Quote of the Day 17 Oct 2015

The single most dangerous word in all of Suicidology is the four-letter word only. Edwin Shneidman The Suicidal Mind

thoughts behind quotes of the day

I have been using Shneidman’s quotes for the Quote a Day thingy. I wanted to let the world know how much he means to me so each day, if I remember, I will quote something from his books. I don’t have his exhaustive library but I have some.

Shneidman was a great man. He called me out of the blue one day while I was at work. I didn’t recognize the number so I didn’t answer it. He left a voicemail saying to call him soon. But the trouble was I had an appointment with my therapist around the time he called. I called him later that evening and we had a chat. I talked with the father of suicidology. The man that created psychache. It was such an honor to me that he called me. He wanted to know more about the paper that I sent him. He also wanted to see the pain scale I was talking about. This guy didn’t have a computer so he couldn’t Google it. I still have no idea how he got my number. I know I didn’t give it to him when I sent him my paper. I will never know as he died a few months later. But I never will forget him calling me. I just wish I had contacted him sooner rather than later. Maybe we could have had a relationship. I will never know. He died a few days after his last birthday. Funny, I don’t remember when he called me and when I returned the phone call. I should have made note of it. I know I saved his voicemail. It’s on a little cassette tape along with my therapists messages that were important to me.

Can’t Die Without Explanations

“One can’t die without explanations”. Fyodor Dostoevsky p 513, the Idiot

This statement struck me tonight, in more ways than one. I think, this is the purpose of Hyde, to explain my death to people so they know of my suffering. I am very tired at the moment. I just woke up from a short nap and now I am in pain because I almost fell while getting up off the toilet. I lost my balance and fortunately, sat back down, but harder than I would have liked. My left knee didn’t like it much. I woke up with it hurting me. But once I started moving, the pain went away. Mysteriously as it came. Until I nearly lost my balance. Weird.

My back is hurting and I don’t like it. I can barely sit up. I keep thinking about death. I don’t want to live anymore. I know I have said these things time and time again, but it’s true. I don’t know what I am going to do when my date comes in the next few weeks and I am left all alone with my thoughts. If I don’t kill myself, it will be a defeat. If I try, at least I can say I tried. I won’t know if I succeed if I don’t try.

The quote is from a character in the Idiot, Ippolit, who has consumption (TB or Tuberculosis) and is in the last stages of the disease before death. He has been given just three weeks to live and keeps on telling people that he must tell his “confessions” before he dies. I feel the same way, though I don’t feel there is anything to confess. I have not done anything wrong. I just feel like a lowly human being that deserves to die. I am tired of the mental anguish I suffer day in and day out. I am tired of my physical pain that prevents me from working and “having a life worth living”. Today I drove and it cost me pain in my ankle. I don’t know why. I always feel this pain while driving/sitting for too long. It is a pain that starts at my ankle bone and goes into my foot. The pain is like a wrap that no one can see but I feel. They say it’s the peroneous tendon that is inflamed causing this pain. If you look at the skeletal structure of this tendon, you can clearly see how it goes from the ankle to the three damn toes of the foot. That is where I have most of my pain. The last three metatarsals in my foot. It haunts me like it does now. And I am in severe pain.

Aside from my transgender issues which will never be resolved, I have body image issues that are distorted. I am ugly, yet people have told me I am handsome and sometimes, cute. I don’t feel this way. I feel like I am very ugly that I will break a camera or mirror if I look into it long enough. I have a negative self-image. I can’t stand the way I look or how my body feels. I have a self-loathing so deeply ingrained in me that I doubt my therapist can ever get to the bottom of it. Having breasts is just one of the reasons I self-loathe. I cannot stand myself. I really want to die. I don’t want to breathe anymore. It hurts to breathe. I tell my psychiatrist this and she doesn’t think too much of it, about the hurting to breathe. But then, there is nothing she can really do about it. I am not in distress. My skin color isn’t blue. I am oxygenating very well. There are no obvious signs that there is a weight on my chest, unless you count the things that are there (breast tissue). But every woman has them and they don’t cause interference with breathing. No, I am not saying there is something pathologically wrong with me. I know that this heaviness is this depression that I feel. It makes everything heavier than what it should be. Probably why my knee hurts. It can no longer carry the weight that I have put on since my last hospitalization. I have tried to lose this weight but it is difficult. I eat the wrong things. But I eat the things that make me happy, like cheeseburgers, bacon, and ring dings. Not all the time. Just once a month when I get paid and can afford these things.

These things taste good when I am feeling up to eating them. Lately, my taste buds have failed me and nothing tastes good. I eat only because I need to, though I don’t enjoy it like I once did. Nothing brings me joy or pleasure. Used to be that I have a mocha from Starbucks and that made me happy. Now it just tastes like sugar and I don’t even taste the espresso like I used to. I feel like I am wasting my money on this drink. Maybe it’s time to try espresso by itself, but I am a creature of habit. I order the same thing all the time. It’s hard to break from that.

Today I was thinking about my diagnosis. Used to be that I had recurrent major depression, with psychotic features, NOS. Now I am depressed but it’s not under the same classification. Not that I need to know what it is. I don’t really care, but I would like to know if it is a bipolar depression that I am suffering. I had highs a few months ago, back in February. Those were lovely, though a bit terrifying. I am not used to feeling up. I am used to feeling down all the time. And this time I have hit an all time low. I think about death constantly and when I am not, I am dreaming of funerals and wakes. I often wonder, if I do have a wake, who will show up. I doubt I will get the same sympathy as a friend of mine who died from diabetes. People who die by suicide don’t get the same sympathy as other who die by illnesses. But that is a debate for another day.

My explanation of my death is this, I am tired of hurting, both physically and mentally. Physically, my pain is well controlled, though I still hurt every day causing me to be on medication to control it. Mentally, there is no medication for me. Sure I take my mood stabilizer and anti-psychotic pill to ease those symptoms caused by the bipolar and psychosis that I have. But it doesn’t help the mental pain, the psychache, the deep down to the bone ache that no one can see or feel. I have been struggling with this ache since I was 8 years old. I am tired of fighting it every single day. 32 years is a long time to be fighting something that no one else can feel or see or measure even. There is no test that my pdoc can give to see where it lives, where it abides. Sure, I know there are measures out there but no one uses them. My therapist has stopped using the psychache scale. I have even stopped using the psychache scale, not because it wasn’t effective, but because it just was a number that couldn’t be brought down. It was up and it stayed up, until my crisis was over. This time, I don’t think my crisis is going to be over. Hell, I don’t think I am going to last that long period. What the hell am I waiting for?? Why can’t I go through with it tonight. Fear. And that I don’t want my family to find my body. It will be hard to be dead by suicide. Harder still and more traumatic to find my body. I don’t have a place I can go to end my life. And that is really sad. So I just sit here and complain about why I cannot go on living knowing I can’t take my life because I have no place to end it. And that is the funny thing about my therapist and psychiatrist. They have never asked me how I am going to do it, where, when. I just tell them I am suicidal and they just leave it at that. They never know what my plan truly is.

Hyde Musings

I was literally up all night. I went to pee around 0130 and that was it for me. I was up. I tried to go back to sleep but failed miserably. I didn’t go back to sleep till around 5ish. I am totally exhausted. Last thing that I wanted to do was have therapy but I really needed a session. My days are so messed up I was thinking tomorrow was Saturday. It’s not and I need to see my pdoc.

We talked about Hyde and how to deal with him. She wishes we were meeting in person so we could try and engage him more. Very doubtful as he only comes out at night. Very rarely or never have I “dissociated” during the day with him. It’s always at night, after 2100. I don’t know why he is coming out more. I told her about the email I sent to my pdoc that caused her to call me. I also told her that I am planning on killing myself during her vacation. She said I had to put it off. I don’t think it is going to be that easy. I told her to pick a date and she did. Oct 30th. She thinks that is my new date, but I don’t really know if it is or not. Only time will tell. We talked about the hospital but I am against it for many reasons. Yes it will keep me safe but I am not in danger. I am in more danger right now because I am vulnerable and I am wicked tired. Throw in some suicidal thoughts, and I am in. I told her my thoughts don’t mean actions. She suggested that I create a “Hyde” notebook to write in when I am in that bad agitated space. But Hyde doesn’t want to stay hidden. He writes with a purpose and to someone in particular. I guess you can say he is crying for attention, but the bad kind, or rather the severe kind. The kind that could get me sectioned. I see my pdoc tomorrow and I am going to try to stay out of the hospital. I know that if I don’t stop emailing my pdoc these horribly suicidally, depressing emails, I am going to end up there. It has happened before. That was why I created this blog, to write freely my suicidal thoughts so I don’t “bother” or burden my treaters with these thoughts. But lately, this blog just hasn’t been working the way that I was hoping. Maybe I should just be writing more blogs instead of letters/emails. I don’t know. My therapist knows that Hyde cannot be ignored. I wish I could say that he is harmless but the stuff that he writes makes me believe it. I am usually horrified the next morning. I just can’t believe something so dark comes from me.

I am going to give the notebook thing a try. There is no guarantee that it will work. It would be easier to just write a word doc and call it “Hyde musings” or something. This way I don’t have to a) read my handwriting and b) type up what I wrote for my therapist to analyze. Something needs to happen. If I dissociate while writing, god knows what I will do. Half the time, I am not even aware of what I am writing. Soon as it is written, it’s out of my memory banks. That is why I wrote the blog with my pdoc’s email. Maybe my pdoc has some ideas of what to do, but I know that medication is not the answer and neither is the hospital.