Category: suicide

Down Day

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

Down Day

I went to Starbucks early this morning. I was hungry and wanted a latte. I should have rested as my thigh is still sore from the fall the other day but I didn’t want to stay at home all day. I wrote in my journal an update of what has transpired the past month as it has been a month since I last wrote in it. It was the day after I found out my father had a few days to a week to live. A lot has happened since then. After writing, I felt down. I really feel sad about things.

I came home because after writing, it was time to leave to catch the next bus home. Now I am in my room and I just feel this tremendous sadness. Things that I collected from my father’s apartment have been on my bed for the past few weeks. I finally placed them in an envelope so I wouldn’t see them anymore. I had a picture book of photos of my father’s family that I made him one year. I decided to keep it because I made it and it has some of my favorite photos in it. Just makes me sad that most of the people in the book are gone now, including my father.

I have to go out tomorrow and I don’t want to unless I can leave in my PJs. I don’t think I can do that, though I would love to. I will just wear my sweatpants rather than my jeans. I have the weekend to stay at home. And then I will have a busy Monday and Tuesday. I don’t think I am going to see my therapist next week. I will see her the following week. It’s strange not having anything to do with my father. It’s like I suddenly have all this free time again to do whatever I want to do. I have a couple of projects that I need to do in my room. One is clearing off my bed so I can change the sheets. There is one corner of my bed that just accumulates stuff. I don’t know how it happens and every time I change my sheets I swear to myself it won’t happen again. But it does. I don’t get it.

Last night, I stayed up pretty late, like 0330 late. I was watching NetFlix and I just couldn’t sleep after watching an episode of Friends. Then I went on Twitter and there was a guy that played in SG1 and the Beautiful Mind. I figured I would watch that movie as I haven’t watched it in a while. Turns out, you needed to be in the DVD club to get the DVD. I was so pissed. This is the second movie that I wanted to watch but couldn’t because it wasn’t available. I guess NetFlix is fine for TV shows but terrible for DVD. I am not spending an additional $8 a month for this club. I will take my DVD watch it, then cancel the service. If I want a DVD, I will buy it on Amazon.

I finally found out what chapter to read in the “Risk Management with Suicidal Patients” book that I bought several months ago. I plan on reading it this afternoon. I might blog about it later if it’s worthy of writing about. It’s a chapter on the ethical side of standards of care for suicidal patients. It’s something that I haven’t read before. Jobes talks a little about it in his book on Managing Suicidal Risk but I never paid that much attention because I am not a clinician. Yesterday on Twitter, there was a presentation of basically how to avoid malpractice suits. The key concept is, of course, good documentation. That is why I love the SSF (Suicide Status Form). It has all your documentation needs right there. There is no need, in my opinion, for more. The Risk management book has both inpatient and outpatient guidelines by pretty much the same authors. And these authors are the big wigs in the suicidology field.

I need to write a letter of thanks to the Hospice group for all they have done for us the day my father died. I have been meaning to write it for a while now but I had other things to take care of that I just haven’t gotten around to it. I have been meaning to call the grief social worker to talk to her but I don’t know what I did with her card. I’ll talk to my psychiatrist on Monday about talking with her, just to get her input. This has been really hard on me because of my depression issues. It’s hard to tease away the grief from the depression that I always feel.

Hosp vs no Hosp

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

Hosp vs no Hosp

I have been thinking about this for the past hour, talking it over with the voices. They are loud tonight. I haven’t taken my night meds yet. But I am thinking this, what if I go in the hospital and they smack the “complicated grief” bullshit on me because my father died two weeks ago? I have been struggling with the hospital for more than a month now as the depression was and has been steadily getting worse. I only avoided getting in the hospital a week before my father died because I didn’t want him to die while I was inpatient.

My depression started the last week in January and then got complicated when my father had to go for radiation treatment, then two weeks later was in the hospital because of chest pain. That started his decline. We spent most of March in the hospital with him for pleural effusions, lung collapses, and ascites build up. In April, his ammonia levels were up, causing confusion and more lethargy. His appetite then became non existent and we were told he had a few weeks to a few months to live. Turned out he had just a few weeks. We put him in the nursing home on April 8th and he was gone by April 25th. Not even twenty days later.

In the middle of March, I got started on an antidepressant. Thoughts of wanting to kill myself were rampant. I should have been in the hospital but I became my father’s health care proxy during one of his admissions in March. I couldn’t go in because if they needed my signature while he was confused or needed treatment he couldn’t consent for, I had to be there. It was a delicate situation.

I think starting on antidepressant therapy helped me cope. I still wasn’t eating as I have lost a considerable amount of weight during this time. My last physical in August, I was 218. I am now 203/205. I am struggling to keep this weight because I don’t want to balloon up again. I still don’t have a full appetite like I used to have. Food doesn’t interest me much. I lost a lot of interest in things I used to enjoy. I should be watching the Sox game right now but I am blogging because I really don’t care about the game anymore. It’s lost its appeal with me, and that is not because of the team and all the drama it has this year. I have also lost interest in coffee. I don’t drink it every day like I used to. I can’t remember the last time I made it at home. I don’t go to Starbucks as often as I used to either. I just lost the taste for their coffee, which I used to love. I go there out of habit now but only if I have an appointment in Boston. Otherwise, I just stay at home.

I don’t know if I need to be in the hospital. Sure I am at risk of suicide, that is a given. But will I be helped while being in, is the question. I don’t know if it will annoy me or help me. I don’t know what hospital I will go to. If it isn’t the hospital I was in before, I will hate being somewhere else. The past three years I have been going to this unit when I need to be inpatient. It will be difficult being somewhere else that I haven’t been to before. And I don’t want to be in the ER all day and night waiting for a bed, though I will if that means going to the hospital of my choice. Last admission, I made it to the hospital and was admitted through their admission office rather than through the ER. I just cut the middle man out.

I just really don’t want to be admitted and then have the admission focused on my grief for a father I really didn’t care for or love whole heartedly. He wasn’t a dad by any means. He wasn’t loving towards us, though he probably would have said so. The only time I seen him show affection was when he won at the track and wanted to share his prize winnings. I could go on about the cruelty of the man but I won’t. That will be another blog. I will be damned if some social worker or attending psychiatrist pegs me as a complicated grief stage when it’s only been two weeks and I have been depressed since around the 19th of January. I only remember that date because I know that is when my feelings changed and my appetite became less. The physical symptoms of depression reared it’s ugly head and I was in pain. I was walking in mud. My thoughts were slow and painful. It took me hours to write a 300 word blog. All the while, I would have urges to take a bottle of pills. It didn’t matter which one I took. I just knew to not reach for my pain medication because I was not going to die of liver failure due to acetaminophen. That bottle was not to be touched. All the others were up for grabs. I had a choice or I could take all of them. Mix and match. I didn’t care as long as I didn’t see tomorrow. My hanging myself went out the window because I don’t have a beam. And partly because I don’t like things around my neck except for a tie.

My father died before I could have killed myself. I find this ironic. I know that between my therapist and my psychiatrist, both will make it so I get in the hospital. The only question is what kind of care I will have there. I know I will have a mountain of meds to sort through and I hope they don’t deny me my pain meds. I will not be happy about that one bit. I guess that it’s the care that keeps me from going in the hospital as well as the list of medication that I take. I take around 12 pills every night. I know if I go to the hospital of my choosing, it will be more like 20 pills because they will break up one of my medication. Instead of taking 1 pill, I will be taking 4. I go through this every admission. They don’t have the formulary in the hospital so they make do with another formulary, which means more pills. Guess I will find out tomorrow if I will go in or not. I am scared though. Giving up my rights and my cell phone is hard, even if it is for a little while.

After the Party

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

After the Party

I left the party soon after the cake was served. I had two slices and a lot of pizza. My sister had made this flatbread type pizza with I think pita bread and it was so damn good. I couldn’t stop myself from eating it. I overate and my stomach is killing me. My ankle was bothering me and I couldn’t stand being near my aunts and uncles so I left. I went to my room and watched a few episodes of Friends.

After the shows, I started feeling palpitations. Now I feel psychache and I want to die. I just don’t want to live anymore and am contemplating drinking gin. I just took my night time dose of pain meds. Alcohol would not be a great idea. I just want to feel numb. Drinking will do that. I have thought of going in the hospital. But I know my family needs me and it’s killing me. The next few days are going to be tough. I just don’t know if I can be there mentally. I am already stressed to the max.

My biggest fear about my father being home is that if he ends up being in pain, we can’t alleviate it because he can no longer swallow. His mouth is just too dry from the dehydration. He can barely spit his phlegm out. Then I worry about falls, either with my father or my sister transferring him. We don’t have a wheelchair so I don’t see how we are going to get him to the bathroom should he need to go. I know he isn’t eating or drinking and his kidneys are shot but he still needs to poop. And wheelchairs are expensive. My sister thinks that we can just get an ambulance to transport him home. I don’t think she realizes that is not how ambulances work and even if we did, we would have to pay for it and it could be at least $1000 or more. I just have a bad feeling about this and unfortunately, there are no other alternatives. We can’t afford to keep him in the nursing home.

I just don’t know what we are going to do. We know he doesn’t have that much longer but we can’t make it go any faster. I just feel awful. I am tired and I need to sleep but my worries are keeping me up. I never showered. I might do that tomorrow. I hope I sleep through the night. Last night I went to bed early and woke up around 0200. It just stinks having broken sleep on top of being depressed and grief stricken.

I am tired of fighting my suicidality. I want to give into it so badly. I want to get a life insurance policy so my family doesn’t have to worry about my funeral expenses. But suicide is usually excluded from policies or you might have to wait until the policy matures or something. I am actually kicking myself for living through my birthday because then I wouldn’t have to worry about my father dying and shit. I would be fucking dead. I’m going to drink and take some Ativan after I take my night meds. Fuck it, I don’t care anymore.

Breakdown here

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

Breakdown here

Today I broke down, while at the nursing home. My younger sister snapped at me and that was it. It started a cascade of tears and I couldn’t stop it no matter how hard I tried. Then I would get my composure, start talking and the tears started up again. I finally stopped but after I wrote to my psychiatrist about the ridiculousness of the day, I started up again and couldn’t stop. I was in my room and thought I had privacy until my middle sister came to check on me. Then I cried harder. It was such difficulty to stop when I couldn’t.

Found out my middle sister reads my blogs. So I kind of had to stop posting on FB my posts. I will lose some views per day but least she won’t be “spying” on me. She was reading my blogs to check up on me and I had no idea until today. She and my other sister were upset that I didn’t tell them my thoughts on how long my father had left. I told them that it could be a few days to a week to ten days or more.

I am really tired and in pain. I have been up since 0400. I left the house early because I wanted coffee even though I had made a cup at home. I just needed to get out of the house. I didn’t have a breakfast sandwich today because I wasn’t hungry. I had a black bean burger and some baked beans for my breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with a bottle of water. I just am not hungry today. Last night after we left the nursing home, my sister took us out to eat and I was still kind of full from that. My stomach is just not the same as it used to be. I lost a few more pounds though I am still not less than 200. I am working on it though. I will be weighed tomorrow when I go to my pain management appointment.

I did a stupid thing today. My father needed to use the bathroom while I was there. It was just me and I thought I would be able to handle it. Wrong. He lost control of his legs because he was so weak and I had to lower him to the floor because I couldn’t maneuver him back to the bed. I had to call for help and the nurses looked at me like I had three heads. I was like WTF. I hurt my back in the process. I think it’s just soreness and I hope it goes away. The whole episode left me very upset. Hence why I was so tearful.

My ankle is killing me and so is my foot. I feel like I should ice it but sometimes that makes it worse. I have already taken multiple doses of pain meds. I might have to take a strong one to calm it down. I think I might have twisted it without realizing it while dealing with my father. Course, I have been standing a LOT the last few days on it so that might be another reason why it’s so damn painful.

After I wrote my psychiatrist the email, I became really suicidal. I would have slashed my throat or something if I had the means. I was desperate to die. I texted my therapist that I was having a breakdown. She called me a few hours later to find out what was going on. I told her that I really wanted to be in the hospital but can’t because I have a meeting with the nursing home people on Tuesday and because I am the health care proxy, I have to be there or they can’t give out any information to my sisters. Next week is going to be really tough because the insurance my father has runs out and the state insurance is still in process. They are so damn slow. My father could die while waiting for the application to go through. I’m still hoping that he does die but an assessment today said that he could live for the next 10 days or so. It’s going to put a financial burden on us if the thing doesn’t go through. We don’t have the money to pay the nursing home fees. I don’t know what we are going to do if we have to take him home. I just worry that comfort measures won’t be so suitable in my father’s apartment like they will be in the home. Just add a little more stress to my life, why not!