Tag: chronic physical pain

it’s 0600

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

It’s 0600

I woke up about a half hour ago from a weird dream. I was supposed to be making a tuna fish sandwich but instead there were bugs in the container. This didn’t phase me and I resolved to eat them, but as I fix the “fish” the way I like it, one of the bugs started talking to me. It was like we had to have a chat before I ate it. In the dream was Richard Dean Anderson. We were talking about his military service (from Stargate). It was a really strange dream that has me unsettled. The bugs were not usual bugs. They had unusual characteristics, like the bugs you saw on Disney’s Lion King where Timone says “tastes like chicken” while he is preparing Simba’s plate of bugs. I don’t know why I have been having strange dreams lately. I haven’t been eating anything weird or doing anything different. But at least I am reaching REM sleep. I feel rested and alert but I did wake up in pain. I took my pain meds and hoping I get back to sleep in about a half hour.

Dell called me yesterday to see if my system is working properly. I missed the call because as usual, the one time I leave my phone in my room, I get a phone call. They then sent me an email. I plan on responding later today.

I was reading a book on bipolar disorder last night. The chapter I was reading was on sleep and internal clocks. It said that sleep deprivation isn’t good for bipolar because it can set off hypomania or mania. If that were true, I would be super manic by now. They did suggest that sleeping from 1800 to 0200 might help mood. I am going to try and see if that works. Maybe it will reset my clock and I won’t have these weird sleeping hours, or sleep for longer periods than 3 hours here and 4 hours there. I can’t remember a night where I slept 6 or more hours.

I was going through “Suicide as Psychache” and found that Shneidman wrote the same line at least four times so far. I was able to find a quote for tomorrow as I got finished with his aphorisms. I was thinking of quoting the commonalities of suicide but I already have a blog about that. And there are ten of them that must be taken together or it just doesn’t make sense. I have to read the next chapter sometime today. I am not sure if I will be going out. It’s supposed to rain and I don’t like traveling in the rain unless I absolutely have to. I am craving a latte or a mocha, however so maybe I will brave the weather and go to Starbucks. I should really rest my ankle as the walking to pick up my niece last night really hurt. But I am starting to feel cooped up as I haven’t left the house since Monday.

There are some baseball movies that I want to buy from Amazon. They are relatively cheap, no more than five bucks each. I think it will be nice to watch them. A friend of mine also wants me to watch “Princess Bride”. I have never watched this movie from beginning to end. I have seen parts of it. It’s an okay movie and really funny. I am not a movie person at all. I rather read a book so there are a ton of movies that I have not seen. It’s hard when someone makes a reference to a movie and I am clueless. One movie that I really would love to see again and own is Stand By Me. I haven’t seen that movie in years. It is a great movie and has my favorite actor in it, Wil Wheaton. I was following their tweets via text but they (he and his wife) tweet a lot during the day. It wasn’t even funny stuff like it was before. I guess they get a lot of stupid people’s tweet that insult them. I find that it’s harsh. I feel bad about it but then they keep posting it and I just had to stop the texts. There were more texts from them in a span of an hour than anything. Now my phone is silent and I like that, least for now. I like following his wife because she posts pictures of their animals and they are really cute.

I have therapy today. I hope it goes well.

Feeling heartbroken

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

Feeling heartbroken

I know this is probably all the sleep deprivation as I have been up since 0500. Psychache is running high. I just feel like my world is falling apart and I don’t know why that is. I read a blog a little while ago. I like this person’s blog. She has a similar condition like mine. We have been talking for more than a year now. She wrote in her latest blog that she is planning on ending her life and that makes me sad to lose her or think of losing her. I know it is her right. I wrote that in my latest Quote for the Day. I am just feeling really emotional right now. I really want to cry.

I think spending time with my father has really warped my head. He was such an ass today. I was helping him do something, and he said thank you, but I don’t believe his sincerity. I have known him too long. Then I read something about Narcissists. Described my father to a T and I just read the first line of the article. My therapist says that I have a narcissistic injury because of him. I have no idea what that means. I will ask her about it tomorrow when I talk with her.

Since the turmoil with my therapist, I haven’t been able to write anything for my book. Doesn’t look like it will get done this year. I am stuck at page 30 and there I will stay. I just can’t think of anything to write. I want to finish the roots story but I am having trouble because my damn pen keeps running out of ink when I start working on it. I keep forgetting to replace the pen in my pocket in my jeans. I am such a loser.

Since my friend has been talking about how she wants to end her life because of pain, it stirred up my feelings on the matter. Before I read her story, I wanted to put a plastic bag over my head. It was laying on my bed, innocent as can be and I just had this rush of wanting to end my life like that. The feelings didn’t last long but it was there. I can’t deny it. I think of these things often, of ending my life, not putting a bag over my head. Yet I am for suicide prevention. I am such a hypocrite. I would stay up all night with someone if it meant saving their life but I wouldn’t reach out when I am suicidal. Sure I write on my blog. I vent about how sucky my life is. How I am in pain nearly every single day. That I am probably dependent on the pain medication I am on. I am not addicted. There is a difference between addiction and dependence. I don’t take more than I should of my medication. Sometimes I don’t even take it because the pain is just not that great. I am not saying I like being in pain, but why take a pill when my pain is minimal? It’s when it’s unbearable I take my pills. It might be too late by then but least I have something. My friend doesn’t have anything except MJ. Because of all the stupid damn bullshit around opioid use, doctors are scared to prescribe it to real chronic pain patients. I am always afraid my doc will stop prescribing my meds. That will be the day he signs my death certificate.

I read today that one of my Twitter buddies was looking for purpose. I often wonder if I have a purpose in this world. My therapist and psychiatrist always says that I do. But I don’t feel it. I don’t have a life worth living as Marsha Linehan would say. Actually, I don’t know what she would say. I know I just want to belong, to feel connected. I wrote something on Twitter and no one responded. I have my tweets also go to Facebook and got more responses. I have 500 Twitter followers and not one of them responded to my tweet. It’s like unless I include them in the tweet, it just gets ignored. I honestly don’t get the Twitter world sometimes. Yet I will say something profound and get many retweets and favorites. Go figure that out. I don’t think anyone cares what I say anymore.

Saturday Blog 36

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

Saturday Blog 36

I went to the Square and didn’t get stranded. I was so happy the bus came on time to take me home. I did a little bit of writing on my new story that I wrote almost a month and a half ago. It was the first time writing on it since I drafted it. The pen I was using ran out of ink, but I came prepared this time. I had two pens in my pocket, each a different colored ink. I didn’t care as long as I wrote something to this story. When not working on the whole of the story, I have a notepad by my bed that I write my ideas on. I will inject these ideas when I am typing up the whole.

It is fricken cold today, despite being close to 60 degrees. I just wore a T-shirt and it turned out to be a mistake. I should have worn a sweater. I had time to grab it but that would mean walking down the street I hate, going up two flights of stairs and then going down same flights of stairs, up the same street that I hate and wait for the bus. Wasn’t happening so I froze. I don’t know why Starbucks had the damn AC on. Maybe the place has to be kept a cooler temperature for the machines. We had to be kept cold in the lab because the analyzers ran so hot. So even on a cold winter day, the temperature in the lab was cold as well. I don’t ever remember the lab being kept warm, except by the machines. I didn’t care as I was always hot. It was very rare that I was cold due to the temperature of the lab. I wouldn’t wear shorts, but I always wore a T-shirt or short sleeved button down. I miss working in the lab. I wish I could work just a few hours but I know my ankle would act up even before I got to work and then by the end of the shift, I would be in more pain. I no longer have a car so going home by T would suck really bad. But it depends on what shift I would work. Preferably, I would love swing shift, this way I am not there early and I can get out early. But with my LTD, I can’t work at all and I can’t risk losing it in case working doesn’t work out.

It was stressful in the lab because of the high demand of patient samples on any given shift. During the week was the worse because of outpatient samples. They would come in by the truck load. And there was no keeping up until they stopped coming in. It had its moments though. I was a senior person, even though I never got the actual title for it. Even supervisors would come to me with questions on how to handle a difficult specimen. I seen it all, all types of body fluids, tissues, you name it, I probably saw it, except for body parts. That was another department.

My twitter buddy posted some stuff today that really got me angry. Apparently, there is a petition going around the internet wanted to remove the “T” from LGBT. As if being transgendered isn’t hard enough. They got like 1000 signatures. What fucking morons. What is next, removing the “B”? I don’t get it. I didn’t want to even look at the stupid petition because I knew it would upset me. I am already feeling like an outcast in my own skin, let alone to the LGBT community. I had a weird dream last night that I was thrown out of the house and I had to call this 800 number to get to Houston. My cousin lives in Houston and the number links to him. I would go there to live. It was the strangest dream I ever had. I guess yesterday’s blog really sunk into my subconsciousness. I have been meaning to call a transgender hotline, just to talk about being transgender but the hotlines are mostly for crisis and I am not in crisis. I would hate to take time up while someone who is in crisis needs to talk to someone. I wish they had email or something that I could use. It would be helpful to talk to another FTM. My brother in law’s nephew is FTM but he doesn’t like to talk about the specifics about his condition. He has been through so much discrimination and I hate to bring it up because he always seems to stand offish. One of my brother in law’s brother used to be gay, but gave “it” up when he became a Jehovah’s witness. I don’t know how you can give up your sexuality, but then I don’t understand that faith at all. He says he is depressed at times and I wonder if it is because he isn’t who he truly is meant to be. You can have a relationship with God or a higher power and still be gay. I just don’t understand. People do it all the time. I don’t have a relationship with God or a higher power. I guess it’s because of the way I grew up that I don’t believe in it anymore. I had one person tell me when I was at my lowest point that maybe I should seek out “his guidance” all because he prayed for me all the time. I got really mad because I felt like who are you to tell me this or tell me what I should or shouldn’t believe in. It was very upsetting to me.

But getting back to the transgender piece, I often feel so alone. I don’t have many gay or lesbian friends that I am close to. I never belonged in the community even when I went to the Boston Alliance of Gay and Lesbian Youth (BAGLY). I still felt like I was an outsider even among my peers. We had MTF leader but I never was able to get close enough to her to talk to her about how I felt. I just was a tomboy lesbian to the group. I didn’t know what being TG was until I was in my 30s. It was then that I realized part of the root of my suicidality was that I was the wrong gender. It was killing me and I had no idea. Every time I would get my menses, I would get seriously suicidal until I started bleeding. Then I would be “fine”. It got worse as time went on. I dreaded getting the menses every month and the suicidality just got worse. I split myself in two, the part that had to go on living and working to sustain myself and the other part to end my life because it had become so unbearable. All of this was before I found Shneidman and Jobes. I think if I didn’t find their work, I might not be here today. Ten years ago this month I made a plan to end my life. I went on business as usual until my therapist as what was really going on. I remember laughing at the question because I was so split. I was bored in therapy. I mean what was the point as I was going to kill myself. But she got to me and I made the decision to tell her my plans before I acted on them. I somewhat regret that decision at times. I know I regretted it a year later when I got hit with CES again. I think it was around this time that I was putting two and two together around being transgender and how much it was killing me not being who I was. It was killing me being a female, literally. The only thing that I wanted to do more than anything was to either have a hysterectomy or stop my menses. It took a couple years of trial and error with pills to get to where I am today. Even when I have to have break through bleeding every 4-5 months it doesn’t bother me as much as it did. It does bother me, but I am not suicidal over it.

I know there are FTMs out there. I just got to find them and hopefully they will accept me into their community. Being alone sucks and is so isolating. Even if I just had one person to talk to, that would be good. I hope I find that one person that doesn’t think I am a freak.

In Pain and Can’t Sleep

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

In pain and can’t sleep

I have been fighting pain since I came home. Soon after I finished my previous blog today, my middle finger knuckle started hurting. I took some aspirin hoping it would settle it down some. It did but then it wore off and is now hurting more than my damn ankle. If I move my finger, I am in more pain so I am trying to not move it too much. Good thing I don’t give people the finger too often, hehehe.

I have been listening to Pandora for the past couple of hours. It’s Terri Clark radio and it is a good mix of songs, older country to new. I love it. AND it plays Terri Clark songs, unlike the Jake Owen radio station I created. I created it to listen to Jake, and I got about 30 songs before I got to Jake. I also got people that weren’t country like Rhianna and someone else. I don’t remember the name. I think I will have to delete the station and start over.

I am very tired, more tired than I was when I wrote my other blog. But soon as I lie down, I wake up. I get restless and can’t lie down anymore. Yet when I am sitting up I can rest. It doesn’t make sense. I think I need to take an Ativan to get some sleep. I think I am nervous about tomorrow because I have to be up early to catch the 0949 bus. I should be awake by then but with this nervousness, I don’t know if I will be. I always get nervous that I will oversleep when I need to get up early. I set my alarm, just in case. If I get up before 7 but after 5, I will just stay up. If I wake up at 4 I am going to try and go back to sleep. I just don’t know how many hours I will be sleeping.

I keep plowing through my book “Dead Wake”. I find it so sad that there were warnings but no one headed them. It’s like the left hand didn’t know what the right was doing. And they thought for sure that no submarine was going to attack a civilian passenger liner. More people were killed on this boat than the Titanic. I don’t think there were any survivors, though I haven’t read the entire story, yet. I do know there were close to 2,000 dead. Just a sad story. And I am reading it for the history part and because I am a history person. I also like sunken ships and such. It is what drew me to the Titanic when they found her in 1984/5. To me, it was unimaginable that such a tragedy could happen but because it did, marine travel changed. Boats were fitted with lifeboats for ALL passengers and crew and radio communications were open 24/7. In the book, the captain of the ship ordered practice drills for lifeboats several times.

I need to get a card for my Godmother tomorrow as Wednesday is coming soon. I will try and get one while I am out and about in the morning. If I remember, maybe I will hit CVS before I hit Starbucks. I can’t believe how much my finger is throbbing. I hate arthritic pain. I hate pain in general, but arthritic pain has to be the worse because it just hurts whenever you move that joint. I am trying to keep my hand as stable as possible but I do have to flex my finger to type. It’s not really my finger that is aching, it’s the knuckle behind it. I had to take my ring off my ring finger to ease the pressure. It just sucks. And I can’t sleep because between my ankle and my hand/knuckle, I can’t fall asleep. I want to attack the donuts I bought. I know that is not going to help my pain but it will help something. But I don’t want to start eating when I am stressed because that isn’t a good thing.

Soon as my quote is published tonight, I am going to send it to my therapist. It fits with the theme of frustrated needs and suicide. Thing is, I don’t know why Shneidman uses succorance rather than love. The word is so old that Word doesn’t recognize it. I don’t know where the word has its origins. I like the history of words. I think it’s neat to know where a word came from, whether it be Latin or Greek or whatever. According to Merriam-Webster (aka Google) the word means dependence, especially a dependence on or an active seeking for nurturant care. It’s from the British, which probably explains why Word doesn’t recognize the word. So people who are looking for someone to care for them and don’t find it get frustrated and want to kill themselves. Makes sense, to me anyway. I am sure there are other mitigating factors other than this one need being thwarted that leads to thinking about suicide, however. Suicide is never just one thing. It’s usually a cascade of things that just comes to a head and you just can’t take anymore. Like being in excruciating pain every day and one day it just becomes too much to bear. That is when the planning starts and the time becomes shorter. You might act impulsively or it can be a planned event. I always have a planned event but my dates always get thwarted by my damn treaters. They still want me to stick around for to avoid THEIR pain, not mine. Maybe I will take that up with my psychiatrist tomorrow. Why she wants me to live when I am not sleeping and I am in so much pain it keeps me up and give me fucking anxiety. That to me is worse than being in pain in the first place. Thing I don’t understand is that when my pain is elevated, my BP and pulse rate aren’t. It’s strange. But I still want to die because I rather die than live this way anymore. I am only here to prevent other people’s pain and that is no way to live.