Tag: chronic illness

More Reflections about Therapy

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

More reflections about therapy

I started a Twitter rant and before I knew it, I was crying as I thinking about how my therapist of 15 years is suddenly realizing, now, that she isn’t the one for me. I feel that I am the blame for this though I don’t know how exactly I am. I just feel that if I kept that transference blog to myself instead of sharing it, things wouldn’t be like this.

I had thought about what I was going to do with therapy. I figure I would give her a symptom of something of PTSD nature that we could work on and sort out. But now that has gone to crap as we are breaking up. I don’t know if there are any resolutions to us staying together. It is really sad that in her bag of tricks she has run out of things to help me, even though I have offered her many over the years of working together.

From the start, I always thought of treatment plans to help us get going and she was amenable to these ideas. I never thought that she would depend on me so much. I honestly have no idea when we stopped being client and professional to being something along the lines of being “friends”. We care for one another deeply, there is no denying that. But I think we got too close for comfort and that is what is destroying the therapeutic relationship.

I still can’t understand why she cannot take time out of her schedule to become a CAMS trained therapist. Maybe she thinks it will cost too much or that it will take too long. I don’t know. She never said why. All she has said was that she is not a “suicidologist”. You don’t have to be one to get trained. Maybe this pressure is what is tearing us apart. My suicidality is too tough for her to handle anymore. Maybe she is just burned out like any therapist would be with chronic suicidality. I don’t know. I just know that you can’t “expect different results with the same experiments”. Or something like that. It’s by Albert Einstein. I wrote it in one of the book I read on suicidality. Much good my book did for her.

I keep thinking where did I go wrong. I just don’t know. I just know that I was tired of her anxiety interfering with our therapy. Even when we were talking about my PTSD she was anxious and she didn’t even know it. I had to bring it up. What the hell is that about? I’m a sensitive person so I pick up others emotions pretty quick. In my household growing up, you had to or you got smacked. I’m not saying my therapist is abusive in anyway. Not at all. But she definitely has issues that are not my issues to control. I am just a patient in her care. Not for that much longer.

It hurts like hell that after 16 years in January (that is our anniversary month), we will be saying good-bye. We haven’t discussed formal termination. We are just on a break right now. I wanted to talk to her today or tomorrow but I am being a stubborn fuck and not going to call her. I can manage on my own without her. Hell I have done it before, I will do so again. I know I need a therapist that handles PTSD symptoms and other stuff. I won’t say suicide because that freaks therapists out and I won’t be able to get a therapist if I tell them I am suicidal or have a suicidal history. It’s just the way the therapist world works. The care you need the most is not given due to fear. And I have scared the shit out of my therapist so many times she is having anxiety attacks over it.

I also need a collaborative therapist that won’t be up my ass about their treatment style is the best in the world for me. Horseshit. I don’t work that way. Either we work together or see ya later. I don’t know if I can trust someone just out of the gate again. It took at least five years of working together before I was able to let my guard down with her. I can’t imagine how long it will be for another therapist. That is, if I decide to see a new one. I haven’t completely decided to go ahead with someone new. My therapist has a few names for me, which I will take but I doubt they will work out. I’m just a high risk suicidal case with PTSD out of control with chronic pain that makes it difficult to work through. I am anything but “easy”.

Made it out

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

Made it out

I woke up in a better mood than I have the past few days. I wasn’t in as much pain and got some restful sleep. I checked Twitter like I always do and heard that one of my favorite pitchers got traded to the Phillies. This couldn’t be true! I scrolled along but didn’t see anything but exhilaration from the Sox crowd so it must be true.

I took a shower grumpily. It kind of exhausted me but not too much that I had to stay in bed. I had enough time to catch the next bus so I rested a little bit and kept checking Twitter for the official trade notification. I still had no idea who we got. By the time I was at Starbucks, half way through my sandwich, I saw who we got in the trade and my heart sunk. My good day went away, just like that. I didn’t get my burrito. I wasn’t hungry.

I started writing in my journal until I finished my drink. Then I caught the bus to the grocery store to buy some things. I wanted my multigrain bread and I was going to get it, dammit! I also got some pumpkin stuff because there were two cans left. They seemed lonely so I brought them home, after I paid for them of course. I used my burrito money for the purchases.

The bus took forever to get there. I didn’t time the bus right as I had to wait twenty minutes in the cold weather. I had to go to the pharmacy to drop off and pick up my meds. I had just enough time to sort through the mail and take off my brace before my bowels decided to let loose. It was all hard stuff because I hadn’t gone in a week and I bled. I figured as much because I really had to push to get the stool out of my system. For a while, I thought I would have to manipulate to get it to go but it came out on its own. Sometimes when I don’t go regularly, that can happen because I don’t have the muscle tone to push things out anymore. That is because of my nerve injury. I try to go every day or every other day but taking the damn pain meds really caused havoc on my system, especially the strong pain pill. I’m just glad I finally went or tomorrow would be crap day, literally.

It was weird not having therapy today. I was able to go out earlier than I normally do. If I didn’t have to go to the grocery store, I would have stayed at Starbucks longer. I have no idea if I am going to have a flare up tonight or not. But I am glad I went out. I keep thinking it’s Wednesday but it’s not. I guess being in the throws of a flare up really threw me for a loop. I always feel like I lose a day because I have to drug myself around the clock to get relief.

I’m starting a new book today. I finished the Lawrence Block book I was reading. Actually didn’t really finish it but it wasn’t for me so I tossed it aside and took it out of my “currently reading” que. I’m going to read SE Hinton’s Taming the Star Runner. I enjoy her books. I should finish it by the end of the week as it’s not a long book. In the new year, I will read the clinical books and Dostoevsky that I am still working on. It takes a lot of concentration for Dostoevsky and I just don’t have it or the patience to read it.

I calculated how much it’s going to cost me in protein drinks for my diet. It’s going to be a little over $250. I don’t consider that bad considering I usually spend that much on junk food at Stop and Shop. I know I will cheat here and there, but as long as it’s protein and not junk food, I should be okay. I don’t think a roast beef sandwich will be bad as say a tray of Oreo cookies. I will stay away from burgers or that will defeat the purpose. Besides, other than me making the burger, I can’t really buy them. I have no McDonald’s or Burger King in my area. I will miss carbs though. That is why I bought my bread so I can make a tuna sandwich. I can have my carbs and protein all in one.

Next week when I get paid, I plan on getting new glasses. It’s through an online company called Zanni. The frames are wicked cheap but durable and the lenses are not that expensive compared to optical shops. I bought my first pair earlier this year for my progressive lenses and though they really took some getting used to, it turned out to be fine. The only thing I hate about it is that you can’t have them adjusted by the optician so they don’t fit quite right. It took some trial and error but within a month or so, I had them the way I want them. I am going to try their transition lenses next. I priced them and it was $135, which isn’t bad considering. I just need to get a pair of sunglasses. Those I will go to the optician for, only because I need them for driving and I don’t want them messed up.

a 3 am blog

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

a 3 am blog

It’s 0300. I just woke up a few minutes ago. I took some more pain meds to try and calm down my foot. I still have RENT songs in my head. Before I went to bed, I emailed my psychiatrist. I told her I was doing lousy and that I was constipated. I haven’t gone in quite a few days. It is really going hurt when I go. I have been taking fiber pills to make my stools softer, I hope.

I can’t believe the cake I made last week is almost gone. I have one slice left and it will be my breakfast. It came out really good. Now I got to make another cake when I see my psychiatrist because she wants a slice. I don’t mind making it again. I really love this cake.

I don’t understand why I am up at this hour. I took enough pills to kill a horse, not saying I should be dead (I didn’t take that many) but I should at least be sleeping through out the night. I wrote a long journal entry before going to sleep. It was a long time since I last wrote. I had to get my feelings out about my therapist. I didn’t cry this time. I think the more I write about it, the more I am getting comfortable with the idea of her being gone.

I also can’t help thinking of the material that I wrote to her would be great for a book or something. I wrote her some pretty awful things, both in letters (which she’ll probably keep) as well as my journal entries. I shared my journal so she could get a better understanding of me. Not that it helped much in the end. I keep thinking that I will have boxes of stuff but maybe I won’t. I don’t know what she will be giving back to me and what she will be keeping. I wrote to her a lot over the 16 years. She’ll probably keep those letters.

random 788

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

Random 788

I just got finished watching “It’s a Wonderful Life”. It’s one of my favorite Christmas movies because it always gives me hope that things can be better than what they are currently.

I was hoping that I would be asleep by now as I took my strong pain pill and my regular pain pill before the movie and I am still awake. I am also still in pain. It doesn’t seem to want to go away despite all the meds that I have taken today. It’s so frustrating to be in pain all day and not find any measure of relief.

I was talking to a friend today about my therapist. I told her how we were breaking up. She wanted to know why so I basically said she was incompetent. She really is a bozo and the hard part of it all is that I am not sure I can find another therapist that I feel comfortable with. I told my friend that I might have to find a male therapist because female ones haven’t been working out for me. I have only had one male therapist of the 13 that I have had. Unfortunately, I had to fire him because after telling him I was going to OD on some pills with the intent on killing myself, he asked if I was suicidal. No, I just like to OD for fun. What the hell.

Being in pain all the time is such a drag. I had to take some more Ativan because my anxiety keeps shooting up whenever I move my ankle because the pain also shoots up. It’s so hard when I you have PTSD on top of everything and this is why I can’t understand why my therapist can’t help me. She is supposedly trained in trauma. She has diagnosed me as having complex PTSD. I just don’t understand why we can’t focus on that. It drives me berserk. But then she likes to talk and talk more than listen. I need a therapist that can listen to me or at least tolerate the silence when I have nothing to say or I am thinking of something to say without being interrupted. I just feel bad that it’s taken me 16 years to figure this out. Or for her to figure this out because of the one blog I sent her, which she continues to read for some reason. She definitely has issues.

I watched RENT, live on Broadway the other night. The songs are still going through my head. And it’s not just one song, it’s the whole damn side A of the CD I always listen to. Tomorrow I need to listen to it again. It’s the only way to get them out of my head. I would listen to it now but I don’t remember where I placed the CD. I think it’s in the Pearl Jam CD holder that I have that is now buried on my night stand.

My friend gave me RENT the movie for my birthday. I still haven’t watched it yet. I will one of these days. I just need the songs in my head to clear out a bit before watching it again. I hate that this has been happening to me for some time now and it puzzles my doctor. She doesn’t know why it happens. And my antipsychotic meds are not helping it. So I just need to live with another puzzling thing. It is annoying as all hell though.

I was talking to this friend last night about being psychotic as we haven’t talked in while and my psychotic symptoms have gotten worse over the last few years. It kind of made things worse for me and caused me to become paranoid. I swear I am watched by the FBI right now, though I don’t really know why. I haven’t said anything about my alien theory to anyone in months. I don’t want to discuss it now because I am being watched.