Category: Chronic pain

Saturday Nights

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, depression, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, suicide, suicide attempt

It’s another Saturday night. Of me not working the evening shift. Another Saturday of me not getting aggravated with the bozos of the day shift that have left work all up to the high heaven because they decided to leave it for evening shift. No longer am I burdened with the calls of the nurses and doctors who want their results from 2 pm because it is now 6 pm and why is it taking so long. Of having to explain to them I am just getting to their sample now because some lay brained idiot left it where it was hidden under a basket or transport missed it in the last pick up and it is now arriving now. No longer am I responsible for taking shit from these air brains and stuffing it all inside leading me to want to kill myself. Every Saturday night.

Every Saturday night for about the past year I had been thinking about taking my life after one of these horrendous shifts. It wasn’t something that came one day out of the blue. It had been brewing for sometime until I found the perfect place. What better way to say fuck you to an institution that you hate than to take your life in it. Least that is what I was thinking. Now we’ll never know if I will go ahead with my plans though I have gotten the means and left the means in one of my lockers.  It was a safe place to have these things in there and knowing I could act at any time. My therapist knew all the while I had the loaded gun so to speak and was ready to pull the trigger at any time. I just never got the courage to actually go through with it for fear of there being security cameras where I wanted to do it. I thought that if I went up there in the late hours of the morning and got caught on tape, my job would not only be over but I would be taking some quality time in some psych ward for some period of time. Psychiatrists don’t like to let someone loose when they know they have attempted or near attempted suicide.  I don’t miss the wondering and the planning. For months I had this plan and just when I couldn’t take things anymore, there I had my plan. All nice and detailed. All I had to do was learn to make knots. But I figured if I went that far, I would be in deeper trouble. The plan would go from thought to preparation and that was more serious. And dangerous. It was a step closer to ending my life.

explanation of myths of suicide

by Midnight Demon, posted in CES, Chronic pain, depression, medical, mental disorders, mental illness, suicide, suicide attempt

Today I did nothing but sleep. I have been in pain the last few nights and today was the first reprieve that I have had since then. I am not entirely pain free but I am feeling better than I was.

I wrote a crappy paper about holiday myths surrounding suicide. The myth is that there is more suicides around the holidays than any other time of year. That simply is not true as July gets as many as 111 suicides. For December, it is only 98. Still very close numbers but what kills me is that they argue that suicides are less but they don’t focus on the attempters. Those ATTEMPTERS may be the ones to complete a suicide during the holiday because they now know what steps to do so they can succeed. I maybe wrong. I had a friend that attempted the day after Christmas and this person is never going to do it again. This person states that she can never go back there again. I hope that is true. Not that I don’t believe her. Most people who attempt once will never try again. It is the chronicity of those that attempt multiple times that need the help the most. They are the ones that truly need the extra support during this time because they simply cannot cope with another holiday that is supposed to be joyous but they are not.

Holidays suck. People put on their happy faces to pretend when they do not care less about this holiday than any other. This day and age has stepped far away from tradition and more on materialistic styles of life. The iPad, iTouch, the cellphones, the big screen TVs. And then in January, they get the bills so no wonder by July people are ready to kill themselves because they can’t afford what they purchased and their six-month grace period is over. Am I being sarcastic? Hell yes. Is there truth to what I just said, maybe. I cannot prove it. I just recently paid off a credit card and find some freedom in that. Meanwhile I still owe Uncle Sam big bucks for my student loans. My credit sucks up the ying-yang. Do I want to kill myself to get out of debt, hell yea, but I don’t because the debt is going to be there regardless if I am alive or not. Granted I have no idea what happens to debt when someone dies. I know it won’t be in my will that so and so gets this portion and Uncle Harry gets this. I don’t even know if I will leave a will.

People talk about suicide notes all the time but the majority do not leave one. I know that I have been through many suicidal crises and have never really left a note. The past few years I have been writing them to save face for my nieces and nephew. So they know that I love them even though the pain I have caused them is meaningless. I hope they never think about taking their lives. It is a horrible place to be in when thinking about it. I shudder every time I think about where I was when I last tried. It wasn’t that long ago. I still remember the desperation I felt. I didn’t call anyone. I didn’t write to anyone. I just took pill after pill hoping to take my pain away.

There has been two holidays that I have tried to take my life. The first was in 1994 and the second was in 2005. I was hospitalized in 1994 for Christmas and New Years, hell Thanksgiving too. It was a bad time for me. I had severe depression and could not get a grip on things. I overdosed on some pills and the next thing I knew I was in the hospital for three months.

In 2005, it was different. I had planned to take my life Nov 5th of that year but my therapist begged me not to and some how we got through it. I vaguely remember it. I didn’t attempt anything but I did plan every single detail. I ended up in partial hospital as gone were the days of long admissions. I learned some things while in Partial but I still wanted to end my life. Thought about it everyday, just kept changing the date. That is how close I came. The following year I took a psychometric class and learned about psychache, perturbation, and press. Not in the class. The professor was an idiot when it came to these issues, but on my own learning. I am somewhat of an autodidact and pick up more on my own than in the classroom. But that semester I learned more than any other. And I was grateful for it because it gave me a chance to learn more about suicidality than I had previously. Finally someone understood my struggle. Finally someone understood my pain. Though I then became a member of the American Association of Suicidology, I still am today. I am a proud member and I get to go to their annual conference and learn more about the treatments are for people like me.

a mumble jumble about fear of suicide

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, depression, mental disorders, mood disorders, psychache, suicide, suicide attempt

This statement can be taken one of two ways. The first that some people are afraid to talk about suicide for fear of sparking ideation. The second is that when someone knows you are feeling low and have attempted before, they are afraid of losing that person. Suicide attempters are more likely than non-attempters to try again until successful.

What I am going to talk about is the second interpretation first. I have a friend who is having me motivate her into writing by me contacting her every day on my own writing. What sparked this was she read my blog about my near suicide attempt a few weeks ago. Now her ulterior motive is to keep me alive the only way she can think of, me writing to her every day. In return, she is to write at least two pages a day for her own well being.

I have to say that since I have been writing I have been in better space. I would not say that I feel more connected but I don’t want to let her down so I try and write a little each day. Our “rules” are to email each other when we are done and we are allowed our birthdays and Christmas off. In addition to days where it is not possible for me to write because of whatever reason, usually because I am in pain or sleep deprivation, we have given each other 3 passes on writing. I am usually the one to finish writing first but that is only because I have more time on my hands than she does. She is a VERY busy person with a lot of commitments.

I sometimes feel exposed because I am bearing my soul to this person that I just met through a friend on Facebook. We both belong to the same organization for suicide prevention. I am guessing because she thinks of me as a sibling, and she did lose her sister to suicide many years ago, she does not want me to end up that way. Sadly I don’t think she knows that it is my belief that I will end up killing myself one day. I know that I will because I just can’t picture myself living a life outside of this constant pain that I feel every day, either physically or mentally.

I am not going to lie and pretend that I don’t think about killing myself every day. It is a constant struggle and I think that I worry a lot of my close friends that actually get to know me or who read my blogs about my struggles. I think that is why my blog has been so successful is because people can relate to what I write.

On getting back to the talking about suicide can bring about a suicidal crisis, that is a common myth. Talking about suicide can actually prevent one but some people are just not comfortable with the subject and so will say stuff that they think the person who is miserable wants to hear, stuff like “you have your life ahead of you”, “Don’t be so down, things could be worse”, or my favorite “you have so much to live for”. If I had so much to live for why would I be thinking of taking my own life?? People don’t understand the pain that is involved in depression or in thinking about suicide. I have been thinking about taking my life since I was eight years old. I was in a lot of pain for some reason or another and it never got taken cared of. Today I think that pain stems from the fact that I am really a male and not a female. I knew at a young age that I was different and back then, there was no expressing how I truly felt. I really think that if I got help sooner, this would have come to light sooner and I wouldn’t be in this pickle today about what to do with my transition.

just a blog 2

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, depression, mental disorders, mood disorders, suicide, suicide attempt

Today I got a Christmas letter from a good friend of mine. He sends out a Christmas letter every year since I have known him, going on fifteen years now. He is old fashioned and types his letter on a typewriter. For those not familiar with one, it was an old keyboard with ribbons that transfers what you write on a scroll type mechanism. If you watch episodes of M*A*S*H, Radar is always typing on one for his daily reports.

I will not be sending out Christmas cards this year. I thought about it and I certainly have the time to do so, I just don’t have the energy. This is the first holiday season where I am out of work. I thought about sending out a Christmas letter with an update about what I have been doing and that I am no longer working, that I am on disability from work, and that I am a writer or at least working on my writing through a blog and other professional work. I am not getting paid for any of it but they don’t need to know that. Since not being able to work, I have found that my writing is my solace. It is the one place I can be free at and be at least content with it. Don’t get me wrong, I still have my severe bouts of depression, my suicidality that peaks whenever a flare up occurs, and being suicidal in general. Just because writing makes me content doesn’t mean that my illness has been cured. Far from it as my psychiatrist and therapist can attest.

Last night I had one of my flare up that lasted until almost four in the morning. I was not a happy camper. I couldn’t sleep because my foot exploded in pain. I wrote to my psychiatrist at two thirty in the morning, telling her exactly what is going on. The police has not shown up at my door so I am guessing she is ok with what I wrote. I was venting because I needed to and I wanted to let her know what goes through my mind during these awful episodes.

Last night I also emailed a psychologist but for a different reason. I wrote to him thanking him for coming up with his pain scale and the reasons why I use it and how effective I have found it. I have not heard back from him as of yet. Maybe I won’t. Or maybe he is just too busy right now to answer something from someone he doesn’t know. Or maybe he saw the email and thought it was junk and deleted it.

I had a busy night writing last night. My hand was still sore for typing so I used a pen to write down most of my thoughts. My journal entry has at least three pages of writing. Write, write, write. Seems like that is all I did last night. I couldn’t read because I just didn’t have the mindset to do so. I just didn’t have the concentration necessary for it. I was too much in pain and in restless spirits to lay down and read. I really need to catch up on my Hamilton book. This is a 600 page book and I am only in the one hundreds. I have been updating my Goodreads website about my progress which I haven’t done in quite some time. It is an interesting book and keeps my attention. It is just very, very wordy.