Tag: chronic pain

Chronic Pain and Living

by Midnight Demon, posted in chronic physical pain, depression, suicide attempt, suicide attempt survivor

I have tried to take my life several times over the years. Currently, I am struggling with the difficulties of trying to stay alive. I keep coming up with plans to end my life. I give myself a date and when that day comes, I plan on ending it. This has been going on for a few years now. My therapist has been able to stop the constriction by telling me how my family will feel and how she will feel if I go ahead and take my life. I can’t help making these plans.

I have been depressed for as long as I can remember. I recently been trying to get at the “root” of my suicidality but the feelings evade me. I just know that between the ages of 5 and 8 something happened that made me want to take my life. And by age 10 I tried by putting a pillow case over my head. No one knew about this. I told my mother right before putting the pillow case I was going to kill myself but she did nothing. My confidence in her dwindled that day. I felt I could no longer trust her.

Five years later I am a freshman in high school and my parents had started World War III. They broke up and so did my wrist. I started cutting to relieve the pressure and pain. I used cutting to relieve the psychological pain that I was feel and it became my friend over the next seven or so years. Sixteen I was hospitalized and everyone found out about the voices. That was tough. I had wanted to join the military to get away from my family but having a psychotic diagnosis, I knew that I never would pass their tests. My career was over before it started and I fell into a worse depression. I kept on getting rehospitalized, like every three months, because I just couldn’t handle my life. I was getting worse and the suicidality was getting better. I kept on thinking that I was the end.

As I suffer from delusions and psychosis, two years ago, I had a funny thing happen. I had the delusion and voice of Allah tell me that I should sacrifice myself so that the war in Afgan would stop. As you probably could tell, I was off my meds again. My psychiatrist doesn’t think that I should be on them all the time because of the side effects. I had to re-start taking them because I was the sacrificial lamb and I believed all this earnestly. Allah was talking to me and I was the cause of the war of Afganistan. The only way to stop the war was to stop my life. So again I planned another scheme to end my life. Only this time, like before, my therapist stopped me. I tried very hard to get her to see that it had to be done and to think of all the soldiers I would save by ending my life. It seemed like a good win win. Sacrifice one life so all could be saved. Isn’t that what the military does? Allah was not too happy when I started again on my meds. He was very angry. And he also wanted me to end my life anyway because it was better than taking medication. I agreed with him on this but I couldn’t end my life. By this time I was back in the hospital. I was still delusional, thinking I was still the “one” to save it all. But as the medication started working, the delusions dropped and I began to see more clearly. The voices went away except for my regular voices that I hear all the time.

Since that time, a lot has changed for me. I have become disabled and am in chronic physical pain. I now too have a plan on killing myself and it is to happen some time this year. I have had enough. No pill can adequately control my pain and it is a tough position to live in. I have a condition known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). It is a neurological disorder in which the nerves are out of whack and no one really knows the cause. I was “lucky” in that I had nerve damage already to my ankle and then when I sprained it, twice, I think it allowed the nerve damage to spread. Of course I also don’t walk correctly. I can stand here and give a lecture about pain and suicidal but I am afraid it will fall on deaf ears or not really reach the people it needs to reach. I wish you could say that you can live your life with chronic pain but I would be lying. There was a time when I was able to. I had adequate pain control and could work a full time job. That ended when instead of being placed on a regular psych unit, I was placed in a detox unit and my pain medication was stopped. Since that time in 2002, I have not had adequate pain control and I am afraid to ask. I have my pain meds but it only treats the physical type of pain that I experience. It doesn’t help with the burning sensation or the other electrical type pain that I experience. And nothing helps these types of pain. No cream or pain gel works. It might be enough to take the edge off so I can sleep but I am always in a 3-4 state of pain every single day and when my activity goes up, showering, getting dressed, walking to the bus stop or standing while waiting for the bus, then the pain also goes up. Sometimes all it takes is my moving my big toe and I am in pain. And with each episode, I think about death. I plan it, I imagine it, I dream of it. I no longer am able to work because I can’t walk more than 300 ft. I can’t lift things greater than 10 lbs. I can’t stand more than 20 minutes. And I am only 37. I got this horrendous condition when I was 25. It was a long battle and I wish that I could say that not working is helping me. In some ways it does. It helps me to write and distress. My voices are at a lower key than they were when I had a job. I don’t have the delusions as much. I just am constantly suicidal. And maybe one day I will. But as one of the bloggers Toni has written, “I am not living and I can’t die”.

out of spoons, again

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

Today I am supposed to meet up with a childhood friend. I have known this person since middle school, we lost touch after high school, then worked together in the lab at the local hospital. We became better friends while working together.

I got up earlier than I usually do today. My niece had some excitement this morning and startled me awake and I couldn’t go back to sleep. So I showered and got dressed, brushed my teeth. Now I feel like I could go back to sleep. Most of my spoons have been used up. I am hungry but I don’t know what I really want for breakfast yet. I still am debating going back to sleep to recharge myself.

I am feeling out of sorts today and not sure I know why. I had a good sleep before I was rudely awakened. I found a composition book for my therapist to write in while she is gone. I thought of writing in there before here but I don’t really feel like writing twice. I am feeling kind of depressed. My Sox lost last night and the stinking Rays won. Now they are three games behind us instead of four.

I really need to do something with my time. I am failing at cleaning my car to get some money for it. I don’t know why it is so difficult for me. I guess I just can’t do it because that will mean losing the car for good. And I don’t like it. I kind of fell in love with the car but I didn’t take good care of it. I should have replaced the struts when I was supposed to but it cost a lot of money. And it was either pay off this bill or fix the car. I never have been good at budgeting money. In fact, I down right SUCK at it. But I guess with me just getting paid one time a month, I am learning. As long as I have money for my Starbucks (which is the highest priority), I don’t really care for much else. I have been living off cereal this week. I wanted to make some eggs but it seems too much of an effort. I guess I am too lazy to make an egg sandwich. But there are a lot of effort to go through to make the sandwich. Stuff that usually came easy for me are now difficult because the depression is rearing its ugly head. I find that making the egg, though seemingly easy is hard for me to do. I can’t stand long enough to watch it on the stove and then to prepare the round thingy to make the egg round for an English muffin, to use a spatula to turn it over. I just get overwhelmed. I don’t know why that is. I have like anxiety or something all of a sudden. I don’t like scrambled eggs any more. I haven’t been successful in making them in a long time. I can easily make an egg sunny side up but it gets boring after a while. I rather just stick with cereal. Pour the cereal, pour milk, and you are done. And one dish and spoon to wash.

Just came home from meeting with my former lab mates. It was a good outing and though I had a LOT of coffee, I am tired now. I am completely out of spoons. I don’t think I will be catching the Sox game tonight. I might listen to it on the radio in a little bit but right now I just want to chill on my bed and listen to some music. I know part of the reason I am so wiped out is because of the dreaded menses. I swear they have taken away any energy out of me that I have had over the last few days. I think I might be anemic. I am glad I am seeing my doc on Monday. I’ll see if he will do a blood count and to see what my uric acid level is. I was discussing my foot problem to a friend and he said it could be gout. I doubt it is but maybe it could be a slight case of it. I just know that the bones behind my metatarsals hurt me in the morning and night now and it’s not fun! I don’t know if it is a bone thing or a tendon thing that is going on in my foot. They just say I have swelling and every other structure is fine. So what is causing the swelling?? No one knows. FRUSTRATING!

I also for some reason have no appetite the past few days. I have been eating but I don’t think I am nearly hitting the 1000 calorie mark that the body needs. That could be another reason why I am so pooped. But I don’t feel like eating and I am not hungry. I should maybe have a protein bar for my supper tonight. All I had today was a piece of cornbread and half a pound cake loaf. And did I mention I had a lot of coffee??? Despite the coffee I am still exhausted. I just hope I don’t get my second wind because it might be another all nighter. I don’t have anything to do tomorrow so I could stay up all night but that just is inviting trouble to happen. I really don’t want Mr. Hyde to show his head again. My psychiatrist has been on my mind lately and I DON’T want to send her off one of my good bye letters. I will be involuntarily committed. And that is not something you can just say “My psychiatrist is nuts and is lying about what she is saying”. Been there, done that, didn’t work! Fricken spent two weeks in the hospital until THEY thought I was fit to go. I hated it.

feeling terrible

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, depression

I feel terrible and weak. My menses of course have to drive it up a notch and my doc is on vacation just like I thought she would be *huffing puffing*. I was supposed to meet up with a friend today but I am still trying to catch up from sleep I lost yesterday as I had been up almost 24 hrs before taking a nap for a few hours. By few, I mean 3. It was a hard day yesterday. I didn’t know if I was coming or going and I still don’t.

My therapist and I have tried to work on what to do should Mr. Hyde shows up while she is on vacation. Maybe to text the call for help people or something. But the thing is, other than feeling really suicidal, I don’t feel the need to ask for help. I feel totally normal. I go about my business like I normally do. Except I am writing dark stuff and planning the end of my life. I am beyond hopeless so what would be the point of reaching out? I don’t feel the need to talk to anyone. All I need is a pad and pen or my laptop and I am good. I express all the dark stuff on paper or send off messages to people that I care about telling them I love them and not to worry that I will be in a better place. It seems NORMAL to me but I know it’s not normal when I wake up from this dream/dissociative state. Only when I am out of it do I really feel the sting of the pain because I am still living. I really feel like during these episodes that I am going to die, that I will fall asleep and not wake up. Then I wake up, rested and wonder if I dreamt all that, but then the yellow legal pad or messages I get in the morning are my tell all. That it wasn’t a dream. That I wasn’t in my “right” mind at all. And every time this happens is after 2100 hrs. It starts usually about then and ends whenever I fall asleep which is usually around 0300-0400 in the morning. I use military time because it is easier to write for me.

I am supposed to write something for the AAS blog but other than the piece I did write and was rejected, sort of, I have no clue what this person is looking for. And I am tired of trying to please someone. I wrote a three page blog last night at five in the morning because I was up and had all these thoughts in my head, but apparently, chronic pain and suicide doesn’t fathom her taste either. I am going to hold off on posting the blog for now as I want to re-read it and maybe make some edits. My therapist almost went apeshit on me when she found out that this person was going to rifle through my blogs. I don’t care. I really don’t. If a million people can have access to it, why can’t she. My therapist I have had to throw limits to because there are some stuff I just don’t want her to read. That is limiting just one person. And it’s not like people I know really read my blogs. There is a person in Taiwan that reads them and I don’t know him or her. That is the beauty of being anonymous. But when your therapist reads your blog, you know you are no longer anonymous and that frightens me. I know I post my blog on Facebook and a couple of my real friends have read it. But they don’t call me on it. Some people do. My sister had her friend over the other night and we were talking about Facebook and she called me by my real name (which still shocks me because I never get called that at home except by my mother) and she proceed to ask like WTF is wrong with me. In FRONT of my sisters and her friend. I kind of got embarrassed. I was like WTF. I post what I post and I don’t censor it all. Hell, if I censored my blog, all of them would be private and not available to help someone who is feeling the same thing I am feeling so what the hell is the difference. Just because you think your life is all happy and shit doesn’t mean that my life is. My life is miserable and I know that I can make it better by not being a part of the world but that is not going to happen. I have an eight year old that looks up to me and to tell her that I have died would just break her little heart. And knowing that I would be the cause of that is why I can’t go ahead with killing myself.

how the midnightdemons came to be

by Midnight Demon, posted in chronic physical pain, depression

I am at my starbucks drinking my Kati Kati while reading Noonday Demon. A fellow blogger reminded me about it and decided to pick it up again.

Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon is where I got the idea for the name of my blog. While he experiences his demons during the noon time hour, I experience them during the midnight hours. Thursday night was the perfect example of that. I was talking with my therapist today about this and she thinks I dissociated into Mr. Hyde again. I’m still trying to remember what triggered me. I had been depressed most of that day. My first blog of that day was me writing about how I was tired of living. I don’t know if that is what set me off or if it was my never ending menstrual cycle. Though I don’t think you can call it a cycle at the present time. It more like a never ending flowing that has gone on for weeks now.

I am just reading the part in the book where he is describing depression as a vine that just stifles you. With each growth, it just takes more and more of your energy to fight it until you are wondering why you are existing. You are praying for death as you can’t understand why the vine has not stopped your breathing. You continue to exist in this shell of an existence. That is how I feel right now. The depression, a word I forgot that describes me, has stifled my existence and is trying to extinguish me. These blackout dissociations are one clue that I am not with it. But the problem becomes how to deal with it. Hospital will only treat the symptoms of my depression, and there are no meds for dissociation. I still think that it is just a symptom of my suicidality. I am too far depressed and have crossed over into the blackness of existence. I may not feel suicidal all the time but obviously I still am on an unconscious level. Or maybe it is subconscious. Either way, I don’t know what to do about it. I am sort of scared that I might try to end my life while in this state. It most likely will be an impulsive move. And with that, I won’t have my crisis response plan to use. I will only be focused on whatever it is I am feeling at that moment and how to get rid of it. Luckily, the midnightdemons have only been writing about the end of my life. I don’t think I have attempted anything because I’m still here and there are no empty bottles of pills, knife or razor wounds, or ligature marks to indicate to me that I have tried something.

The mind is very complex. It can focus on writing something very emotional yet still listen to music as you write. I really want to try and see if the Neurontin that I take has been the cause of the dissociations that I have been experiencing. But I am afraid that if I do and something were to happen, I won’t remember it. I barely remember that I took the pills to begin with so obviously, something was brewing BEFORE my dose. I don’t take the Neurontin on a daily basis. I usually just take it when the burning sensation is too much or if I want to zone out. But lately, the being zoned out part has not worked for me the last couple of times I have taken it. Which is a total bummer.

If I do end up in the hospital, I have no idea what to tell my family. Usually I tell them I have to go in to adjust my medication or that I am just deeply depressed. It becomes a hard time for me because when I get out, I am watched like a hawk. Or it just becomes a surprise as I have not been showing signs of my depression. The only thing that is really keeping me out (aside from losing my phone) is my mother’s hypo attacks. I don’t think I can forgive myself if something were to happen to her while I was in the hospital, especially since now I think she has an infection in her foot. Infections and diabetes do not mix.

I wish my psychiatrist would respond to the email I sent her. Sometimes I just like acknowledgement of the email to know she got it and that it wasn’t lost in cyber world. But she is on vacation and I don’t see her until next Friday.

My Sox are off tonight. They are in Toronto for their series against the Blue Jays. I don’t know what I am going to do tonight. I might accompany my mother to the ER to get her foot looked at. I hate going to ERs. They are not fun. I am hoping they will take her quickly but it all depends on how urgent other cases are. I feel really bad for my mother. I know what it is like having foot pain. I go through it every day. In fact, I woke up with it this morning. I had to take some pain meds and I then fell back asleep until my mother called to tell me she couldn’t see her doctor today because he and the covering doc was on vacation. Does that make sense?? Why bother covering for someone if you know you are going on vacation too! Pisses me off.

So now you know how the midnight demons came to be called. Though I still don’t know what is causing them to exist. I think exhaustion has something to do with it. I am wicked tired and instead of sleeping, I just go off into Mr. Hyde until I do finally succumb to sleep. It just sucks that I am writing very dark stuff before I do fall asleep. But I have been lucky so far that I have not done anything. I hope it continues to stay that way. If I am going to kill myself, I want to be in the present state of mind and not be out of it. Or maybe it is better that I am out of it…