Category: Chronic pain

Headaches are back

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, Chronic pain, depression, gender dysphoria

When I was in the psych hosp in mid-October, I started getting sharp headaches in the middle of the night. They were so bad, I thought my brain was splitting in two. After about 15 mins they would go away. I thought they were migraine activity so I took migraine meds for them but it didn’t help. This morning, I woke up with the same headache. The initial pain went away but now there is this ache around my head.

It’s 6am. I had to go pee as my headache woke me up. I am staying up because why not. I am listening to Taylor’s version of Fearless. One of my favorite albums. I am listening via ear buds as I don’t want to wake up anyone. I am debating on making coffee.

Last night, I got really upset, mostly at myself. I gave my mother dinner and she went to the fridge by herself. I didn’t think anything of it and didn’t watch her. Then as she leaves the kitchen she asks if she took her insulin. Fuck. I don’t know if she took it while she was at the fridge or not. My middle sister reprimanded me when she found out, saying I have to watch her all the time. Uh, sorry I don’t have eyes in the back of my head! I go upstairs kicking myself for not being aware. Then my baby sister calls me and tells me it is important to watch her. WTF. I hung up on her saying I am not going to be reprimanded by the two of you. I already felt bad. I know it is important my mother takes her insulin. I am not an idiot. I am getting burned out taking care of her all the time. Yesterday I just wanted to stay in my room and do nothing but read my book and maybe write. I was able to read my book but I really didn’t write like I wanted to. I had gotten so fed up I wanted to go for a walk but I did curls with weights instead. That helped.

I have therapy today. Definitely going to talk about this, the burnout not so much the incident with the insulin. I care for my mother but at the same time I want to get away from her. Her not respecting my pronouns is one part of it. Just bothers me so much. This weekend I’ve been really sensitive as the gender dysphoria has been in high gear.

Today I’m going to try to just drink Ensure in an effort to lose some weight. I’ve gained five pounds because I haven’t been watching what I eat. Eating a whole pizza didn’t help matters. I want to lose at least fifteen pounds before my surgery. I have to start putting a serious effort into this. It is so hard for me to diet because soon as I say the word, I hit the bad foods. I hate dieting but if I want to lose weight, I have to do something.

I wasn’t sure I was going to have therapy today because my mother was having pain upon breathing and needed oxygen. She was having pain all over and rated it as a 20. Thankfully some ibuprofen calmed things down. I had therapy but told my therapist I needed to have the phone near me in case my niece texted she needed me. We talked about the care my mother needs and again about her misgendering me and not accepting me as a male. I am really trying to not let it get to me but when I have gender dysphoria like I’ve had the past few days, it is harder to let things go.

My sister told my mother if she wasn’t feeling that good that she should go to the hospital and my mother “magically” felt better. She ate lunch and was moaning a little bit but not as bad as the morning. I was glad she was feeling better even though she was still on oxygen. I made some chicken breasts for my lunch and for my mother so she could have chicken salad if she wants tomorrow.

My leg is hurting me for some reason. It keeps cramping when I lie down. Been trying to stretch it out. I just took some more Robaxin for some relief as my chest muscles hurt as well. I am so fucking tired. The added stress of this morning didn’t help matters. Hope I can rest tonight and read a chapter of the cognitive therapy book. Got to keep my intellectual brain working.

therapy black out

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, Chronic pain, CRPS, depression, mood disorders

Therapy black out

Trigger warning sexual abuse talk

I had therapy today and in the middle of it, my power goes out. I had to use my hotspot to connect but because I was in the dark, I didn’t turn the camera on. UGH. We were talking about trauma and specifically my mother’s abuse towards me. She sexually abused me from the time I was young, like age 2 to 13. She always had to look at my genitals or breasts. Now that I have been cathing for a while, I still have flashbacks to when she touches me when I touch myself. In my pediatric records, the doctor notes that my “vagina was closing” according to my mother but I wonder if it was really my urethra as it is in my vaginal opening. I’ve had a few UTI’s growing up and I wonder if it is because my mother stuck things in there. I also had a trauma medical procedure done to me when I was five. I had to be restrained physically and chemically for the doctor to do the procedure. All I remember is that I was screaming for my mother to get me, to comfort me, and when she didn’t come, I felt abandoned. I hated my mother for not being there. It was then that I started hearing voices.

Today’s WordPrompt from WordPress is transition. I was talking about my transition today with my therapist as my mother misgendered me, again. It invalidates me and makes me think my transition is not worth it. As I will always be seen as a “daughter” to her rather than a son. She thinks she owns me. I haven’t told her that I will be having top surgery yet. I want to make sure the insurance is going to cover it. I don’t want to tell her and then it not happen. It is five months away anyways. I am hoping that I can have it sooner but I got to know insurance will cover it first.

I am going for blood work this week so asked my pcp if they also need a urine sample because my test strip for home testing tested positive for white cells. I don’t know if my bladder is still inflamed or what. It still hurts though and even though I am starting the estrogen cream tonight, it could be a month before it has an effect. I was going to start last night but I got too tired to put it on. I was going to put it on after my last cath for the night but I didn’t want to get out of bed. I was comfy.

I woke up a couple of time during the night to pee and I was on the same schedule as my mother as every time I had to go pee so did she. I might have to hide the benzoyl peroxide I bought as I found it on the sink rather than in the cabinet. The last tube I bought was used by family members. I never had a chance to use it because it was used up before I could or it went missing on me. I have a breakout of zits right now and need to use it. For fuck’s sake, I bought it with my money and the shit is not cheap. Pisses me off that someone keeps using my acne products.

I wanted to make a zucchini chicken stir fry for supper but my ankle and foot are hurting me too much. My mother is just going to make the chicken with salt and pepper for me. I just realized I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast this morning. I never made lunch like I had wanted to. Therapy just got me so upset.

Chronic illness and disability causes grief

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, disability

This was posted in the CRPS and RSD group on FB.

CHRONIC ILLNESS and DISABILITY causes GRIEF: by: Angela Piccolotti

No one tells you that you will grieve when you become disabled and/or chronically ill. Grief is expected when a loved one dies but you don’t expect it when you experience a chronic illness or disability.

The process is the same. You go through all the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages are our attempts to process change and protect ourselves while we adapt to our new reality. The feelings are the same. The only difference is that instead of a loved one dying, it’s like you’ve died. Your life’s hopes, dreams, and plans are dead. Who you were and who you wanted to become are gone. Everything you used to be. All forever changed.

You break your own heart over and over again because you have hope of a restored body and life but no matter what you do you can’t achieve them.

It’s like you’ve died, but still you’re still breathing and you still have a pulse. You’re a ghost in your own life, a shell of your former self. You are haunted by your old self, your old life, your old hopes and dreams, your former health, all you used to be and all you used to be able to do. You remember everything you’ve lost. It’s heartbreaking!

You feel like you’re just taking up space. You feel so worthless. You can no longer DO. You can only sit by idle as life goes on without you being able to participate in it. It’s agonizingly painful!

thirty years of therapy and what I have learned

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, Chronic pain, CRPS, depression, mood disorders, suicide

Thirty years of therapy and what I learned

I’ve been in therapy since I was 15. After 30 years and 15 therapists, I’ve called it quits. Not because I was cured because I couldn’t get the care I needed. Not all therapists are the same. And even if someone has the credentials I am looking for, doesn’t mean it will work out. I have seen social workers, psychologists (PhDs and PsyD), psychiatrists, and psych RN. The first 10 I saw within the first 10 years of starting therapy. Each therapist I saw didn’t last more than a year. One resident I saw lasted three years, till the end of her residency, but she moved on and I didn’t see her again. I tried DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy), CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), and the various psychodynamic therapies out there.

My suicidal career took up talk for the last 10 years of therapy, maybe more as it got more serious and I didn’t want to live anymore. I started researching into the different treatment options and found very little to help myself. The therapist I was seeing at the time was stuck in her ways didn’t want to adapt to what I wanted her to do in therapy to help me. It was frustrating. Then I saw a PsyD with the credentials and I thought yes! This is going to work out finally. But it didn’t because she didn’t have empathy and couldn’t give me validation when I needed it the most.

What I learned from my research into suicidology is that the person needs to tell their story of why they are suicidal. It needs to be heard by an empathic person who validates why they are suicidal. They also should appear eager to listen and to know more about the person, their pain and suffering. To find out where it hurts and to try and heal it the best they can. I can go on about things like perturbation, lethality, constriction, and psychache but those are just words no one uses anymore.

Living with pain— physical or emotional— for years is a traumatic stressor. The experience of living with pain evokes many of the same responses that being subjected to abuse or neglect does. — Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle

I came across this quote while scrolling through Twitter. Dammit this guy always posts something when I am in the feels. He is correct. Pain does have the same responses as being abused or neglected. I have suffered physical pain consistently 24/7/365 for the past twelve years. Each time my foot or ankle flared up, I had flashbacks of when my back gave out ten years prior. I had to go through a series of checklists to make sure it wasn’t happening again, each time, nearly every single day. Once I had a diagnosis for the pain the checklist checking stopped but the feelings of the trauma didn’t.

My therapist who I just stopped seeing, asked me what I was looking for in therapy. But I didn’t have the words. As I am reading the book Building a Therapeutic Alliance with the suicidal Patient, I am figuring out what I need in therapy. I knew she wasn’t able to give me what I need. I am not really sure what I need. I know I want someone to talk to tell my story to. For them to listen, empathically and compassionately to what I have to say about why I am suicidal and why it has become my only option left to me.