Tag: chronic physical pain

wicked depressed

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, mood disorders, suicide

With all this technology, you would think that you could just talk and the computer would do the writing for you. Oh Wait, that does exist. Except the software is really expensive when you are on a limited budget. I had to choose between my cell phone bill or groceries and groceries won. Everyone keeps telling me to apply for food stamps but to me that really is a downer and a flashback to my childhood. I thought I was doing better than when I was younger but I guess not. I am just above the poverty line and it kills me that I have sunk this low again all because I am disabled. I feel as long as I have a cell phone, I don’t need food stamps. Let the people who are really struggling get them or the illegal aliens who know how to get them and still work three jobs. I just don’t care.

I feel like crying and I don’t know why. Just texted my therapist that I don’t think I can wait until Tuesday to meet with her again. I just feel so stressed out. I am wicked depressed. Last night I wrote two pages about Darkness. It sent me into my dissociative state because apparently, I sent a text message to my therapist and I don’t remember sending it. The last message I remember sending was me deserving to die. I need to type up what I wrote but I am afraid that will trigger me again. I just hate this dissociative crap. I half remember what I wrote and half of me doesn’t. I just know I must have used darkness repeatedly because that is all I remember. What stinks is that I bought a software program for speaking into the computer to type my words (Dragon Naturally Speaking). Problem is, it is not compatible with Win 8. I have to get the current version and it costs a lot. So I bought what I could afford, I nice headset with a microphone. Next month I will buy the Dragon. I hope that it will be cheaper than what it is now. I could use it on my old laptop that still works but I have to reinstall the software and it takes forever to do it. I just don’t have the patience. Plus the laptop gets hot really quickly so I will burn my legs.

I hate being in a bad mood. Therapy went ok today. She didn’t nag me but went off about how important it is for me to have my pain meds from a psychological viewpoint. It’s complicated to explain, but her theory is that if I have my pain meds it provides me with a type of security blanket so I don’t freak out when my pain is at its worse. Because the pain can trigger my PTSD symptoms really fast, this is why having my pain meds is important. But my doctor doesn’t want me on them long term. I haven’t figured out what long term exactly means because I have been on the same pain meds for last decade or so. I might not take them every single day but knowing that they are there in case I need them is a big relief for me. I would be going out of my tree if I didn’t have them. And if I was in the throws of a flare up, I know I would become suicidal. So I guess that is the psychological viewpoint that my therapist give me every time I see my PCP and he has some lame brained idea to get me off my meds. I’m sorry, but the pain meds are the ONLY thing that has helped me and I have tried all other non-narcotic pain meds, from pills to gels, to creams. Nothing else works as well as my pain med.

I don’t get high off my medication. I don’t use it illegally. I don’t sell my meds nor do I take more than prescribed. The only time I will take more than prescribed is when my pain is at a level of 20, and my doctor knows this. That is why he has given me a little more than a month’s supply to make sure I am covered should I have a flare up.

I guess you can say I am having a flare up of depression. Today it is breathing down my throat in a big way. I find it hard to concentrate and to get motivated. I wanted to go out to Starbucks today but the weather was iffy but it turned out just to be a cold day, no snow (so far anyways). I just feel out of sorts. And I want to die very badly. I wouldn’t mind stepping in front of a speeding semi rolling down the road. Or playing on the train tracks.

Anxiety has morphed into terror

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, depression, mood disorders

I am thrilled to find out that a friend of mine this is in a clinical psych grad program matched to Baylor College of Medicine. That is the same place that one of the suicidologists that I follow did his internship. In fact, I am reading on of his books right now, “Myths of Suicide”. I just started it as I couldn’t really get into Andrew Solomon’s “Far From The Tree”. I am on the second chapter and still have at least another forty or so pages to go to finish it. It is a long book, more than 900 pages. I kind of am planning on reading a Civil War battles book that has been collecting dust. I need to have two books going at the same time, one on suicide/depression and a history book on the other. A friend had given me a book on madness for my birthday/Christmas but I really can’t read that right now. I think I am headed for another psychotic break as the stress I have been under has been really bad. Between my book and my father’s health issues, my therapist says I should take a vacation. I just don’t know where I would go. I can’t afford a car and I don’t have a credit card to rent one. That would be my joy, to get back behind the wheel again and just go for a long drive some place like to the casinos or something. Or, to my family, I can always go into the hospital. But the hospital isn’t fun.

I finally got the courage to email my psychiatrist about some side effects I have been experiencing with the abilify. I have been having hypersecretion of the salivary glands. I have not drooled, but I am close to it at times. I just don’t know if it will get worse. It took almost a year of being on it to get this side effect. And I don’t think my blood pressure medication would cause this. I just don’t want to worry about cavities or anything like that. I don’t think it will but you never know. I just know my mouth is constantly watering like I am hungry but I am not. Between the increase in saliva and the rubber ball/elastic feeling, I say I should probably lower the dose or something, but if I do, and I have a psychotic break, then what? I have been on almost all the new drugs out there and I don’t think changing my meds right now in time will be a good idea. Only if I am in the hospital will that be possible and I want to stay in hospital to make sure I don’t have any weird side effects. I don’t want to start the medication, be on it for three days, then get discharged. That is not good care in my opinion. I know that is the way the hospital works but I don’t want to be one of those cases. If it was an antidepressant, than sure. I know that antidepressants take longer to work than antipsychotics. I just don’t need to play with my medication when my stress levels are already through the roof. And if I do need to mess with them, I rather be in the hospital to do it. I haven’t heard back from my pdoc yet. I just hope she isn’t in email jail. Lately I have noticed that her replies are a different domain than the one I am sending out.

Today I had at least two panic attacks. The first was while waiting for my PCP. My pulse was elevated and I had to explain that it was because I just walked between the buildings before she called me. Which is true. I just signed in after walking through the buildings and had not sat for more than a few minutes when they called my name. The second attack was while I was on the bus. It was an old style bus with stairs by the entrance. Lately stairs have been giving me anxiety. I am terrified that I am going to fall, even though I have not had any indication that I will. It has been a growing paranoia for me. I guess it is because I can’t trust my good foot anymore since I have been wobbly if I turn the wrong way. Now I am having slight chest pains that I can only attribute to the anxiety that I have been feeling the past few hours, even with taking an Ativan and some wine. And I think my doc would have picked up something when he listened to my chest today if I were having a heart attack, or the beginning of one. But my increase in my pulse he passed over as pain related. No one in my family has ever had a heart attack under the age of 40 and I don’t want to break that record. So add hypochondria to my diagnosis.

I really need to discuss the anxiety issue of the stairs with my therapist. I think talking about it will help. Sad part is that I know it is a real possibility with me because I have had two falls over the holidays. One going up and one going down. Some how the anxiety has morphed into terror. I know it is irrational. As long as I am not carrying boxes while going up or down stairs, I am ok. But even when I am not, I still panic. And I have two flights of stairs to go up when I go into my house and up to my room. I just have thoughts that I am going to miss a step and fall and get hurt really bad. Though at this point, I don’t know how much of it is a wish or a fear. I just hope I never do fall. I don’t need more problems than what I have.

Pain, connectivity, and paranoia

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

Scrolling through Facebook while waiting for my pain meds to work. I have been in pain for the past half hour and spasms have just started. I am miserable. I knew I should have taken something sooner as when I got back to my room after having coffee at my sister’s, I felt something in my foot. It’s so hard to know when to take pain medication. Sometimes you know it is going to turn into something bad and other times it just goes away with rest. I am so annoyed with myself.

Then I get a tweet from Sprint, my cell phone carrier about the ongoing issue I have been having with 3G/4G coverage. Seems if I leave my house, I just have 3G and it messes up with my phone data. Sometimes I will get email and other times I won’t. It’s not like I really need to respond to email now that I am not working, but I would like to know when I get a new message. I like staying connected. But it seems if I leave my house, I don’t get the same coverage and it pisses me off because I have to manually change my settings in order to save battery. If I don’t have 4G, I lose battery power while it searches for it before it decides to finally go to 3G. Sometimes by the time I get home, especially when I go into town, I will have 50% or less battery power to last me until I get home. I know that going on the trains drains it more as I don’t have any signal in the tunnel but while I am traveling the city above ground, I should have no connectivity issues. My phone is fairly new so there shouldn’t be an issue. Granted I am due for an upgrade but other than a Samsung galaxy phone, I really don’t have an interest in any other phone. My brother in law has the galaxy and has been having issues with it. I hope that when I upgrade to it, the bugs have been fixed. But then he is on a different carrier than I am so it might just be his network. I have no interest in an iPhone. I like the Android operating system on my phone.

Spasms seem to have stopped now. My big toe isn’t curling like it did. Thank god for Ativan. I do need a nap now but I am trying to resist. I still feel like calling my psychiatrist but it’s Sunday and I don’t want to bother her. It’s not an emergency. I just feel the need to talk to someone. I am still having trouble processing my grief. I keep thinking about the days with my aunt and how on her 90th birthday, I didn’t get a picture with her. I thought I did but I didn’t. It was hard because everyone kept going to the birthday girl and we had this crazy DJ that wanted everyone to dance, ALL THE TIME. He was very enthusiastic in his job but come on. No one likes to dance for two hours, straight!

I do miss my aunt. I miss going over her house like I did when I was a kid. But then she moved and it was difficult to see her because I didn’t have a car to get to where she was.

It’s weird. This is the first time that I am not paranoid I am being watched by my aunt. When my other Aunts and uncles passed away, I felt like I was being watched by them. This time it is different. I don’t know if that is because I am taking medication to control stuff like that or what but it is different. And I am glad I am not paranoid. It is difficult to shake paranoia. You really need to take extra meds and constantly tell yourself it is not happening. It’s almost like a delusion that you have to undo to make it stop happening. Not always easy because voices are usually present and they love to feed off paranoid delusions. But I am not feeling that way. I still have the voices that are constantly watching me though. We converse sometimes but it has been less. It usually picks up if I am just staring off into space. Then they start talking to me. It’s weird.

Today I have decided not to do anything. I am not working on my book or changing my sheets. I will do one of those things tomorrow. Though I have to take off the stuff on my bed. I don’t know how I accumulate so much paper, books, and journals on my bed. I just have a few shirts on my bed just in case I get cold. But other than those articles of clothing, the rest is all paper pads. I don’t get it. I mean I use it, don’t get me wrong, because I am always writing something. And I need my journal on my bed so I know where it is when I want to journal. But the other stuff, man I don’t know how it accumulates. I just need one pad of paper, not three! Thank goodness I only sleep on one side of the bed and stay there. I am usually a sound sleeper, though sometimes I am a light sleeper as noises will wake me up. I hope when I change my sheets this time, I don’t have so much stuff on my bed. It’s a pain taking it off and placing it somewhere in my room. I have piles of stuff every where because I don’t have the space to put it.

depressed and worried

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, depression

Been a tough week. My aunt (father’s sister) passed away after a brief illness and it has been tough. Today was the funeral and I lost it at the cemetery. All my family are buried in the same on, right next to each other and it made me sad to see my aunts and uncles who passed away. I miss them so much.

The reception was good. My sisters and I basically sat by ourselves until a family member or two popped over to say hello and to ask about my father. It was like a repeat of last night but in a different atmosphere. I still feel really sad. I know my father is not doing well. I know that he is sick. But I don’t know how sick yet and that is what is making me sad. I have just my father and his remaining sister left. She is not doing well either. I am just a wreck of worry because things always happen in threes and whose to say that the universe won’t take my father and sister soon? It makes me very depressed and worried.

My ankle is hurting me, though not more than I was expecting which is good. I guess wearing the AFO helped me more than I realized. I still am sore but not as sore. I am so glad my AFO fits into my LL Bean boots that I bought last year. Now I don’t have to worry about slipping and sliding with them on. I have been in terrible pain without the AFO use. Funny how a little plastic changes everything.

I talked with my family today about my upcoming book, which is not an easy thing to do as no one really knows I have been suicidal or let alone made an attempt. I just kept on saying it was based on life experiences and left it at that. Someone asked if my sisters were in the book and I told them no. I might have mentioned them but for the most part I kept them out of the story line.