Category: Chronic pain

this is the story of my pathetic life with depression and chronic physical pain

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, suicide

I had a very distressing session with my therapist. She was all freaked out that I had thought of a clever plan to end my life. She didn’t like it one bit to say the least and I get another session tomorrow. OH JOY. I don’t think I can contain myself, not!

I started reading her the post I wrote yesterday. I think I might have gotten through the second paragraph crying and then I couldn’t finish reading it as I was sobbing so much. Funny how I didn’t cry when I wrote it. Weird, actually. I guess what I write does have feelings even if I am unaware of them.

I didn’t get back to my writing friend yesterday. I was too exhausted and drugged up to write an email. I don’t even know how I mustered up the blog. I didn’t write the blog in word like I usually do. It makes it easier in case there is a glitch somewhere and I don’t have to start over because of it.

I went out today but I didn’t shower or brush my teeth. I just threw some clothes on and waited for the bus. I wanted a cheeseburger really bad so went to the Joshua Tree and they had one with avocado! I loved it. I didn’t like the fries. They were way too oily. But the burger was everything I was looking for even though my taste buds didn’t appreciate it. It will sustain me for a day or so. I don’t think I will eat anything else today. I had my coffee that tasted like shit. I drank half of it and threw it away. I felt bad doing it but I knew that if I tried to finish it, it would come back up on me. As you can probably tell, I haven’t been eating or drinking good. I planned on buying a case of water for my room but forgot. I know I am dehydrated because my lips are severely chapped. I just can’t keep up with the fluids. And besides, more fluids means more leak accidents. I rather stay retentant.

I am craving a cup of chamomile tea so I might make that later. I really feel like I am stuck in a mudslide or cement or something similar. It take me forever to walk places. I feel like everything is uphill even if it is not. I don’t get out of breath or anything like that. It is just a struggle to walk, even with the pain I have been having.

I feel rotten that I can’t try my plan to kill myself today. I know now that it probably would not be a great idea. My bed would probably try to come with me even though it weighs more than I do but who knows. I am bad with physics and things and would probably end up strangling myself just enough to lose consciousness and someone to find me in time.

Because I am still going to be here thanks to my terrible therapist, I ordered my groceries to be delivered tomorrow. They are going to come between 730 and 930. Are they for real?? UGH Nothing like waking up early sitting around waiting. But then I can have my nice cold cut sandwich with bakery bread, pickles and chips! Damn I forgot to buy soda! Oh well. I don’t need the calories anyways.

So this is the story of my pathetic life with depression and chronic physical pain.

chronic urge to kill myself

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, suicide attempt

It has been less than 24 hours since my last post. I really don’t care. I am in a lot of pain right now and soon I will be down for the count. I hate being in pain all the time. It started when I got to the kitchen to make myself a bagel. My foot cramped on the cold tile floor. I know I should have been wearing slippers but I wasn’t thinking. I had to go to the bathroom fast or I would have lost control of my bladder. Soon after my foot settles down, my calf muscle in the same leg decides to spasm up a little bit so now it is tight and I can’t stretch it out. I was going to watch the Red Sox parade on TV but I just took my pain meds so I will be knocked out soon.

People think that I am normal and that is what kills me. Most of the time I feel like I am normal until the pain starts and tells me otherwise. I cannot win. I wish I were dead. I wish I had taken my life back in August when I was supposed to. Now I am living and in pain and I hate myself for it. Those blue buildings are crushing me and I can’t keep myself away from me any longer. Time for a new plan and one that I can go through with. I am just so tired of being in pain every single day.

In other painful news, The book Team of Rivals that took me literally most of the year to read, I finally finished it last night. I didn’t cry like I thought I would. The author wrote almost ten pages to get to his death. Talk about being wordy. There were some good parts of the book. I wrote a review of it and sent it off to my writing partner for comment. I was harsh but then I really did not like this book. I read it because ten pages of it were based on the movie Lincoln. 10 bloody pages of the 800 page book!! Yes, just shoot me and even those pages were like, huh? That didn’t happen in the movie!! The book rushed the 13th amendment, Robert going into the Army, and the delegate meeting for peace. Ten pages! Really makes you wondering what the 790 pages were about…but This blog is not for book reviews that do not deal with suicidality. I just wrote about it because it was a very painful read, and that I read this book for something other than it was worth. Soon as I post the review on Amazon, I will tell you, for those that are interested.

I am off to dreamland again. I had an interesting breakfast of Oreo Golden cookies and a bagel. I will watch clips of the rally on twitter or TV. I am sure people will be posting pics on Facebook as well. There are more than 10,000 people already in Boston. I would have gone if I was healthy but I am not. I just have the chronic urge to kill myself and chronic pain to fuel it. This is the type of life I lead.

I am a survivor of suicide attempts

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

I wrote a quick blog yesterday about the stigma of suicide. I asked wouldn’t it be nice to say to people you survived suicide like you survived cancer? I listened to the WEEI radio to hear my Sox game and it amazes me how quick people are to say they survived cancer but hide in the dark when talking about taking their own life. Both people are fighting for their lives. Granted one is bodily and the other is mostly mental but it still begs to question why there is a different in the illness. Suicide is the result usually of untreated depression or other mental illness. Most people think that it is depression that causes people to think about suicide but it is not. You can be psychotic and think about killing yourself. I know. I have been through it with my psychosis. I have had voices tell me to kill myself, in fact in one of the delusion it was considered a command order. Psychotic disorders often get tossed by the way side when considering suicide but a recent article in JAMA showed that it can pave the way to catching suicide attempts if asked about. The study showed that teens with psychotic symptoms are more apt to attempt suicide than non-psychotic teens.

But you don’t need to be in a mental state to be in the suicidal mind. That is what is so devastating about suicide is that people before they commit suicide look and act “normal”. I know that people who are suffering from cancer can look anything but normal. They can be bald or look skeletons. They are really fighting to be alive while those that are thinking about suicide just want to die. People with cancer are the lucky ones. Their suffering will end. People know this. But those of us with mental illness we continue to suffer and when we decide to give up and end the fight, we are looked down upon and treated often inhumanely. We then feel ashamed of ourselves for trying to end the pain and failing at it. We end up in the hospital to “save ourselves from more destruction”. All we want is peace, same as the cancer patient that is terminally ill. We want the suffering to end.

To some people, they believe that suicide is preventable. To some people it is but you are not going to catch the majority of people most at risk. You cannot stop every suicide. People have the right to kill themselves if they so choose to do so. It is the ones that survive that have the right to speak about it. Because those that survive depending on their reaction to their own attempt might be clues to whether they survive or not. I have survived the past several years despite making elaborate plans on killing myself. I really want to die but my reasons for living keep me going. I don’t like it but I can’t picture my sister telling my eight year old niece that I have passed on. She is my baby and I don’t want to hurt her or my other nieces or my nephew. My nephew is what kept me going during a very difficult time in my life. I wish that I had succeeded but because I didn’t, I got to see him grow into a man and graduate from high school. I didn’t think that he would or that I would live to see the day he did.

It saddens me that I am still alive when all I want to be is dead. I don’t know why I preserve. Right now I am in a lot of pain and I don’t like it. I don’t know if I am going to get any sleep tonight because of it. Where is the training of medical doctors to handle chronic pain? There isn’t any. I don’t get asked what my mental status is during medical visits anymore. It is just assumed that I am ok because I have a smile on my face. Didn’t matter that the day before I was in so much pain that I was in bed all day, taking pain pills every four-six hours. Maybe I was happy because I could finally get out of the house and go to my doctor’s appointment and I wasn’t in pain. The siege was over with. But now it has returned and the meds have not kicked in yet to knock my big ass out. I am tired of living with chronic physical pain all the time. It sucks the life out of you, what ever life is. And if it doesn’t, your mental illness will surely do it for you. There is no reprieve. No relief in sight. And that is why suicide is what it is. For people that survive it, they should be able to say that they have. But no one does. There are a few people that have been coming out slowly through the AAS blog but I fear that the ones that don’t come out, are the ones that will try again and maybe succeed.

I am a failure of suicide attempts. And because it has been so long since my last one I am not going to try again any time soon. Least for now. So I am in pain and I have one option left to me…to suffer.

My therapist

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, Chronic pain, depression, suicide attempt

My therapist

I know a couple of my blogs have dealt with my therapist. Today she came back from her vacation and I could tell she is glad to be back.

We talked about a couple of issues while she was gone that I had texted her about. I had to keep her in the loop while she was away. I don’t know who else’s therapist does that but mine does.

Friday I was telling my psychiatrist that I was lucky to have her and not to have her drop me when she was going through all the moves that she was making. And also I didn’t connect with anyone while trying to find another therapist that was closer to me. My psychiatrist did bring up a point, that I didn’t drop either one (my therapist or my psychiatrist), though I did try to drop my therapist, many times. It just never worked out. And today I am seeing why. She really cares about me. And I think her hounding and nagging isn’t helping me. We talked about that today after she tried to assess my suicidality. I told her I was fine but she didn’t believe me. She never does. And it pisses me off because sometimes I really am fine.

I have known this bozo for the past 12.5 years (technically 13 if you count the initial session we had). I had an initial session with her in Aug 2000 but because she didn’t take my insurance, I had to wait till January to see her. It was a trying time. I was in severe back pain because I had a herniated disc. I was severely depressed because a therapist (one before her) had just left me after a year of working together and I was hurting really bad because I had just broken up with my girl friend. I was seriously thinking of killing myself because feelings of abandonment were rampant and I didn’t know if I wanted to go back to therapy again. I had so many therapists over the course of 10 yrs already and I wasn’t going to go again just to get hurt again. But something in her demeanor made me think that she was the one. And now after all this time, I realize that we have a lifetime commitment to one another (well, maybe not but it feels like it!)

I’ve had love and love’s had me
I’ve been held and been set free
And I have lived enough to know
That you might stay or you might go
So here I am one more time
Call me brave call me blind

I’m gonna count to 3
I’m gonna hold my breath
Try not to be afraid
Tho it scares me half to death
I’m out here on a limb
Altho I know that it might break
My heart is gonna want you anyway
And if this love has any chance at all
Someone’s gotta be the first to fall

The best is just a touch away
We’ll make forever day by day
It’d be a shame to let this go
How sad to think we’d never know
How the morning light would fall on us
After we make all night in love

I’m gonna count to 3
I’m gonna hold my breath
Try not to be afraid
Tho it scares me half to death
I’m out here on a limb
Altho I know that it might break
My heart is gonna want you anyway
And if this love has any chance at all
Someone’s gotta be the first to fall

So here I am one more time
Call me brave call me blind

I’m gonna count to 3
I’m gonna hold my breath
Try not to be afraid
Tho it scares me half to death
I’m out here on a limb
Altho I know that it might break
My heart is gonna want you anyway
And if this love has any chance at all
Someone’s gotta be the first to fall

When I first heard this song by Terri Clark, it was the perfect song for my therapist and I. I was just getting over my relationship with a previous therapist and I didn’t know if I would go on. I was going out on a limb, trying my luck with Bozo.

I didn’t always call Bozo bozo. I used to call her by her formal title Dr. E. But as the years went by she wanted me to call her by her first name, A. Her middle name starts with a B and I didn’t know it for the longest time. And it is an unusual name. So I just started calling her Bozo hoping that she would get mad at me and stop seeing me. Turned out that no matter what I called her (including some explicit language), it never changed her mind. And wasn’t I in trouble!! She and I always had a connection from day one. I like to think that it was the song by Kenny Chesney, you had me from hello that explains it all.

One word, that’s all you said
Something in your voice called me, turned my head
Your smile, just captured me
You were in my future as far as I could see
And I dont know how it happens, but it happens still
You asked me if I love you, if I always will

Well you had me from hello
I felt love start to grow
The moment I looked into your eyes you won me
It was over from the start you completely stole my heart
And now you won’t let go
I never even had a chance you know
You had me from hello

Inside I built a wall
So high around my heart, I thought I’d never fall
One touch, you brought it down
The bricks of my defenses scattered on the ground
And I swore to me I wasn’t going to love again
The last time was the last time I’d let someone in

But you had me from hello
I felt love start to grow
The moment I looked into your eyes you won me
It was over from the start you completely stole my heart
And now you wont let go
I never even had a chance you know
You had me from hello

Thats all you said
Something in your voice calls me, turns my head
You had me from hello
You had me from hello
Girl, I’ve loved you from hello

I don’t know how I got to be lucky to have this woman in my life and have such a good relationship with her. It took a long time to trust her especially after dealing with a diagnosis of Cauda Equina Syndrome. That diagnosis brings such a loss of dignity that you cannot imagine what it is like until it reaches you. But through all of my illnesses she has been there.

She doesn’t have a traditional track, like CBT or psychodynamic. She has what is called relational therapy. I am guessing she picked it up back in New Mexico because I can’t seem to find out about it anywhere else. More than that she takes the Aeschi model to a whole new level. She really wants to know me as a person and not as a diagnosis. I think if she were a strict therapist, I might not be with her after all this time. Even though I might not have frequent in session sessions, we still are able to read each other on the phone by the sound of our voices. I can see the faces she makes when we talk, though for a long time, I rarely had any type of facial contact. I think by having phone sessions has increased our eye to eye contact more than it has in the past. It really helped break the barrier of what I felt I couldn’t talk about and really talk about it. She also allows me to having input in the kind of treatment I want. If I didn’t bring in the works or Dr. Shneidman or Dr. Jobes, I doubt that I would be here today. She altered her practice style for me and I never take that for granted. Her style might be considered eccentric but it works for me. I am grateful that she allowed the use of the SSF and Holden’s scale for psychache into our work. I think even if I brought in the most ridiculous form of therapy, she might just be game. Though she has brought some ridiculous forms of therapy to me. The works of Janina Fisher seem a little bogus to me. But she believes in them so I have no chance of changing her mind. I met the lady and boy was it an eye opener to complete bullshit!!