Tag: CRPS (formerly RSD)

In a Lot of Pain

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, chronic physical pain

In a lot of pain

Pain started late last night. It was mostly nerve pain so I took some Gabapentin to ease it. Then just a little while ago, I started getting zaps and my pain shot up, again. I haven’t done much today except going up and down the stairs to check for mail and make something to eat. I was planning on getting ready for my sister’s party but I am in too much pain to walk down the block.

But all of this pales in comparison to what is going on in Paris right now. I feel bad that there are hostages and people are being killed. A football (soccer) match was disrupted due to explosions. The story keeps changing so I am not sure what is going on. There have been separate attacks in at least three locations. Then there was another shooting going on somewhere else. It’s pretty scary. No one knows if all these events are related or not. Chances are they are. It’s too much of a coincidence for it not to be.

One of my Twitter buddies nailed it when he said the world stops when a western country gets hit when there are attacks while other countries are ignored. He is right. The news reports what it wants to report and it’s sad. Places get bombed every day but you don’t hear about it in the news or if you do, it’s a blurb in a news article. There are civilian attacks in Syria and Israel/Palestine every day but they don’t get noticed. The world doesn’t stop, it just keeps moving. But then you have the City of Light and everything slows down. I am not trying to make light of the situation. Just saying people die every day from senseless attacks and it doesn’t get reported or viewed as breaking news. I hope the hostages are freed without injury and there are no more killings, in any country that has turmoil.

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.

Early Monday

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

Early Monday

I woke up at 0600. I really wanted to take a nap after I had breakfast, but I decided to get my haircut and then go to Starbucks to write this blog idea for my therapist. Barber shop that I usually go to was closed, vacation day. They won’t reopen until Thursday. So I went to the other one down the street and it didn’t open until 0930. It was 0840 when I left my house and I didn’t want to wait an hour. I waited for the bus to take me to my “happy” place. Luckily, the bus to the Square came about ten minutes later. Cool. Least part of my day was going okay. When I got to my “happy” place, I decided I wanted the Sumantra Longberry coffee. It’s strong but sweet, made sweeter with sugar and cream. It helped the fog that I was in.

I got out the writing materials to start my writing. I had just started writing half the frustrated needs in my notebook when my pen started to run out ink. I couldn’t believe it. I had another pen but it was a different color and I don’t like to mix colored ink when writing. There went my project. So I decided to try and write in my journal with the other pen that I had. I wrote about a paragraph when I just got tired and wanted to go home. I just missed the bus and the next one wasn’t for another 50 minutes or so. So I tried to write some more to pass the time. Forced writing is never a good thing. I thought more about the project. I also thought about going to CVS to get a new pen but decided if they didn’t have my pen, it wasn’t going to be worth buying. I am very particular about my pens. Lesson learned, always carry a backup pen even though you think you may not need it. Thing I don’t understand is that when I checked my pen’s ink supply, it was half way full so had plenty of ink to continue writing. But it was very light and then stopped writing all together. This is the second pen in this class of pens that I had to throw away because the ink just failed. I don’t get it. But I have plenty of pens that I bought so it can be easily replaced. Just sucks because I am wasting ink.

As I was riding on the bus, I thought about getting my haircut at the place further down the street. I didn’t go. They usually don’t cut my hair right and I always seem to get the big smelly guy. I just came home, which was a good thing because I had to go to the bathroom.

I am not as down as I was last night. But I am still feeling like there is a weight on my chest. It’s making it difficult to breathe so I have to take deep breaths to get air in my lungs. I hate when the depression has physical symptoms. I don’t know what is worse, having a heartache or a weight on your chest, feeling like a burden to those around you, or thinking that you just will be better off dead.

Despite it being warm outside, it’s cold in the house. My sensitive foot is frozen, despite being under several warm blankets. I haven’t put a sock on yet, but I am getting close to doing it. My ankle is also acting up because of my activities today. It started on the last block I was walking. For some reason, when I came home and came up the stairs, I got wicked out of breath. It took a good ten minutes for me to catch my breath. I have since climbed the stairs since then and didn’t feel short of breath afterwards. It’s so weird that it happens some of the time and not at others. I have noticed a pattern though. If I am walking and then go up the stairs, I get winded than if I was resting and then going up.