Tag: bipolar disorder

An Hour of Energy

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

An Hour of Energy

I woke up and was feeling good. I made breakfast and coffee and then had some really good energy so I decided to run the errand I wanted to do. That proved harder than I thought because half way to the store, my back acted up, making it hard to walk. It wiped out my energy levels pretty fast. By the time I finished what I had to do in the store, I was wiped out. All of this took less than hour to do. I feel so rotten.

I came home and put my stuff away. I then made it to my bedroom and got undressed. My back and ankle started acting up. Pain med time! I was hoping, as foolishly as that may be, that I would have the energy to bake after my errand. No can do. I will do it on Sunday like I planned. I just hope there is room in the refrigerator for the pan.

I got the letter from the CBT place saying where to go and what floor they were on. I was thinking about this when I go a trial run and then it hit me that I could go to my favorite restaurant at Government Center. They have the Asgard burger that is wicked good. It’s an Irish place and I have been there a few times. I really like going there, when I am in the area. I also will be taking pics of the new station so I can show you. It’s really cool.

I just bought a book about managing chronic pain through CBT. I wanted to know what I was getting into before I go to this appointment. I flipped through the book, which isn’t that thick, and I am cringing on the exercises. One of them asks what increases/decreases your pain. That is a hard one because I sometimes don’t know what increases or decreases my pain because it is all over the place. What makes it hurt today, won’t make it hurt tomorrow and vice versa. It’s really challenging because even on days I don’t do anything but sleep, I will have severe pain at night. Or I could be walking all over the place, feeling good, no pain and have a good night of no pain. Then the next day I am in agony for the next few days. The worse is when I wake up in pain. That blows the day and it’s hard to get moving. Other times, I could be having no pain and all of a sudden my ankle decides not to work anymore and gives me severe pain if I do try and use it. So it’s not a clear cut answer. And even if I rest and take meds, that is mostly all I can do for my pain. Nothing else helps decrease it. But in the meantime, I am withering in agony until the pain meds kick in.

Then they had a section where you wrote down automatic thoughts. My automatic thoughts when I am withering in agony is to kill myself. Some of the thoughts they had in the book was “the pain will kill me”. I had to say yes, but I will help it do so. Just give it a nudge with some bottle of pills and hope it’s enough to do the job.

Seeing as I am cooped up for the rest of the day, I will start reading it today and see how it goes. I have never been a fan of CBT but I am willing to try and put aside my pessimism and sarcasm to see if this will help me. It is my last hope before I finally throw in the towel. I have exhausted other treatments and nothing has seemed to help. I know there are other pain meds I could try but I really don’t want to be playing with narcotics when there are opioid nuts fighting against ALL of them being “bad” for everyone, including chronic pain patients. Hell, with every script that I get with my pain meds, I get a handout of what to do if I am misusing my meds. It’s a joke. I know the addiction problem is real. But without these meds, you might as well sign my death certificate.

I am really depressed my little errand took out most of my energy and now I am cooped up. I was feeling really good while I was making breakfast. I don’t know what happened. Granted, I didn’t make anything extravagant. Just bacon, toast, and coffee. How hard is that?

I’m up late again

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

I’m up late again

Around 2100, I started to feel sleepy. I knew that if I laid down, the chances of my pain increasing was high so I stayed up a little longer until I couldn’t. So I must have been down for about maybe twenty minutes when the pain kicked up. I took some pain meds and I have been up since.

I wrote my friend a letter thinking it would get my mind off things and it did, and I laid down once more only to be hit with more pain. Then I got hot. I checked my room temp and it was just above 70 degrees. I turned the ceiling fan on to cool down. I had both feet out from under the blankets to feel the cool air. Once they turned cold, maybe I could sleep. I am still hoping. It hasn’t happened yet.

I have been talking with the voices most of the evening. They are my regular voices, not the mean ones that tell me I am an addict and that I should take all the pills because it will be better for me. It’s funny because when I tell my psychiatrist or therapist this, they don’t say anything to contradict the voice. I guess they assume I know I am not but it would be nice for them to say it so it counteracts the voices inside my head that I am internalizing.

I know part of the reason I am not asleep is because the magic hour of 2 am hasn’t hit yet. Seems that hour is when I can finally go to sleep. Or soon after. It’s been this way all week. The last two days I have slept really late. I hope to sleep late today too but I forgot to get one ingredient for my cake that I want to make Sunday.

It’s only been a few days time, but I already miss my Sox playing. There is still baseball being played but I am not really interested in it. I am interested in the National league game because I wonder if this is the year for the Cubs. We’ll see.

The Search For Pumpkin

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

The search for pumpkin

Today was supposed to be an easy day. I slept until 1430 and I thought I would sleep all day but I got up. My mother was cooking escarole soup and making meatloaf. I am not a huge escarole soup person but I will eat it. It wasn’t ready at dinner time so I had the meatloaf.

Before dinner, I decided to go to Stop and Shop to get my ingredients for my baking this weekend. Of I went and when I got to the store, most of the items I needed were on sale, including the pumpkin. However, there was no more 15 oz. pumpkin puree left on the shelf. It was all out. I couldn’t believe it. The only kind they had was a 29 oz. container so I took that thinking I could make two desserts out of it. I couldn’t picture making two desserts in one day but I didn’t worry about that then.

After dinner, I really wanted the 15 oz. pumpkin. There was another Stop and Shop at the end of Broadway, 2 miles away from my house. I decided to go there. If they had it, I would reward myself by going to Starbucks. I took the bus and hoped for the best. On the bus there were kids fighting over a cell phone and a toddler in a stroller that was crying to get out. So much for a peaceful ride to my stop. And of course, they had to get off at my stop. I got to the store and the baking isle was the first isle in this store. I was thankful so I didn’t have to walk all over the place looking for it. I hesitantly looked at the shelves for the pumpkin and they had it! I was overjoyed. I bought four cans.

I didn’t have a long wait for the bus to the Square to get to Starbucks. It had started to drizzle and it was humid out. I was wearing my PJs which could pass as sweatpants so I was really warm. I got to Starbucks and really wanted espresso but when all was said and done, it was after 1800, much too late for this lovely drink. I had a java chip frappucino instead. I walked to the bus stop to catch the bus home and it came fairly quickly. I was glad I didn’t have to wait long.

I came home and my mother didn’t realize I had gone out again. She is really deaf. Then I had to “yell” where I was and she couldn’t understand what I was saying. I was saved from having to tell it multiple times when the phone rang. Thank you whomever was calling.

I really hope pain is not going to keep me up tonight for going to two stores today. I didn’t do a lot of walking and my ankle feels okay right now but that can change. It won’t do any good to take my meds before the pain starts because it just doesn’t work for me. It used to, but the pain has evolved. I have been taking Neurontin the past few night to help ease my pain. I can’t tell if it is working or not. I don’t have that much nerve pain. I have been taking it to help me sleep but it hasn’t really worked real well for that either.

Did too much today

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

Did too much today

I took my oldest niece out for dinner tonight. Least I thought I was going to until she took the check from me. We had a good time and the food was good. I took her to my favorite Thai place in Boston. She loves their Pad Thai. I had their drunken chicken dish as I haven’t had it in so long. We talked about a lot of things and had some good laughs. It’s so weird that she is an adult and we can have an adult conversation when I used to change her diaper and put her to sleep. I miss those days, not the diaper changing though.

I was surprised I wasn’t hurting more than I was because I had gone to Walgreens to do an errand for my mother. My calves are still hurting a little bit from climbing up the hill to get to the Zipcar yesterday. It was a miracle I could walk at all today. I took my book with me to edit and read about 20 pages. I can’t believe what I wrote and how good it sounds. The parts that I wanted to delete I am leaving in because it just adds to the story of mental illness and the struggle with it. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was.

I was having fun editing, if that is possible. I was adding stuff and switching things around. Some things didn’t make sense or were too wordy so I rearranged it. The hard part is now I have to input these changes in the word document. I have made so many changes to this chapter of the book. I must have read it a thousand times and each time I find something new to add or take away. I guess it’s the perfectionist in me. I thought that part of me was long gone but I guess it never goes away. You always want things “just so”.

I might have trouble sleeping because I had 4 shots of espresso late in the afternoon. I went to Starbucks later than I usually go but I really have fallen in love with it. I had therapy today. It went okay. She said that I was “cute” in the selfie that I sent her. I told her I look like goofball and a couple of other choice words that aren’t politically correct to mention. I just attempted to take another one in the bathroom and it took several tries because I kept cutting my head off and just took a pic of the camera. I am so bad at this. I think I need one of my nieces to help me take selfies. I also told her that I don’t have Body Dysmorphic Disorder and she agreed but I do have elements of it, whatever that means. She is hoping that by the time my book is ready to be published I will have changed the views of myself. Good luck with that. Today she had me say “I deserve it” but I have no clue what she was talking about. I said it without any conviction or truth.

She loved the pumpkin fluff I gave her. She ate the whole thing. I couldn’t believe it. She has a worse sweet tooth than I do. She is going to go out of her mind when I make this next pumpkin goodie. I hope to make it this weekend, if I get my ass to the grocery store to get the ingredients. I hate that you can’t do small grocery orders online otherwise I would have ordered it already. You need to order at least 60 or 70 bucks worth of stuff before Peapod will deliver. I don’t need that much stuff because I just went shopping. I still am pissed they sent me the wrong pumpkin. Otherwise, I would be set to make this cake. I really miss having Star Market across the street from me. It was so convenient. But it closed soon after the super Stop and Shop opened down the street.

Last night was another difficult night sleeping. My ankle was throbbing like a robin. It didn’t settle down until I took a strong pain pill followed by some regular pain meds a few hours later. I wish I had a mini freezer in my room to hold an ice pack. I should buy disposable ones but that will get expensive. My foot was swollen so that was why it was hurting so much. It’s starting to throb now so I should take some pain meds. I haven’t taken them yet because I wasn’t in pain or at least my pain wasn’t intolerable. I always have a low grade pain but for some reason, night time always flares it up to a 6 or 7. Then when I lie down, it jumps to a 9 or above. I hope I don’t have to take another strong pain pill tonight. I have been using them more often and I don’t like to. It’s just that the pain has been so severe, I have had no choice. It’s either go over my daily allotment of regular pain meds or take the strong pain pill. Until I see an MD to manage my pain properly, I am just winging it the best I can.