Category: suicide attempt

Preview of the nomenclature of suicide

by Midnight Demon, posted in suicide, suicide attempt

Preview of Tower of Babel, Part 2 article

I just finished reading this ridiculous article that is supposed to clarify terms but instead complicates them more than anything. I know I am not a clinician, but if I were, I doubt I would use their terms that state and I quote “self-harm type I, II, III, suicide attempt type I, II, III” etc. I have read research articles that have been written after this article and NO WHERE do they define their terms as such. I am appalled. I just had to write about this. It will be in my paper when I write it this weekend, once I calm down a bit.

What was interested was they omitted the term suicidality altogether. Instead they called it “suicide-related communications”. I am glad I have short hair, otherwise I would be pulling mine out right now. Obviously, this article is not meant to be reviewed by someone with lived experience. It was blatantly obvious this was for a clinician, researcher, or other type of professional in the suicide field (e.g., medical examiner, coroner, or public health person). I probably shouldn’t stick my nose in it but I am going to anyways because, like I said, no one has yet to use these terms in the literature so I am going to go to town on this. I am just glad they didn’t have subtypes to the self-harm or suicide attempt. And by the way, suicide attempt type III is suicide! I will have the definitions in the paper this weekend. I just wanted to blow off some steam about this now so I could be a little bit more clear headed while writing.

In the conclusion, the authors wrote that there should be studies, international and multi-centered nationally, to try and see if these terms fit. That would take some doing, though how to classify a death by suicide after it was indeed a suicide, I am clueless. And the authors did write that it would be difficult to ascertain intent with individuals who were intoxicated by drugs/alcohol or who were psychotic, delusional, or dissociated. They did mention the word “demented” but I am not sure I have ever heard that term in a clinical setting. The authors didn’t speculate on that term, which I guess means it is implied that what it is meant by.

Also in the closing paragraph, Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison was quoted about nomenclature being essentially rubbish when it concerns suicide classification. I fricken was laughing at that. I remember the line because I read the book so many times. The whole article is rubbish. More to follow…

An Oxymoron

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

I had an interesting conversation with my psychiatrist tonight. She confirmed I am on the right meds and that comforted me. I told her I was a little hypo and she said to let her know how things go. She wasn’t going to make any changes and I wasn’t asking for one. These things need to ride themselves out, as I have learned over the years. Medication isn’t always the answer to every problem that you face.

My mood was all over the place today. I got really irritable and angry over someone’s comment that they left on my blog today. I don’t know why it bothered me so. I had a long conversation with the voices over this. It helped to air it out and once I did, I wasn’t as agitated. Then I got a stupid migraine and that made me scared. My face went numb within minutes and my eye felt like it was going to pop. I took my migraine pill and waited anxiously for the pain to subside. I had just started to read a research article when my eyes went blurry and the migraine started. I guess I will read that article tomorrow. I am not in the same mood I was in before the migraine hit. After the migraine subsided and I was feeling better, I read some more of Harry Potter. Hogwarts got me the escape I was looking for. Reading has been suggested by a doctor who does man therapy. If you look it up, it is pretty dumb. But men need something stupid to be able to laugh at themselves and break up their manliness. I know I do at times. I don’t know if his particular therapy has helped men but I took his suggestion of reading a book to escape to relax.

I also told my pdoc about my sleeping habits as of late. Three to four hours a night I have been getting, which doesn’t help someone with Bipolar illness. I am lucky I can sleep during the day to try and catch up but I don’t always. Sometimes napping causes more trouble. I never feel rested unless I have a six hour nap. I usually am able to get one over the weekends usually. I don’t know why that is. I tend to sleep better during day time hours than at night anyways. I am a night owl. The funny thing is, I was never really able to work a night shift. By 4 or 5, I was so tired that I needed sleep. And if I got it on my break, I usually slept for an hour, which was against the rules. One time I think I slept for two hours and my supervisor wasn’t happy. But I no longer work so I can stay up till whatever time and sleep all day if I want to.

Today is my therapist’s birthday so I will be texting her a lot. I will stop once she texts back a “thank you”. I can be a pain in the ass, too! She always makes a big deal out of my birthday so it’s payback.

My ankle is really hurting me for all the walking I did today. I have a bum ankle due to nerve damage that I got when a disc exploded in my back. The disc compressed the nerve that controls the muscles in my ankle and foot. I never was able to regain the strength in my foot after surgery. That was 14 years ago. If I didn’t get strength back in the first two years, I am certainly not going to now. What I am left with is pain due to a pain syndrome no one can identify. Some have called it complex regional pain syndrome, others have just called it tendonitis. But if it was tendonitis, rest and ice should have cured it by now and I have been resting it for three years. The pain has gotten a little better but on days like today where I was walking too much, it flares up and is hard to settle down without pain medication. I don’t know why they call it pain medication when the meds are supposed to relieve your pain, not cause it. Just an oxymoron, I suppose.

The article I was going to read before my migraine made it impossible was on the language of suicide. I am a suicidologist from the inside out. I love studying about suicide and read everything I can about the subject. I have the experience to go with it as I have attempted more than a few times. That is why I write this blog. It helps to write out my suicidal thoughts and feelings I am having in the moment. I know that if I don’t write about them, I am as good as dead. After I write my morose feelings, I usually send them to my pdoc and therapist, well sometimes just my therapist as I am afraid of sending them to my psychiatrist. I sent her a goodbye email once and that ended poorly. She sectioned me and I spent the next three weeks in the hospital. It wasn’t fun. The police came and when they couldn’t find me because the ambulance had already taken me to the hospital, they broke into my house by smashing a window. I was very upset. So I am hesitant to send my pdoc my suicidal writings.

It has been at least a month since my last writings. I haven’t really felt suicidal since I gave up the day I was going to kill myself. My therapist and psychiatrist were against the idea of me dying. Go figure. I still am angry with them for keeping me here. I had everything planned out, sort of. I knew how I was going to die, but I just didn’t know where. I didn’t want a family member to find me so that sort of kept me here. But the writing that I was doing before I gave up my date were my one outlet. Now they are gone and I don’t know if I will be that productive ever again.

Random 548

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

I think I am a little hypomanic. I only had three hours of sleep last night despite taking 600 mg of Neurontin to help me sleep. I am wired but tired at the same time. I just walked to the post office to drop off some letters that I wrote to my therapist and my hip and ankle are having a tug of war as to who is going to hurt me more. I am not happy.

I keep thinking today is a holiday and it’s not. I called my physiatrist’s office and found out he is on fucking vacation so I can’t talk to him about how the new NSAID is working out. It is working out. I am finding that there is less pressure on my ankle than it was before. It’s still swollen but I think in time, the NSAID will help ease it, as long as I remember to take it every day. I just got to make sure that I eat something or I can’t take it.

Been getting reports that the MBTA, our public transportation system, has been having major problems today and then there was an accident in Sully Sq that caused the ramp on the major highway to be closed while it got cleared up. It was closed for at least two hours so I am sure traffic is a bitch. I can only imagine the trouble on the highway and the mess in Sully Sq. I tweeted the mess and then a news reporter wanted me to send photos. I am not going to take pictures of people, without their consent, and then send it to a news station! Plus, I wasn’t there. HEHEHE. I think the reporter was like, “no pic or it didn’t happen” bullshit. I also am not going out till this afternoon because the bus I need to take to the Square is severely delayed, which probably means that there is no service to where I want to go. So I am staying home, again. I might go back out and get pizza when the place opens. I don’t know if my hip and ankle are going to want to do it again. I don’t know why, but it felt like someone was grabbing my hip as I was walking down the street. It was very uncomfortable. I always have problems with my hip. I know I should probably go back to PT to get it strengthened. I think the muscles are weak because of my stupid back problems. It has been hurting me for some time now, almost 9 months. But usually if I continue to walk, the pain goes away. This time it didn’t and I am still hurting. I was walking with my cane because I needed extra support with my ankle. I didn’t want to put added pressure on it.

I would really love Red Baron’s single deep dish pizza right now. But I can’t go to the grocery store. I am going to do a big shopping at the end of the month when I get paid. Because I bought my glasses, I couldn’t do food shopping this month. It’s the sacrifices you got to make when you are on a limited budget.
I bought cookies yesterday, which I should not have done. I am eating them instead of meals. I will have like 8 cookies and call it my dinner or lunch. I am wicked bad with cookies. They are my nemesis and I am the cookie monster.

I woke up from a nap about an hour ago and found that my glasses have been delivered. I was just expecting one pair of glasses but got three. As I was about to check out, the next screen asked if I wanted single vision and distance lenses. I thought I had to order them separately with the multifocal lenses so I ordered them, not realizing they are separate. So I got three glasses but no instructions as to which pair was which. I had to call them and tell them I wanted to cancel my order. They told me that I could get 100% refund (store credit) or 50% on my credit card. I opted to return the two pairs that I didn’t need and get the 100% store credit. This way when I need new glasses, I have a credit and it will be easier to afford my glasses as I won’t be getting the LTD payments anymore.

I was going through some old mail when I came across a notepad. I took it to my room and found that it had suicide notes for my nieces and nephew and my psychiatrist. It had other suicide related items in it as well. I forgot that I wrote these things and judging by the other writings, I must have been in serious pain when I wrote this. It was in Nov. 2013. I had just finished an article about suicide attempters and their “longevity”. Turns out, they don’t live as long because they attempt again and succeed. I blogged about this and I guess this was my saving grace because I am still here.

Lost

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

Lost

Had therapy today. I am glad I don’t have therapy tomorrow. I am glad my therapist is back, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that since coming off my suicidal plan, I feel disconnected with her and I am angry with her because she is keeping me here, if only for her own needs. Least that is what it feels like. I feel lost and trapped in this world and I don’t know what to do in it anymore. I have been trying to write but nothing comes of it so I just blog. It gives me some sense of purpose because maybe it will help someone who is going through the same thing.

I have been following the chat on Twitter for the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network conference (TSPN15). They had a doctor on that has been dealing with suicidal thoughts for 60 years. He had his first breakdown in medical school and had to drop out. He started Suicide Anonymous and then was surprised by his own relapse. I know the struggle he is facing. I may not have 60 years of it, but I battle through each day as if it was my last, because it could be. I don’t live for tomorrow because tomorrow doesn’t exist. Neither does next week or next month or even next year. To take from my favorite poem, I just have this moment and that is all that matters to me. What I do with it cannot be undone. Sure, I am typing these words and in one keystroke, I can lose them forever, but I choose not to do that. Not today anyways. This is why I always use a word doc to write my blogs because I am afraid of losing what I write on the web app. I have lost too many precious words that way and I refuse to lose my future insights.

My therapist was on a roll. She was talking for at least thirty minutes. I was getting tired of listening to her so I asked if time was up. I usually do this when I get antsy and want the session to end. But no, we still had twenty long minutes to talk. I told her I don’t know if this is effective anymore, that maybe we are just wasting time talking as I just seem to be deeper in a pit than out of it. I always seem to bring in new ideas but they never seem to get anywhere. We will have a “transference” session and I think things will change but next session is always the same. It’s like she forgets what we talk about. I get exasperated and just go with it. I don’t think it’s worth arguing over. I wish I could pinpoint what exactly pisses me off but I can’t. I just feel so awful that I think I am just expecting her to feel awful, too, but she isn’t and I feel more alone. I know she can’t share my feelings because I don’t think she gets depressed. But if she did, I don’t think I would want to know because then I would be her helper and she wouldn’t be mine. She does notice when I discount myself. It drives her crazy as she said so today. I wrote her a huge pile of letters, which I called bullshit. But she hasn’t read them yet so is thinking they are wonderful. I just wish I felt something other than feeling low sometimes. I had a feeling of happiness a little bit today when I found out my “little” cousin had a baby boy yesterday. He came into the world a few weeks early! My “little” cousin is in his 30s. I remember when he was little, he always called the house for us to come down to his Nonna’s to play with him. He is a sweet kid. He has a good wife and I couldn’t be more proud.

The happiness has left just as quickly as it came. It is such a fleeting emotion. It never lasts long with me. I try to hold on to it as long as possible but it takes too much energy. It’s tiring to be something you’re not. So I am back to being my depressed self. Last night, my academic self was in heaven. I finally got access to past journal articles of Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior. I got quite a few articles to read. Reading this stuff makes me a little happy because it could be the key to my own happiness and might just help me understand my moods a little better. I know that if I never found this journal or the works of Jobes, Shneidman, and Holden, I really don’t think I would be alive today. The works of Jobes allowed my therapist and I to explore the inner workings of my suicidality. Shneidman and Holden dealt with the pain and how to recognize the severity of it that could lead to a suicide attempt. I wish that was the case when I was thinking of taking my life on the 17th of July. The date is not significant to me. It is just a day I pulled out of a hat. I wanted to kill myself because I just couldn’t take living anymore. I had enough. I had the date picked at least two months before. This was to give me time to think things over and if I really wanted to kill myself on that day. Like previous times, I sometimes am hopeful on the day I wake up. But if I woke up in a rotten mood, I would have ended it. This time I did wake up in a rotten mood, but only because I was thwarted by going through with my thoughts. I had let my therapist and psychiatrist know of my plans. A dumb thing to do when you are suicidal. I don’t know why I tell them. Maybe it is because I am looking for hope that I just don’t have. There has been times when I have been suicidal outside of my “planned” dates. Those nights have been the hardest to get through. That doctor I was talking about earlier wrote a book about suicide addiction. And that is what it is. And addiction to suicide. You just can’t help but think about it. Though, I really think it has more to do with rumination than being addicted to suicidal thoughts. Because you are always thinking about your plan and ending your life, it leaves no room for thinking about anything else. You want it badly, yet you know there are people in your life that would be crushed if you died. It is always a guilt game that is played. The would be survivors that haul you in for another day of living a life you don’t want to live. And maybe that tomorrow won’t be so painful and depressing. You are always looking for that “high” of being relieved of the pressure on your chest. But it never comes and you just feel lost and alone.