Category: suicide attempt

Is it possible to be happy while being horribly suicidal?

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders, suicide, suicide attempt

Is it possible to be happy while being horribly suicidal?

Today while waiting for the bus, I was listening to my music. It wasn’t the normal playlist I usually listen to but I was playing all my songs in my music file. A few songs came on that I really love and I caught myself singing along and just feeling happy. It got me wondering what the hell was going on because the past few weeks I have been so suicidal. Hell, last Friday was my death date that I didn’t go through with and yet I still feel the urge to end my life. Yet here I was, singing along to the music like I didn’t have a care in the world.

I know people feel relieved once they make the decision to end their life. It’s like a burden is no longer on their shoulders. That the tasks that were impossible are now possible because things are going to end soon for them. I know this because I have felt it. I have gone through it. Yet somehow, some way, I have managed to survive the death dates and the horrible suicidal thoughts that have plagued me since I was young. My therapist calls me the exception to the rule. I some times call myself a coward for not going through with my plans. After all, I always keep my promises to other people but I never have been able to keep a promise to myself, and that include ending my life at some future date.

I wonder if I have finally lost my mind because I was happy this afternoon. How is it possible to feel joy and happiness after a suicidal episode? It didn’t last too long. Just for a few songs and then I started thinking about writing this blog because I think it’s important to talk about. Suicide claims over 40,000 lives each year in the US alone. Today happens to be “World Mental Health Day”. So I find it even more fitting to talk about suicide.

I’m not going to talk about statistics and data that I could bore you with about suicide. I have just my experience and knowledge that I have learned since studying about this epidemic the past 8 years. When I am not suicidal, I try to learn as much as I can about the treatments for it because it might help me through another episode. There is a lot of research out there. The top ones are CAMS, CBT, and DBT. I have given DBT a try and didn’t like it. That was more than 17 years ago and it has evolved just like CAMS has evolved over the last 25 years.

CAMS (Collaborating and Assessment of Managing Suicide) was developed by Dr. David Jobes and is by far, in my opinion, the best way to manage suicidal episodes. It is comprehensive, easy to administer and score, has a treatment plan, and doesn’t involve more paperwork than regular clinical administrative stuff. That is what I love about this tool. In it you use the forms called the Suicide Status Form to assess suicidal plans and also develop treatment strategies with the client instead of for the client. It’s a collaborative approach because everyone’s suicidal episode is not the same. What causes me to feel suicidal is not going to be the same for the next person.

Brief Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been shown to help those with suicidal thoughts and attempts. It can be used in conjunction with CAMS after assessment has been made. It’s important because this therapy helps with the cognition of suicide better than any other treatment. See the work of Craig Bryan for more information about this.

Despite my happiness lasting for a few moments in time today, I still feel a little content, which is better than I have felt the last few months. I don’t know why this has changed and I hope it’s not the bipolar in me shifting to mania. I always get worried when I am not depressed because it is what I am so used to. But I will take it. Tomorrow maybe totally different than today. Hell, tonight might be totally different than what I feel right now. But I don’t feel like taking my life today, and I think that is a good thing.

To The Concerned Anonymous Asshole

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, mood disorders, suicide, suicide attempt

To The Concerned Anonymous Asshole,

I am assuming you are still reading my blog to fulfill your hero needs. Let me tell you something, YOU have destroyed my world, more so than it already was. A piece of myself has been betrayed the moment you felt dignified to call the cops to my door. I now feel that I have no place to share my suicidal feelings. I was talking to my therapist about this. She said that can be very dangerous. I hope you realize this. I don’t mean to tell the world that I am suicidal all the time because like depression, it ebbs and flows. This blog is about all that if you happen to read it. Hell, the top right corner says that this is “one person’s struggle with suicidal thoughts and chronic pain” you dumbass.

If you happen to notice the pages of my blog, I HIGHLY recommend you read “What my blog is about”. But obviously, my blog isn’t about me. It has become about you as you feel you are holier than thou. Do you know how hard it is to struggle every day with suicidal thoughts? Maybe you had a loved one die by suicide and you are damned to let that happen again. The fact that I am still here, angry, should tell you something, you jerk. I write to blow off steam, and I know if has the flavor of becoming concerning to people, but you as a reader, had the opportunity to comment before calling the cops. Now my suicidal thoughts are going to go underground and become more self-destructive. I hope that you are happy with yourself. You might have saved me this week or this month, but the suffering will continue. You cannot stop me indefinitely. NO ONE CAN. And if you think that you can, you are deluding yourself.

What gives you the right to think you can stop another’s pain? Who gave you that right? I certainly didn’t give it to you. In fact, right after I posted the blog that sent you on your holy high mission to save me, I had shared my blog with a suicide prevention therapist. He didn’t feel that my life was threatened in that very moment. What gave you that special power over him to wreck my life and my family? But go on reading. You need help more than I ever will. And if I ever find out who the hell you are, I will not be so cordial in my response.

Dealing with Chronic Pain and Suicidality

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, grief, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, psychache, psychosis, suicidality, suicide, suicide attempt

Dealing with Chronic Pain and Suicidality

Over the past few days, I have been in moderate to severe pain. I have a pain syndrome that flares up without warning, usually right before I am to go to sleep. I will lie down and my ankle and foot will flare up with pain. Normally, I will just take a couple of pain pills, wait for them to kick in and then go to sleep. The pills work because it’s physical pain. What is really troubling me, lately, is the persistent pain, night after night after night.

It doesn’t matter what I do during the day. I can go out, have my daily routine of going to Starbucks and writing for a bit before returning home. I might be out for an hour or two, depending on how much I feel like writing and if the coffee holds out. Lately, despite drinking coffee, I just want to sleep. I have been sleeping more the past week that I have the entire year. A dear friend says that it’s because I haven’t been sleeping and I should take advantage of it because it might not last. I agree with that. It’s unusual for me to sleep all day as I never usually do unless I am deeply depressed.

The other night, I snapped when the pain hit. I became really suicidal and seriously wanted to end my life that night. Trouble was that I was in no position to do it. I vowed never to kill myself in my home where my family members could find me. I have a place that I want to go but the heat has been the only thing holding me back, at the moment. I feel like I don’t have a life. That this battle between chronic pain and depression is just too much to bear. I am tired of fighting it night after night after night.

It’s a tiring battle. I think that is part of the reason I have been so tired lately. I am just mentally and physically exhausted from dealing with my mental illness and my physical illness. No one knows how hard it is unless you deal with one or the other. The past few hours, I have been dealing with a rebound of songs in my head that sound like they are playing but they are not. It’s part of the psychosis. And for the past year, I have been battling that aspect of my illness.

I have known since I was 16 that I needed to be on medication for the rest of my life for my mental illness. I knew there was no other way to deal with it. Through trial and error, I finally found the right combo of meds. Unfortunately, finding the right antipsychotic meds has been elusive. Medications that used to work, no longer do so. I have gone back to the older generation of meds because they work for me better than the second generation. It’s a little bit more riskier because of side effects but I am not on that high of a dose. I just hope that in a month or two I am still on the same medication and that I don’t need to change. That is my fear.

I have known for a very long time the odds of me taking my life is great. I am in the high risk category of risk because of my past history. I can write about this history but it’s not important and will take up too much of time. I just know that one day my life will end by my own hand. I know that this will happen because I feel it. I know that it will happen sometime this year. My biggest fear is that if there is a heaven or hell, I will spend eternity with my father and that is something that sometimes keeps me here. But I don’t believe in those things but who knows what truly happens when you die.

They say that most people who are suicidal just want to end their pain. That is true. I want to end my pain and my suffering because no one can help me with it. Yes, I take pain meds to deal with the physical aspect of my suffering and it does help. But it does nothing for my psychache, for my psychological pain that I feel. I still feel that I should die because I am so damn tired of living this so called life. I don’t have a reason for living. I don’t have a purpose. I have nothing keeping me here. Sure I have my family that are dear to me. But what good is it if I can’t enjoy their presence because of pain? That I can stay with them for a short while and then have to go back up to my room to put my foot up because otherwise I am in too much pain to be good to anyone? Sometimes, I really think that my family and the people in my life will be better off without me.

An Open Discussion About Suicidal Thoughts and Chronic Pain

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, psychache, psychosis, suicidality, suicide, suicide attempt

An Open Discussion About Suicidal Thoughts and Chronic Pain

For the past twenty-four hours, I have been in a suicidal quandary. Last night I was in severe pain for the umpteenth time in a row. I had wanted to go to sleep but my ankle said, nope, not yet. I got really angry because I so wanted to sleep. It was past midnight. I had finished watching the ball game. I had winded down. I was ready for sleep. But pain said no and because it was the third or fourth night in a row that this happened, I was fed up. I wanted to kill myself. I felt there was no other way to escape.

My pain is well managed. All I had to do was take two pills to quiet the pain down and then drift off to sleep. I took the pills and waited for the throbbing to stop. Within an hour, it did but my brain didn’t. I was still pissed and suicidal that I just wanted to give up. I went over the plan I had been thinking about the past few months, wondering if it would work or not. A doctor friend told me it would be painful but I knew that. I also know that it would be at least 2-6 hours for the pills to work. That is a lot of time.

My friend understands about the chronic pain that I have because she also suffers from it as well. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have adequate pain meds like I do. I am not planning on ending my life with my pain meds. Far from it. If the area that I wanted to hang myself wasn’t fenced off, I would go there and do the deed. But it’s fenced off and I am not a good climber.

It doesn’t matter what kind of pain you are in, physical or mental. It still makes you want to end your life. Unfortunately, I have both so I am in a pickle. I have the raw end of the deal. I write about my suffering because I hope that it will help someone. I am not feeling hopeless. Just disgusted that I have to rely on pills every single day to give me relief from my pain, either it be my pain meds or my psych meds. Recently, I have been psychotic and that opened up a big kettle of worms. I thought I would have to go back to the hospital but my mother became sick and needed care so I couldn’t go. I had to be treated as an outpatient and take my care more seriously because my mother needed me.

I know the devastation I will bring to my family should I die, not only my family but to those around me. I talk about taking my life on this blog a lot because it helps to write about it. Doesn’t make me feel less suicidal but it helps with the feelings of not being able to do anything about it. Last night I was close to killing myself and if I had a clear plan, I probably wouldn’t be writing this right now. I don’t know if another hospitalization is in my future. I have grown hopeless about that kind of treatment because there is no treatment in the hospital anymore. The mental health professionals and insurance companies just think that a few days in a locked ward is enough to reset your thinking and make you think you have a life worth living. It’s a big crock. For some it is helpful but for those with chronic illness like me, unless you get treatment, actual therapy, it is just a waste of time.

I am not saying I have the answers to the mental health system because it is different in every state, and that is not the purpose of this blog post. But talking about suicide is similar to everyone who experiences it. People are literally dying because they don’t want to be in pain anymore. They don’t want the stigma that means having to take a pill to control that pain is causing them. Sometimes the stigma is greater than the treatment of the pain. Every day I wonder if I am an addict and will my meds be taken away from me because my pain is controlled with meds. I know that if any doctor takes these pain meds away from me, they might as well be signing my death certificate.

You can say that I can’t have it both ways but I am so tired of not having a life because of pain. I can’t walk like I used to. Just walking a few blocks brings me horrible pain. Last night I washed dishes and I think that is what set off my ankle pain. For the ten minutes it took me to wash four dishes and two cups. I can’t drive long distances because my ankle will act up on me. I never know what sets off my pain. And the docs aren’t sure what is causing my pain. Some kind of pain syndrome but they are not sure what. My quality of life sucks because I can’t go to family functions and things because my pain limits me. I test the boundaries every day and I am rewarded with pain. Then add mental illness on top of that and it’s not a pretty picture. Sure I was depressed and suicidal BEFORE I had chronic pain. But I also was able to hold down two jobs that I somewhat enjoyed.

I am not trying to boo-hoo my life. I just hate the way I live and I just don’t want to live anymore. It’s too painful, both physically and mentally.