Category: depression

Therapy problems

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

Therapy problems

For most of the week I have been racking my brain to come up with something for therapy tomorrow. I thought these frustrated needs would be something to try, but the words are cumbersome and don’t give away their meaning by looking at it. You have to look it up, least I do to see what the hell I am talking about. And if I don’t know the meanings/understandings of these words, how is my therapist supposed to? I am just frustrated. I have been up since 0600 and I only got a few hours sleep last night so I think I am becoming hypomanic again. I don’t think the mood stabilizer is holding me anymore. I know I should be taking the morning dose but it makes me fucking sleepy. The night time dose keeps me awake and it’s the same medication, same milligrams, everything!! I don’t get it. Maybe taking 1200 mg at night is warranted rather than splitting it. I see my pdoc on Friday so will talk about it with her.

I am really pissed that I haven’t worked out this treatment plan. I was working on it earlier but my pen ran out of ink. Then I started working at home. I got the lists of the modal and vital needs. But the meaning of the words are lost on me. Some of them are straightforward, like validation and affiliation. But words like inviolacy and shame-avoidance need to be looked up. I will get it, it’s just a matter of memorizing and getting used to the terms. But I am tired and my brain is shot from having an anxiety attack mixed with the physical symptoms of depression. I felt like I had a weight on my chest and couldn’t breathe. Then my heart rate shot up because my pain did and I was a cooked goose. Trapped in my own skin, I couldn’t stand it. It took two hours for the Ativan to work and then when the pressure was off my chest, I was still shaky so took another one. I just had a big lunch so being low on blood sugar wasn’t the issue. I haven’t had dinner and really don’t feel like eating. I was thinking of making some eggs but I just don’t feel like cooking. Less calories after the big lunch I had.

I hate when pain causes me anxiety. Just thinking about it is giving me flashbacks. It was awful. The pain came out of no where in my foot. Next thing I know, I feel like this constriction and my heart feels like it was palpitating. I checked my BP and it was normal, as well as my pulse rate. The machine does both. But the heaviness in my chest was worse than the palpitations. I didn’t take my morning BP meds. I forgot as I left the house so early. I still haven’t taken my night meds yet. I am kind of afraid to as I could become more hyper and not sleep until the early morning hours.

I just hope my therapist isn’t upset with me that I didn’t get a treatment plan done. Shneidman has been giving me ideas, but they are complicated. Nothing is simple with this guy. He is a very verbose guy and uses old time language, meaning words that aren’t in every day usage. I frequently need a dictionary near me when reading his books because there will be a word I don’t understand. Course the same is true when I am reading “Dead Wake”. I mean, who uses a valise anymore?

I will get this blog done. It’s just going to take some time because it is a challenge. I just wish I didn’t hold it so close to my heart.

Early Monday

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

Early Monday

I woke up at 0600. I really wanted to take a nap after I had breakfast, but I decided to get my haircut and then go to Starbucks to write this blog idea for my therapist. Barber shop that I usually go to was closed, vacation day. They won’t reopen until Thursday. So I went to the other one down the street and it didn’t open until 0930. It was 0840 when I left my house and I didn’t want to wait an hour. I waited for the bus to take me to my “happy” place. Luckily, the bus to the Square came about ten minutes later. Cool. Least part of my day was going okay. When I got to my “happy” place, I decided I wanted the Sumantra Longberry coffee. It’s strong but sweet, made sweeter with sugar and cream. It helped the fog that I was in.

I got out the writing materials to start my writing. I had just started writing half the frustrated needs in my notebook when my pen started to run out ink. I couldn’t believe it. I had another pen but it was a different color and I don’t like to mix colored ink when writing. There went my project. So I decided to try and write in my journal with the other pen that I had. I wrote about a paragraph when I just got tired and wanted to go home. I just missed the bus and the next one wasn’t for another 50 minutes or so. So I tried to write some more to pass the time. Forced writing is never a good thing. I thought more about the project. I also thought about going to CVS to get a new pen but decided if they didn’t have my pen, it wasn’t going to be worth buying. I am very particular about my pens. Lesson learned, always carry a backup pen even though you think you may not need it. Thing I don’t understand is that when I checked my pen’s ink supply, it was half way full so had plenty of ink to continue writing. But it was very light and then stopped writing all together. This is the second pen in this class of pens that I had to throw away because the ink just failed. I don’t get it. But I have plenty of pens that I bought so it can be easily replaced. Just sucks because I am wasting ink.

As I was riding on the bus, I thought about getting my haircut at the place further down the street. I didn’t go. They usually don’t cut my hair right and I always seem to get the big smelly guy. I just came home, which was a good thing because I had to go to the bathroom.

I am not as down as I was last night. But I am still feeling like there is a weight on my chest. It’s making it difficult to breathe so I have to take deep breaths to get air in my lungs. I hate when the depression has physical symptoms. I don’t know what is worse, having a heartache or a weight on your chest, feeling like a burden to those around you, or thinking that you just will be better off dead.

Despite it being warm outside, it’s cold in the house. My sensitive foot is frozen, despite being under several warm blankets. I haven’t put a sock on yet, but I am getting close to doing it. My ankle is also acting up because of my activities today. It started on the last block I was walking. For some reason, when I came home and came up the stairs, I got wicked out of breath. It took a good ten minutes for me to catch my breath. I have since climbed the stairs since then and didn’t feel short of breath afterwards. It’s so weird that it happens some of the time and not at others. I have noticed a pattern though. If I am walking and then go up the stairs, I get winded than if I was resting and then going up.

On being suicidal

by Midnight Demon, posted in baseball, Bipolar Disorder, blogging, depression, mood disorders, psychache, suicidality

Hate mixed states

I feel like I am in a mixed state right now. I feel hyper and manic and the next minute, I feel depressed and full of psychological pain. The oscillation is killing me. I just want to go to sleep but am unable to because of fucking baseball. I have to see if the Mets win this game after they fucking blew it. They had the lead and then they gave it up. Unreal. This is an elimination game. The Mets lose this game and the Royals win the series. I will be very upset if this happens.

I have been noticing my numbers (stats) have been up more than usual. Today the US has read my blog more than the UK. Yesterday it was the reverse. And still my “Knackered” blog is the most read for the day. It is my most popular blog.

I was reading more of the book “Dead Wake”. What I read really upset me because if the British acted, they could have avoided the tragedy of the Lusitania. They knew in advance that the Germans were tracking her. It’s just sad that things like this happened.

I took my nerve pain meds to try and ease this uneasiness that I am feeling and hopefully get some sleep. I am very tired but I am fighting it for some reason. I don’t like how I am feeling. I feel like I am walking a fine line of insanity vs sanity. I hate feeling keyed up one minute and feeling like I am going to fall flat on my face in another. I need sleep but I am too wound up.

Well, the Royals just fucking scored so I guess they win the series. I am very upset. The score is 7-2, I don’t think the Mets can score 5 runs to retie the game or win it. So fucking close and so damn sad.

I tried doing a psychache scale tonight. It was fine until the last four questions. Then I couldn’t distinguish between my physical pain from my psychological pain because my foot was acting up at the time. As I read the questions, my pain just screamed at me. The total score was 54, which is mediocre. I am on the cusp of a suicidal crisis. But because my therapist and I have basically called a damn “truce”, I can’t discuss this with her. It makes me angry that I have these suicidal feelings and I can’t talk about them openly with her because we are trying to work things out between us. But I can talk about my feelings here because that is what my blog is about. Being suicidal and talking about it. Because if I didn’t have this outlet, I think I would act on my feelings. Or be in dire straights at this hour. With this blog, I can tell people I am suicidal and it’s okay to talk about it. I am not going to get shunned for it. I just want to die because my feelings at the moment feel that way. I know this will pass and I will feel better in the morning. But right now it sucks like all hell and being hyper isn’t helping. I don’t want to reach out because I know I will fall asleep soon. I am already starting to feel sedated from the meds I took (nothing in extreme). I might send this blog to my therapist so she knows what kind of night I am having. Maybe I won’t because it might freak her out. I am tired of being in pain both psychologically and physically. Right now, it is not at the point where it is unbearable but I don’t want to feel either. I have resources to me when I feel this way but I don’t feel like using them. I am too tired to explain why I am in pain and want to take my life. They won’t understand psychache and constriction and perturbation. No one understands it except Shneidman. But he is dead and there is nothing I can do about it. He was the person that taught me about this stuff. Reduce the pain, reduce the suicidality. Question is how to reduce the pain when nothing works on it. The reality is that you need to uncover what the person’s needs are in this moment of crisis and try to alleviate them as best you can. If they need validation, validate them. If they need affiliation, affiliate them. If they need understanding, show it to them. Ask them where do they hurt and how can I help you? It doesn’t take rocket science to figure this out. My heart is breaking into a thousand pieces because I don’t feel validated or understood.
Meds are taking over now so I am going to go to sleep and hopefully not wake up to this nightmare of feelings.

Quote of the Day 2 Nov 2015

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, depression, mood disorders, Quotes, suicide

Suicide should not be misunderstood as hostility directed toward the introjected love object; but rather suicide is better understood as anguish over the plight of the writhing self. Edwin Shneidman, Suicide as Psychache