Category: mental illness

Sunday Musings

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, depression, mental illness, mood disorders, psychache

Sunday musings

I am still reading Linehan’s memoir. I am learning more about DBT this second go round than I did the first time I read it. I seem to be more accepting of DBT as I am realizing that there is evidence DBT works with highly suicidal individuals. The trouble is, it take a lot of work as there is so much to learn. The two takeaways I am getting from this second reading is the two skills radical acceptance and STOP. STOP stands for stop, take a step back, observe, proceed carefully. I am finding I need to practice this skill as otherwise I get angry and nothing gets accomplished. I also need to radically accept that I have depression and trauma issues.

I woke up late this morning. I didn’t get up till after 12. I kept getting severe headaches, like migraines. They would go away if I just stayed still. It happened three times after my alarm went off to take my morning meds. I thought I would have to take a migraine medication to get rid of it but it seems to have gone away on its own. I had started getting these kinds of headaches while in the hospital. I thought they had gone away but the last two nights they have come back.

My cousin texted me this morning saying that Ohio State has made it to the playoffs and they are playing Georgia. That is going to be a tough matchup. Georgia just won yesterday. They killed LSU by a big number. This is what I love about college football games, they score big numbers.

I am thinking about mailing out a card that I wrote out and then getting pizza for my late lunch/early dinner. Problem is that I have no energy to get moving and I know if I force myself to do it, I will have to take a lot of breaks to go around the block. I found my sunglasses but I still am unable to find my transition glasses. I have no idea where they went to. I know if I find the case, I will find them. I hate when I misplace things. It drives me crazy.

I miss baseball. It doesn’t look like the Sox are going to sign Xander Bogaerts. I just hope he doesn’t end up on the Yankees. I still don’t know if JBJ is still with the team. I watched a baseball game while I was in the hospital and he was playing for the Blue Jays. I don’t know if this is true or not. I will be sad if it is. I have no clue how the season ended because I was so sick in the hospital.

Yesterday, I listened to Taylor Swift’s 1989 album. Today I am listening to Rob Thomas’s Someday on repeat. I love this song so much.

I am feeling suicidal. Nothing really happened in the last half hour or so. I just feel like ending my life. I see no good in it. I have imagined how I would do it two different ways. I won’t act on it, though I do want to. I just don’t want to end up back in the hospital. There is no guarantee I will end up back on the same unit I was in. I could end up somewhere else. That keeps me from going to the ER. I know I spent a few days in the psych ER before I was transferred to the unit I was in. I don’t know how long I was there as I wasn’t myself. I was in a confused state. I don’t remember if I had my phone or not. If I did, I know I wasn’t using it. I was much too paranoid about it. I am working through the feelings of distress I am feeling. I am distracting myself by writing about them. I have therapy tomorrow and will tell my therapist about this. I want to die so bad that it is almost like nothing else matters to me, not even top surgery. I have hit a new low in my life. I try to keep telling myself life will be different when I have the surgery but will it? I thought about going back to college while in the hospital after I recovered from surgery. It seems impossible right now but I want to make an effort in the next couple of years to earning my degree. I want to finish it at UMass Boston. Trying to make goals helps defend against the darkness, least for a little while.

I am feeling worthless right now. My psychache is high. I am a little perturbed and my press is at least a three. I spoke how I wrote the book Darkness Always Wins while I was in the hospital. I was and still am in a dark place. I don’t know if I am going to recover from this episode of depression. Meds have made little improvement to how I feel. I know realistically, it could be a year or more before I recover. It is the way recurrent depression is. I don’t buy that I have bipolar disorder. My depressions are too dark and stay dark for periods that are much more similar to major depression. I really think I am misdiagnosed. Fortunately, the treatment is the same: antidepressant therapy. I need to take an antipsychotic because I am prone to hearing voices otherwise. I have done well with Latuda, though it is causing some dystonia for me.

I just read a blog that I wrote a more than a few years ago about Shneidman’s psychache theory. I was trying to think about it while in the hospital. I remembered the three P’s, press, perturbation, and psychache. A 5-5-5 indicates imminent suicide. I was a 5-5-5 in the hospital at times. I tried to remember the psychache scale by Ronald Holden. I couldn’t remember his name or if I had it on my blog for staff to look up. My memory has been so much affected by what I have been through.

I had dinner with my family tonight. It helped a little being around them but at one point I wanted to tell my sister I needed to go back to the hospital. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her though so I kept quiet. I will talk more about this with my therapist tomorrow morning. I really feel like shit. It is like the song going down in flames, “Falling into this, again.”

Guest Podcast

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, disability, mental illness, mood disorders, physical pain, psychache, PTSD

I am featured today on the PTSD and Beyond Podcast for PTSD awareness month. Here is the link

https://ptsdandbeyond.podbean.com/e/episode-69-share-my-story-with-g/

High levels of pain and new development

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, cauda equina syndrome, CES, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, disability, medical, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, physical pain, psychache, transgender

My pain level for most of the day has been a 14 since 4 am when I woke up to pee. Ankle/foot have been either together or alternating with the pain. Either my ankle joint is being hacked with an axe, foot bones are being crushed, or now an “L” shaped pain has started which totally prevents me from moving the damn thing. I just want to die and I am racking my brain on how to do it seeing as how I was going to do it didn’t pan out and didn’t work.

Today I found that I have diminished feeling in my privates. I can get slightly aroused but either have a weak orgasm or none at all, which is frustrating. I know I don’t talk about sex that much on here but the disc that is doing whatever to my bladder nerves also controls the nerves to the other parts of my genitalia. Although I wish to have no relationship with it, I have no choice because nerve damage will make phalloplasty difficult so I’ve choose not to have bottom surgery. However, now that this stupid disc is wreaking havoc on these nerves, I might as well not have a sex life of masturbation or with someone of my choosing. Thanks Cauda Equina Syndrome for really fucking up my life, and not in a good way.

As the compression seems to be causing slow diminished effects it is hard to know what level this injury is coming from. It is making me so damn suicidal. But like I said I need to find a way to do it. I still have the ginger plan. It is just finding the ginger to do the trick. I am going to try ginger beer next. Or a ginger shot that I found on Amazon. Sent a pic to my therapist and she got upset with me. Oh well.

I emailed my psych to let her know what was going on. She wants to know what my neurosurgeon says. I am thinking I probably will have to get a new MRI with contrast. I am going to suggest that an IV be placed so access is there. Otherwise, because I am a hard stick, it might be difficult to administer the contrast. My only worry right now is what effect this is going to have on my bowels. Right now I am backed up so I am kind of grateful for that but I need dynamite to get the shit out. OT has suggested Miralax so I am trying that. I am also wondering if the back pain is being masked because of the pain meds I take. Today while looking for a book my back flared up but sort of settled down. Then I was standing doing something when pain said to sit. I’ve been sitting with pain since then but it isn’t above a 4. If it was higher, then surgery would be next on my mind.

I really like my therapist (ptx) even though she is a hard ass. She pushes me and I like that about her. Also, I really didn’t think I had bullshit but she says I do. She wants to keep me on track of what we talk about and stay on it, not derail because I am feeling emotions about it. I am driving her nuts with the text thing. So I’ve decided to send the worrisome stuff to my alt phone so it is out of my system/head.

I can’t really the last time I had a number 2. I was going good for a while now I’ve stopped again. I hate constipation. You might think this is gross or maybe something not to talk about but this is what I deal with and shit I deal with goes on my blog. You don’t like it, find something else to read. I am scared of this development. The whole purpose of not going through phalloplasty was cause I liked my clit a lot. If it is no longer going to work then I am not sure what I am going to do. A sex life isn’t important to me but I’d still like one if it should present itself. If I should find a female I like and we hit it off i don’t want it to end because i can’t function. I never dreamed of having someone long term in my life but i do want someone to cuddle with.

If you are reading this and it cause discomfort due to issues of sexual abuse or something, please let me know and I will place a trigger warning so someone else doesn’t.

Trans issues 27.7.19

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, cauda equina syndrome, CES, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, disability, grief, mental illness, mood disorders, painsomnia, physical pain, transgender

I can’t wait for top surgery. Things on chest are giving me such a hard time. I feel so ugly and humiliated. This isn’t me when I see them.

Kind of worried with the CRPS on left side. That is the side my left ankle is affected. The way they described how they cut the nerve to the nipple makes me nervous. I could lose feeling but that isn’t a major concern for me. I just want the fucking things off!! The right one might be more of a problem as it is bigger. Swear I have an orange on left and a small watermelon on right. And fuckers are heavy. But it might be that I just hate them so damn much. Worst part is they have become hairy which really bothers me. Becoming a man is so hard. Makes you feel really fucked because you aren’t congruent with how you feel.

The major thing is getting these things off. I would tomorrow if I could but I am being “selfish” waiting for the damn construction of the house to start and finish. I thought it would at least be started but it hasn’t. I haven’t asked my sister for fear of another argument. Been doing small stuff in my room as it is all I can handle.

Yesterday just putting groceries away flared my back up. It really scared me as I couldn’t touch my back without it hurting. I haven’t had that bad of pain since getting cauda equina syndrome x2. I have no red flag symptoms but I didn’t last time. I lost function of my bladder today. Things with it have been messed up since the middle of May. I moved to sit up and reached for my laptop which wasn’t too far from my grasp when urine squirted out. Luckily it wasn’t too much, but freaked me out. That was how I got CES (cauda equina syndrome) the second time. I had severe back pain and then started leaking more than I usually do. The disc was a different level than the first. And according to the surgeon it was huge. He had no idea how I was still walking. Been having intrusive memories most of the night and right now as I am describing it. I’ve never really talked about how I felt about it. I knew what I had and just focused on getting better, making sure I didn’t do what I did the first time, which was basically not having a clue what to do or who to see. I didn’t go to Spaulding, which is a huge rehab hospital because I’ve dealt with their lab and just thought all the people there didn’t know what they were doing. I was wrong and I am glad I was as i got a terrific PT now for my CRPS (complex regional pain syndrome) stuff.

I hope doing all the things I’ve been doing doesn’t cause me to blow a disc that is already herniated. I have herniated discs from levels L2-S1, worse at L5-S1 and again at L2-3 where I had CES x2. My first diagnosis was at level L4-L5. I fear if I have surgery again, I might need a fusion and I’ve heard bad stories about them. No one I know has found relief from them. And the stuff I read was fusions were only to be done on the neck, not the lower vertebrae. That is why I never want to have it done. I’d rather be in pain, but if other stuff is going on like loss of bowel/bladder, weakness in lower extremity, numbness from anywhere waist down (including saddle area and sex organs), then I will consider it. But only if I have a capable surgeon one who has done them a lot of times and have had success with them. I don’t want a neurosurgeon who only does the brain or pituitary gland. The whole thing scares me.

When I was able to see my therapist again (the 16yr one), she kept on telling me I went through a trauma. I stay away from that fucking word so much. I denied it tooth and nail until I started having PTSD symptoms. To this day I cannot go near the 3rd floor of the hospital where I worked. That is where the operating rooms were. I always wanted to see them but not as a patient!

I sent my psych an email about the top surgery and how I felt about it. She will sign me off on it but I really want to have a discussion with her before she does, just to make sure I am ready and she knows I am ready. It is a huge deal and I’ve gone back and forth with it in my mind. From i am attached and what will it mean to not have them there to seeing a man’s chest and saying I want that. I want to be flat and not have these things. I tell you, when they started developing, it threw me for a fucking loop. I thought getting my menses was bad. Nope. Having things grow was not what I wanted. Then to have a mother molest you because of “concern” more than once because one was bigger than the other and sending me to see a cosmetic surgeon when I was 13, fucked with me so fucking bad. I was so embarrassed this male doctor was talking to my mother about it but it would be when I was older. I nearly wanted to fucking die on the spot. I didn’t want them to be the same, I wanted them fucking gone!! I had already started hating my mother since I was 10. This just added to it more. Makes me feel so ashamed I have them and aside from cutting them off, there is nothing else I can do. Makes me feel really depressed, like I am in this pit I can never get out of.

But none of this matters if my CRPS pain isn’t controlled better. I have a date planned to end it. I am trying so hard not to think about it as I want to see my psych again. At the same time, while the cat’s away, the mice will play keeps running through my mind.