Tag: CRPS

Dealing with Chronic Pain and Suicidality

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, grief, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, psychache, psychosis, suicidality, suicide, suicide attempt

Dealing with Chronic Pain and Suicidality

Over the past few days, I have been in moderate to severe pain. I have a pain syndrome that flares up without warning, usually right before I am to go to sleep. I will lie down and my ankle and foot will flare up with pain. Normally, I will just take a couple of pain pills, wait for them to kick in and then go to sleep. The pills work because it’s physical pain. What is really troubling me, lately, is the persistent pain, night after night after night.

It doesn’t matter what I do during the day. I can go out, have my daily routine of going to Starbucks and writing for a bit before returning home. I might be out for an hour or two, depending on how much I feel like writing and if the coffee holds out. Lately, despite drinking coffee, I just want to sleep. I have been sleeping more the past week that I have the entire year. A dear friend says that it’s because I haven’t been sleeping and I should take advantage of it because it might not last. I agree with that. It’s unusual for me to sleep all day as I never usually do unless I am deeply depressed.

The other night, I snapped when the pain hit. I became really suicidal and seriously wanted to end my life that night. Trouble was that I was in no position to do it. I vowed never to kill myself in my home where my family members could find me. I have a place that I want to go but the heat has been the only thing holding me back, at the moment. I feel like I don’t have a life. That this battle between chronic pain and depression is just too much to bear. I am tired of fighting it night after night after night.

It’s a tiring battle. I think that is part of the reason I have been so tired lately. I am just mentally and physically exhausted from dealing with my mental illness and my physical illness. No one knows how hard it is unless you deal with one or the other. The past few hours, I have been dealing with a rebound of songs in my head that sound like they are playing but they are not. It’s part of the psychosis. And for the past year, I have been battling that aspect of my illness.

I have known since I was 16 that I needed to be on medication for the rest of my life for my mental illness. I knew there was no other way to deal with it. Through trial and error, I finally found the right combo of meds. Unfortunately, finding the right antipsychotic meds has been elusive. Medications that used to work, no longer do so. I have gone back to the older generation of meds because they work for me better than the second generation. It’s a little bit more riskier because of side effects but I am not on that high of a dose. I just hope that in a month or two I am still on the same medication and that I don’t need to change. That is my fear.

I have known for a very long time the odds of me taking my life is great. I am in the high risk category of risk because of my past history. I can write about this history but it’s not important and will take up too much of time. I just know that one day my life will end by my own hand. I know that this will happen because I feel it. I know that it will happen sometime this year. My biggest fear is that if there is a heaven or hell, I will spend eternity with my father and that is something that sometimes keeps me here. But I don’t believe in those things but who knows what truly happens when you die.

They say that most people who are suicidal just want to end their pain. That is true. I want to end my pain and my suffering because no one can help me with it. Yes, I take pain meds to deal with the physical aspect of my suffering and it does help. But it does nothing for my psychache, for my psychological pain that I feel. I still feel that I should die because I am so damn tired of living this so called life. I don’t have a reason for living. I don’t have a purpose. I have nothing keeping me here. Sure I have my family that are dear to me. But what good is it if I can’t enjoy their presence because of pain? That I can stay with them for a short while and then have to go back up to my room to put my foot up because otherwise I am in too much pain to be good to anyone? Sometimes, I really think that my family and the people in my life will be better off without me.

Bad day of pain

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

Bad day of pain

I woke up this morning in pain so I pretty much took some pain meds and rolled over to go back to sleep. I was disgusted. My therapist thought she would have time for me today but she didn’t. She had to reschedule our appointment for Tuesday so I am talking with her Monday instead.

While I was sleeping, my psychiatrist emailed me back. I sent her the latest blog post about my near suicidal episode the other night. She thanked me for letting her know. I feel like calling her now because I am so agitated because all I did was make myself something to eat (I haven’t eaten anything all day) and now I am in serious pain. It’s like I have been on my feet all day when in truth, I just been in bed. I am so fed up.

My tolerance to pain has been running thin lately and I don’t know why. It’s the same pain that I deal with constantly. It’s not worse. It’s not that severe. I just have this throbbing in my ankle that just won’t go away and I just can’t stand it any longer. I really just want to die because it’s just ridiculous that all I did was make myself some ribs and my ankle didn’t like it. All I did was put them in the oven. Granted the kitchen was really hot even before I turned the oven on. I think the heat might be affecting my mood by now as it’s been 90 or higher nearly every day the past week.

I feel like I have been trapped in my room because of the heat. I try to do things that don’t involve me standing or sitting too long. When I am in my room, I have my leg propped up so it’s not hanging down all the time. But I don’t know what to do anymore. I am going insane. I just want to cry and last night when I was writing the blog about my suicidality and chronic pain, I was crying a little bit. I was just so frustrated. My room is the only place in the house that has AC other than my sister’s apartment. But that would mean going down the stairs and I don’t think my ankle will like that much. It’s bad enough I went up and down to cool off while the ribs were cooking. I still need to marinate my steak so I can grill it. I bought two nice pieces of steak, one is a filet mignon. It doesn’t really look like it but it says that it is so I am going with it. My mother is arguing with me about the price of the pork chops. She doesn’t want me to buy meat from Peapod anymore. She thinks I paid too much for it per pound. I paid $7 for about 6-8 pieces of pork chops. It was supposed to be $1.99/lb. I don’t know. I won’t buy her stuff anymore. If she knew what I paid for the ribs she would kill me.

I think I am going to page my psychiatrist to talk with her tonight. I am feeling out of sorts and I just want a check in with her. I just need someone to talk to about my pain that will understand and not give me a lecture about what I should or shouldn’t be doing. I have been so tearful lately that it’s been so difficult to keep my emotions in check. I am not a cryer by any means. It takes a hell of a lot for me to cry. But I am at my wits end right now with all this pain. The meds help, they really do but usually I have a break for at least 24 hours and I just haven’t had that break. I have been in pain all week and most of the time my pain is at night. I just can’t stand it anymore, hence why I have been thinking of killing myself, again.

Meds are kicking in so I will stop here for now. Thanks for reading.

An Open Discussion About Suicidal Thoughts and Chronic Pain

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, psychache, psychosis, suicidality, suicide, suicide attempt

An Open Discussion About Suicidal Thoughts and Chronic Pain

For the past twenty-four hours, I have been in a suicidal quandary. Last night I was in severe pain for the umpteenth time in a row. I had wanted to go to sleep but my ankle said, nope, not yet. I got really angry because I so wanted to sleep. It was past midnight. I had finished watching the ball game. I had winded down. I was ready for sleep. But pain said no and because it was the third or fourth night in a row that this happened, I was fed up. I wanted to kill myself. I felt there was no other way to escape.

My pain is well managed. All I had to do was take two pills to quiet the pain down and then drift off to sleep. I took the pills and waited for the throbbing to stop. Within an hour, it did but my brain didn’t. I was still pissed and suicidal that I just wanted to give up. I went over the plan I had been thinking about the past few months, wondering if it would work or not. A doctor friend told me it would be painful but I knew that. I also know that it would be at least 2-6 hours for the pills to work. That is a lot of time.

My friend understands about the chronic pain that I have because she also suffers from it as well. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have adequate pain meds like I do. I am not planning on ending my life with my pain meds. Far from it. If the area that I wanted to hang myself wasn’t fenced off, I would go there and do the deed. But it’s fenced off and I am not a good climber.

It doesn’t matter what kind of pain you are in, physical or mental. It still makes you want to end your life. Unfortunately, I have both so I am in a pickle. I have the raw end of the deal. I write about my suffering because I hope that it will help someone. I am not feeling hopeless. Just disgusted that I have to rely on pills every single day to give me relief from my pain, either it be my pain meds or my psych meds. Recently, I have been psychotic and that opened up a big kettle of worms. I thought I would have to go back to the hospital but my mother became sick and needed care so I couldn’t go. I had to be treated as an outpatient and take my care more seriously because my mother needed me.

I know the devastation I will bring to my family should I die, not only my family but to those around me. I talk about taking my life on this blog a lot because it helps to write about it. Doesn’t make me feel less suicidal but it helps with the feelings of not being able to do anything about it. Last night I was close to killing myself and if I had a clear plan, I probably wouldn’t be writing this right now. I don’t know if another hospitalization is in my future. I have grown hopeless about that kind of treatment because there is no treatment in the hospital anymore. The mental health professionals and insurance companies just think that a few days in a locked ward is enough to reset your thinking and make you think you have a life worth living. It’s a big crock. For some it is helpful but for those with chronic illness like me, unless you get treatment, actual therapy, it is just a waste of time.

I am not saying I have the answers to the mental health system because it is different in every state, and that is not the purpose of this blog post. But talking about suicide is similar to everyone who experiences it. People are literally dying because they don’t want to be in pain anymore. They don’t want the stigma that means having to take a pill to control that pain is causing them. Sometimes the stigma is greater than the treatment of the pain. Every day I wonder if I am an addict and will my meds be taken away from me because my pain is controlled with meds. I know that if any doctor takes these pain meds away from me, they might as well be signing my death certificate.

You can say that I can’t have it both ways but I am so tired of not having a life because of pain. I can’t walk like I used to. Just walking a few blocks brings me horrible pain. Last night I washed dishes and I think that is what set off my ankle pain. For the ten minutes it took me to wash four dishes and two cups. I can’t drive long distances because my ankle will act up on me. I never know what sets off my pain. And the docs aren’t sure what is causing my pain. Some kind of pain syndrome but they are not sure what. My quality of life sucks because I can’t go to family functions and things because my pain limits me. I test the boundaries every day and I am rewarded with pain. Then add mental illness on top of that and it’s not a pretty picture. Sure I was depressed and suicidal BEFORE I had chronic pain. But I also was able to hold down two jobs that I somewhat enjoyed.

I am not trying to boo-hoo my life. I just hate the way I live and I just don’t want to live anymore. It’s too painful, both physically and mentally.

Pdoc appt and other things

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

I didn’t wake up in time to catch the 0950 bus despite setting my alarm. I pretty much woke up to shut it off and then went back to sleep. I should have set a second alarm in case that happened. Luckily, my mother called me at 1000 so I could catch the next bus. I had just enough time to get my latte and leave to catch the train.

My psychiatrist was running late. She always is but today was later than usual. The voices were getting unsettled. It was kind of weird being there in the waiting room while the voices were talking. I should have taken the trilafon before leaving the house but felt it was too early as I just woke up. We talked about side effects of the medication as it’s an older drug and she is comfortable with me taking it as long as it is helping me. She ordered an EKG today as it has been two years since my last one. I am just glad she didn’t order any blood work. I hate getting my blood drawn.

I am glad the bus home was late so I caught it and didn’t have to wait an hour. I went to Walgreens to pick up my scripts that were ready. I was sweating bullets by the time I reached my house. My shirt was soaking wet. I had to take it off because it was making me cold with the AC. The new shirt I put on I then ruined when I opened a can of tuna in oil. I hate when I do that. I try to be careful but today I wasn’t. Now I have oil stains on my shirt. Luckily it’s on the bottom half so it’s not so noticeable.

My mother is thinking of making a “lazy man’s mac and cheese”. Apparently she is thinking of making the pasta and then microwaving cheese on top of it. Whatever. Sounds good to me. I love pasta and cheese so it works for me. I feel like making coffee but it’s kind of late. I just feel so wiped out. The heat and humidity is awful. It was really humid around the hospital because the river is right there. I was drenched before I reached the station. My ankle started acting up on the way home. I knew it was going to because there is a threat of showers today. Plus I did extra walking and stairs today as I had to go from one building to another to get the EKG.

My refill of trilafon is still being processed. I hope it gets mailed out today or I am going to be screwed. I have only a few pills left. I should have expedited shipping. I normally wouldn’t worry about it but the voices have been annoying today so I might need a second dose. I wish I knew where my other pill container was that I carry around. I know there are some pills in there. I tried finding it last night but wasn’t successful. I hate being psychotic. I told my psych today that it’s getting worse as I get older to control. I told her that I was having delusions as far back as March 2015, even with the abilify so obviously the abilify lost its effectiveness and I really didn’t notice it. Course I am so used to the voices it’s hard to discern when they are troublesome and when they are “normal”.