Tag: blog

books and pressures

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

Had a hectic day today. I walked 0.8 miles and I feel pretty good about it, though my ankle disagrees. I have been up since 5. I made breakfast, showered, and had coffee all before 8 am. Which left me an hour and half to play my game and decide what to wear. It was cold and rainy today so I wanted to be warm but not too warm because I knew I would be walking. I hate sweating. Luckily for me it stayed cool and I didn’t overheat.

I think one of my upcoming blogs I am going to do a book review on “Managing Suicidal Risk” by David Jobes. It has been a while since I last read it and by chance I found it today while looking for something else. It is my autographed copy of the book. I will send the link to the author as well as post it on Amazon. It won’t be too long of a blog but will describe the essence of what it is to manage suicidality.

I will be ordering two books tomorrow when I get paid. They are books I normally wouldn’t purchase but I need a change of what I am reading. I still haven’t gotten through the book on the civil war or Andrew Solomon’s book, “Far From The Tree” (FFTT). Both books are lengthy, over 500 pages. In fact, I have a little over 500 pages to read for the civil war book. He just keeps dragging out the year 1861. And I am not the type to skip pages so I am plugging along as much as I can without getting annoyed. It took me 276 pages to get to the civil war alone!! If you want to read this book that discusses the economic ways of the war, Battle Cry for Freedom is for you.

FFTT I haven’t touched in almost two months, since I left the hospital. It made for good reading for nights when I couldn’t sleep and because I had a single, I could keep the light on until my meds kicked in or I got sleepy enough to go to bed. It is a very interesting book about disabilities in children and how their parents deal with it. Mostly I am reading about the families that are well off enough to have their child go through expensive treatments. He doesn’t seem to talk about those families that are no so well off and struggle to make ends meet. However he does talk about the organizations for the different disabilities he discusses.

Overall, today has been a productive day for me. I hope that tomorrow I am not too sore because I really want to go to Starbucks and work on my coauthored book. I think if I get out of the house a little bit every day, even if I don’t want to, it will help me in the long run. Trick is ACTUALLY getting out of the house because it is so easy for me to roll over and go back to sleep. But I have a few errands tomorrow so I’d like to leave the house and do it rather than stay at home with the laptop.

For two days straight now, I have crapped my pants. I am so disgusted because I thought I got everything after my BM today. But nope. I must have passed gas or something to make the stool come out. I am purchasing diapers online so I don’t have to worry about the funny looks in the store. Turns out that if I buy them online and spend $25, I get free shipping. So I am throwing in some batteries too. We need “real” batteries, like Duracell, for our carbon monoxide detector. My mother refuses to buy the good kind and so buys the cheap brand. We have had to replace the batteries twice so far this year, over the course of 6 months! It is annoying!! I am hoping on days that I am out of the house for more than four hours, I can have protection and save my underwear. Luckily, I didn’t leak today or I would really be hitting the gin.

I came home and thought I was “relaxed” as I haven’t done anything strenuous in the first hour I was home so I took my blood pressure to see what it was. Not a good reading, 145/100. I am upset with myself. I will be monitoring it from now on because yesterday at my doctor’s appointment it was high. I thought I had my blood pressure under control but I guess I don’t. Fucking pisses me off that I have another thing to worry about because it’s not like my body is going to tell me I am running high. I have to use a machine to do that. Now I really have to try and lose weight so I can bring my pressure down some. I wish I could decrease my stress levels but dealing with my father is not going to do it, especially if he is going to have surgery in the upcoming weeks. So I have to monitor my pressure to keep myself in check. If it gets any higher, I will have to inform my PCP. I can’t be letting it skyrocket.

Midnight demons are out tonight

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

Midnight demons are out tonight

Since Midnight I have been in some serious pain. I got very distress and despondent. I thought about killing myself and was cursing my therapist for allowing me to still exist. A blogger friend was posting blogs so I asked her if she wanted to chat and we chatted for a few hours. She had to go because she had some stuff to do in the morning. Which is fine. I understand.

I still am in pain three hours later despite taking pain meds and using a pain gel. I don’t think I am going to sleep tonight and all I can think about is killing myself. I posted on FB that I wanted to use a chainsaw to chop my leg off. I seriously wonder if that is the better course of action. Just cut out the part that is hurting. I know there will be something called phantom pain afterwards but it can’t be worse than what I am going through right now. At least then, I will know WHY I am in pain. There is NO FUCKING REASON why I should be in pain. I didn’t do a damn thing today to warrant this pain. There is nothing wrong with my damn foot and ankle. Yet it hurts really bad. And it is burning me so bad. Pain is so bad I can’t even describe it. All I know is that I am hurting and want to kill myself. Just everything is dark and gray. I feel so hopeless. I know I am never going to get better.

I was talking with an ex-coworker tonight. I missed talking with her and she answered my text. We chatted for a bit and she asked when I was coming back to work. When I said I didn’t know if I could because of my pain, she chimed in that if I stop complaining maybe I would have my job back. I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe she would say something so insensitive. My pain is real and I suffer greatly. I don’t know why I suffer the way I do but I do. I got really upset. But then I thought she is ignorant and doesn’t know what I go through every day. She doesn’t know how hard it is going down the stairs or that I have to limit my standing time or I will pay dearly for it. Sure I can suck it up and not complain. But then it will only fuel the demons. I kept quiet about my internal psychological pain for years and where did that get me? Nothing but psych hospitalizations after psych hospitalizations. Lead to cutting and drinking and more hospitalizations. So when I can finally express myself, why should I keep my physical pain inside? That is one of the reason why people kill themselves because people don’t know just how bad their pain hurts them. That is why people see their doctors only to get turned away because their pain doesn’t show up on any test. My x-rays and MRI shows there is nothing physically wrong with me. Yet my pain is real and it hurts really bad right now. So bad I am thinking of taking my life. So how can that be made up? How can it be held inside? The longer I keep it to myself the deeper it grows. They say that if you swear after stubbing a toe it lessens the pain. Well no matter much I swear, there is no lessening of this pain. I must rely on pain medication to help me deal with my pain. I wish it worked on my psychological pain but it doesn’t. Nothing helps my psychological pain. When both flares up (physical and psych) I am in the deepest waters struggling to stay afloat. Sometimes I am successful and sometimes I am not. When I am not, someone comes by with a dinghy and I stay afloat.

I think my foot hurts just because it wants to. I think that I have been in pain for so long it doesn’t know what else to do but hurt me. And that causes my demons to worse and give me self doubt that this is all in my head. My therapist thinks that because of PTSD I have to be treated for my pain for my own safety. That if I am not treated, my PCP might as well just sign my death certificate. She is partially right. But I have a high pain tolerance and I haven’t been in this much pain in sometime. I know it is because the weather changes and having Hurricane Arthur pass by didn’t help me much. Plus this whole up 90 degrees and then down to 70 degrees really wrecks havoc on me. That’s a 20 degree difference. It hurts!

I keep looking at my pill bottle and wonder what will happen if I empty it. I have never OD’d on Tylenol before so I am kind of scared that it will cause me liver damage that I will regret. I think that is the only thing saving me from taking the rest of the bottle and hoping for the best. If I had a barbiturate or some other powerful sedating drug handy, I would take it. I just need/want some sleep. It’s 0330. I am glad I don’t have to get up early tomorrow. But I know I am only going to get a few hours of sleep and wake up. Probably wake up at 6 or 7. I might as well wait till 0400 to try and get some sleep. I took two pain pills to try and get me to calm down this pain. I just need it to be a 3 so I can sleep. It is a 7 on a scale of 1-10. I am sure that once I get nice and comfy, I will have to use the bathroom. Never fails. UGH how I hate that.

Pain hour and human suffering and suicide

by Midnight Demon, posted in chronic physical pain, depression, suicidality, suicide

Well, my pain hour has been activated. Every night, at the same time, my pain level increases no matter how much time I am resting my foot or what I am doing. If I am about to go to sleep, I will get zaps.

Tonight is no different. I am so tired of dealing with pain every single night. I was fine all day without too much pain. And that is what kills me. Because I don’t see my doctor after 8 pm, he never will know how much pain I am truly in. This pain is very deceiving. I just wish I knew what activates it so I can put a stop to it. I have tried taking my pain meds before the dreadful hour but that doesn’t seem to work. I have tried icing my foot before the hour and that just makes things worse. I just am in pain no matter what I do, whether I do nothing during the day or if I do have an active day. It is maddening. I did not leave the house today for any reason. Yet my pain level is the same as it would be if I did leave the house. I did go up and down the stairs a few more times than I normally do. But I have stayed in my house/room before and that still didn’t stop the pain from occurring. I just am flabbergasted.

I am not suicidal, though I should be. I really want to just die without having to do anything about it. I am tired of planning my death without acting on it. I am tired of trying to act on my thoughts when my stinking therapist foils my plans or my psychiatrist hospitalizes me because of my thoughts. I need a good pain reliever that will stop the pain before it hits not after. Because after you take your pain reliever, you have to wait a certain time for the next dose and that sucks while you are suffering.

I don’t get why people can euthanize an animal to end their suffering but it is wrong to do the same to a human being. To euthanize an animal is considered “humane” while human suffering is what exactly? Why is an animal have more rights than a human? And why is it that it is the person’s choice to end their suffering and it being denied to them because of state laws. That is why I don’t tell my therapist or psychiatrist I am suicidal most of the time. Because I know it will lead to a “suicide status” and I will be prevented from carrying out MY wishes. Yet 30,000 people commit suicide every year. I want to be one of those people. And I don’t have a problem with it. Yes my family will miss me and people will be hurt. But why should I continue to suffer from this non-malignant chronic pain that sucks the life out of me?

NSSI and twitter chat

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, suicide attempt

Just read a blog about suicide ideation. The writer was able to distinguish that her thoughts were due to her illness rather and not have further thoughts about them. I wish I could do that in the moments I think about death but once I start going down that road, it is hard to do. It is hard to pull back. She wants to live, I still want to die. I don’t want to live this life anymore. It is just too painful.

Last night I was on a twitter chat about non-suicidal self injury (NSSI). It was interesting. I know I have been there many times in my cutting days. But the discussion focused on how to differentiate between NSSI and suicide attempt. For me, if I needed stitches, it was always viewed as an attempt and I was sent to the inpatient unit. The discussion focused more on law enforcement but they are not always first responders, unless a family member or someone close to the person who has cut has called for help in dealing with the issue. But that is a different scenario. Most NSSI people are just looking to release their pain and once they do, they get trapped into the cutting/burning because it becomes an addiction. It is very difficult to try and stop this type of addiction. I know because I once left a wound open for two months, repeatedly cutting until I felt no pain. But I was able to stop because it stopped giving me that high that I needed. Now I just have an ugly scar to remind me of that time period.

I like the fact that the President of the AAS (American Association of Suicidology) is a person that doesn’t like the “no harm” contracts that therapists often use to try to stop suicidal or self harm behavior. He knows they don’t work and would like to see more of a “life worth living” contract in this scenario. I wish I could meet him for the annual conference but it is in Los Angelas and that is way too far for me to travel and too expensive to boot. I hope I do get to meet him one of these days, just to say hello and have a person to person contact rather than an online one.

I was rather surprised to hear him talk about contracts. I wish I could remember his exact words, they were very cool. As I just came across David Rudd’s “no suicide contract” journal article, I thought about the wording that he used. It is similar but not quite so “life worth living”. In Rudd’s article he talks about a commitment to treatment contract for the use of suicidal persons. I suppose the same can be made for NSSI, with some modification but it would be really difficult as cutting is so difficult to treat. It just is a lot of pain and misery the person is feeling and also hate. Can’t forget that hate is a main factor in cutting, least it was for me. I hated myself so much I just wanted to destroy myself anyway that I could.