Category: mental illness

Loss of a friend

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, mental illness, suicide

Back when I was a late teen, I came out as gay. I joined BAGLY, Boston Alliance for Gay and Lesbian Youth. It was a great place to discuss coming out and get support. I was fortunate to befriend Chris. He was such a good friend. Though I had to leave BAGLY because I reached the age limit, I still had brief contact with Chris over the years. We lost touch but then Facebook reunited us. Sadly, I learned this weekend he took his life.

Usually I am happy when someone dies by suicide because they are no longer suffering. I didn’t know that side of Chris. He recently became engaged to his long time partner and he seemed to be happy. I had no idea, even back when I first knew him, he had mental health issues. I am saddened by his loss. I am going to miss his smile. I hope he is in a better place.

Twitter Rant 01.10.2015

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, depression, mental illness, mood disorders, suicidality, suicide, suicide attempt

People seem to think that my writing of suicide is what leads me to think about suicide. It’s quite the opposite. It helps me to think of ways to control my suicidality and work against the dark feelings by expressing myself in a clinical way. By me thinking of this as clinical, it helps me compartmentalize the feelings so they aren’t so powerful that I do impulsive things. But then I am fighting the stigma that talking about suicide, leads to suicide and that is hurtful. By my writing about coping with suicide I not only free myself of the thoughts, but I may also help someone in the process. That is my goal when I share my papers about Edwin Shneidman and David Jobes. Their work about psychache and CAMS (collaborating, assessment, and management of suicidality) really help me focus on not killing myself. If we talk about suicide like we do cancer survival, maybe we might decrease the suicide rate. if suicide wasn’t a taboo topic anymore, there might be some healing and actually lead to more discussion and openness.

CAMS preview

by Midnight Demon, posted in bipolar, blogging, depression, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, psychology, psychosis, suicidality, suicide, suicide attempt, suicide attempt survivor

Jobes

For those wondering, here is what a future blog post of CAMS is about. I will be writing more about this and the SSF in greater detail.

Who do you turn to when you have no one to turn to?

by Midnight Demon, posted in bipolar, chronic physical pain, depression, mental illness, psychology

I finally got out of the house today and went to Starbucks. It was a little rough getting there but I persevered. I wanted a latte and by dog gone it, I was going to get one! It wasn’t as sweet as I was hoping it was, but it did it’s job. And I got some writing done while I was cruising through Facebook and Twitter. It doesn’t make any sense right now, but I think I will work on it later tonight to see if I can make it make sense. It was like once I started writing I “threw up” and my brain couldn’t make sense of the thoughts anymore.

Back and bowels are having a fight as to who is going to win the pain shoot out. I almost lost control of my bowels twice since coming home. I fear that if I do, I will commit suicide. I am that vulnerable.

I tried to bring up my suicidal tendencies to my therapist today but she got all panicky so I dropped it. I could tell from her voice she was not going to be listening to me and just freaking out about losing me. I never felt so low as I did in that moment. I felt like I had no one to talk to about my ideas or frustrations to do with suicide. It’s just up to me to deal with, once again, on my own. I can’t talk to my pdoc, she is out of commission for a while. And the most she can offer me is a hospitalization. I don’t need to be hospitalized, least I don’t think I do. I just want to talk about what it would be like with me not in the world anymore to someone non-judgmental and criticizing. And also, not be freaked out by it. My therapist is a good therapist. She has kept me alive the past 10 years, some how, some way. But she still gets fucking juiced up and down right untalkable when I bring up suicide or feeling like ending my life. If I can’t talk about it in therapy, who can I turn to? Sure I have my blog, but last time I posted a post on being suicidal someone hunted me down to make sure I was ok and scared a few people in the process. I was lucky they didn’t call the cops. So now I am hesitant to put that on my blog for fear of being taken the wrong way. And if I don’t have my blog to vent to, what the hell is the point of writing this blog every day?? I have been keeping things neutral since that incident. I keep to myself and I hardly write in my journal anymore. Since being discharged from the hospital in August, I really have been questioning things. I am unhappy in therapy, with the process itself, and I am not sure after 15 years, it is going to change. I know my medication regiment is stable and doesn’t need to be played with. I guess I just miss talking with someone, and having intellectual discussions with people about psychology and suicide. I miss being in academia. I miss having the research tools at my finger tips. (Call me a geek!) But I no longer have that and that makes me depressed. I know that if I were in school and pursuing my passion, I might be feeling better but I can’t afford school. It just costs too much for a bachelor’s education and I don’t have the money. If I didn’t screw up my student loans, I would be going back to school now. It would give me routine and sociability with my fellow classmates. I sometimes feel like holding a cardboard box in the square and say “college tuition” just to see if I would get a response. Be a fun experiment, from the sociological viewpoint.

I have thought of passing this on to my therapist, but I figure why bother. She doesn’t “listen” anymore…