Chronic Pain and suicide

researchers have found a link between chronic pain and suicide.

that is something that I have known for sometime now as I am a chronic pain sufferer and have thought of killing myself numerous times to get rid of the pain. it is why sometime this year I plan on killing myself. it is not going to get better. I have a chronic pain condition and I really don’t care anymore. I will go through the motions of getting treatment knowing it is not a cure. just a bandaid and it hurts. But clinicians need to ask the question if they ever want to prevent suicide. I am a hopeless case. I have mental illness on top of chronic pain. it is worse with my condition. I feel like I can’t talk openly with my provider because then he tampers with my pain meds. I will not kill myself with my meds. I have other methods running through my head. but this article is interesting. I hope that people who read my blog that suffer from chronic pain do call the 800 number to talk to someone. I hope that it can work that way but I know that most people will not pick up the phone and call. I don’t know why that is. I know I have called but I am still where I am. I have found it helpful at times but sometimes I feel like they are just pretending to care when they really don’t. Just my experience. but that shouldn’t stop you from calling.

A Blog About a Paper and Pain

Wrote a paper about suicide attempt survivor’s reaction after reading a research article about it. A friend wanted me to write about it but I am having a hard time because this research just justifies the fact that I should be dead by suicide yet I am not. This paper feeds into the feelings I have that I should not be living. My therapist also wants me to write this paper but from the perspective of what it means to be the exception and not the rule. Yet you cannot defy statistics. Statistically, I should be dead and that feeds my self destructiveness all the more.

Lately I have been thinking about my suicidal plan. It has been on my mind all week. The constriction – blinders – have begun to settle in on me. What does this mean? It means all that I am thinking about is ending my life. It is becoming my obsession. I am writing this on a notepad that I have had for a while now. In it there are two entries about how bad my life is with pain from LAST YEAR. There have been too many nights of pain. So despite the day being pain free, sort of, and my mood being slightly content, the night produces the midnight demons that are bringing me thoughts of self-destruction, of suicide.

Yet I feel that I am a hypocrite for belonging to an organization that is for understanding and preventing suicide. The premise is that if I learn about suicide and the more I learn, maybe it will decrease my urges. But everything that I learn goes out the window when the constriction is in high gear.

Like Mary Chapin Carpenter says, it don’t take much to be happy. But for me it’s like a hurdle. What makes me happy is having my Starbucks coffee at Starbucks, writing in my journal while there, and blog. The only problem is that this happiness doesn’t last. It doesn’t sustain me. Sometimes the feeling my therapist has for me makes me want to live because I know my death will bring her pain and sadness. That is not what I want to do. But I also don’t want to be trapped into living by bringing others joy just by me being alive. I can’t live just for others when I am suffering so much.

My therapist and I have been trying to get to the roots of my suicidality. Mostly what we came up with is that I felt like a burden to my family since I was eight. I started hearing voices when I was five. They have been my constant companion throughout my life. In addition, I was made a girl when I am a boy. That brought me great pain when I realized this. At age ten, I had my 1st suicide attempt – I tried to suffocate myself with a pillowcase. I just see life as pain and I so want to escape from that pain. No medication numbs it or relieves it and now that I am in physical pain, I feel like I am being punished for all the sins I ever committed. Despite asking for forgiveness, I am met with more pain.

Went to the Mary Chapin Carpenter concert last night. She was playing with Shawn Colvin. I didn’t like Shawn too much. All I heard from her was “blah, blah, blah”. I am still hyped from the concert, I’m blaring (softly as it is late) all of Mary Chapin’s albums.

When Mary Chapin played “the hard way” it was like she was telling me that I was on the right path but nothing comes easy. I listened to the concert with hope, sadness, and hopelessness. I was hoping MCC might change my mind but I realized I will let myself down if I don’t kill myself this year. It’s like what went on in 2005 when I planned everything but botched it up when I told my therapist (same one I have today). Now my therapist knows I have a date and that means it is going to be harder for me to go ahead with my plans. I don’t know why I feel I have to do this. I don’t. I can walk away from this and never go back but I will feel a form of defeat one feels when they break an internal promise to themselves.

I realized last night that part of the reason is because I don’t have confidence I’m always going to get my pain medication and that scares me. Because if I can’t get my pain pills, then I rather be dead. It’s not that I am saying I NEED the pills, I am saying that if my pain is not going to be taken seriously and treated with serious meds, I am going to kill myself. Because I cannot bear the thought of suffering and having pain flare up and not have anything to take. If Tylenol worked I would take it. If Ibuprofen worked, I wouldn’t need it. If ketoprofen helped, I wouldn’t need it. The only thing that helps is opioids.

So without my pain meds which have the affect of actually taking away some of my physical pain, I want to die. Yet I also want to die because I have chronic physical pain that makes me have to take pain medication. I guess I just feel that it’s not ok for me to get pain relief. I feel it is a hassle because I have to see my doctor every month and when the pain levels vary due to increase or decrease in activity for the month, I feel like I don’t deserve the meds. My doc gives them to me. He has never denied me my meds. Yet I fear that one day he will not for whatever reason. And that is the reason, well one of them anyways, why I feel I should be dead. I should just be dead. My pain cannot be cured. It cannot completely go away. I am sick of being in pain all the time. Sure the physical pain goes away with meds but the nerve pain does not. And that is what truly makes my life intolerable.

second blog of the day 15-May-13

Second blog of the day:

Normally I would be sleeping by now as it is after midnight but no such luck. This is the second night in a row that I have been up because of pain. I just took a ton of meds and hope that it knocks me out soon. I am tired of being in pain for the past 72 hours. My ankle has flared up on me tonight and I don’t know why. That pain calmed down and now I am dealing with nerve pain. I feel like my foot is in a vise and my toes are killing me.

And I don’t know if because I have been hunched over on the computer for so long, my stomach hurts. I can’t seem to “straighten” out to make it stop hurting. Lying down only makes it worse.

I just wrote a journal entry about my plan. I am no longer depressed, just suicidal. There is a difference and me being this way is a little more dangerous. Because I just don’t fucking care anymore. They say pain changes you, well mine has. I have been in constant pain and there is nothing to do but stop it. Yet the meds I take have to go through the voices in my head to justify taking the meds. I know it sounds silly as I am just fight with myself about it. The voices know that I am in pain but yet they hope that I overdose on my meds. That is why I have to be careful. If pushed by them too much I might give in and take a handful of meds that I really didn’t mean to. I just hope I fall asleep soon. I hate being like this. I can’t say that I am a happy person because I am not. I might appear to be to other people but it is just a façade. I have to make the appearance that I am ok even though I am not.

My therapist wants me to make the trip out to Framingham to see her. She says we need the connection. I just think that she wants to keep me in her office so she can keep an eye on me. But I don’t want to drive out there. I know it has been a while and I really should go but I just don’t feel like it because it just takes sooo many spoons to go. I have to shower, get dressed then take a bus to my sister’s work, walk three blocks to my sister’s work all for a fifty minute appointment? It takes more than that just to get my sister’s car!! And the drive can be anywhere from 45 mins to an hour and a half, both ways. Just doesn’t seem like a good idea given my pain cycle at the moment. I do miss seeing her and my teddy bear Johnny. He is a HUGE bear that I got when I was in the hospital when I was first diagnosed with CES, Cauda Equina Syndrome. That was 12 years ago. And then I got two little bearista bears that I got from Starbucks, Bucky and Amelia. I didn’t want Bucky to be alone so I got Amelia for him. They stay with my therapist, mostly to comfort her while I am gone. Hehehehe. Ok pain meds slightly kicking in now.

I was twittering with the Prez of the AAS (American Association of Suicidology) tonight about how the words suicidology and suicidality are not words Microsoft word recognizes. So he sent a twitter message to Bill Gates. I hope that he makes some noise because suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US. I will be part of these statistics soon. That is all that I am, a statistic. I am nothing more than that to the world. I cannot believe that I am going to kill myself soon. And I am happy about it. I know that my pain will end. Thing is, though I have a date and all, I don’t have a plan. And that is troubling me because how can I kill myself if I don’t have a plan. I have a few ways I can do it, nothing that I will blog about because I don’t want to trigger any one or give someone the idea of how to do it.

I could experiment with some things but I just don’t have the energy for it. Besides, if I experiment and succeed too early then people are not going to be ready for my death. I just realized that I have to write letters to people to explain why I am doing what I am doing. I don’t want there to be a “why”. I know that there will be but I want to lessen it. I also know that there will be some questions about why didn’t my treaters to enough for me, but that simply is not true. They have tried to help me but I am just too hopeless for them. There is no medicine that can help me. And talk therapy has helped me stay alive for this amount of time but I am tired of talking. I am also tired of being in pain all the time. And the talking only helps when I see my therapist or blog/write about it. And I know to some I must sound like a whine bag or something because all I talk about is my physical pain of my ankle that no one can help take away.

Unless I hit the lottery or they find a cure for nerve damage I am stuck in pain and debt. Both of which hurt me very deeply. I just can’t ever get ahead with my debt because of I am no longer working anymore. I can’t even order out for food anymore. I know that sounds like a whine but I like ordering Chinese once in a while. And now I can no longer do that. I like ordering pizza and subs. Can’t do that anymore. I am not a good cook so I just have what my mother makes which isn’t the healthiest of choices because she likes to fry everything. Even vegetables. She will make say asparagus and then she will fry them the next day. Don’t get me wrong, they are good, but they aren’t healthy.

I have been trying to stick with the Special K diet in which you eat two bowls of cereal for breakfast and lunch and then have a sensible dinner. That is a fail. My stomach has been messed up since my bowels have been backed up for a week that I can’t think about eating and when I do, it is not for a bowl of cereal. And that is another reason why I hate myself, because it hurts so much to go to the bathroom. For the past few months I have been having nerve pain in my anus and rectal areas. Sometimes sitting is so painful I just want to scream. And there is nothing really I can take that makes it better. Vicoden barely touches the pain, if at all. I can’t go through life like this. No more, I have had enough.

lack of sleep is a costly thing

I can’t sleep but then it’s early for me. I have been thinking about all the nights I have not been able to sleep because of pain, because of worries, because of things that keep running through my head.

Tonight I feel suicidal but I am not going to act on it. I just don’t feel the lethality of my thoughts anymore though if given a chance to actually act on them I might do it. I just don’t care anymore. If I live, if I die. What difference does it make. I still will be doing the same thing tomorrow that I am doing today, nothing. I realized that because I don’t sit down, say in a chair, it has helped my leg get better. I don’t know how better as the pain is less but when I walk or have a long day, it will flair. Even on days when I don’t have long days or walk it will flair up. There is no rhyme or reason as to why this happens. But it bugs me. I need something to do because I am going out of my mind. I have MASH DVDs that I can watch but I don’t watch them. I have other programs I can watch but I don’t. I can clean my room but that just overwhelms me. I try to go out at least once a day but even that seems to be too much of a hassle for me. I am becoming a hermit and I don’t like it. I know tomorrow I will have to go out to pick up my prescription. I probably will get a soda as I have not had one in a few days. I might get a tonic water to avoid the calories of a soda as I am watching my weight. I also might mix this tonic water with some gin and have a drink. I love gin. It tastes so good but I can’t have too much or I will get sick.

I just tried stretching my legs. It felt good. I wish I could remember to do it every day. Maybe then they won’t be so tight. Right now it’s nine thirty in the evening and I am thinking of going to bed but it hold no good dreams for me. I dream about work or killing myself. And this saddens me. I hate trying to go to sleep. Unless I am severely exhausted, I will fight it till the end. No matter how many pills, I take to get to sleep it seems my body always fights it no matter what. It is so frustrating. My lovely Neurontin that I love to take to zone out no longer works for me, even at high doses. I used to be able to sleep a good twelve hours, now I’m lucky to sleep five. That is my interval, four hours maximum. Where I used to sleep till 10 am or later, I am now waking up between six and eight in the morning. I hate this. I need something that makes me sleep longer but I don’t know what to take to let me sleep. Maybe some benedryl. I don’t know…

And this is all if I don’t have pain keeping me up. If I have pain then I am not sleeping at all. I writher in agony until the pain meds bring me some relief. Then soon as they wear off I am in pain again it starts the cycle all over again. The doctors don’t get it. They see me at 2-3 in the afternoon when I am not at my worst pain and think I am doing ok or better than I was the month before and give me my pills and say have a nice month before coming back to tell them the same story of losing sleep because of pain. Pain that wakes me up. Pain that keeps me awake. They don’t care. I am the one paying the price and they don’t care. They think that 2-3 pills a day is an adequate dose to keep me from withering in agony but they don’t see the price it is costing me. Lack of sleep. Lack of ambition, lack of motivation to do things I normally do. I tell them all this and still all I get is lose weight and be more active. I’ll be more active when I am dead…