Category: psychache

my thoughts for the day

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

Today was a snow day. I didn’t go out because it was plain yucky out with freezing sleet and rain at times. I have to go out tomorrow so that will be better. I plan on taking a shower tonight so I don’t have to take one in the morning. Sometimes a shower can exhaust me so it is kind of good that I take it at night.

I started writing another paper on suicide. I don’t know where it is going but I decided to define some terms that I think will be valuable and then take it from there. I have to remember to put in copyright at the end of the paper so no one steals my work. I know it could be “stolen” anyways or parts of it very easily with copy and paste, but at least with the copyright it might prevent that from happening.

I made some progress with one of my characters with my game that I play. I am glad I did cause I didn’t think I could as I don’t play it very often. I have three Facebook accounts for this game so I can get the stuff I need to play. Between the four accounts, I use it to advance in the game as best I can. Course I have other player that help out too, but not so much for my other accounts.

Because today was a snow day, I didn’t have therapy this afternoon. I am glad because I was already in a bad mood this morning. I really wanted to go out today but I couldn’t because of the snow. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to get to McD’s and get a cheeseburger. I have been thinking of it every time it comes on the radio. I know they are bad for you and everything but they just taste so good.

I tried working on my book today but that didn’t happen. I need a break from it for a little while. It is stirring up too much stuff.

I don’t really want to go to group tomorrow. I just feel like I opened up tomorrow and I need more time to process what I said. I just feel really terrible that I talked about transgender and didn’t get a trip to the hospital. It was really weird. I thought I would go in the hospital because people don’t talk about it. My therapist was telling me that Kelly Curic had done a segment on kids that were transgender. That is all well and good but I didn’t have that growing up. I couldn’t express my feelings because it meant I would get smacked in the mouth. Nor did I have the words for what I was going through. I just knew that I was a guy at a young age but I was forced to conform to being the sex I was born with. I had to act like a girl. I couldn’t play sports I wanted to. I couldn’t wear the clothes I wanted to. I couldn’t even wear a baseball hat. My father threatened to cut them all up if he saw me wearing one. So I couldn’t be who I really am without having physical violence with my parents. It killed me whenever he threatened to destroy my property. I just wanted to die all the more. I figured what would be the point in living if I couldn’t be who I was. I envy the kids today that are getting the support and transitioning that they are doing. I wish I had that growing up.

depression and mobility

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, mood disorders, physical pain, psychache, suicide

This morning started out ok until my grumpy sister started yelling at everything. I ducked out of there before things started flying. Hehehe

I know I should be writing in my “book” but I think I will take a break today. I spent almost four hours on it yesterday and it is now up to eighteen pages. I figure I will add to it a little bit every day but it stirs up emotions and I think that is why I am frustrated right now. It is difficult writing about your struggles with suicide without feeling it when you are still struggling with it. Last night I was in bad shape. I started thinking that I would be better off dead and just wanted to die. I just don’t think I have a purpose and feel like I am just a burden on my family because I am no longer working. I am collecting a social security check and it bothers me that this how my life is right now. I can barely deal with any stress anymore without getting psychotic. I can barely walk around the block without pain. The depression is so crippling me that some days I don’t leave the house. It’s very isolating. I try to go out and even just riding the buses takes so much energy.

Today I just realized I have not left the house since Thursday. I might go out today and go to the store just to take a walk. Maybe I will just buy something that will make me feel better. A little retail therapy never hurt anyone before. Or maybe I will take the bus to Clarendon Hill and head towards Arlington. I have not ridden the buses in a long time. As long as I have my music, I should be ok.

As I’m writing this, I am listening to Linkin Park. I love this group. It always is the right music to listen to when I am in an irritable, frustrated mood. That is the type of mood I am in right now. I am also worried about my foot. I had put a sock on my foot last night because it got wicked cold and this morning the sock was still on, which is unusual as I don’t usually keep the socks on while sleeping. My foot is still some what cold as I can feel it through the sock but the sock is also irritating me. I know that if I take it off I risk angering my foot and it retaliating by causing me pain. Nerve damage sucks. I really hate this type of pain than any other because there is nothing I can do about it. The other night I had zingers, electric type of shock pains in my big toe. It was so annoying. I couldn’t sleep because as soon as I started to relax, the zingers would start, jolting my foot and waking me up. Why do I have this nerve damage? Because of something called Cauda Equina Syndrome (CES). A disc crushed my nerves in my back and left me with nerve damage in my left leg, foot, ankle, and bowels/bladder. But the damage is better than it once was. It take a long time to recover. I have had my last surgery almost seven years ago. This was the second time that I got CES. The first time was the real damage with the drop foot that I still have and also foot weakness. Because of this weakness, I get fatigued in my foot very easily and this causes me to walk improperly. Walking improperly results in the pain that I have been experiencing. And it is different every time it flairs up. I can have a barbed wire type of feeling, a pounding in my foot like someone is using a hammer to crush my toes, to feeling like my toes are in a vise.

This pain also contributes to the depression and not wanting to walk because it brings me pain. But I try to do what I can to get out of the house without too much difficulty. I try not to stand too long while waiting for the bus. I also always try and get a seat whenever possible rather than standing because the pressure and worry of the bus stopping short is always there. When I take the train, I do the same thing.

I didn’t go out again today. I decided to cook and watch the baseball game. I made a spicy tomato sauce, which I didn’t intend to make. While I was pouring a little bit of crushed red pepper, the top came off and I dumped half the container in the pot. I now have a spicy sauce. If I had some beans I could make a chili out of it.

And the closing pitcher for the Sox decides to blow the no hitter. FUCK! I so wanted this no hitter, even though it is still Spring training. Today was media day and the last media speaker SUCKS. Remdawg and Don are not even reporting the game, just letting this soft-spoken speaker speak while the game is playing. I am falling asleep.

notebook from the past

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, CES, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders, physical pain, psychache, suicide, suicide attempt

I am wretched and know not why. I am healthy yet I am ill. There is no diagnostic test to tell where the pain is from yet I want to die from it. I fear that it will kill me. A hundred years ago I’d be locked away in an asylum. This day and age I’m forced to be a functional person with no symptoms of a psychic malady.

Pain that is so bad that nothing can relieve it. Almost as if a pericardial centesis is the only way to drain the pain out but as there is no effusion it will be dry.

This is something that I wrote twelve years ago. I can remember what that pain felt like and wanting to die. It was terrible thing to live through. I talk about the effusion because my heart was aching so much it killed me and I couldn’t breathe.
Quote from Noonday Demon: “if everyone has the capacity for some measure of depression under some circumstances everyone also has the capacity to fight depression to some degree under some circumstances. Often the fight takes the form of seeking out the treatments that will be most effective in battle. It involves making the most of the life you have between your most severe episodes. Some horrendously symptom ridden people are able to achieve real success in life; and some people are utterly destroyed by the mildest forms of the illness”—Andrew Solomon
Merchant of Venice: It wearies me, you say it wearies you but how I caught it. Found it, or came by it, what stuff tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn. And such a want-wit sadness makes of me that I have much ado to know myself—Shakespeare

I found these quotes in a journal from 2001. It’s an old notebook of my excerpts from books and other things. I had carried it around with me all this time. Today I was going to write excerpts from Night Falls Fast by Kay Redfield Jamison but I was too tired after I had my lunch. The notebook is worn thin by use. It is probably the only notebook that I still refer to every day. I have my favorite Edgar Allen Poe letter that I copy into every journal that I own. The “I am wretched and know not why” is from there. If you ever read touched with fire, you will understand what it is like living with bipolar disorder and depression and how it relates to creativity. It really is a great book.

Today I am sidelined with pain in my ankle and a migraine that started out this morning. I have been trying to take a nap for the past few hours but I have this restlessness to do something, to write that I can’t quite quell. I chock it up to having coffee today at an early hour. I have been up since about 9 which is my normal time for waking up but I still wanted to sleep more. If you count daylight savings it really was 8 that I woke up at. I have this energy but I don’t know what to do so I went out and now my ankle is thanking me kindly in return by hurting me. I had groceries delivered today, some stuff I forgot from my previous order. I got my steaks that I have been dreaming about for weeks but never bought. I usually don’t crave meat but I haven’t had any other than chicken and fish in quite some time, possibly as far back as the summer!

So to say that I am a little tired is on the money. I also had therapy today that made me think about what I am doing or going to do with my writing for the next few days. I also talked about my writing with my co-conspirator. We have decided to write five days a week so we can have two days off. I am not sure I can do that with my blog as I like writing on it every day but I can take off a day here and there. My next writing assignment that I am contemplating has to do with CES, Cauda Equina Syndrome. I have been meaning to write about it for some time but have backed off due to the embarrassing nature of the content. I still haven’t written much beyond the title of the article. Maybe tomorrow I can write more.

clutter

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, psychache, suicide

Feeling down today. I wrote a little more on my history with suicidality for my book. I can’t believe all that I have gone through with my therapist and she is still with me. Most therapists would have left me after they got married, after they decided to consolidate their practice, have a baby, and move out of the city. Nope not this bozo. She has had me move with her. I have been with her almost her entire professional career. She has seen my moods on a good day, bad day, grumpy day, and sad day.

I keep asking her why she stays with me, her automatic response is always “you”. And now that she heard Sugarland’s “stuck like glue” she uses that against me. I just hope she never sees the video because I don’t want her to get ideas.

I was watching baseball today and my mother asked if I cleaned my room. I have a huge bucket outside my room that I thought would fit in my room but it is too big. So I have it outside so I can store my things as my room just can’t fit it. She says that if I clean my room I can place it there. Probably but I don’t know where. I am not the best organizer on the planet. I am when it comes to other things, like my journals and books, but not to my clothes and stuff. Plus I have no place to really put the my clothes as I only have one bureau and a half closet. I don’t tend to buy clothes regularly. I tend to wear what I have until they no longer fit or are worn too thin. Seeing as I have gained weight, most of my clothes no longer fit so I needed more clothes, mostly jeans as that is all I wear.

I have a wedding coming up so I guess I will have to buy some khaki pants and a dress shirt as the ones that I have no longer fit me. I did wear a new suit pants last August and they probably would fit but I didn’t like the way they felt on me.

I know I have plenty of time to clean my room but all I can do is make another pile of the stuff that I have. And it’s not like I can ask my sisters for help. They either are too busy or want to be PAID to help me. I kid you not. Ever since the one time I had hire someone to clean the bathroom for me and pick up stuff around the TV area at the old house, I am expected to pay someone to help me move my stuff or clean my stuff. Maybe I should hire someone to help but I don’t necessarily have the funds to do it right now. And I wouldn’t know who to hire. The person I hired before didn’t do such a great job so it’s not like I am going to go back to the same company, what ever that was. I am not lazy. I just am too overwhelmed by the mess to actually do something about it. It sucks the energy right out of me. Most I can do is put some of the stuff in my drawers that are overflowing. Or maybe get rid of the clothes in the drawers that I haven’t worn or forgot about but then I realize I like them and don’t want to get rid of them. I have a clutter problem and always have. I am NOT a hoarder. I tend to throw my trash and recycles out rather than save them for sentimental value. I do have some standards. But my family doesn’t see my things as I do. They just see them as junk to throw away. Sorry but I don’t think of my medical records or my MRIs as junk. Those are important documents that must be saved. Yes they are part of the “clutter” but that doesn’t mean they belong in the trash either.