Category: Chronic pain

another depressing day, sort of

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

Not having a great day. I had a crappy session with my therapist. We talked about the violations issue and she apologized. She had no idea that her nosiness was hurting me. We talked about having to set boundaries now where I only show her what I want her to read. I just hope that she can stick to them. I am so used to people trampling on me that you would think I am used to it by now. But when it is someone you trust, like a therapist, it kind of throws you out of whack. I still feel down about it and I hope that I get over it. But it’s so hard because I feel so hurt. I cried today for whatever reason, like sobbing hard. I can believe that my therapist would do this, it is just her nature to be nosey. But I told her we have to put a damper on what she reads. I know what I write can be seen by anyone on the internet and she should have the same rights as anyone else. But sometimes I just don’t want her to read what I write. If it something that she needs to read, I always send it to her via text message. Seeing as I no longer see her in person, I think this method has worked pretty well until now. I really think that just her excitement over finding my blog really is what caused her to go over the boundaries without her thinking through about what she was doing. Hell, one time she called me a fucker without thinking about it. We joked about it and she apologized about it. I could tell she felt bad about it. But this time I am not getting that same sense. Maybe I am just too hurt this time to feel her apology. And she knows what my life was like with intrusions left and right. As she put it, it was like she just charged her way into my room without knocking first, which essentially is what she did.

I think I am just down because I have not been able to leave my house since the Bon Jovi concert on Saturday. I did way too much standing and dancing but I had to because there were these two goons in front of me standing for most of the concert so when I sat down, all I saw were their backs. Then I had a marshal standing next to me who stood the whole time with his hand on his hip. It was so annoying. So when I did sit down, I had an elbow in my face. I had a good time. The music was awesome as usual but the sound sucked. I couldn’t make out the words to some songs, especially his new music, which I don’t have yet. I plan on getting it soon.

I have been in bed mostly all weekend and today and still my ankle/foot is acting up. I made it to my sister’s apartment on the first floor to make myself a cup of coffee. My first cup since Saturday. I hope I am able to go out tomorrow. I need to borrow my sister’s car to do some shopping before she goes away for camping. I was invited but I can’t do anything but sit and if I try to do a hike or something I am going to be laid up anyways. It just wouldn’t work for me.

I know I try to write every day so I am sorry for the few days I have not been able to write. I have been hit with the flare up and between sleeping off the pain meds and just being wonky from the meds, I had no inclination to write. Then I got hit with depression and it just killed my writing muse. But hopefully I am back now and won’t miss anymore days. I might make up some with posting twice a day with another paper or two. I have been thinking about it for a while now. I just published the one on therapists who panic when they hear suicide. My muse friend wants me to write one on relationships and suicide but I don’t think it would work. I have always told myself that I wouldn’t kill myself over someone. It just seems silly to me but people feel that they can’t go on unless someone is in their life and I get that. What they don’t know is that they can go on without them. Sure it hurts as hell in the beginning but as the song by Sara Evans says “you get a little but stronger” every day without them.

Today I got an email from a person that runs a Master’s degree in counseling program and she wanted to use my site as a resource for the program’s students. I feel so honored to have her choose my website. I hope that it helps future clinicians.

Today is my second day on my 4th week with the patch and guess what, I got my fucking menses. Though I don’t know how bad it is. I just had some bleeding. I needed this like a hole in the head. Now I know why I have been so down and listless the past few days. I also been getting wicked suicidal urges on and off the past day or so, which the damn menses causes. I don’t know why the bleeding always messes with me but I swear if I ever do attempt to kill myself it will be while bleeding. Just when I thought I could wear my boxers with confidence, this shit happens. I am beyond devastated but I told my doc I would stick it out for three months and at the end of the three months I will try something else. I can’t be having my menses while trying to transition. It just sets me back and makes me wish I was dead.

therapists and feeling violated

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

I’m tired. I didn’t get that much sleep last night because I was up in the wee hours of the morning. I then had to wake up early for my therapy session. I feel kind of violated for some reason because she was able to read my blog while we were talking. Usually I send it to her in advance so she can read it but this time, I didn’t want her to read it. But the little snot figured out how to. I then had to talk about what I wrote, which I didn’t feel like doing. I don’t even remember what I wrote. I know the world can see what I write. I know that at least 30 people a day read my blog. But they are mostly strangers to me, if I know them at all. To have my therapist just barge in on my writing, it just felt wrong. I am kind of upset over it but there not much I can do about it now.

Like a commentator wrote, I am not the scumbag of the universe. That was the thing we (my therapist and I) were arguing about. Apparently, she doesn’t love scumbags so I can’t be one. Well sorry but I felt that way at the time I wrote it. I still feel pretty nasty, as in awful low life of the planet that should be exterminated. I guess I am not in good space today and I don’t know why. I still am so sleepy. I haven’t had my coffee today because I am running low on my Starbucks funds. I have to ration my coffee funds till Wednesday. I know I can make some coffee at my sister’s. I made a decent iced coffee the other day. It didn’t wake me up like Starbucks but it got the gears moving so I could type and read a little bit. I do have my Starbucks tribute but it’s kind of late and it might keep me up if I have it now.

I think I am cycling or something. One day I can’t sleep to save my life and the next day all I want to do is sleep. I don’t see my pdoc until next week. These episodes are driving me crazy. I hate not knowing what is going on. And the psychache that I have been feeling has been off the hook. One minute I am fine the next I am in horrible pain. I feel chest pain or a weight on my chest and I can’t breathe normally. It’s not an anxiety attack, I know what those feel like. This is something different and happens when the psychache just creeps up on me to remind me it’s still there. I think that is why I haven’t been able to get anything done that I wanted to. I just have been weighed down with this invisible weight. I guess that is what makes me sleepy.

I have to bitch about my game that I play. I have been playing the same game on Facebook for the past three years now. I like it because it gives you missions to accomplish and it is better than Farmville where all you do is plant things. You still plant things on the Pioneer Trail but now the missions have increased and are getting more ridiculous. The latest one has you having to fill daily orders. The thing is the stuff you need to fill the order has to come from your neighbors and planted for 7 hrs so you really need to jump on this game for you to collect the stupid gold dust I think. I don’t know if I am making sense but the only other way of beating this mission is by buying horseshoes, which means you have to spend money. I don’t have the money to spend for this game anymore. I used to when I had it but now I don’t. I used to call it my entertainment expenses. But I’m broke now and even if I did have the money I am not going to buy horseshoes for a mission that is going to be impossible tomorrow and require more horseshoes. I have three facebook profiles just to play this game, so that I can get the stuff that I need. It’s because every time I request stuff, my neighbors don’t respond. I respond to their stuff, but they never respond to mine. There’s one little twit I just want to tell her you got to give in order to receive but I feel it would be a waste of my time. And she is always begging for stuff. If the stuff she needs I happen to need also, I will get the reward. Other than that, she can keep requesting. I just made it to level 118.

Midnight Demons Are Back…and it sucks

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, depression

I did my what has now become my daily routine. I took a shower and then headed to Starbucks for my coffee. Because I earned so many stars (rewards), I earned a free drink so today took advantage of it. I also got another banana coffee cake as I was in the mood for something sweet. I then sat and journaled about my therapy session.

Last night I sent her a pretty nasty text message because I was in so much pain. I told her “fuck you, I am still keeping my date. Ankle has exploded so fuck you.” I didn’t get much sleep last night because I was hyper and because I was in pain. I have had a few hours sleep and the coffee helped. I am getting scared though. I am feeling like I am separating into two people. During the day I am Dr. Jekyll and during the night, I become Mr. Hyde. My moods are drastically different. If given the opportunity last night, I know I would have tried to take my life last night. I was that crazy that much. Now, because I am not struggling to sleep and not in crazy about of pain, it’s like a night and day experience. I have to ask myself, did I really think those things? I know the text message meant what I said and I know I wanted to talk to some one but who do you call at 3 in the morning?? I wrote a letter to Dr. Jobes, telling him of my demise and thanking him all the same time. I don’t know why I did that. I just thought he should know that I was struggling and used his works and it still failed me somehow. Maybe I wasn’t using it right. Maybe I am just a failure and can’t be helped. Maybe I am just too hopeless a case. I don’t know if I will send off the email. He doesn’t know me, not in a personal way anyway. I doubt that he remembers who I am other than the crazy guy that keeps asking him for his autograph in his works. I adore him. I admire his brilliancy in the field of suicidology. Yet why do I feel I should tell him I am committing suicide? Maybe I am hoping he will send me a reply that will give some affirmation that my life is not a total failure and loss. But if I don’t get a reply, how then will I feel? What if he takes my threat seriously and tries to hunt me down to get me help? I don’t know if I can take that chance.

Last night I wanted to chat so went to the twitter boards to see if there were any suicide chats going on. I know twitter isn’t a chat forum but there might be something under trends and such. No such luck but I found a ton of people writing their suicide notes or just making fun of being suicidal. Not my cup of tea. And NO WHERE did I see a prevention tweet. Usually I see one from the National Suicide prevention, Lifeline but there was zippo. Pretty sad to see all these tweets and no one really helping. I asked one person why she was writing a suicide note but didn’t get a response. It was four in the morning. I couldn’t believe the stupid tweets about suicide, such as my math book has so many problems it committed suicide. What is funny about that?? I just don’t get it. I did go to one forum for a text chat but it’s only from 2 pm to 2 am. I guess you can’t be suicidal outside those hours. I guess you could always go to the emergency room but by the time you are seen over the “real” serious cases, you are exhausted and just want to go home and sleep. I know I probably could have called my psychiatrist but I also know that she would be worried as I NEVER have called her that early in the morning unless it was a true emergency. I’m not saying I was not in bad space last night, I was, but I knew she would try and talk me into going to the ER to be admitted or at least evaluated. To me those things are one and the same and I wasn’t going to get near either of those places.

So hear it is day light and I am feeling better than I was 10 hrs ago. I didn’t do anything different. I just go a little sleep and went about my day like nothing happened. Guess the midnight demons are really back.

I don’t get nerve pain

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

I don’t get nerve pain

Truly I don’t. My room got freezing cold because I had the a/c cranked because it’s hot outside. My foot gets freezing ice cold, even under the blankets and a pillow so I put a sock on it. Now it is warmed up and hurts like holy hell. I am so sick of this shit. I know I put off my suicidal plan but it is back on again. I am not going to live with this shit. No fucking way. I didn’t do anything to my foot though it feels like someone is stomping on it. I have it up on a pillow and it still hurts. I just don’t get nerve pain. I was doing good all day. I thought today might be a day that I won’t have to take my pain medication but NOOOOOOO. My foot had other plans.

But such is my life with CRPS (complex regional pain syndrome). Thing is other than my foot getting really cold and then really hot, I don’t have any other symptoms other than pain. My foot doesn’t change color. It doesn’t swell up like it used to. I just have this exploding pain that comes for no reason. While I am at REST, when I want to go to SLEEP. And the pain isn’t the same. Sometimes it is exploding. Sometimes it is like it is in a vise. Other times it feels like some one is taking a hammer to each individual bone and trying to crush it. It is agonizing. Other times, if it’s not the bones in my foot, it is my ankle bone, the lateral malleolus. This is right where my peroneous tendons are. I have chronic tendonitis of these tendons. And they hurt big time. And when this pain starts it is like someone is driving an ice pick right through my ankle bone. It starts off the same way as my bones in my foot. They get really cold even though to the touch they are warm. Then it gets warm and it hurts like fucking hell. All I know is that I can’t sleep when I am in pain despite taking the meds because then my anxiety creeps in and it’s all over.

See, when my Cauda Equina Syndrome (CES) started, way back when, it started in my left leg/ankle. So now I have a bad association with pain in my ankle flaring up and me thinking I am going to get CES again, which is worse than the pain in my foot! I could lose total function of my bowels and bladder, my back could go out, I could lose motor function of my legs and end up in a wheel chair. It’s not pretty. But it is what I fear because I have a disc in my back that can make this happen at any time. I have been living with this fear for the past few years and it especially troubles me that the disc touches the nerve roots that control all these things but the docs won’t do any type of surgery because there is no compression. So I live in fear instead. My anxiety goes up and it takes an Ativan to get me to calm the hell down and music to put me to sleep (sometimes). I usually have my anxiety in check but when I am in serious pain, like now, it takes forever to calm down from it. I have to constantly move my toes or realize they are there and not numb to make me feel better. But sometimes during these flare ups, I can’t move my toes and that just sends the anxiety up to panic mode. But as long as I can move my hip, leg and ankle, I know that I am ok. But living with this anxiety is no fun. It drains you like no tomorrow.

Meds are kicking in so I will stop here for now. For those that read this, know that you are not alone with your symptoms.