Category: suicide

really, really bad day

by Midnight Demon, posted in suicide, suicide attempt

Been playing on Facebook for the last few hours, trying to get the nerve up to go play my game. I just can’t bring myself to do it. I have too much on my mind.

I spoke with my therapist today about wanting less sessions and she didn’t buy it because my suicidality is still kicking its head and she feels as long as it is, we are going to have session. Bly me. I am not happy. In fact, I am pissed. I hate this. So I did what anyone in my position would do. I took a couple of this and a couple of that and hope it knocks me out because I still cannot tolerate these fucking feelings anymore.

I just had Chinese food. It was good and the crab rangoons were really good today. I usually don’t like eating them but I was hungry. The chicken fingers weren’t as what I was expecting but the scallion pancakes were. I love scallion pancakes. I rather have that than a meal but it is only an appetizer. So I have lunch and dinner all done. I will probably finish off the Chinese for dinner like I usually do. I can’t eat it all in one sitting like some people can.

I am still feeling exasperated. Soon as I say I want to cut down on sessions she is like ok what is the logical reason for this. There is no longer a logical reason for this. I just want to get the hell out of your clutches so that I can possibly end my life. There I said it. No secret I am suicidal. I just want to be unconscious, permanently. It is really cold today so I just want to go under my blankets while I listen to the radio and try and zone out. No one has caused this to happen to me, I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

On a positive note, people have liked the blog that I posted yesterday. It is a reblog of the AAS blog that was posted last night. I am glad people like my writing, even though I don’t think too highly of it, but then I think every writer thinks that.

distress intolerance

by Midnight Demon, posted in chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders, suicide

Tolerating distress

I have been in a bad mood for the past hour. I have been in wicked bad pain and it has me thinking of ending my life once again. It is after midnight my time and there is no one that I can really call that will really understand what it is I am going through. I tried reaching out to a few people but as it is a late hour, I got no where.

Then I thought about all the DBT bullshit that I have been through and thought I am doing this wrong. What if I am supposed to be feeling the distress as much as it is intolerateable? I don’t know if that is a word but it is the closest thing that I can think of to describe what I am feeling. The thinking is that if you tolerate the feelings you are better off. I am not sure how. Feeling this way sucks and all I want to do is get rid of it. I mean I am feeling this way only because my foot is killing me and there is nothing I can do except wait for the pain medication to kick in and give me some relief. Listening to my favorite playlist is helping me. I listened to Laura Branigan and her voice always soothes me. I thought about writing in my journal but I am not up to putting pen to paper just yet.

My AAS blog was just published and it started off with today I am in distress because I wanted to kill myself. Why am I still alive when I want so badly to be dead. I just can’t go through with it and it is killing me, being alive, and suffering so much. I know that if I were a dog or cat, I would have been let down already. Funny how we are more humane to animals than we are to humans. The reasons are many and I won’t get into it because I am just not sure it will help me calm down. Anytime I talk about hurting myself I get riled up. And when you throw in that humans suffer because it is, well, expected, it just pisses me off. Would you expect a person dying of cancer to suffer?? Or Parkinson’s disease or any other terminal illness? That is what irks me so much, I have a non-terminal illness and am expected to suffer and go about my life like it is not weighing me down. I hate being like this. I cannot tolerate it. So the hell with the distress intolerance bullshit. It is not helping me just making me wish that I was dead all the more.

Horrendous day, just for a cup of coffee

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

Horrendous day, just for a cup of coffee

There was supposed to be a 13:25 bus out of Sully Station but it didn’t show up until 14:00. Talk about being late. I would have reported the bus to twitter had I thought about taking the bus number down at the time but I was too discombobulated to think of it. I caught the next bus to Davis so all was good but I was so mad that I couldn’t sit and edit my book like I wanted to. I just didn’t have my brain power, even with my mocha. I might do some of it at home later but for now I am just going to rest and wait for my friend to go to the gym. We are supposed to meet up today and I hope that we do as we have not seen each other in months.

I am feeling a little better emotionally today, though still feel the depression is over me. I don’t have a lot of physical pain today though I am sure after waiting forty minutes for the stupid bus my leg is going to flare up soon. I hope it doesn’t but you never know. Part of the reason I got up so late was because my leg was in contorting pain last night. I was having weird dreams again and kept waking up from these dreams in pain. I didn’t keep track of the pain meds like I do when I am awake so I guess I will have to figure it out later on.

I just got an email from Medscape or in the news that the FDA wants to change my pain medication to a schedule II class. I don’t know what that means but I know it isn’t going to be good for me if they succeed. If I can’t get my pain medication, I know my doctor might as well sign my death certificate. There will be no way for me to function with NO pain medications at all. I know just the thought of having no pain medication is enough for me to become suicidal. I know I don’t really need no prompting as my thoughts are there anyways but at least if my physical pain is controlled, I can usually handle my mental pain. It is when BOTH are raging that I am in a suicidal crisis. Lately, my mental pain has not been too bad. I haven’t been as hopeless as I have been in a LONG time. I am not saying that I am thinking about a future or stuff like that but I do look forward to tomorrow more than I have in the past. I don’t know why that is or why it has changed. Frankly I don’t really care. I know my therapist would love to tease it apart and analyze it to death but I really don’t care. Being a little hopeful is better than being hopelessly depressed. Maybe one day I will think about my future but I am not there yet.

Today is my youngest sister’s birthday. She is at the Patriots game and I just got a text saying that there will be a special pre-game ceremony for the Red Sox as they are WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS!! I still cannot believe it. I have not watched the game in its entirety yet. I am still in the inning where Stephen Drew hits his solo home run. I could watch that over and over and over again. This guy has been in a slump and soon as he gets his first pitch he drills it out to the bullpen. SO FRIGGEN AWESOME! Then to watch Ellsbury miss his home run was so cool. He got a double on his first or second pitch. Then they intentionally walked Ortiz. I could go on about this but I won’t. It just makes me happy that I lived to see the Red Sox win another championship. That is three in my lifetime. So awesome.

I wish I could say that my suicidal thoughts have been gone since baseball season came to an official close but it hasn’t. I don’t really think my thoughts will ever stop as they have been with me for so long. I guess it is just another thing I have to learn to live with.

A Special Blog Post

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, suicide

This is my 500th blog post. I wanted it to be memorable. And it will be, I hope, to me anyways.

I thought I would talk about David Jobes. He is my idol in the field of suicidology. I talk a lot about his work on my blog because I want to spread the word that there are treatment plans and assessment scales available for those who are suicidal. It took twenty-five years for this to happen. It might not catch on like DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) did for borderline personality disorder but I am hoping that through my blog, someone has at least an inkling about it.

His work is CAMS: the Collaborating Assessment and Managing of Suicide. It is a framework that allows the suicidal patient/client to work with the therapist in his or her treatment plan. By working together, therapist and client, it is hoped that suicidal thinking will decrease enough so a completed suicide is avoided. This does not mean that the suicidal thinking will go away completely. Nor does it totally prevent a suicide. During one of his talks, he spoke of a clinician in Texas that followed the CAMS and the assessment tool, SSF (suicide Status Form) to the letter with one of his suicidal clients. The client ended up killing himself. The clinician did everything that he could. But sometimes, there is still the risk.

The SSF is a seven page form that uses an initial, tracking, and outcome form to monitor and assess suicidality. It is based on the work of several clinicians. I won’t go into great detail about this because you can find out more in Dr. Jobes’s book, Managing Suicidal Risk. The link it to the Amazon website where you can purchase it. I would love to post the SSF one day but I would be violating copyrights, though in the book you can make copies of the form. I just can’t do it electronically, yet.

The wonderful thing about this form is that it is a self report about the client’s thinking about suicide and also has clinical information in the end so that both client and clinician fill it out to assess and document the suicide risk. It doesn’t take more than 10-15 minutes to fill it out (might take longer if the person has trouble understanding reading and writing English or has a disability that prevents that from happening, such as dyslexia). It is individualized for the client and that is a huge thing Jobes tries to do. It is not a fit all in one box, so to speak. It should broaden the thinking of the client and clinician to help bring together and work together to prevent the client from committing suicide. In the SSF, it talks about reasons for living and dying, assess psychological pain, hopelessness, the need to escape, and also asks the question, what would make you not kill yourself? I have used this form in my therapy sessions and that is the first question my therapist asks me when I am in the throws of a suicidal crisis, which happens more times than not for various reasons.
Mostly it has been my word that has kept me alive and I do hate myself for it at times. I have told my therapist that I would keep myself safe and I have, though sometimes, I overmedicate to do so.

Background information of Jobes is that he is a professor at the Catholic University of America and also has a private practice in the Washington, D.C. He has written in at least a half dozen books (some of which I own, if I could afford it I would own all) and countless research articles relating to his work and also to the field of suicidology. He not only write about his work but also about the legality and ethical matters of dealing with a suicidal client.