Category: suicide

CDC and Chronic Pain

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

“I invite chronic pain patients who rely on medications & are still alive, to offer their expertise to the public conversation.”
Terri A. Lewis, PhD

This statement just rubbed me the wrong way. In fact, it infuriated me because there are so many people taking their lives because they DO NOT get medications due to the opioid policies some doctors have. The CDC is proposing that primary care doctors PCP’s no longer prescribe narcotics for their patients. I haven’t read the report but it was stopped only because a lawsuit was threatened if it was published. The guidelines were written by people that had NOTHING to do with chronic pain. Therefore, it didn’t make sense for them to have these guidelines. I would write to them but I fear that if I do, I will be prosecuted for my actions down the line. Call me paranoid. I only take 4-6 pills a day and if that were cut, so would my life.

The statement also implies that taking these medications is a death sentence waiting to happen. This isn’t true. There are plenty of people who SAFELY take these medications daily and are still alive. Yes, there are some that do NOT because they go to different doctors and the combination of other opioids makes them sick. My ex’s neighbor died from an overdose because of this. Had one doctor been prescribing, her friend might have lived a little longer. She was terminally ill with something other than cancer. Obviously, she is the one that is “not alive” to come forward about these supposed guidelines.

If Primary care docs can no longer prescribe these medications, where are chronic pain patients supposed to go? “Pain clinics” only want to experiment and give injections, usually because it’s more money than writing a script. I have seen two pain doctors and they both didn’t want to take over the pain management I was under. They just offered invasive procedures and when I refused, I no longer was a part of their care. I’m sorry but there is no research to support that the injections would benefit me. I wish I kept the report that contradicted the injections. There was an article a few years ago that said that it was more dangerous to have them than not. I am not going to risk have something called arachnoiditis for the sake of a pain clinic writing a script for my pain meds, when the pain meds already work for me.

I need to have my primary care doctor continuing to prescribe me these medications. It’s safer and easier than seeing a specialist. The meds help me to function better, though I rarely take them when I am outside the house. They make me too drowsy to get on the bus and train. So I suffer through my pain to get to where I need to go. Taking my four tablets a day is not killing me. It’s keeping me alive enough to see another day. Because without them, I would seriously end my life. And I don’t think the CDC wants that.

vicious cycle

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

I have been reading my blogs. Seems at the time my NYT article was published, I was hypomanic. I would trade anything to be that way again. Being stuck in the pit of despair is just awful. I have no energy. My appetite is ravenous. I am sleepy. I have the opposite of being manic. I haven’t really left the house all day. I have been picking on the left over Chinese food and eating candy bars, in addition to real food. I just have this feeling of hungry and it hasn’t been satisfied. I have been trying to watch what I eat but part of me just doesn’t fucking care. I am worried about a friend who is sick and in the hospital. He seemed out of it yesterday when I called so I didn’t want to call him again. He hasn’t been eating for most of the month so that is very unlike him. He is the friend that I often go out to dinner with. I hope he gets better soon.

I slept kind of late today. But I had interrupted sleep. I kept waking up to change position. I sleep on my left side and my ankle would hurt. I turn over to my right and then my leg would hurt. I sleep on my back, my back would hurt. I think I need a new foam mattress topper. I plan on getting one soon as I figure out what to do with the old one. It’s heavy and probably needs to be cut so that it can be thrown away.

I am so tired that I don’t care, which is part of the problem. I am not sleeping good because I don’t have a good mattress and I don’t care because I am depressed. It’s a vicious cycle. And the toppers are not cheap. I can’t decide which one I want. I just want to sleep without pain. Used to be $100 for a foam mattress topper; now it’s over $100. And they have different ones, with pillow tops and without pillow tops. UGH. How is a person with depression supposed to decide these things?

Decision making has always been my downfall with depression. It takes me so long to decide what kind of socks I want to wear, what color jeans, what shirt/sweatshirt, etc just to get dressed when I have to go out. What normally takes someone five minutes, it takes me twenty. I just can’t seem to pick one. That is why I buy the same kind of jeans so it’s easier to pick out to wear. Course, now the problem is what fits me and what doesn’t. I have been wearing sweatpants because my jeans are a little too tight. And the more they are tighter, the more it’s harder to get the jeans looser. I refuse to buy the next size up. I just have to try and control my eating. But days like today are difficult to control when you want to eat everything in sight. Then there will be days when it’s a struggle to eat, when you have no appetite at all. All I really want to eat is Life cereal. Go back to my cereal diet and things will go back to normal. I hope anyways.

I told my mother that I wanted a brownie cake for my birthday. But I just checked my groceries, or what is left of them, and the box didn’t arrive with them. So now I will have to buy them. I am going to check to see if I didn’t put them in the cabinet where we place the baking stuff. I might have put it there so my mother knows where it is. If it is not there, then I will be pissed. Stop and Shop will have gipped me again. I didn’t get my pretzel rods but I got credited for it. If my foot wasn’t throbbing I would go downstairs and check. It’s going to bug me now. It’s probably in the cabinet.

I am so damn tired. I think I am going to take my meds and go to bed. My thoughts are becoming bad anyways. I had a hard time earlier tonight. Someone in BPD Chat set me off and I got triggered. One of the chat people was just being demeaning. It was making me uncomfortable. Like only people with BPD should be validated and if they don’t have BPD then they shouldn’t be validated at all. It was terrible. Everyone should feel validated even if they don’t have BPD. Being validated means so much to someone that is struggling with depression or any other type of mental illness. I had to leave before I said something I would regret. It was getting me feeling like I shouldn’t be validated because I don’t have BPD. And that is a suicidal trigger for me.

Saturday Blog 39

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

My sisters and I went out. It was a good time. We had plenty of Chinese food and brought most of it home. We just couldn’t finish it all. I came home and there was mail, mostly for me. Two good friends sent me Christmas tidings. My friend from Texas was very kind. She sent me a Hope coin. She wants me to hold on to it on my bad days. I am grateful to have her in my life. We always have good chats. She understands how dark my depressions are and doesn’t shy away from them. She wishes I don’t have them but she isn’t judgmental about it. She is a really good friend.

Even though I didn’t do too much of anything today, my thigh is hurting. I think if I sit too long, it aggravates it. So I try not to sit too long and walk around a little bit. I hate having this pain. It’s really driving me nuts. It’s making me more nervous about seeing the neurosurgeon on Tuesday. I just hope I am not wasting our time with this. The pain is not consistent and it doesn’t always come on when I sit too long, or at least when I think I have sat too long. It also has been brought on by walking home, after doing all that I did. I wish my fears would just go away but I have good reason to be fearful. Having a bad back is never an easy thing to not be afraid of. I just want an MRI to see if there are changes. I know that because I don’t have weakness or bowel/bladder problems there is probably nothing to worry about but I worry anyway.

I got an email from my favorite author. He finally described what a short story, novella, and novel were, in terms of word count. He will be coming out with a revised book about writing sometime in the next year. I will be getting this book because I love his writing style. He has been doing this for more than forty years so I think he knows something about writing.

My mother needed technical help with the TV as she was using one remote to shut the TV off and the other to shut off the cable box. Then was wondering why the TV wasn’t working. Going down and then back up the stairs really hurt my thigh. Seems anything to flex the muscles hurt. Dammit. I hope it calms down. I took a pain pill because my ankle is flaring. Hope it calms down both. I hate being in so much pain. I really want to end things tomorrow. But I promised my therapist I wouldn’t. It’s too bad I always keep my promises, but I never keep a promise to myself. Funny how that works.

My birthday is the day after the meeting with the surgeon. I am tempted to ask my therapist if I can stay with her overnight. I just am dreading this day so much. Why can’t I just stay 39? I just wish my family wouldn’t make a big deal out of it. It’s just another day.

Hot Chocolate and other Thoughts

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

Hot Chocolate and Other Thoughts

A blogger friend made a comment on my Dark Hot Chocolate post and I thought I would have a cup. I have been up since 0445. I plan on taking some nerve pain meds to get back to sleep. I want to finish my cup of cocoa first.

My mood is still down and I cannot seem to fix my TiVo. I am very, very sad about this. There are shows on there that I haven’t seen, like Rizzoli and Isles and definitely, Bones. Part of me doesn’t care and part of me is extremely pissed off that I didn’t watch the shows when I could have. I am going to play around with it sometime today to see if it will boot up.

I’m still having suicidal thoughts. My therapist called me after I sent her a distressing text. We talk for a bit and she made me promise that I wouldn’t do anything this weekend. She really wants to see me on my birthday. Now I have to get a Zipcar. My only worry is that I won’t be able to get one at a place that I know. I really want to get the same car I got last time. It drove really well. I think next time I am going to take the highway home rather than go through the back roads. It seemed to take forever to get home through the back roads and I was getting really aggravated because I wanted to go home. It depends on how I feel. I was going to take the other highway home but there was traffic due to construction and I didn’t want to sit in traffic. There was no traffic on the back roads but I was just impatient to get home.

My suicidal plans are put off, again. I am not sure how I feel about this. I feel discouraged and angry. I shouldn’t have told my therapist about this. I don’t know why I seem to do things like this. I just feel so hopeless about every thing that is going on in my life. I can’t seem to do a damn thing. The only thing I can do is watch my niece when my sister needs me to, though I can no longer pick her up from school. The distance is just too much for me. There are too many hills for me to climb. It saddens me because I was once able to do those hills without a problem. And it kills me that I am disabled. I fucking hate being disabled where I can no longer do the things I was did. I can’t walk, which was my major stress reliever. I had my game, which was also my stress reliever but it shut down and I haven’t been able to find something similar. I could play Farmville but there is no challenge to that. You just plant your crops and collect “money” when you harvest then plant your crops again. It’s lost its appeal. I just have no other activities to keep me occupied so I think about suicide most of the time.

The reason I think about suicide is not only because I am disgruntled that I am disabled, but also because I don’t have anything else to occupy my time. Sure I go out to Starbucks and have my drink and write in my journal. But then I get anxious and need to come home. I only stay for about an hour, sometimes less. And then my mother calls me to see what I am doing. She also calls to let me know what we are having for supper. I try to have enough funds to last me through the month but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. This month I bought coffee so my funds were lower than they should be. I meant to add more funds to the Starbucks card but I never did. So now I have the entire weekend to ponder about my upcoming appointment with my neurosurgeon.

Saturday, I am going out with my sisters for Chinese food. It’s my birthday celebration with them. I wanted to go to another place but I have been deprived of Lo Mein for a while and I want it dammit! I also want General Gao. So I already know what I want. That will be a distraction for a little while. I am sure I will continue to write my Saturday Blogs. I know I have been writing more blogs. It helps to write my thoughts down.