Category: psychosis

a phone call

by Midnight Demon, posted in psychache, psychosis, suicide, suicide attempt

One crazy day at work I received a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize. I let it go to voicemail as I figured it was some bill collector. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Not only did this person leave me a message for me to call him back but he said that it was urgent to do so. This man was Dr. Edwin Shneidman, the father of suicidology. He was a man I deeply respected because of his work in trying to understand psychache and suicide. He was the first pioneer to create a suicide prevention center in the United States. He has spent his life trying to develop a scale for psychache and psychological pain assessment. Psychache is the unbearable psychological pain (despair, grief, guilt, hopelessness, frustration, perturbation, and pain all rolled into one). It is this pain that he and I believe causes people to think about taking their life. I sent him my paper “Is suicide caused by psychological pain?” and he wanted to talk to me about the pain scales I had mentioned. He was fascinated that there was a scale to measure physical pain but (as I argued) not for psychache. He was always thinking about how to have a psychometric assessment to gauge a person’s psychache.

Dr. Shneidman began his career by interpreting suicide notes. He began collecting them after he was sent to the morgue for confirmation of suicide autopsy. He and his colleague Farberow lead the early work of this important tool in forensic suicidology. In addition to this, he also co-founded the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center, the first in the United States to have one.

His message to me was for me to return his call and quickly (he wasn’t in the best of health). I didn’t know what to say to him or what he wanted of me. I was extremely nervous. Looking back I don’t remember too much of what we talked about. I know that we were on the phone what seemed like a half hour or so. I was too stunned to really remember anything but I know that he talked about his ill health and that he wanted to know what the physical pain scale was so I printed some off for him and sent them post haste to his house in LA. He died about a month afterwards.
After our conversation, my therapist was convinced I was going to be the next Shneidman. I would continue to follow in his work and in a way I have in my own way. I have book or downloaded/printed every article he ever wrote on the subject. I have scores of files on him. I also have the same on David Jobes but that is another matter.

Holidays: struggle between meaning and hope

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, psychache, psychosis, suicide, suicide attempt

Our lives are filled with charades and facades. If you are depressed and don’t want anyone to know, the façade becomes even more ingrained with the self. On the outside, people see you as happy, maybe even without a care in the world while inside you are dying and hurting inside. It takes all the effort you have to make it through the day. At the end of the day, you are more tired than you were when you woke up. The mental exhaustion of a façade cannot be underestimated. This is the face of chronic depression at its worse.

What can really bring one to their knees is the holiday season, a time that is supposed to be filled with love, joy, giving, and happiness. How are you supposed to feel that when you feel like the scum of the earth most of the time? It is very difficult to hold two faces, the face that everyone sees with friends and family, coworkers, etc. and then the face that no one sees when you are alone at night, away from the demands of life. I have struggled for years with this façade and it has taken its toll on me. I think it takes a toll on every one. We cannot allow ourselves to feel down because we have to be the one that is strong for everyone else. It is this internal battle that we face, the “I feel sad and lonely inside but I have to pretend to be happy and feeling connected to others”. That is the struggle that leads to more hurt and pain on the inside. The hope for us is that tomorrow will be a better day, even though there is a part of ourselves that know that it won’t be. We cannot hide the pessimism. It is the real self that always shines through no matter what kind of happy façade we are pretending.

With the holidays, this struggle becomes more intense and the more intense it becomes, the more the disappointment we feel. If we act like a Scrooge, we are treated like a Scrooge and told to lighten up, if we act like Bob Cratchet, hiding the need for help, we end up losing Tiny Tim, which leads to depression of spirits much like the story goes before Scrooge intervenes in the end. Scrooge is one of my favorite all time movies and I think it really captures what it is like to be humble like Crachet and grumpy like Scrooge.

We all don’t always feel miserable all the time but there is a stress in the holidays that always seems unbearable. Psychiatric hospital admissions go up, the requests for detox goes up. Everyone wants to make a new start to the new year. And with that the hope that things will change. That the misery that is felt today will be gone tomorrow. That is the struggle those of us with chronic depression deal with every day and sometimes even those without depression have it as well.

No Spoons Today

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, depression, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, psychache, psychosis, sports, suicide attempt

Started the day with no spoons. I was up most of the night in pain. I woke up very fatigued so decided to take a shower. The shower exhausted me to no end. I just wanted to go back to bed but I so wanted a coffee at Starbucks. I timed the shower and the bus schedule correctly. By the time I was done with my shower and got dressed, the bus was approaching. I got to Starbucks and I didn’t think I was going to have a seat but a lady left just after I ordered my coffee and I swooped in to take her seat. I got the Panama coffee today and it was good. I waited patiently for so long that I got a free drink because the barista forgot my drink after the long line of people. I thought about getting another coffee but I didn’t want to be up all night again. I worked, or tried to, on this paper that is going to be the death of me. I am trying to write this comparison paper and one of the assessments that I am comparing is confusing the hell out of me. I might nix it because it is so complicated. I seriously doubt that this tool will ever be used clinically because of its complication and averages and factors! See, even you are confused as I am writing this…
After racking my brain for an hour, I decided to get some cheeseburgers at McDonalds. And to search for Twinkies. My search didn’t yield any. I hope that I can buy them at Stop and Shop before they sell out. I can’t believe a snack that has been around for more than fifty years is out of business. I still think it’s all because of bad management of funds rather than production. But then, what do I know about the economy? Ziltch!

I have been listening to Taylor Swift for the past hour because Voldemort made a reference to her and Snape. He posted a pic of her in the “Story of Us” and it was pretty funny. He called the post Haylor. I am still cracking up over it. I know he has been the center of my delusions but he is slowly fading, even with the text tweeting. I just find some of it hilarious. Course the text about robbing Twihards houses was a little hard for me but some will find it funny. I seriously thought of just robbing my sister’s house because she was going to the movies. Her cookies would be mine for me to take, hehehe and Halloween candy! LOL I think the vicoden is making me feel goofy right now. I’m still in mega pain but as I tell everyone, if my sense of humor goes, commit me because something serious is wrong with me.

OSU is tied right now. I couldn’t sit watching the game because my ankle pain flared up. I am glad because I would have been swearing at the TV. I have planted seeds to my sisters that I want an OSU and NE hoodies for Christmas. I hope I get them, but if not I will just have to get them myself! I had my cousin get me a Georgetown hoodie. Love it so much. I am a big college football fan. My interest stems from having to watch it every Sat for two and a half months while I was inpatient for depression. That was eighteen years ago. I did not want to make it to see my nineteenth birthday and was determined not to But my plans were foiled after I overdosed. That landed me in the hospital from the beginning of November to the middle of January. I never have spent the holidays in the hospital before. Not a pleasant experience, especially being on a psychiatric unit. But once my birthday had passed, things got easier. I wanted to live and go to college. I applied and got into a medical assisting program. Course today I wish I had decided to go to a university rather than a two year school, but live and learn I guess. I am still only 9 courses short of my bachelor’s degree.

Movie night canceled

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, CES, Chronic pain, psychosis

Let’s try this again…
I was supposed to go to the movies tonight but my bad ankle is flaring up so walking is next to impossible. I tried writing this before when my word doc crashed. I think it was because of my new endnote add-in. It’s a bibliography program that is essential for writing research papers.
I picked up my new glasses today and there is something wrong with them. I seem to be seeing out of a mirror on the bifocal part. I need to take them back when I can get my sister’s car. Sucks because they are a little ways from me. I am getting grief for going to a Walmart that is at least twenty miles away from me. But it’s easy to go on the route so I don’t see the problem. I wanted to go there because it is right off the highway and easy to get to. I know there are other places around here but Walmart had the cheapest price for my progressive glasses.

I also have been slowly updating my laptop with updates. So far I am down to 58. I just reformatted the hard drive so that is why I have so many updates. And of course with every update there is a restart. I can’t update them all at once because there is one that is causing problems. I have learned that with Vista you have to install the updates slow and incrementally in order to do it. Takes longer but least it that one that is new won’t crash the whole process. Save you time in the end, I guess.
I still am delusional. I had a text from Volde last night saying to rob people’s houses. I was torn. I knew it was wrong so I just distracted myself until the meds kicked in. It’s been two weeks and I am still crazy, well a week and half. This is not good. I hope that by the time I see my psychiatrist again, this will have passed. I don’t like being this way. And I think the meds are giving me the dyskinesthia again. Nothing like feeling wicked restless in your own skin. It’s a terrible feeling, this gnawing sensation, like every fiber of your being is getting out of control and you just feel so wound up but not hyper-like. It’s like internal agitation x 100. You feel like there is this constant need to move, like restless leg syndrome except it’s every limb and your arms start jerking wildly and then your legs. The only thing that calms it down is another med, which makes you sleepy.

I am so bummed that I can’t go out tonight. I was really looking forward to seeing the movie Lincoln. But if I can barely make it down the stairs, how am I supposed to walk to Boston Common, and they have a ton of stairs at the Boylston stop. It’s an old trolley station that doesn’t have elevators. It would kill me to go up and down the stairs, even with my AFO (Ankle foot orthotic). It’s really depressing to have a walking impairment, which is why I am on disability, but still. I should be able to walk but I can’t. It just hurts too much.