Tag: bipolar disorder

Free Books, Pain and Other Things

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

Free Books, Pain, and other things

I went to bed late last night because I wasn’t really sleepy until my pain meds kicked in. I had received an email from my favorite mystery writer, Lawrence Block. He had written a blog about five of his books being free over the next five days. I love him. He is such a brilliant writer that I even bought his how to book on writing. The books are available only after midnight Pacific Time. I wanted to get the first book as I have not read it but it was too early. I am on Eastern Time. So when I woke up in pain at 0430 and became aware of my surroundings, I downloaded the first book via Kindle. It’s called “After the First Death”.

I can easily read Block’s book in a sitting. My favorite series of his is Matthew Scudder. I fell in love with this character back when I first became suicidal. I was looking for books to kill myself and came across his book “Eight Million Ways to Die”. Seemed like a good book to read. However, it wasn’t what I was looking for. It was about Scudder and a prostitute killer and about how Scudder came to terms with his alcoholism. Throughout the book, people die in weird ways, hence the title. Unfortunately, I can’t give an example from the book but I can give you one that I learned yesterday. A manhole cover became dislodged on the highway and killed the driver of a car. She was a young art teacher. I don’t know why there are manhole covers on the damn highway, but apparently, they are killers. It was a sad story.

Block also has other books with different themed characters. My other favorite of his is Keller the hit man. When I first read “Hit Me”, I laughed because the assassin was in therapy. He would go around the country, killing people he was hired to kill, and then see a therapist. Toward the end of the book, he feels the therapist is getting to close to him so he kills her. There are five books in this series. When I get paid in a couple of weeks, I plan on getting these books. Unfortunately, none of them will be free during his special days.

My ankle is really hurting and I don’t know why. But then, I never really know why it hurts. That is the million dollar question. I am so sick of being in pain. I wonder if other chronic pain people feel like I do and just want to end their lives because they can’t stand being pain. My pain is controlled by medication, so I should be grateful for this but the chronicity I feel about it drives me to suicide. I am suicidal without pain, too but I am wondering if being rational about ending my life is a good or bad thing. I really want to end my life and plan to in a couple of weeks. I have just had enough. I don’t know if you would say that I “snapped”, but I really hate the routine of pain increasing, taking medication, then being forced to sleep because the meds make you sleepy and if you don’t, you feel sick. I am also tired of having to take medication for my other chronic illnesses, including my bipolar disorder. I take more than 10 pills a night. I am sick of it. I don’t want to take these pills but I have to. Otherwise, I just get sick.

One of the pills I take is for my GERD, better known as reflux disease, a stomach condition. I have been taking it or some version of it for a long time. But lately, I don’t think it’s working anymore as my stomach has been hurting and I keep on feeling bloated. I have never been scoped to see what my stomach looks like because I will be damned if someone is going to shove a tube down my throat to figure it out. I know you are pretty sedated but the idea of it, I am not fond of. So I just keep taking the pill, hoping my stomach feels better by limiting what I eat.

Freezing Friday

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

Freezing Friday

Today was really cold but not as cold as it is going to get this weekend. It didn’t stop me from going out to finish my father’s appointment schedule, though we got a ride in from my sister. Now I just need to make another appointment for the idiot and call it a day. I made a call for physical therapy today. I hope to get a call Tuesday as Monday is a holiday.

As I was waiting for my father to finish his appointment, I was reading Twitter. I got to the news about the hospital and saw my psychiatrist’s name. She was quoted in some UK’s post about child anxiety (my psych is a child psychiatrist; I have seen her since I was 17). I was happy to see her name in my timeline. It was just a one line quote but it still made me happy that someone from the UK sought out her opinion on the matter.

It was really bright outside and I should have worn my sunglasses. Now I think I am coming down with a migraine because I feel really nauseous. It could also be because I have been up since 0530. I am tired. I didn’t have lunch and I am not really hungry. My stomach feels really bloated, which isn’t helping the nausea. I don’t know why I feel like I am a cow right now. I was feeling a little bit like this last night and it just carried over to today. I haven’t eaten anything that would cause this. Unless it’s fricken hormones. I just hope the feeling goes away. It’s very uncomfortable.

Pearl Jam tickets went on sale today at noon. They sold out in 37 minutes. Guess I am not going to the concert. I really would have loved to see them live. I guess I will just have to have my own concert in my room with the music really loud. Then I don’t have to worry about my crowd anxiety. I don’t know when I started feeling anxious in crowds. It’s gotten worse over the years so I tend to avoid them as much as possible.

I found my “Night Falls Fast” book. It’s a well worn copy as I have read it several times. I find reading about suicide helps the demons sometimes. I love Kay Redfield Jamison. She is a good writer though most of her books except her memoir are the same. There is pattern that I noticed when I went from “Touched with Fire” to “Night Falls Fast”. She loves to quote, a lot. There is text and then quotes. Throughout the whole book. And she loves to quote from Byron. I think all her books have some Byron poems in them. In “Touched with Fire”, there is a whole chapter on him. I wish I could write like that. If I do quote, it’s mostly going to be lyrics to some country song.

I was sad this morning to find out that the morning country music show people made their exit from the radio station. I don’t know why. I never was up early enough to listen to them but when I was, they were funny and made the time pass faster. I just hope they don’t get rid of my favorite DJ, Kruser. She is the last of the Mohicans, meaning she is the remaining original staff when the radio formed in the beginning. I fell in love with her. She is so cute and an absolute sweetheart. I have tweeted her a few times and actually got a response back. She is cool.

Next week, I am going to try writing my 850 word essays for my book. I’m also going to try and find the psychology book this weekend so I can “study” when I go to Starbucks.

Parts and Loss

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

Parts and Loss

I was remembering today how crazy I was to my work email. I had it on my phone and of course, my home computer. I had to always be ready to answer questions. Now when I get a notification from my personal email, I am thinking it’s from a friend or my psychiatrist when in actuality it’s the bank wanting an equity loan or some other “junk” mail. I am getting more and more junk mail than I get from actual people. It makes me feel less connected in the world and just fuels my suicidality.

I had my therapy session and she really annoyed me today. We were talking a little of everything, including my suicidality. In an effort to “know” where I was coming, she kept questioning where these “parts” were coming from. She kept on naming Hyde and Jack and then when I answered no, she asked if someone else was in there. I was so pissed off. I felt like I, the ME part, didn’t exist and she was just dividing me up. It was so frustrating. I threatened to hang up on her if she continued with this line of questioning and then I got the “sigh” and I was tempted to hang up right then.

I feel like she just can’t take my suicidality and has to put it on a “part” so that we can deal with it or not. We never, over the course of 15 years, did this before. It wasn’t until Hyde showed up and keeps showing up that she thinks this. I don’t think this. I am in control of my thoughts and selves, if you want to call it that. It just pisses me off when she thinks something more is going on and there isn’t. I don’t know how many “I want to die” statements came out during session today or some variation of it.

I told her what my plan was. I don’t know why I did. It’s not like she can stop me. She doesn’t know the date I picked out. It’s just a mystery to her for now. I need an escape and I am going to get it, dammit. I really just don’t want to live anymore. I am tired of being in pain, physically. Dealing with my father was just the icing on the damn cake. He always makes me feel so worthless. I am nothing to him. Just his “secretary” as he calls me. I was going to make another damn doc appointment for him, but fuck him. I’ll make it next week sometime.

I never usually threaten to hang up on my therapist. But today, she was just so annoying. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood. I feel like she was playing games with me or something trying to figure out if there were other parts in play, I really do. Or just trying to piss me off so Jack would come out. And the fucking sigh afterwards when I told her I would hang up on her. I could almost see her face as she made it. I wanted time to be over, right then and there. Then the wise ass said I have the floor, meaning I could talk about whatever I wanted. Isn’t that what the hell therapy is about?? I talked more about wanting to die. I just feel like she just wasn’t hearing me today for some reason when I was telling her this. Like it was going in one ear and out the other. I just got no response whatsoever. I felt like my words were empty, which only made me feeling worthless more so.

We talked about my writing and how I wanted to read a psychology book to do research. I know I can go on the web, but I want old school. I need the book and the highlighters. There was a good psychology book that I had when I was studying psych 101 by Zimbardo. If I can’t find my copy (only God knows where it is), maybe I will buy another. I really don’t even remember the name other than having psychology in the title. I think it was co-authored with his wife, but I could be wrong. This is going back almost 20 years ago.

She asked about my writing and that is how the conversation went. I think I talked in greater detail about my ideas in the previous blog so I won’t repeat myself here. She always inquires about my writing. My psychiatrist too. Today I learned from this writing book that people will do that not to annoy the writer but to see where they are in the writing process. I always felt guilty because I feel other than writing this blog, I don’t write anything else, usually. I journal, sure, but that is the same as blogging with the exception of it being on paper rather than the web. They are my outlets. But I haven’t touched a story for my book in months. I might have played around with the technical stuff, like fonts and inserting number pages, but that is all. No writing. The book also says that you should read with a critical eye. I did that with a book I got off Facebook and found myself editing as I was reading it. I couldn’t finish the book or get past the first few pages! There was so much I could change with it, it wasn’t funny. But it wasn’t my book to be changed. It’s the first book that I ever gave up reading.

Need to Escape

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

Need to escape

I had another difficult therapy session today. It will be in another blog as it’s percolating right now and I am not sure if I should continue to type or handwrite it. She asked me today what number my need to escape was and I said a 9 on a scale of 1-10. So she said that I should make today all about me, whatever that means. I still feel the need to runaway and not return. Trouble is I have no means, other than killing myself, to get away. We talked a lot about me killing myself today. To my surprise, she was tolerating it despite me knowing how much anxiety it gives her. I threw a question out to her about if she would go to my funeral. That stopped her in her tracks. I actually don’t know if I will have a funeral. I haven’t made my will out yet and that is one thing I have been contemplating. Her grief sometimes stops me from going through with my plans, but sometimes I just say fuck it because I want to do what *I* want to do, and that is end this miserable fucking life.

We talked a lot, more than I wanted to, about my bastard father. He is the only person that I know that has at least three 8×10 pictures of himself in his house. He is the very definition of narcissism. Yet he calls me selfish and a liar.

I wanted to go out today but my ankle is being a bitch. I have been up since 0500. I am tired and might take a nap before dinner, if I can write out the therapy session that is bugging me. I really wanted to go to Starbucks to get some more coffee for the house. I had the last of the Pike this morning. I don’t know which kind I want to get. My choices are Pike, House Blend, or Breakfast Blend. I usually rotate between the three. I think I might get Breakfast Blend as I haven’t had that in a long while. I am still good with my Kati Kati and Brazil coffees.

The 22nd can’t come soon enough. I really need to talk about my damn nasal congestion. I know I am almost always congested but it’s been worse the last few months. It clears up on it’s own but then gets clogged up again and now my sinuses are starting to feel affected. They really hurt and I have a constant slight headache from the pressure. My discharge is still clear so I know there isn’t an infection but damn, I am just miserable. And I hate breathing through my mouth most of the time. It’s wearing me out.

I am almost done with the writing book that I am reading. I should be done with it today. I read this morning about keeping a day journal to store ideas and other thoughts about writing. So now that I got some stuff percolating about my book and my therapist’s session, I pulled out a composition book and placed it on my bed for easy access. The book also suggested making a box of ideas, but I am not that advanced as a writer. I told my therapist that I was going to look for my psychology book to do some research for my book. It’s been a while since I learned about the different psych disorders. It might be a little outdated as far as the DSM goes but most of the criteria for the major disorders have stayed the same. I really want to write a chapter about narcissism but other than being vain and an asshole, I don’t know what other types of characteristics there are.
Another nice thing about this book was that it has short chapters, which is what I want my book to be. I really don’t want the chapters to be drawn out, about 2000 words or less. The only big story is the Darkness piece, but that can be trimmed down. I don’t want to edit right now while I am still trying to work on writing. It will just be confusing. The author of the book actually wrote another book based on about 850 words per chapter. That is when I got excited because my writing is about that length and is doable. If something really needs to be longer, than so be it but 850 seems like a good goal.