Category: Chronic pain

Saturday Blog 69

by Midnight Demon, posted in bipolar, Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

Saturday Blog 69

I just finished cleaning both flights of stairs. I am going to rest a little bit before going to Walgreens to pick up my prescription. While mopping the stairs, I got a splinter from the stupid mop. I’ll have to wait till it forces itself out because I can’t seem to grab it.

I am going to try and take it easy today and possibly read. I haven’t read or finished any books since last month. I have a month and a half to finish my reading challenge. I have so far read 18 books and my goal is 25. I am almost there. I really need to put some time into reading and lord knows I have the time. I just don’t have the motivation or inclination to read. I rather just goof off on Twitter and Facebook. I have to put the laptop down or I won’t be able to read.

I had just started a new book, Lincoln’s Boys. It’s about John Hay and John Nicholas both of whom were secretaries for Abraham Lincoln. If you ever watched the movie Lincoln and saw the pics of what the men really looked like, it’s uncanny. The resemblances are very stunning in my opinion. But then, most of the characters in the movie have some resemblance to their real life pictures. They really did a good job making it as real as possible. I really do love Lincoln. He is one of my favorite presidents. I have read more about him than any other president.

I have another book that I started reading last week but it’s kind of boring. It’s from my favorite author Lawrence Block and called Resume Speed. So far the book is okay but with Block you never know what is going to happen next. I have it on my Kindle and it’s a novella so it’s not that long. I just need to get going on reading. It would be nice to finish the challenge.

I got some decent night sleep last night. I did have a weird dream about shot guns and chasing people. I sort of know what it’s about but I don’t want to trigger my PTSD so I am not going to analyze it more than that. I hope my sleep pattern is back on course. I am going to try and not sleep during the day. It’s going to be hard because of the work I did with the stairs. Maybe I will go to the Square and get some espresso. I did have coffee when I got up but it’s not really doing anything for me. I might as well taken some sleeping pills. I feel really tired.

OSU is playing Maryland today. I don’t know who Nebraska is playing. I hope their QB is okay to play. He got a huge hit last week against OSU and was unconscious for a little while. It was scary. I really am not in the mood to watch football today. I really miss baseball. 87 days until it returns. That is a long time.

While I am at Walgreens, I am going to see if they have the eczema cream my eye doctor wants me to get. When I was there last, they did have it but it was a huge tube and it was like $13. I don’t need that big of a tube. I’d like a smaller one. They had one online that was around $8. I am going to see if they have a Walgreens version. I just need a little dab for under my eyes. If not, I will go to the Square to go to CVS. Or I might check Rite Aid. Think I will go there first before heading to the Square. I hate going to the Square on a Saturday because the buses can be unpredictable. And they run like every stinking hour. I will check to see if my mother has my money that I asked her to save for me. I’d like to get some pizza at the pizza place while I am out. I think I deserve it after all the work I did today.

Clean Water in Cleveland, Again

by Midnight Demon, posted in baseball, bipolar, Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders, suicidality

Clean Water in Cleveland, Again

I really didn’t watch or listen to the Sox game but I was keeping tabs on it. I looked at the 2nd inning and it was 1-0. Then I don’t know what the hell happened, I blinked or something, and it was 4-0, Cleveland. I threw my hands in the air. I swore. I cussed out Price so bad. 30 fucking million dollars for nothing. 30 million!! And he can’t fucking pitch worth a damn! And the Sox bats were cold as fucking ice. We were shut out. Final score was 6-0. We have to win Sunday with Clay on the mound. It’s extremely unlikely but I have hope.

I have been eating like a pig since I have some home. I didn’t eat much today. I had a donut with my coffee and then I didn’t have anything else until dinner. After dinner, I had two boiled eggs and some cookie butter. Then I decided to make some pumpkin fluff which is going to be the death of me. It is so fucking awesome. I don’t think it is going to last until Tuesday when I see my therapist. I was going to share it but it might just be mine. My sweet tooth is in high gear and I think I am PMS’g, which isn’t a good thing. I just finished a pack of pills or rather just started a new pack, I forget. I just know I have gone through at least 4 packs and that is usually an indication that I am due for breakthrough bleeding. Oh Joy, just what my suicidality needs.

If the fluff doesn’t last, I will just make a pumpkin cake again. That will last a while. I just need to get more pumpkin. My back is feeling a lot better so I might be able to make it to the grocery store tomorrow to get some more. I hope they aren’t sold out. That will really suck. I just had a stroke of genius…place the fluff on top of the cake. It will be super yummy!! HA! Sweet tooth galore! That is if it survives the weekend…

I had wanted to print off my book tonight but I am not feeling up for it. I hate so much fluff that I am kind of full and sleepy. I just took my meds so I should probably wake up soon. Never fails that my meds wake me up rather than knock me out. I don’t get it because if I take them during the day, I am sleeping all day. Doesn’t make any sense.

I found out today that one of the world’s greatest suicidologists has died. Dr. Terry Maltsberger has passed away. I am glad to have met him at a conference in 2012 in Baltimore. I had him sign a chapter that he wrote in the Aeschi book. I read many things that he had wrote. He was brilliant and had great empathy for suicidal patients. He will be deeply missed.

Dealing with Chronic Pain and Suicidality

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, grief, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, psychache, psychosis, suicidality, suicide, suicide attempt

Dealing with Chronic Pain and Suicidality

Over the past few days, I have been in moderate to severe pain. I have a pain syndrome that flares up without warning, usually right before I am to go to sleep. I will lie down and my ankle and foot will flare up with pain. Normally, I will just take a couple of pain pills, wait for them to kick in and then go to sleep. The pills work because it’s physical pain. What is really troubling me, lately, is the persistent pain, night after night after night.

It doesn’t matter what I do during the day. I can go out, have my daily routine of going to Starbucks and writing for a bit before returning home. I might be out for an hour or two, depending on how much I feel like writing and if the coffee holds out. Lately, despite drinking coffee, I just want to sleep. I have been sleeping more the past week that I have the entire year. A dear friend says that it’s because I haven’t been sleeping and I should take advantage of it because it might not last. I agree with that. It’s unusual for me to sleep all day as I never usually do unless I am deeply depressed.

The other night, I snapped when the pain hit. I became really suicidal and seriously wanted to end my life that night. Trouble was that I was in no position to do it. I vowed never to kill myself in my home where my family members could find me. I have a place that I want to go but the heat has been the only thing holding me back, at the moment. I feel like I don’t have a life. That this battle between chronic pain and depression is just too much to bear. I am tired of fighting it night after night after night.

It’s a tiring battle. I think that is part of the reason I have been so tired lately. I am just mentally and physically exhausted from dealing with my mental illness and my physical illness. No one knows how hard it is unless you deal with one or the other. The past few hours, I have been dealing with a rebound of songs in my head that sound like they are playing but they are not. It’s part of the psychosis. And for the past year, I have been battling that aspect of my illness.

I have known since I was 16 that I needed to be on medication for the rest of my life for my mental illness. I knew there was no other way to deal with it. Through trial and error, I finally found the right combo of meds. Unfortunately, finding the right antipsychotic meds has been elusive. Medications that used to work, no longer do so. I have gone back to the older generation of meds because they work for me better than the second generation. It’s a little bit more riskier because of side effects but I am not on that high of a dose. I just hope that in a month or two I am still on the same medication and that I don’t need to change. That is my fear.

I have known for a very long time the odds of me taking my life is great. I am in the high risk category of risk because of my past history. I can write about this history but it’s not important and will take up too much of time. I just know that one day my life will end by my own hand. I know that this will happen because I feel it. I know that it will happen sometime this year. My biggest fear is that if there is a heaven or hell, I will spend eternity with my father and that is something that sometimes keeps me here. But I don’t believe in those things but who knows what truly happens when you die.

They say that most people who are suicidal just want to end their pain. That is true. I want to end my pain and my suffering because no one can help me with it. Yes, I take pain meds to deal with the physical aspect of my suffering and it does help. But it does nothing for my psychache, for my psychological pain that I feel. I still feel that I should die because I am so damn tired of living this so called life. I don’t have a reason for living. I don’t have a purpose. I have nothing keeping me here. Sure I have my family that are dear to me. But what good is it if I can’t enjoy their presence because of pain? That I can stay with them for a short while and then have to go back up to my room to put my foot up because otherwise I am in too much pain to be good to anyone? Sometimes, I really think that my family and the people in my life will be better off without me.

An Open Discussion About Suicidal Thoughts and Chronic Pain

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, psychache, psychosis, suicidality, suicide, suicide attempt

An Open Discussion About Suicidal Thoughts and Chronic Pain

For the past twenty-four hours, I have been in a suicidal quandary. Last night I was in severe pain for the umpteenth time in a row. I had wanted to go to sleep but my ankle said, nope, not yet. I got really angry because I so wanted to sleep. It was past midnight. I had finished watching the ball game. I had winded down. I was ready for sleep. But pain said no and because it was the third or fourth night in a row that this happened, I was fed up. I wanted to kill myself. I felt there was no other way to escape.

My pain is well managed. All I had to do was take two pills to quiet the pain down and then drift off to sleep. I took the pills and waited for the throbbing to stop. Within an hour, it did but my brain didn’t. I was still pissed and suicidal that I just wanted to give up. I went over the plan I had been thinking about the past few months, wondering if it would work or not. A doctor friend told me it would be painful but I knew that. I also know that it would be at least 2-6 hours for the pills to work. That is a lot of time.

My friend understands about the chronic pain that I have because she also suffers from it as well. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have adequate pain meds like I do. I am not planning on ending my life with my pain meds. Far from it. If the area that I wanted to hang myself wasn’t fenced off, I would go there and do the deed. But it’s fenced off and I am not a good climber.

It doesn’t matter what kind of pain you are in, physical or mental. It still makes you want to end your life. Unfortunately, I have both so I am in a pickle. I have the raw end of the deal. I write about my suffering because I hope that it will help someone. I am not feeling hopeless. Just disgusted that I have to rely on pills every single day to give me relief from my pain, either it be my pain meds or my psych meds. Recently, I have been psychotic and that opened up a big kettle of worms. I thought I would have to go back to the hospital but my mother became sick and needed care so I couldn’t go. I had to be treated as an outpatient and take my care more seriously because my mother needed me.

I know the devastation I will bring to my family should I die, not only my family but to those around me. I talk about taking my life on this blog a lot because it helps to write about it. Doesn’t make me feel less suicidal but it helps with the feelings of not being able to do anything about it. Last night I was close to killing myself and if I had a clear plan, I probably wouldn’t be writing this right now. I don’t know if another hospitalization is in my future. I have grown hopeless about that kind of treatment because there is no treatment in the hospital anymore. The mental health professionals and insurance companies just think that a few days in a locked ward is enough to reset your thinking and make you think you have a life worth living. It’s a big crock. For some it is helpful but for those with chronic illness like me, unless you get treatment, actual therapy, it is just a waste of time.

I am not saying I have the answers to the mental health system because it is different in every state, and that is not the purpose of this blog post. But talking about suicide is similar to everyone who experiences it. People are literally dying because they don’t want to be in pain anymore. They don’t want the stigma that means having to take a pill to control that pain is causing them. Sometimes the stigma is greater than the treatment of the pain. Every day I wonder if I am an addict and will my meds be taken away from me because my pain is controlled with meds. I know that if any doctor takes these pain meds away from me, they might as well be signing my death certificate.

You can say that I can’t have it both ways but I am so tired of not having a life because of pain. I can’t walk like I used to. Just walking a few blocks brings me horrible pain. Last night I washed dishes and I think that is what set off my ankle pain. For the ten minutes it took me to wash four dishes and two cups. I can’t drive long distances because my ankle will act up on me. I never know what sets off my pain. And the docs aren’t sure what is causing my pain. Some kind of pain syndrome but they are not sure what. My quality of life sucks because I can’t go to family functions and things because my pain limits me. I test the boundaries every day and I am rewarded with pain. Then add mental illness on top of that and it’s not a pretty picture. Sure I was depressed and suicidal BEFORE I had chronic pain. But I also was able to hold down two jobs that I somewhat enjoyed.

I am not trying to boo-hoo my life. I just hate the way I live and I just don’t want to live anymore. It’s too painful, both physically and mentally.