Category: suicide

Did too much and paying for it

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

Did too much and paying for it

Nearly every day this week, I have made a trip to Starbucks. And practically every night, I have been paying for it. I usually go every other day because I need a rest day in between. But I didn’t take a rest day because I felt “okay”. Now it’s the end of the week and I am hurting really bad. So bad, that it’s making depressed.

I wish I was seeing my psychiatrist earlier than next Friday. I feel like I am hanging by a thread today. The voices have been non stop since I let them in. They just won’t shut up. I don’t understand it because I haven’t been stressed and we were just having a normal conversation. Nothing stressful or triggering. Now my brain is just firing away and the voices are wicked loud. I am in serious pain and I just can’t quiet them down to think of what I can do to ease it. I have music playing to try and distract me.

I took some pain meds once I got a break. Then I was quizzed on how many I took and why I was taking them. They always want me to take more than what I need, like more is better. More isn’t better. It’s no more effective than taking a handful of Tylenol for a headache. They just want me to hurt myself. I will do it with other drugs but not my pain meds. I don’t want to die like my father, with liver problems due to the Tylenol that is in my pain meds. I am not stupid like the voices think I am.

I haven’t told my therapist about all this. Not much she can do about it anyways. Even if I text her to talk to her, the most she is going to say is for me to page my psych or go to the ER. If I go to the ER, chance are I will be admitted. I don’t want to be admitted so the ER is out. I can be admitted after the 17th when I see my psych and get my pain meds appointment. I really was hoping that I wouldn’t need another admission so soon after my last one. But then, I wasn’t expecting to become psychotic either.

Being in pain is not helping my thoughts. I feel really depressed and it’s feeding the suicide demons. For the first time in two months (?), I am thinking of taking my life again. It’s not serious. It is just in passing, like what if I would take my life? Then I think of the plan that I cooked up a few months ago. I can still go through with it. It could work this time. A more lethal medication. Only question is, do I actually have enough to kill myself. The LD is 10 mg and I am not sure I have it. I have to count the pills and I am scared to because it will just mean one more step closer to killing myself when I want to.

After my father died, I was thinking about getting a life insurance policy. I got a response from the one I applied for online. They want medical documentation for my illnesses. Nope. Not getting it. Chances are they will have this information just to deny me. I will find another policy holder. I thought it would be too easy to get on the first try. I never got life insurance through my work. I did have insurance in case something happened to me while I working. It was something like $100,000 coverage in case of injury or accidental death and it was for something ridiculously small amount of like $6/wk. There were higher amounts but that was the cheapest and in my line of work, the risk of me losing a limb was quite low.

I wanted to get the life insurance just in case something happened to me. Then my family wouldn’t have to scramble like we did for my father with arrangements and such. I do have a pension with my work but I don’t know what happens to it when I die. Maybe I should find out. It most likely will die with me.

Soon as the pain meds kick in, I will take my night meds. I was going to listen to the game but I don’t feel up to it. I will follow it on Twitter or the MLB website until I can’t fight sleep any longer. Or I might just read something so I can feel like I did something productive today. Today just feels wasted. Voices are loud now. They are pissed I am typing and ignoring them. Maybe I will take a trilafon, too.

Agitated, depression, and pain don’t mix

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

Agitated, depression, and pain don’t mix

I am feeling wicked agitated right now and I don’t know why. I just bought 10 books for $15 about the business of writing. Lawrence Block sent out the link and I wanted to get it before it disappeared forever. I could buy the book individually but it would cost me more than $15. I had a little trouble getting the last 5 books. It wouldn’t sync to my tablet. Then the whole 10 started so I had to delete the duplicates. I was getting really annoyed.

Then I kept thinking about my father. My sister had invited me to lunch on Saturday. She works in the same town my father lived, literally down the street from him. I was going to ask if she was going to swing by my father’s to check on him. I had to bite my tongue and it’s killing me that he isn’t around anymore. I can’t believe I am missing him. This is something I was not expecting.

Then my foot/ankle (left/bad) is killing me. I can’t seem to get the pain under control. I have taken two pills before 1800. So now that it’s 2200, I took two more. I know it’s because the doc had move my foot in ways that it doesn’t like to be moved. And he was pressing on the part of my ankle that is really sore. So the whole fucking thing is aggravated, which is annoying and pissing me off because I really want to get to sleep. I wish there was a baseball game playing that I could watch but I no longer have the MLB network.

Another thing that was pissing me off is that the Sox drafted a high schooler and people were comparing him to a pitcher that now sucks for the Sox. They are worried about how he is going to spend his money and things like that. UM, we didn’t get him for his financial spending. We got him for his pitching. I guess this kid was pretty excited because he really wanted to play for us. Hell, if I was drafted by my dream team, I’d be pretty excited, too. I just hope he pans out. Last year we had a problem with a young player that thought he was above the law because he was a baseball player. He went away. I forget his name.

I have been listening to my music the last few hours to try and distract me. Some songs are helpful. Others, I have to skip, which annoys me. Also, I had to put the do not disturb function on my phone because I kept getting text messages from the T with delays. I am just in a wicked agitated state. I might have to take some trilafon. I don’t think this agitation is good. I don’t know what brought it on. I know I am still annoyed I still have my menses. I thought it was going away this morning because things were clear. But as the day progress, that wasn’t the case. I am so pissed off I got to deal with this. I really want a hysterectomy. I am going to ask my NP if I can get one. I have no use for my uterus. It really is useless.

I still am depressed. I thought I was “recovered” from it but I guess it’s still sticking around. The gray clouds have shown up. I just feel so bogged down. I know it’s because I am still a fucking female. I hate my breasts and I hate myself for not doing something about it when I had the chance to. If I had a noodle in my brain, I could have used one of my credit cards to get the surgery to remove them. But it’s too late now. Now I got to see if my insurance will cover the cost of removing them and I have no idea what the copay, if any, it will be. Not that I wish cancer on anyone but if breast cancer ran in my family I could possibly get them removed as a proactive case to prevent the cancer from showing up. But nope. Cancer doesn’t really run in the family. God I hate myself. I just want to die. I could kill myself now and then worry about nothing. I am such a fucking idiot. A complete loser. I really loathe myself and there is nothing to contradict this. I am just a scumbag.

Review: Risk Management with Suicidal Patients

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

Review: Risk Management with Suicidal Patients

I found this book very easy to read in laymen terms. It was a short book but held important information for clinicians to protect themselves from liability and malpractice should a client/patient die by suicide.

The authors stressed that this was more an outpatient issue than an inpatient issue, least that is my interpretation. This holds true in the day an age where inpatient psych admission are short and not very helpful. In fact, there has been more suicides post discharge or during an admission than there has been outpatient deaths. I would quote where I got this but unfortunately, I don’t have it handy. It has been my nemesis to remember information but not the source.

The information about inpatient suicide care is a little outdated for the current time period even though the book was written in 1996. The important points are to have a standard of care that protects the client/patient from him/herself as well as the clinician taking care of the said client. The general rule is to seek supervision where appropriate or consultation with other clinicians that have more experience in the field of suicide and not to have more than at least 2 at high risk clients.

Suicide research and treatment has come a long way since 1996. More safety protocols have been created as well as safety planning that promote a life worth living. I highly recommend this book to any clinician in the field of mental health and dealing with the suicidal patient, even though there has been some things that need to be updated.

Bongar, B., Berman, A. L., Maris, R. W., Silverman, M. M., Harris, E. A., & Packman, W. L. (Eds.). (1996). Risk Management with Suicidal Patients. New York, New York: Guilford Press.

Chronic Pain, CBT, and suicide

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

Chronic Pain, CBT, and Suicide

I recently read an article written by Psychology Today that stated “opioids are not useful for chronic pain”. Where this psychologist got his information from I have no clue. He says the CDC has “studied the data for years” yet didn’t quote or reference this data in his article. Yet based on this stupid article, my life and well being are in jeopardy. I am so angered by this article that calls for CBT (cognitive behavior therapy) as a treatment to cope with pain. The problem lies in many factors. CBT doesn’t work for everyone for every condition. It certainly didn’t work for me when I tried it many years ago for my depression. It was too complicated and I didn’t have the patience to sift through a packet of 30 or so pages of the treatment homework. I wanted relief, like most patients/clients do, NOW. Second, coping with pain doesn’t mean that it goes away. And in the mist of a flare up, do you really THINK I am going to go through a packet of 30 odd pages to find relief? Thirdly, not all therapists are trained in cognitive behavior therapy. There is only ONE psychologist that I know in the Boston area that is specialized in pain, let alone trying to find a CBT therapist. You have to seriously try and find out if they do this specialized therapy. But there lies the rub that if you are suicidal, like I am, you could be denied this treatment.

I understand there are many deaths from overdoses due to opioid medications and that is a sad fact that I am not trying to minimize. But denying these life saving drugs to patients and telling them to go to therapy to cope is negligent and harmful as well as may lead to MORE suicides. New York state recently is denying up to 10,000 patients pain medication/treatment because the doctor treating them is indicted for charges that I don’t know about. My friend is one of his patients and she is screwed because a pediatrician has stated that anyone that gives pain meds to these patients will be drummed up on charges. Three patients have died by suicide since this has happened. And that is only the ones we know about.

In my response to the article, which I publicly made at my own risk, I asked, how many deaths do you want? Try suicides. I have been afraid of admitting being a chronic pain patient because I am frightened that the DEA will charge through my door, though I do not abuse, sell, or misuse my medication. I barely take the 4 pills a day that I am allowed to take because sometimes I just am not in that much pain that day. Other days, I am taking it around the clock to ease my pain. And guess what, it works for my pain in combination with the other meds that I take.

The preface of this whole article was the death of Prince. But it still has not been discovered, least to my knowledge as of yet, that what he was taking was prescribed or illicit. If anything, Fentynal is a dangerous drug when used with other opioids. I had a friend’s neighbor die of an overdose with this medication. There were other circumstances surrounding her death, such as seeing other providers who had no clue she was taking other pain medications. Now there are network of pharmacies that are cracking down on this practice. I only use one pharmacy for ALL my meds because of convenience. I also see one provider for my medication in their respective specialties. I don’t see my PCP’s NP for my psych meds nor do I see my psychiatrist for my blood pressure meds. That is just silly.

This article had me so upset that I was almost to the point of being suicidally paranoid. I was developing a delusion that my pain meds were going to be taken away from me and if that ever is the case, the doctor will have to sign my death certificate. I will die by suicide and I don’t need medications to complete it. I am in therapy. It is more psychodynamic than another specialized modality. It is what keeps me sane at times. But the threat of losing my pain medication is real. If I am ever forced to stop my medication and be subjected to therapy other than what I am already in, I will kill myself. The pain is just too great, too torturous. And I won’t have a piece of paper telling me to cope with the pain when a pill can do just fine.