Tag: chronic physical pain

Book Rant

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

I scored today on Kindle with getting Dostoevsky’s works for just $1.99 and one of his short stories for $0.99. The works included his big works like the Brother’s Karamazov and Crime and Punishment. I couldn’t pass it up. I would have spent more on those two alone than just the full works. I am very happy. I just hope they are in the full version and not a half ass book. You never know with Kindle because you have to go through all the pages to see it. The first work they have is the Brothers, which is a big volume. Only thing I don’t like about the kindle, least the one that I have, is that I can’t say get to page 100 without scrolling through 100 pages. I just haven’t mastered how the thing works. It is an app, not the kindle itself. I should ask my sister how to get through the thing. But what really bothers me is that there was no title page for the entire collection. It just started with the Brothers and that was it! I guess that will be my next reading when I finish the Idiot. I love reading Fyodor!

I am in mega pain. And what is worse, is that I can’t rest tomorrow like I should. The doctor messed up my father’s pills so I need to go to the pharmacy and get it for my father. He is also out of one his medications. I misjudged how much was left in the bottle. So that is my fault. I have to put the pills in because he isn’t going to know what pills to fucking take. It is so annoying.

I don’t know why I am continuing to be on Facebook. There is so much negativity and bullshit, and you can’t get away from Memes!! Seems people can’t write their own statuses anymore, they just MEME them to death! I like Twitter for this reason. It’s original. Sure you have the memes there, too, but they aren’t in abundance like FB. Since my game ended, I have been bored silly. I guess that is why I am writing and reading more. Though even though I do have the time to read, I haven’t finished that many books this year. I have completed maybe three? I should start a spreadsheet on when I start a book and when I finish it. Goodreads was ok, but it doesn’t really give you a start date. It generally thinks you start reading the day you entered the book, which might not be accurate. I can’t change that date. So starting a spreadsheet might be helpful.

Last night, I got really suicidal. I didn’t do anything, but I really wanted to. It kind of scared me. I wrote about it in my new Hyde Notebook. It was too powerful to write on a blog. Plus, the information I wrote about, I really don’t want coming back to haunt me. So it’s just in black and white in this notebook. I am trying my hand at containing the darkness in one place. I was wicked tired, drugged up from my pain medication, and in severe pain. The perfect storm for Hyde to come out but he didn’t. I wrote what I did and then I went to sleep. I don’t remember what I wrote exactly but I do remember the gist of the writings. I was in compete control of the writing and I didn’t dissociate. I just wrote one page because I was so tired. If the meds weren’t working the way they did, I probably would have written more.

I am down to the last three chapters of the “Idiot”. I am sad to see this book end but also happy that I am finished with it. I should be done with it tonight, if I get the inclination to read the last thirty or so pages. I would have finished it last night, but I got too tired from pain meds and was in too much pain to think straight. It’s so hard to read when you don’t feel well. I think that is why my number of books is so low. I just haven’t been able to put in the mental stuff required for reading, and because I am in pain most of the time, it’s just hard. Some book are easier to read than others. Like I enjoyed reading “The Graveyard Book”. It took me a few days to read, where it has taken me three weeks to finish the Idiot. But it’s a longer book than the Graveyard. I don’t know what it is with me and large books. They take forever to read and then I get frustrated half way through. Like the stupid Battle Cry for Freedom. 900 pages of words and took me almost a year or more to finish. And because I was reading it, I didn’t read anything else, even though I usually have two books I am reading at the same time. I really want to get back into the “Reagan Diaries”. That was an interesting book. I read a quarter of it before I got interested in other things. Hamilton is another book that I started but never finished. Again another 900 or so page book. It was a difficult book to read though. It didn’t have spot in it that you can pause. It was just one long ramble. I have no idea where that book went. I think it is in the Hamper that I have been meaning to clean out but haven’t gotten to. It won’t be today because my ankle is screaming at me. Won’t be tomorrow either because of the deal with my father. So it will just sit there while I look at the mess.

Ramblings 77

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

I am in pain. I don’t know what I did, but my ankle is swollen and painful. It was hurting before I left the house and I think going out caused it to flare up more. I really want some rice but will hold off until the pain meds kick in before venturing downstairs again.

Had therapy today and am going to try for tomorrow as well. My therapist wants to see me more now that her vacation is moving up in terms of time. She is here next week and then the following two weeks, she is “gone”, as she puts it. Her talking about being gone is not helping my anxiety. She knows that my pdoc is around and will be keeping a closer eye on me, now that they know the plan. My therapist didn’t have a chance to read any of the blogs that I sent her. I told her one was longer than the other, so beware. She is so dense, that she forgot that she only seen me yesterday. She said that it felt like “ages ago”. She is gone with the wind, I’m telling you.

We talked more about Hyde, mostly because she didn’t read the blogs so I had to explain things. We talked about how I have decided to write at least two blogs per day. My writing bug just doesn’t seem satisfied with one. I have time I put aside in the afternoon for my blog and then I feel like writing later in the evening. I always tend to write the darker stuff then because that is when darkness will hit me. Sometimes I will write in my journal before writing another blog. But lately that hasn’t worked out too well. I feel the need to express myself, otherwise, I think I will end up killing myself.

She tried to do a psychache assessment, which I shot down because it was stupid, at this point. I am sort of not really registering my emotions. I will either feel depressed or suicidal. I have no other feelings. I don’t feel emotional pain that much anymore. I am too numb to feel it, or jaded. I introduced her to all of this so I can bypass the assessment. If she had come up with it, it would be a different story. Some tools therapists just don’t have. They finish their training thinking they know everything and it is far from the course. Pisses me off. But at least she is open minded to new assessments, even though I know she doesn’t do this with any of her other clients, which is a shame.

I asked my therapist what my diagnosis is. She said that it could be either Recurrent Major Depression, treatment resistant with psychotic features NOS or BP2, depression. I’m going to go with the MDD diagnosis. It is more familiar to me rather than BP2. She also said that I have some DID, NOS (Dissociative Identity Disorder, Not otherwise specified). The PTSD is a given. I have had that most of my life and continue to experience it. We didn’t talk about personality disorders. I don’t think I have one anymore. But will ask tomorrow if we meet. If not, I will definitely ask her Tuesday. I just looked at my schedule and it is going to be another busy Tuesday. I have the appointment with my physiatrist in the morning. And just as predicted, the pain that I was feeling in my toes has dissipated. I am sure if you press on them (I won’t), I will have pain. The new medicine he put me on did not help as much as he wanted it to. The only thing that has helped me is baclofen. I don’t take it twice a day like I used to but even taking it once a day helps. I am on a low dose so I think he might want to increase it the next time I see him. I am fine where it is and less is always better. I am nervous about seeing him though. It’s been at least six months or more since I last saw him. I was supposed to see him in Feb but between the snowstorms and the T being down, it was difficult. I just canceled the appointment and never rescheduled. Until my foot started acting up again, driving me crazy.

Can’t Die Without Explanations

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

“One can’t die without explanations”. Fyodor Dostoevsky p 513, the Idiot

This statement struck me tonight, in more ways than one. I think, this is the purpose of Hyde, to explain my death to people so they know of my suffering. I am very tired at the moment. I just woke up from a short nap and now I am in pain because I almost fell while getting up off the toilet. I lost my balance and fortunately, sat back down, but harder than I would have liked. My left knee didn’t like it much. I woke up with it hurting me. But once I started moving, the pain went away. Mysteriously as it came. Until I nearly lost my balance. Weird.

My back is hurting and I don’t like it. I can barely sit up. I keep thinking about death. I don’t want to live anymore. I know I have said these things time and time again, but it’s true. I don’t know what I am going to do when my date comes in the next few weeks and I am left all alone with my thoughts. If I don’t kill myself, it will be a defeat. If I try, at least I can say I tried. I won’t know if I succeed if I don’t try.

The quote is from a character in the Idiot, Ippolit, who has consumption (TB or Tuberculosis) and is in the last stages of the disease before death. He has been given just three weeks to live and keeps on telling people that he must tell his “confessions” before he dies. I feel the same way, though I don’t feel there is anything to confess. I have not done anything wrong. I just feel like a lowly human being that deserves to die. I am tired of the mental anguish I suffer day in and day out. I am tired of my physical pain that prevents me from working and “having a life worth living”. Today I drove and it cost me pain in my ankle. I don’t know why. I always feel this pain while driving/sitting for too long. It is a pain that starts at my ankle bone and goes into my foot. The pain is like a wrap that no one can see but I feel. They say it’s the peroneous tendon that is inflamed causing this pain. If you look at the skeletal structure of this tendon, you can clearly see how it goes from the ankle to the three damn toes of the foot. That is where I have most of my pain. The last three metatarsals in my foot. It haunts me like it does now. And I am in severe pain.

Aside from my transgender issues which will never be resolved, I have body image issues that are distorted. I am ugly, yet people have told me I am handsome and sometimes, cute. I don’t feel this way. I feel like I am very ugly that I will break a camera or mirror if I look into it long enough. I have a negative self-image. I can’t stand the way I look or how my body feels. I have a self-loathing so deeply ingrained in me that I doubt my therapist can ever get to the bottom of it. Having breasts is just one of the reasons I self-loathe. I cannot stand myself. I really want to die. I don’t want to breathe anymore. It hurts to breathe. I tell my psychiatrist this and she doesn’t think too much of it, about the hurting to breathe. But then, there is nothing she can really do about it. I am not in distress. My skin color isn’t blue. I am oxygenating very well. There are no obvious signs that there is a weight on my chest, unless you count the things that are there (breast tissue). But every woman has them and they don’t cause interference with breathing. No, I am not saying there is something pathologically wrong with me. I know that this heaviness is this depression that I feel. It makes everything heavier than what it should be. Probably why my knee hurts. It can no longer carry the weight that I have put on since my last hospitalization. I have tried to lose this weight but it is difficult. I eat the wrong things. But I eat the things that make me happy, like cheeseburgers, bacon, and ring dings. Not all the time. Just once a month when I get paid and can afford these things.

These things taste good when I am feeling up to eating them. Lately, my taste buds have failed me and nothing tastes good. I eat only because I need to, though I don’t enjoy it like I once did. Nothing brings me joy or pleasure. Used to be that I have a mocha from Starbucks and that made me happy. Now it just tastes like sugar and I don’t even taste the espresso like I used to. I feel like I am wasting my money on this drink. Maybe it’s time to try espresso by itself, but I am a creature of habit. I order the same thing all the time. It’s hard to break from that.

Today I was thinking about my diagnosis. Used to be that I had recurrent major depression, with psychotic features, NOS. Now I am depressed but it’s not under the same classification. Not that I need to know what it is. I don’t really care, but I would like to know if it is a bipolar depression that I am suffering. I had highs a few months ago, back in February. Those were lovely, though a bit terrifying. I am not used to feeling up. I am used to feeling down all the time. And this time I have hit an all time low. I think about death constantly and when I am not, I am dreaming of funerals and wakes. I often wonder, if I do have a wake, who will show up. I doubt I will get the same sympathy as a friend of mine who died from diabetes. People who die by suicide don’t get the same sympathy as other who die by illnesses. But that is a debate for another day.

My explanation of my death is this, I am tired of hurting, both physically and mentally. Physically, my pain is well controlled, though I still hurt every day causing me to be on medication to control it. Mentally, there is no medication for me. Sure I take my mood stabilizer and anti-psychotic pill to ease those symptoms caused by the bipolar and psychosis that I have. But it doesn’t help the mental pain, the psychache, the deep down to the bone ache that no one can see or feel. I have been struggling with this ache since I was 8 years old. I am tired of fighting it every single day. 32 years is a long time to be fighting something that no one else can feel or see or measure even. There is no test that my pdoc can give to see where it lives, where it abides. Sure, I know there are measures out there but no one uses them. My therapist has stopped using the psychache scale. I have even stopped using the psychache scale, not because it wasn’t effective, but because it just was a number that couldn’t be brought down. It was up and it stayed up, until my crisis was over. This time, I don’t think my crisis is going to be over. Hell, I don’t think I am going to last that long period. What the hell am I waiting for?? Why can’t I go through with it tonight. Fear. And that I don’t want my family to find my body. It will be hard to be dead by suicide. Harder still and more traumatic to find my body. I don’t have a place I can go to end my life. And that is really sad. So I just sit here and complain about why I cannot go on living knowing I can’t take my life because I have no place to end it. And that is the funny thing about my therapist and psychiatrist. They have never asked me how I am going to do it, where, when. I just tell them I am suicidal and they just leave it at that. They never know what my plan truly is.

Random 399

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

I didn’t sleep good last night again. Same old story these days, except I kept waking up in pain. Then my father’s stupid PCP’s office called to confirm the appointment for tomorrow morning. I was afraid they were going to reschedule it and I was not going to be happy if they did. But all is good and tomorrow is going to be a long day as I got to be up around 0630 so I can get dressed and get my coffee before picking my father up. Maybe get some breakfast, too. I talked to my sister and I can use her car for most of the day, which means I can see my therapist tomorrow. I just hope the PCP appointment doesn’t take forever. I would like to get to my therapist’s town and do some editing. Course it all depends on how much sleep I get tonight. Usually when I have to get up early in the morning, I don’t go to bed till 2. Not going to be good if I have to be up four hours later.

I am hoping for a session with my therapist tonight but it doesn’t look likely. I just feel stressed out about a situation with my editor and need to talk it out with someone. I know she isn’t going to understand the problem that I am facing, but I really need to figure this out before I continue with my book. Finding another editor is not easy or cheap. Sure, I can do my own editing, but sometimes it is best for another person’s eye to look at something.

I haven’t done anything today but I need to take a shower. I haven’t showered in days. And I really haven’t eaten much today. My sister made some lunch. I had a few pieces of buffalo chicken that made my stomach a wreck so I don’t think I will be eating anything else today. I really wanted to try the new hamburgers I bought but I just am not looking forward to them. I am not sure if I am going to like them because I didn’t realize they had onions in them. Maybe I will make a deep dish pizza tonight, instead. You can never go wrong with pizza!

I am getting to the end of the “Idiot” finally. I feel bad for Myshkin. He is being treated so poorly. Everyone is just talking to him cursedly and then wants to be his friend again. Or they make fun of him and then make up. Sadly, I don’t think he realizes he is being made fun of. I should finish the book off today, if not sometime tomorrow, if I feel up to it. I know I am going to be tired tomorrow so if I don’t finish it tonight, then maybe Wednesday.

Seems like every fricken week I have medication that needs to be refilled. Just when I think I am stocked on everything, I run out of one of my medications. It is so annoying. I just get annoyed because the pharmacy staff knows me so well. I am there almost every week with something. I am almost out of my baclofen and Ativan. I keep them in business. I have a few days before I can refill my Ativan so I will just wait. I have to wait till the 3rd to refill it. I just hope they have my baclofen in stock. Last time, I got a partial refill. Nitwits gave me just 15 pills of the 90 they were supposed to give me. I don’t know why they even bothered to fill it. It’s so stupid. But I think I better refill it now in case they have to order it as the holiday is this weekend.

I am still thinking about suicide, though the thoughts have been oscillating the past few days. Sometimes they are very intense and others they are barely audible. I still haven’t give in to the thoughts of coming out to my mother. Though I have no idea how I am going to do it without the support of my sisters. It’s really killing me inside to have to continue to live this way, in a family with no support, well, emotional support. I never ask for much and usually keep my problems to myself.