My credit sucks up the ying-yang. Do I want to kill myself to get out of debt, hell yea, but I don’t because the debt is going to be there regardless if I am alive or not. Granted I have no idea what happens to debt when someone dies. I know it won’t be in my will that so and so gets this portion and Uncle Harry gets this. I don’t even know if I will leave a will.

People talk about suicide notes all the time but the majority do not leave one. I know that I have been through many suicidal crises and have never really left a note. The past few years I have been writing them to save face for my nieces and nephew. So they know that I love them even though the pain I have caused them is meaningless. I hope they never think about taking their lives. It is a horrible place to be in when thinking about it. I shudder every time I think about where I was when I last tried. It wasn’t that long ago. I still remember the desperation I felt. I didn’t call anyone. I didn’t write to anyone. I just took pill after pill hoping to take my pain away.

There has been two holidays that I have tried to take my life. The first was in 1994 and the second was in 2005. I was hospitalized in 1994 for Christmas and New Years, hell Thanksgiving too. It was a bad time for me. I had severe depression and could not get a grip on things. I overdosed on some pills and the next thing I knew I was in the hospital for three months.

In 2005, it was different. I had planned to take my life Nov 5th of that year but my therapist begged me not to and some how we got through it. I vaguely remember it. I didn’t attempt anything but I did plan every single detail. I ended up in partial hospital as gone were the days of long admissions. I learned some things while in Partial but I still wanted to end my life. Thought about it everyday, just kept changing the date. That is how close I came. The following year I took a psychometric class and learned about psychache, perturbation, and press. Not in the class. The professor was an idiot when it came to these issues, but on my own learning. I am somewhat of an autodidact and pick up more on my own than in the classroom. But that semester I learned more than any other. And I was grateful for it because it gave me a chance to learn more about suicidality than I had previously. Finally someone understood my struggle. Finally someone understood my pain. Though I then became a member of the American Association of Suicidology, I still am today. I am a proud member and I get to go to their annual conference and learn more about the treatments are for people like me.