Category: mood disorders

Melancholy II

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, mood disorders

Melancholy

I’ve been in a depressive slump all day. I remembered that there was a therapist discussion going about Twitter the other day or maybe last week about melancholy and how it should be in the DSM as it accurately displayed depression better than the other diagnoses. I looked up the criteria or symptoms and I fit all six. They are:
1. Loss of Joy
2. Worse in the morning
3. Increase in guilty feelings
4. Unfounded sadness
5. Lack of energy
6. Negative physical effects (+/- weight changes, eating, sleeping, etc)

I knew I had some think. Recurrent major depression is a close second to what I have but I don’t have energy at all. I can’t remember when I felt energetic or didn’t feel weighed down. Morning are so hard to function. I have sadness all the time, not explained by anything. Just waking up, I will feel sad. And forget about joy. That took a hike a long time ago and haven’t been able to find it since. This blog used to bring me so much joy and now it is work to keep it going. I don’t get paid by posting. This is my playground where I just write my thoughts of my illness and post it to see if anyone cares. Not many do. I still haven’t found the right time to post that gets the most readers to my blog. But that is another story.

I am bloody cold. I had to shut the window yesterday because it felt like my room was in the 30s. It is that cold out right now and I don’t have the window open. My room temp went down to 59 degrees, which made me shut the window. Now it is 66 degrees in my room. I will take it but I want to feel warm. I don’t think the heat has been turning on as much. I have no idea what it is on. I put my glasses on to read it when I went to the bathroom and then forgot to look before coming back to my room. Oh well. I just heard the radiator turn on so hopefully I will feel warm soon. I can only imagine what it is like to be homeless. Some times I think about it rather than live where I am. I probably won’t last more than a few hours out.

I am feeling low again. I wish this wasn’t happening. I am having surgery in less than two weeks and I am really scared about it but I trust the doctor to not fuck me up more than I already am. I just hope my bowel and bladder function don’t get worse after the surgery or I don’t think I am going to make it. I have a plan for suicide and it will just speed things up if I lose bowel/bladder function more than what I already have. My family doesn’t understand this. No one does really. They don’t think of their nerves in the back controlling things. I am just tired of everything. I have a therapy notebook going and in it I wrote to my therapist just how I would end my life and under what circumstances. I have an opportunity to finally end my life and I am not going to by-pass it this time. I will be stupid to.

I’ve been so suicidal the past year that I think it has just become a part of me like the depression has. You could say I have a depressive personality (if that exists in the clinical world, I am not sure). I just know every day I feel suicidal and every day I feel some level of depression. The past 24hrs I have been really depressed. It hurts in my soul so deep that no medication, not even morphine, can touch it. Hell even my pain meds don’t touch it and I am on some strong meds.

This blog was supposed to be about depression and melancholy. I don’t think it is about that anymore. You tell me if I am on track. I skip around because I run away from my emotions. It is hard to stay with feeling like the black cloud following you and is starting to weigh on your chest. Who wants to stick around for that?? I know this is a punishment for some wrong I have done. I just don’t know what that could be. I try to lead an honest and truthful life. I don’t hide shit from anyone. Well maybe my therapist but she eventually gets it out of me with her stubbornness. Man she drives me nuts. This is how I know she is a good therapist. She can be very blunt at times and sometimes I don’t know if she is joking or not. But she tries hard to get me to stay with whatever I am feeling. I hate that I had a breakdown in her office in our last session. It wasn’t for too long because I wouldn’t allow myself to get too ugly. I am a man who shouldn’t be breaking down like that. But she wouldn’t let this thing go and I was all jumbled up inside I didn’t find a thimble to hide in. That was how small I felt. I always feel small when I am feeling big emotions. I don’t know why that is. Could be trauma or just the neglect I endured.

Saturday Blog 07052020

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, cauda equina syndrome, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, mood disorders

Saturday Blog 07052020

I am feeling really depressed today. I have no energy to do anything. I feel like I should make some progress in my room so I might do that after I write this. My back has not cooperated much in standing so will be interesting to see if moving shit around causes it to flair up some. I got Matt Stell’s song “Everywhere But On” in my head so I got it playing on repeat. It is true as I have moved everywhere but on. I might share it with my therapist. I think she likes country as she was excited Zac Brown Band is playing at Fenway. This is the third or fourth year they have played there. I am not that interested as I think a ballpark should just play baseball. I hate it when they set up the stage and stuff. I just cringe. Maybe it is just me.

I sent a message to a reader because I haven’t heard from her in a while. She is doing okay but is really depressed. She is struggling and I felt her pain. I feel bad that people suffer from pain. It truly sucks when you hurt for more than a few weeks. It is like the pain will never go away. I have been trying to figure out if I will get pain relief when in the hospital for my CRPS pain and no one has been giving me an answer about it. The NP had said that if the pain medication the neurosurg team were giving me was not adequate they would consult the pain team and they are “top notch.” I am just worried they will only treat my post op pain and nothing else. I will be on my back laying flat and my legs will be raised so I am glad because my foot won’t tolerate being flat. It has a difficult time when I lean back and put my legs out. It will flare up in a few minutes but soon as I lean forward again, the pain dissipates a bit. It is still there but I don’t feel it as much.

Today is the anniversary of when I started therapy with the school counselor. I remember it was very difficult to open up about stuff and the voices were making things so damn difficult but I couldn’t tell anyone that. It was my secret and I knew people would not be welcoming with this news. Therapy only lasted until the end of the school year and then I saw a social worker for a year before she left after she got married. The other therapist I fell in love and felt she was just seeing me for my insurance money. Also felt like she took advantage of me because she knew I loved her. She wanted me to go to Northeastern just so I could continue seeing her. I had plans on going to Maine for college. But none of those dreams happened because two months after I graduated high school I ended up in the hospital. So by the time I finished high school, I had three therapists. I would have another 8 before I found the one I had for sixteen years. I would have one more then another a year and half later. I have been with my current therapist for eight months now.

Got a week and a half before surgery. I am so fucking nervous it is not funny. A friend that I saw back in one of my hospitalizations wants to see me as my sister is not going to stay with me. She will be there for moral support. It is up to her if she wants to. I won’t say no. I appreciate it as my nerves will be through the roof.

Wowsers

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, cauda equina syndrome, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, mood disorders

Wowsers

Yesterday I was prescribe the bladder medication tolterodine. The pharmacist said to take it at supper time as that would be best so I took it when I got home as it was supper time. I have been feeling dizzy since. I am hoping with continued use the dizziness goes away. I just hope it doesn’t make my constipation worse. But wowsers, is the world spinning on me! I took my blood pressure early this morning and it was low. My pcp had said that after taking all my medications, my blood pressure could drop. Well it did. Whether the low blood pressure and dizziness are related I am not sure. I looked at side effects and apparently, nortriptyline and this med interact with some cardiac side effects. I got to watch that out. My psychopharm doesn’t want me using Zofran too often as it can lead to serotonin syndrome so fuck. All the side effects are similar so I am not sure when what is what. She gave me a list of side effects so if I get them all at once then I know it is the syndrome. I feel so taxed trying to remember everything plus keep track of my bladder and bowel movements. It is stressing me out. I plan on trying to clean my bowels up before surgery so I am not so constipated. My biggest fear though is pooping in the OR while I am under anesthesia.

My mother wanted me to go out today but I told her I wasn’t. I am not feeling up to it after my long day yesterday. I need to rest. I am still not feeling up to par from the side effects of this medication anyway. I feel so drowsy but then I was up almost 20 hours yesterday on 5 hours of sleep. I really didn’t sleep well as I kept waking up to pee. I had to set the med alarm at like 4 this morning because I didn’t want to sleep through with a full bladder. I have it set at five hours intervals, which is roughly the time it takes to cath five times a day. The uro NP wants it less than that but sometimes it is less than that because I could go every three hours or so, especially if I am drinking a lot. She wants me to increase my fluid intake by drinking 16 oz first thing when I wake up. That is half a bottle of Gatorade. I am going to go through a lot of Gatorade so I think I am going to order more next month. Just sucks that I can’t order a large quantity of the same flavor because lemon-lime is my favorite flavor. I get a warning when I am over 10 bottles. I usually order around 25 bottle and then 5-10 of a different flavor to break it up a bit.

Agony of Despair

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, cauda equina syndrome, Chronic pain, CRPS, depression, mood disorders, suicide

Agony of Despair

I had therapy today. I gave her a letter I wrote the other night when I was in a suicidal frame of mind. She said that my treatment is basically in limbo as I am not sure what the recovery is for after my surgery. There may be a way for me to have a telehealth connection but my insurance doesn’t cover it and she has to fight to get it covered. So I maybe without therapy for a few weeks or more depending the outcome of the surgery. She will be able to see me while I am inpatient but I am not anticipating a long hospital stay. Most I will be in for is a week as they like to kick you out soon as you are stitched up. My recovery is going to be at least through the weekend but again, depends on a lot of factors. What I am thinking may not be accurate but I do know I will be there at least through Sunday, if not Monday. I will need home care and/or rehab services as there is no one to care for me at home so my stay may be longer than Monday.

While we were talking she was joking and then I was joking and then she jumped on me to make sure she was saying was understood by me and I just lost it after that. I broke down and I am still reeling from it. Talk about something stupid setting you off. I didn’t allow many tears to fall but I felt like an elephant had jumped on me after the tears stopped. My chest felt so damn heavy. I told her the psychopharm wanted me to think about ECT and she said no one should be bringing up anything to me right now with the surgery that I am facing. She was looking out for my well being and I appreciated that. She is a really good therapist and I am glad to have her in this point in time. I think I will be able to get some work done but it is going to take some time.

Today is the anniversary of when I first attempted suicide. No one knew and I did a bad job of it but I entered the world of self-harm in the process. The goal was to dig into my arm to sever a vein but I never realized how many layers there are to get to that level. The following night was as traumatic as that night and the following day I entered therapy. It took a lot to get me to open up because my father had instilled in me the “what goes on in the house, stays in the house.” I was too suicidal in the week after the attempt. I just started cutting and it was how I expressed my emotions as I didn’t have words for them. I still don’t. That is what went on today. I felt a jumble of shit and just broke down when I was being hammered by questions. My therapist didn’t allow me to jump ship and if I did she lead me back to where I was. I had an anxiety attack that kicked everything off. We were talking about surgery and the next thing I know I am crying. On the way home I wanted to drink so bad. I was thinking about gin and how drunk I would get but those feelings have passed.

I was telling my therapist about how my blog writing has dwindled and writing in general when she picked up the letter I wrote and said no sir. I guess I have to have some kind of person in mind while writing in order to get the words out because once they start flowing, I can go on. She did say that I started to get into something while I wrote but then I stopped midsentence. I had no idea what she was talking about. I kind of just went with it because I do that so often now that I don’t even notice. I just know I feel some strong emotion and I move onto something else. A friend who was reading my blog the other night commented on it. I had to laugh. He said at least I was aware of it. I am aware but after the fact not during. It is really hard for me to sit. Hell even while having severe anxiety in session I was talking about the Sox and anything else to get over the feelings. I know I compartmentalize a lot. It happens with trauma. I told her to expect a lot of talking about the Sox all season. She wasn’t phased only with me coming to see her to talk about the sox. HA. I talked a lot about baseball in my previous therapies and I will be damned not to talk about it in this one as well.

Thing that is bothering me is that she wants me to write out stuff, either blog, journal, letter writing, etc. but I don’t think she gets how damn difficult it is for me. There have been moments where I cannot write what I am feeling because I am too jumbled or I just cannot find my words. It is like they are there but I can’t “see” them. What is worse is that the Invega is taking away my voices so the inner conversations I always have are lost. Granted if I am feeling high emotions, they are there because they always are. They always have been. I don’t want to become psychotic when I am feeling high emotions because that will be bad and potentially dangerous to me. The voices tend to tell me to end my life when medication isn’t holding them back so if I am in a high state of despair, I may act on what they say.

I am glad the drinking urge has passed and I don’t feel like drinking. I have a quarter of a bottle left and I seriously thought I would finish it off. It wouldn’t take much for me to become drunk or buzzed from alcohol because I don’t drink normally. I might have a glass of wine occasionally but that is all I will have. I don’t usually drink to get drunk but tonight I wanted to. Glad there was a line at Walgreens to distract me from these thoughts/feelings.