“I asked her to list off the tasks of her day, including the most simple. As, she rattled off daily chores, or just fun things to do; I explained how each one would cost her a spoon. When she jumped right into getting ready for work as her first task of the morning, I cut her off and took away a spoon. I practically jumped down her throat. I said ” No! You don’t just get up. You have to crack open your eyes, and then realize you are late. You didn’t sleep well the night before. You have to crawl out of bed, and then you have to make your self something to eat before you can do anything else, because if you don’t, you can’t take your medicine, and if you don’t take your medicine you might as well give up all your spoons for today and tomorrow too.” I quickly took away a spoon and she realized she hasn’t even gotten dressed yet. Showering cost her spoon, just for washing her hair and shaving her legs. Reaching high and low that early in the morning could actually cost more than one spoon, but I figured I would give her a break; I didn’t want to scare her right away. Getting dressed was worth another spoon. I stopped her and broke down every task to show her how every little detail needs to be thought about. You cannot simply just throw clothes on when you are sick. I explained that I have to see what clothes I can physically put on, if my hands hurt that day buttons are out of the question. If I have bruises that day, I need to wear long sleeves, and if I have a fever I need a sweater to stay warm and so on. If my hair is falling out I need to spend more time to look presentable, and then you need to factor in another 5 minutes for feeling badly that it took you 2 hours to do all this.”
This paragraph is taken from http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/.
I wanted to best demonstrate the issue of the spoon theory. Her friend started out with 12 spoons, much like I did today. And before she even took a shower she was down to 3 spoons.
I decided to change my bedding today and it took all the energy I had to do this. My depression, pain, and the weather has kept me inside the past few days. I was tired of sleeping in sheets that haven’t been changed in months. So I cleared off what was on my bed and slowly took the blankets off, then the sheets and pillow cases. There was 5 spoons in this effort alone and I still haven’t gotten through the day yet or put the clean sheets on my bed. After I struggled with my full sized mattress, I just laid on top of the bed and realized I had to get up again to get my laptop which was on my desk. Another spoon. I was mentally and physically exhausted and I hadn’t done anything but change my sheets. I had to rest. It sucks having pain and exhaustion all the time. I still hadn’t brushed my teeth or made myself something to eat and I was starving. I decided to order pizza and wings. I checked email and rested while the order came. After the food came, I really have no idea where time went. I know I saw my niece, ate, and what happened after that I guess no one will know. I don’t know if I watched TV or played more on the computer. To really put myself back some spoons, I decided to brush my teeth and take a shower. Now I am all out of spoons for the night and I still have not taken my night meds or emailed my doctor. My ankle is throbbing from standing in the shower for the ten minutes it takes for me to wash up. Ten minutes of agony. Another five minutes to brush my teeth and then I am out of the shower. I’m now up in my room under my clean sheets writing this blog and feeling like I am going to pass out. I didn’t do too much today. But it was a lot. Tomorrow I probably am going to pay for it like I usually do. Hopefully I will start off with at least 10 spoons for the day.
Tag: chronic pain
Baseball Season is officially over
Tonight the San Francisco Giants swept the Detroit Tigers in the World Series. My Baseball Depressive Disorder has peaked. Now I have no baseball games until Spring training in March, a mere five month wait for something I love more than anything.
I went out with a friend of mine who I haven’t seen since May. He finally sold his house in Boston and is now temporarily living in Marlborough until things are settled for his condo in Revere. I hope that he likes Revere and he is by the Blue Line as he works in Boston. Traveling can be hard between these two cities by car. He wants me to help him with his Facebook page and I have agreed. It is freelance work, though I have told him I know nothing about eye conditions but he is willing to teach me. He is an eye doctor, and in my opinion one of the best in the Boston area. I have been seeing him since I graduated high school. This volunteer work will help me keep busy. I love learning new things and I am sure it will help him and his work.
I still am feeling kind of weird since I am living and I have not attempted suicide. I feel like it is a loss that I am never going to recover from. I know this must sound weird but it’s true. I have been trying to attempt to kill myself since 2005 and have not made one single attempt despite all my planning. I have come close a couple of times but I have never really gone past my planning stage. What changed? The fact that more people need to be aware that there are people like me who think about suicide all the time yet do not tell a single soul about how dark their thoughts are. I have my therapist to talk to about this and she is the ONLY person that knows how I really feel. I don’t confide in anyone else. I would talk to my psychiatrist but I have been avoiding her. Mostly because I just feel like a burden to her. That is the hardest part of this illness is knowing you are a burden to others even though you may not really be in reality.
I still have yet to go back to my comparison paper. I really am just procrastinating on it. I want to be able to work on it while I am sitting at a Starbucks. And because my depression is so bad I hardly leave the house, I just have not been in the mood to bring my laptop around the city to go to Starbucks and sit for a few hours. I have been becoming more reclusive and I hate leaving the house for any reason. I just like staying in my room all the time goofing off on my laptop while Facebooking or blogging. I haven’t had that many emails to respond to. My online CES support group has been quiet lately. Like everything else, it ebbs and flows. Sometimes there is a lot of chatter and other times there is very little. It all depends on what is going on and if people have things to add or suggest. This group has been a life saver for me because without it, I would feel totally alone with my nerve condition.
Rambling 9
Spent the day catching up on my TiVo. I was running out of room and want to make sure I can record the CMA’s next week.
So today was supposed to be the day I ended my life. Like I suspected, it was just another day in the life of Midnight demons haunting me but without the impulse to take my life. Watching my favorite shows kind of helped. I really have not been watching much tv except for baseball or football games. Also been listening to the new music by Casey James and Jason Aldean. I don’t know why but my music has veered toward male vocalists. I guess it’s mostly because there hasn’t been any new female artist that I like lately. Don’t really think too much of Taylor’s new CD, Red. Songs aren’t resonating with me and when songs don’t resonate with me I tend not to enjoy listening to music too much. Plus her music on this CD is very different than her previous albums.
I haven’t texted my therapist the past few days. There is nothing really that I want to convey to her. I know I should just to check in but I just don’t feel like bothering.
I got a new software program to help my typing. I figure while I am on the computer anyways I might put it to good use. Maybe it will help decrease the time I spend hitting the backspace button .
It’s after 9pm EST and my pain levels have just peaked. My ankle feels like it is going to break. I feel so bloated I think I am the meatball I just ate, and I just feel like I am a worthless POS. My therapist has accused me of not taking my meds because my mood has been so awful. She still tries to get me to see my psychiatrist but she hasn’t responded to any of my emails so I can’t say that I haven’t tried. I have been taking my meds even though they probably aren’t doing much to really help me. I have decreased my pain meds even though I probably shouldn’t. I just don’t see the point of taking it unless the pain is unbearable. Like it is right now. It is not at the suicidal point but I am uncomfortable and in agony. I just test my limits of my pain threshold. The hard part is that the threshold varies. Right now my pain is an 8 on a scale of 1-10. And the nerve pain (burning has begun and it feels like my foot is sooo hot but is cool to the touch. But it could be a 6 tomorrow and I will be ok with dealing my pain. I sometimes don’t even notice the pain, that is how used to it I am. It usually registers above a 6. There is no reason for it, but today I have been up and down the stairs a lot today. I had groceries delivered so I had to. Then I had to stay on my feet and put them away. I knew I would pay for it.
Tomorrow I am supposed to go out with a friend for brunch. I haven’t seen him since I was first out on disability in April. I know it will be good to go out with him. I am kind of looking forward to it but I have been so depressed I sometimes don’t want to get out of bed just to go to the bathroom. It takes a lot of “spoons” to get ready. I have no idea what I am going to wear and it always causes me anxiety whenever I have to go out. I just can’t make a simple decision on what to wear. It kills me to just look at my clothes and just stand there and be indecisive. I hate it. I need to shower and take care of my personal hygiene that I have not been so great at doing the past few days. I figure if I am not going to go out, why bother.
I have been trying for the past week to change my bedding. I even got new sheets to try and today it took all the energy I had just to take my “office” off my bed so I could get to my sheets. By my office I mean literally my laptop, notebook, journal, research articles, notepads, mail, and whatever clothes that I just happened to put on the side of the bed I don’t sleep on. I keep these things handy because I never know when the urge to write is going to hit me and I am particular when I have some paper I want to write on when it hits. I have yellow legal pads and white composition notebooks. Sometimes the color matters sometimes it doesn’t. I just need it handy because if I have a running train of thoughts I want a pad of paper and pen handy. I keep a box of pens on my nightstand because I like pens. I must have over $1000 USD worth of pens. I have pens of every color, style, ink quality, you name it. Lately my pen of choice is Uniball Jetstream. I love this pen. It is so smooth when you write with it. It doesn’t smear and supposedly it prevents check fraud. I rarely write out checks anymore but I do write a lot with these pens. My other favorite pen that I like is the Pilot V ball. Those pens do smear but I like the scratching noise it makes on paper. But I rarely use this pen since finding the Jetstream. I have been so crazy with this pen I have at least 2 dozen pens and even bought refills for my pens. And I keep buying more. If I leave the house without a pen, I will buy it. Even if I don’t write with it, I have to have a pen. So far the only store that sells my pen is CVS. Walgreens stopped stocking it .
Thank you for reading this ramble.
stuck like glue
Got a stupid migraine today that is incapacitating me. Every sound and light beam is making my head hurt. I woke up with it and I hate that more than when I get one during the day. My right eye hurts and the area around it is numb.
How do you feel right now? what are you thinking about?—Stationary Addicts tweet for today. Seems appropriate somehow. I feel like crap and my head is pounding. I don’t want to have a session with my therapist tomorrow but she is being a fink and won’t let me cancel. She is worried about me because of my suicidality has peaked. I still have not told my psychiatrist what is going on. I just don’t want to. I just want to be left alone with myself for once and think things through enough to end my life. Why is that so bad?
I’m thinking about my friend who I told about my plans. She says she wants me to tell her goodbye. I don’t know how. I never have told anyone good bye before right before I acted on a plan so this is weird. I am also thinking that if I don’t go through with these plans I am never going to be free from my suffering.
Someone once asked me if you had to suffer and have misery to be happy. I would say that yes. For me in order to write I have to feel something powerful to get it out on paper. My journals are filled with my pain and suffering. But also writing on this blog has helped me to see that my writing helps people. I think the main reason for this is that most people suffer but do not know how to articulate it very well. I have a knack for being able to articulate these dark thoughts and put them out in the open (aka, the WWW). I don’t know how I am able to do this, my writing style has always been free, but I think I have learned some stuff from my English professors at the junior college I attended. They were really good in ripping my papers apart and having me redo them. But it taught me to write the way I write.
Song of the day is Casey James’ crying on a suitcase. I love this song and the guitar chords. I have a knack of finding a song that connects with me. I can’t explain it. Whatever I am feeling, a song will come on the radio to describe it perfectly. I have made CDs for my therapist trying to explain how I feel about her through the music and lyrics. I have been doing this since I first met her. It is sort of our thing now. Funny story, when the song by Sugarland came out, I didn’t play it for her because it was so freaky. Somehow the song came on her radio one day and told me about the song and I was like OMG no way! Song is called Stuck like Glue and you can say that the lyrics mean something for us because no matter how much we have tried to end this (Or rather I have tried) it seems like we were meant to be together.
midnightdemons7 
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