Category: suicide

Chronic Pain Patients and Suicide

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

Chronic Pain Patients and Suicide

I was reading my tweets on Twitter. One of the chronic pain people that I follow retweeted something from a pain doctor. It was about suicides and the CDC guidelines that want to cut opioid prescriptions or limited them to only certain doctors. The article was badly editing as there were plenty of typos and I did not like the use of the word “committed” for every suicide he listed. It is sad and I know that more suicides are going to happen as the government tries to control doctors due to basically peer pressure. They have no idea what kind of havoc they are doing to those suffering from chronic pain and lead good lives because their pain is controlled.

Most of you all know I suffer from chronic pain and suicidal thoughts. My only saving grace at times is that I know after taking my meds, even though it takes a while to work, my pain will go away and be better in the morning. My suicidal thoughts will also be better when I wake up. If I no longer have my meds, I am as good as dead. There will be no point in living. I can see what all those people mentioned in the article go through. They died within weeks of being either taken off their meds or having them reduced. Some docs just stopped prescribing out of fear of losing their medical license. Some pain clinics closed their doors, leaving the patients to find other docs to just turn them down and having no where to go. This isn’t right. Taking away pain meds from patients who are not addicted and have adequate control is doing harm and causing deaths by suicide. Here is the article if you want to read it: https://medium.com/@ThomasKlineMD/here-is-a-list-of-suicides-as-of-9-9-17-caused-by-governmental-recommendations-to-educe-opioid-903c460abbc

Sometimes I think I need to end my life before my meds are taken away from me. I don’t know if my state will pressure docs to reduce their opioid prescribing privileges or number of scripts they write a year. I’m not on a lot of pain meds and I don’t abuse what I take. I take my meds in the manner they are prescribed to the letter. The sad thing is, even though my pain is somewhat managed, I still am disabled because I can’t walk that far or stand for any length of time. Just waiting for the bus or standing on the train is enough to cause me wicked bad pain at night. I remember what my pain was like when I was working. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night and then would only have a few hours to start my next shift. It would be a really long day and then half way through my shift, I would start feeling excruciating pain that would sometimes land me in the ED. It was terrible. I know now that I will never be able to work again because my pain is just becoming unpredictable and too severe. There are some nights where all I can think about is ending my life because the pain is so severe I don’t think it’s ever going to go away or lessen. I am lucky, in a sense, that I can’t walk to where I want to die in these moments. Hell, sometimes I can’t even go to the bathroom.

Living with chronic pain is terrible and if people without a medical degree continue to dictate what a person with a medical degree does with their patients, the suicide rate is going to go up. There is no way it can go down, even with the best suicide prevention out there. There will be no stopping someone from taking their life because of untreated chronic pain. I am not talking about psychache, but I know those with chronic pain also have that too and can contribute to their suicidal thinking. I also know that if a chronic pain patient starts thinking about suicide, they should be referred to a mental health counselor or treatment center. Their pain meds should not be reduced or played with because of suicide risk. I know in my situation I was fortunate to have doctors that knew me well enough and knew that I would get help should my depression or suicidal thoughts got worse. Some patients don’t have that luxury. Always take suicidal thinking seriously. If that person owns a firearm, ask to hold it for them until their suicidal crisis is over. Make sure they get the mental health help they need. Also makes sure their pain is being properly treated or it’s not going to matter if they get that mental health help or not.

If you or someone you know is thinking of suicide please call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or text START to 741741, if in the US. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to other countries hotlines but they are available. I know Austrailia has a bunch and the UK has Samaritans 116 123 is their number off the top of my head. You matter and are important and enough, always!

Shneidman’s greatest questions: Where do you hurt and How can I help?

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

Shneidman’s greatest questions: Where do you hurt and How can I help?

After I had a meltdown in late 2005 and was slowly recovering in 2006, I was taking a psychometrics class at college to earn my psychology degree. Psychometrics is a fancy name for psychological testing and validating tests and assessments on various things. As I was recovering from a deep suicidal depression, I was curious to see if there were any measures on psychological pain in suicide. I wrote my first draft of the term paper with 20 some odd articles all doing various risk assessments and testing of suicide ideation but none of them dealt with psychological pain, which was what I was aiming for.

The professor tore my first draft apart and even, however vaguely, accused me of plagiarism. I wanted to get a good grade in this class because it would help my further advancement in psychology. I went back to the drawing board. I searched for pain and psychological pain in the library databank. About only 5 articles showed up, at the time. I am sure I was doing it wrong. I looked up the articles and found Shneidman and Holden. Dr. Holden was based out of Queen’s University in Canada. He came up with a psychache assessment that I found useful in my therapy. I kept that article and shared it with my therapist. Then I queried everything on Shneidman and hit the jackpot. His work was in psychache, psychological pain. I read everything I could on him and his followers. I saw my idol David Jobes’s early work on the Suicide Status Form. It wasn’t appealing to me at that time. I was more interested in the psychache of the matter.

I read Dr. Shneidman’s book, The Suicidal Mind. Holy crap! This was about “me”. I knew I had to read everything this guy wrote but it measured in the hundreds so I focused on what was available now. I tried to read his books that were solely written by him but they were few and outdated. He wrote many chapters. The two questions that I kept coming across were “where do you hurt” and “How can I help?” No one had ever asked me those questions all my years in therapy. Not even my current therapist at the time asked until I brought it up to her.

These questions were the basis of how he helped suicidal people over his career. He brought them other options for suicide by learning things about their predicament. Then he ranked them in order of importance. As he slowly worked with them, suicide became less of an option on the list, which was good. It didn’t mean their risk of attempting was any lower but they could see that it wasn’t something that had to do right then and there as there were other options. That is what suicide prevention is, finding other solutions to the problems someone is facing other than suicide. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. There was a case in which Shneidman talked to a Hispanic male who attempted suicide by gun shot. He blew off half his face and needed multiple surgeries and was in intense pain from his injuries. Dr. Shneidman counseled this man until he was well enough to leave the hospital. They kept in touch but as time went on, the contact got fewer and fewer. The young man died by suicide by that method a few years later. It was a sad case. The importance of the story is that contact is useful even after the initial attempt has passed, be it with postcard or phone calls or text messages. This isn’t an entire protective factor but it can be. Some people who think of suicide and even go to plan it, get through their circumstances never to think about it again. Others make an attempt and it is a kind of “wake up” call and they never think about doing something like that again. Then you have the people that are chronically suicidal, who make multiple attempts. These are the people most at risk of ending their lives by their own hand. It is these people that need the most help and patience. This is where the framework CAMS (Collaborating, Assessment, and Managing Suicidality) comes in handy. Check out their website https://cams-care.com/?pgnc=1

my blogging adventures for the month

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

My blogging adventures for the month

In addition to my daily blah blah blogs, I will be writing about suicide prevention and about things related to it. A friend of mine gave me a few ideas on the subject as well as writing stories about what it is like being a patient in the hospital. I can go one for days with that one as I have had many hospitalizations spanning many years. I will also write some stuff on what I think works best to prevent suicide and why therapists NEED to be trained and use what they learn in their practice. Otherwise, what is the purpose of spending money or attending a seminar in suicide prevention and not use it?? That just irritates me.

I slept in three hour increments last night, giving up around 1000 or so. I washed up and shaved the back of my head to make it bald. I need to put in a new razor because it’s not as close as it should be. I’ll do that later. I then had a bowl of cereal before getting dressed and leaving to catch the bus. I brought my Bluetooth headset with me but I couldn’t get it to turn on. I think the battery died. I tried charging it while at the bus stop but couldn’t get it to work right. I put it away and pulled out my wired headset.

I dropped off the cookies I made to my barber. He loved the cookies. Then I went to Starbucks for my breakfast sandwich, espresso, and some cookies. I was able to charge my Bluetooth while there. I still have it charging on my laptop. I got kind of antsy after writing in my journal for a bit so went to CVS to look at shavers. I found one that I liked but it was $50. I made note of it on my phone and then went to catch the bus. Luckily it was late as they changed the time to 1220 not 1230 for the fall schedule. I got to the bus waiting area around 1222.

It was muggy by the time I came home. I went to Walgreens as I had a prescription to pick up and I wanted some Reese’s peanut butter cups. They had them on sale so I grabbed 2 packages. My ankle was hurting by the time I got home. I was sweating and needed to clean my sneaker off on my “good” foot as I stepped in some gum. I couldn’t wait to get to my room to cool off.

I was talking more with my friend about suicide prevention and how it’s gone to hell. She was telling me how she lost friends on Facebook because of her new adventures that are away from suicide related stuff. She had made that decision a few years ago as she felt it was time to move on to what she wanted and not live in her sister’s death by suicide. Sibling suicide survivor is hard because it really doesn’t get talked about. She was a strong voice for a while. Now it’s mostly parents that have a voice. A few brothers or sisters have come forward but it’s rare. The stigma is so great that it’s not helping the situation, even though studies have shown that sibling survivors have also thought or attempted suicide. They need care too, not just the parents.

My friend had sent me her blog that she is posting tomorrow and wanted my feedback. I was struck that she included my mentor, Dr. Shneidman’s questions, where do you hurt and how can I help? The Zero Suicide squad has gone away from that concept and really have no substance in helping preventing suicide because they really have no clue other than asking about it and how to go about asking about it, least that is my perception of it. Something about that concept was bugging me and it wasn’t until she brought about those questions that I figured out why it was bothering me so much. The sense of asking where it hurts or what is the one thing that won’t make you suicidal, or how can we make this a life worth living despite the pain of living has been lost. Some are still advocating for it but I worry that for every say 20 therapists that go through a training on suicide prevention, only 1 or 2 will actually take it to heart and use it in their practice. I will write more about this for those that care.

Shneidman was an important man in the evolution of suicidology. I think about him more during this month than any other because he advocated for suicide prevention. Stay tuned to learn more about this great man.

going nuts from pain

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

Going nuts from pain

I finished my chores and ate too much today. I feel like a fat cow right now. I have been trying to be distracted with the ball game but it’s not that interesting to me tonight. I really just want to sleep but pain is all over the place. Basically, half of my foot is being dissected from the “good” part and the rest is hurting like hell.

I am in one of my “I don’t give a shit” moods, which can be a little dangerous. I want relief so bad that I will do anything to achieve it. I took some of this, that, and one other thing that I could take, safely. I can take a little more Neurontin if need be as I only took 600 mg. I’ve been afraid to take it freely because I have the hungry horrors the next day. My stomach is bloated and I hate feeling it. I am grossed out by my own body because of my body image issues. I was doing so well to keep my weight in check but that has all gone to hell. The more I try to restrict, the more I eat. Being hungry all the time doesn’t help. The psych meds I take is causing me weight gain. I’m going to have to bring this up to my psych when I see her next week.

I feel like I should put my foot in a bucket full of ice but I know that will cause me more damage than help me. It might feel good in the beginning but it will cause damage. I hate that. As I posted on my Twitter, I feel like my tendons on the outer side of my foot/ankle are being torn apart. They just feel so inflamed. I just took off my thermal socks and there were indentations where the elastic was. No wonder it was hurting me. Hope it settles down now that it’s off.

In my head, I am making a list of things to get while in the Square. I also want to get my haircut. It’s getting longer than I want it to be. Basically, I just want eggs and turkey breast after I get my espresso or a latte. I have a free drink reward so I might use that tomorrow, if I can get the energy to go out. Mornings are so hard. I set up a time in the morning on Wednesday for a study.  I just hope that I can wake up at that time. Mornings haven’t been kind to me lately.

Sox are winning so far. Score is 4-1 in the bottom of the 9th. I think they lost last night so if they win tonight, they will gain back the ground they lost. They are playing the Skankees and both are competing for 1st place, but my boys are in first and the Skanks are a few games behind. These games are so important now that it’s close to the end of the season. There is just one month left of regular season baseball.

My Buckeyes won last night. They came back from behind. I am so proud of them. It was nice waking up to a win. I couldn’t keep my eyes open after 9 pm last night. I was just dead tired. I am going to try and sleep tonight but I think pain is going to keep me up and I am not looking forward to that at all. I took a strong pain pill and am going to take another Ativan.

I have been taking 1000 mg of Vitamin C the past few days. I am trying to see if it helps my pain any. So far it hasn’t done anything but it’s only been a few days so that is to be expected. I am taking it at night with my night meds. I don’t think I can keep them in my box as they are softgels and it gets a little tacky with this heat, even though it’s cool out, my room is kind of warm. I have the ceiling fan on as I couldn’t stand the smell of the drywall. It’s just a musty type of smell and I can’t stand it. I really need to get something called Rid-X to take the dampness out of my room. I used it before but that was years ago.

I keep fantasizing my death and or how I would cut my ankle off. It’s like a recurring movie or something. I try not dwelling on it but when the pain is so damn bad, I can’t help but think of an escape or that maybe if I did do damage to my tendons it would then be a reason for me to hurt. Not seeing something that is hurting is the hardest part of this condition. But it’s like my mental illness, you can’t see it yet it’s there. I can’t bash my brain in to make it real either. Just doesn’t work that way. But I get so frustrated with my foot and ankle hurting all the time. It’s like I take all these pills to help me and I’m still depressed, I’m still in pain, I’m still wondering what it will be like to not hurt so much all the fricken time. It’s so draining. Just changing my sheets and taking a shower really hurt me. Now I want to sleep but I am overtired, my pain is worse, and I am kicking myself for eating too much. I wonder if my doc will put me on an appetite suppressant so I don’t eat all the time. I think if I had something to go against the urge to eat all the time, maybe I can keep the weight off. I’ll talk to my psych about it. I hate to be on yet another pill but I’m getting worried that gaining weight and not being able to lose it might lead to more health problems, which I don’t need. If I could walk, that would be one thing. But I can’t exercise as that just causes me more pain. It’s a tough situation. And it is very frustrating.