Category: suicide

they will float away

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression, suicide, writing

I had my weekly therapy session today. We talked about the new book that I was writing as I am not happy with what I am writing and she said that I “write magic and things come together” whenever I look back over what I wrote. So I am going on that assumption even though what I wrote feels like shit. She doesn’t know how I write like I do. I don’t either. I just do. Maybe it’s just my artistic temperament. I don’t know. I felt like she was saying these things just to booster my confidence but I feel so low that it didn’t work this time.

I told her about my lows, how one day I am “fine” and the next I am thinking of killing myself. How can you go from being okay to thoughts of killing yourself is beyond me. My blogger friend was describing feeling empty last night. I guess I am feeling that today. I don’t know if my writing is effective anymore. I just feel like I lost something and I don’t know what it is. I know I should be glad that the feelings of wanting to kill myself aren’t 24/7 like they used to be. Maybe I am missing it. I mean, I have felt like that for YEARS. And to go from that to nothing, well, is weird. I like to think that I turned a corner but yesterday when I woke up, I just wanted to be dead. Course this is coming after a bad pain night in which I wish I didn’t wake up. But after those thoughts passed, they didn’t linger. I didn’t harbor the thoughts or feelings. They just floated away and I got on with my day. Today I am feeling like I am stuck. I am stuck in that harbor with these thoughts and wondering if they will float away.

I have been up early. My mother woke me up early this morning, before her stinking alarm clock went off. She is now snoozing on the couch. She didn’t hear me go up and down the stairs. Pity. I could have called it payback.

I keep thinking of what next to write and I just don’t know. I know that this blog is like my online journal. But I don’t want this blog to be just about my every day struggles. Yes I have not showered in a few days time and I need one but that is the least of my worries in the midst of this low level depression that seems to be sucking the thoughts out of my head. I can’t seem to think with this type of depression. Like my other blog I wrote the other day, to me, my blogs lately have just been words on the screen.

My ankle is hurting so I doubt I will go out for a latte. Just getting my lunch was enough to push it on the edge. It feels like someone is trying to snap it in half. And any weight I put on it, make it worse. So now I am stuck in bed keeping my foot raised to keep it immobile as much as possible so I am not in pain. I am glad when I went out I got some snacks. I know I shouldn’t be having them because I am trying to watch my weight but my therapist seems to think that I am anorexic. We talked about it today and she just wants me to eat protein. Yesterday I had two eggs (one for breakfast, the other at dinner) and I was still hungry an hour later. I don’t know what is driving my appetite increase but it sucks. And I know that if I don’t keep a watch on it, I will turn into a cow. I am not skinny by any means of the word but I would like to get below what my weight is currently. But I think I am PMS’g so I bought some chocolate. Chocolate comes from a cocoa tree so therefore it is a plant. That is my rational for having some.

Because my ankle is now bothering me in the afternoon, I guess I should take something for the pain. But that means I will be a zombie or worse take a nap so I can wake up at 8 pm. I am trying my best to ignore it but it doesn’t want to be ignored. Dammit! I hate that. So much for thinking this will go away on its own. I’m off to listen to Lady A. Maybe their music will keep me calm and awake enough so I don’t take a nap.

Reflections on the Year

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, psychache, suicide, suicide attempt

Reflections on the year

This time last year I was deeply in physical pain and psychological pain and in the throws of a yet another nasty depression. I was asked to do a writing project for a friend and I didn’t think I would make it. I was sure by this time, on this date, I would be dead. And if I happened to be alive on Dec 17th, I would surely die by my own hand. I promised myself that if things were still the same, that this heaviness that I felt in my chest were not gone, that the pain in my ankle/leg/foot were not decreased, I was going to end things, permanently.

This year, things are still not a hundred percent better but things are less. My depressions are bearable when they hit. I have Wil Wheaton to thank for giving me the tidbit that my brain is not working right and that things will pass and be better tomorrow. My suicidality, though still a deep part of my soul, has decreased to the point where it is just thoughts I ruminate over and then give up. I figured out with the help of some books that this is always going to be a struggle for me, that my depression and pain are always going to be there. But like a former therapist said to me, you don’t always have to act on what you are feeling. These days, I am a little bit more hopeful about the future, though I don’t always see it. I still get hopeless every once in a while but it doesn’t last forever like it once did. I find that writing my blog has been a life saver for me. Mr. Hyde hasn’t come around in almost two months now and for that I am grateful. I have people in my life that have helped me see that I can succeed, even though I am disabled. It took a long time for me to accept my disability. Took longer to grieve it. But eventually, when I realized that part of the depression and suicidality was the grief I was not mourning, I took it apart piece by piece and wrote about it. There was nothing I could do about the pain except wait for the pain meds to work and for that I grateful that I have it. Also emailing my psychiatrist about the depth I was in helped as well. I don’t know if I am still going to have the same doc in 2014 and that scares me. I know that getting pain medication is going to be harder to get with new doctors and even harder as government rules will dictate the rules for prescribing rather than relying on clinical judgments. I don’t know what I will do then. But that is not my worry for today.

I don’t know what brought about the change. Maybe it was having a daily contact with someone miles away from me, urging me to continue my writing and work on a book. Maybe it was a little of owning the depression and taking charge of it, that it doesn’t have to rule my life like it would love to. I just know that I feel differently than I did a year ago. And though the impulses to kill myself are still a threat, I have a therapist that is behind me like a fungus that won’t go away. I really doubt without her countless sessions I would still be here. She really has been the one person that I can always rely on to be there when my mood is dark and gray. We might have our arguments about treatment but I know that she believes in me that things aren’t always going to be so bleak. I guess I have more people in my life now that believe that I can do things where last year I didn’t think I was going to survive my own lethality. I have been tested a few times this year to end my life. I have made several plans before today to end my life this year. My therapist can account for that. Though I have only had one psychotic break this year that required hospitalization. My hospitalizations have been fewer in recent years than they were in the past. I think that is more because I don’t think they help as they once did and that is a shame. You don’t get the care I once relied on.

Lastly, I have to thank country music for without listening to the same songs over and over for hours of despair, I doubt I would be able to make it though the horrible nights when I couldn’t sleep, either because of pain or despair or both. It is the one genre that I can relate to every song and let my brain do the escaping when I was writhing in agony. From songs like “water tower” by Jason Aldean to “Crash my party” by Luke Bryan, to Taylor’s endless songs and lastly to the other artists that I have followed but are not so popular, Casey James and Cassadee Pope. Without music, the heart just doesn’t heal from pain.

having a bad day

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression, suicide

Having a bad day

I woke up in pain, again. This is the third or fourth morning where my foot has woken me up from a sound sleep. I took some pills to get some relief but unfortunately, I was not going back to sleep. Every noise in the house kept me up. Then my mother’s phone rang. Then the damn smoke detectors went off for some reason I still haven’t figured out yet. Because this noise is far louder than the phone, it scared me and forced me out of bed. When I knew the house wasn’t truly on fire or my mother had left the gas burner on again, I had something to eat and then played on my laptop. I have been playing the same annoying game. I don’t know why I can’t quit it. No one will know but I want to complete the damn missions and it gives me something to do.

I am in a depressed state, a deeply depressed state. I really want to end my life. I find no use for living anymore. I hate being in pain all the time. And then we have Tuesday coming up. A day that I planned a year ago to end my life by if things weren’t better. Things are some what better than they were a year ago. I am not as suicidal or depressed (except for my current state) as I was a year ago. I find that I don’t write depressing messages on Facebook anymore. I will, however, tweet them. I have a book that is done and is ready to be published. I just need an editor to look over anything that I have missed. I am actually looking forward to things, though right now, I can’t say what I am looking forward to. Things just look dreary and dark. I am not looking forward to Christmas or my birthday, both are next week. But Tuesday I am planning on having a day with Crown Royal and drink my sorrows away. I have a ¼ of a bottle left. I doubt I will get very drunk.

I am tired of feeling this way. Maybe I should be dead. My sister said to me the other day that there is no “mental illness on my mother’s side of the family”. It took all that I had in me not to laugh in her face. HELLO, I wanted to scream at her. What about me?? What about your cousins that suffer from anxiety, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia? Aren’t they on your mother’s side??? Talk about complete blindness and denial.

I really want to commit suicide. I have dreamed about it for so long. Why can’t I go ahead with it? Why am I such a coward? I do nothing day in and day out. I have nothing but this blog to keep me going. I feel like I have to write every day or I will lose my mind. I stopped writing in my journal. I don’t seem to have very much to say after I blog. It’s all the same isn’t it except what I journal doesn’t get posted on the internet.

I know that I have another book to write. I don’t know exactly what that will be yet as it is supposed to be co-authored. But I don’t care. One book will be enough for me. I can’t write anything else. Once you write about your memoirs, you can’t write another. Unless at least thirty years go by or something and I know I am not going to be around for the next thirty years. I will be lucky if I make it past this week. I am so tired of fighting myself every day. I am more tired of dealing with pain every day. Today was bad. Still is as the day isn’t over yet. I know part of it is because of the snow storm that hit. I haven’t gone outside nor do I want to. I just realized I have to deal with my father yet again for another stinking doctor’s appointment, all because the asshole lies all the time and won’t give a straight answer. So if his doctor tells him something he is not going to a) remember it or B) deny it and just say that he is “fine”. I don’t know how I got to be the one to go to these appointments. All the more reason I should kill myself. Just so I don’t have to deal with an ornery bastard.

I still have to hear back from my therapist about my sessions or lack thereof this week. I really don’t want sessions this week. I rather deal with this on my own. I do anyways.

you learn to live with it

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression, suicide

You learn to live with it

It didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen in a week. It took some time but you learned to bare it. Except on nights like this when the pain keeps you awake and nothing eases your mind to bring on sleep. You think of death as your only way out. You think of what more your doctor can do to ease the pain but he doesn’t know because it’s fucking midnight and he’s not on call anyways. Besides, they don’t want to hear you cry in pain. They just want you to live with it. And that is the toughest thing to do.

I have been battling pain since seven tonight. And it’s been a trigger for me. CES started when my left leg went out on me and then I was left with foot drop. I wasn’t told to live with it. I was told my ass was going to have surgery for a condition I had no knowledge of. I still don’t have complete knowledge of cauda equina syndrome because it varies in so many people. Sometimes the right side is affected. Sometimes it is the left. In my case it was the left and I still have nerve damage twelve years later.

Yet I haven’t been told to live with the pain. No, not yet. But you have to or you lose your mind or your life. It is a conscious effort every day to not stare at the bottle of pills or some other weapon of destruction and not think, why not? You have to take the walls down piece by piece of the strength you have and build it back up again with new ones to block the pain out the best you can. But sometimes, like tonight, the walls fails you and you are in mega pain. My foot/ankle/leg are hurting all at once and all you want to do is scream. But you can’t because it’s after midnight and everyone else is asleep. Thoughts of wanting to amputate run high on these nights. It’s a good thing there isn’t a chainsaw in the bedroom.

Meds kicking in is a joke. They may lessen the pain some but they do nothing to ease it 100%. At my best, the pain is always on the level of 3 on a scale of 1-10. At my worst, like now, it can be an 8-12. So I will have to take a third pain pill to quiet it down or I won’t be waking up at 0645 like I need to. Got to take dear old Dad for his tests.

I hate my leg right now. And I should be able to live with the pain. And I will. But not tonight. Tonight I am writing and writing until I pass out because people should know that despite having surgery for CES, you are still left in pain. It is called nerve pain and it sucks. Nothing eases it except narcotic medications or some anti-convulsant drug and that is some of the time. Oh how I wish I could call my doctor now. Have him see the veins popping out on my foot, how swollen my ankle bone is and how I can’t get it down with ice or elevation.

But I got to live with this? I can’t kill myself? That really sucks when you know you are in so much pain, physically, and you can’t end your life because of it. I have too many people I’m responsible for. People say they will miss me. I often wonder if that is true.

My psychiatrist told me tonight to take my meds and get some rest. How am I supposed to do that when I got pain this bad? I keep hearing her voice telling me to go to bed. But I can’t sleep. Pain is just too fucking bad.

I didn’t do anything to cause this. I didn’t stand too long, I didn’t walk too far. I didn’t go up and down the stairs too much today. Well, maybe I did, now that I think about it. I went downstairs a few times to empty my recycle bins and get rid of some boxes in my room.

I wish I could just disappear, permanently, where there is no more pain and no more agony. No more depression. But I don’t want to be happy all the time. That would be too weird for me. Just being content is all that I want. Content means being neither sad nor happy but not being miserable either.

I just want the pain to stop permanently. Then I maybe I could live my life a little better. Third dose of meds and an Ativan have kicked in. And this is how I live with it, without putting a noose around my neck. I put my hat on backwards and I write, until the meds kick in.

It helps to write. It really does.