Tag: depression

Ramblings 75

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

I got my exercise for the day today. I went up two flights of stairs four times. Surprisingly, I wasn’t out of breath by the fourth go round. I was a little bit but not hugely like I was before. It’s so weird that some days I am out of breath climbing one flight and other days I am fine. So weird.

I have been debating sending out my book to my former therapist. I am very scared that it might come back as return to sender. I know the fear is irrational, we ended on good terms and even had a conversation after we ended that was good. I was again looking for a therapist so called her for a referral. She had switched to child psychiatry so wasn’t available. I guess my fear of rejection is still alive and kicking.

Last night, I was in mega pain and couldn’t go to sleep right away. I just didn’t know what to do to calm things down. The pain kept changing, from burning to pounding, to feeling like someone was pounding me with a hammer on all my toe bones, to intense throbbing. Plus my foot was swollen, which didn’t help the pain. I always notice worsening pain when my foot swells up. So I started working on my book. I didn’t write anything new, I just put things all in one document and then sort of formatted the paragraphs and stuff. I got it to 43 pages. I plan on printing it out so I can edit it. The first 20 or so pages are edited but it doesn’t hurt to go over it again. I am slowly having a book formed. And this time, I can print it out on my printer rather than sending it to Staples. I have to say that the cartridge that they sent with the printer is pretty good. I was expecting less than 20 pages but I have had more use out of it. I did buy a cartridge just in case it didn’t hold out. It’s sitting in my office collecting dust. I know I will be using it soon. I don’t think the current cartridge will be able to print 43 pages.

I mailed out my rebate for my phone today. Now I just have to wait eight weeks to get my $50 card. I found a new feature on my phone: blocking. I haven’t used it yet but it might come in handy when I want to sleep and my phone keeps going off with text messages or emails. It really sucks there is no baseball tonight, well, Sox baseball anyway. Since the closing of my game, I have been really bored trying to fill my time. I can only write or read so much. I know that I have a hamper with stuff that I should probably go through and maybe use it for its intended purpose rather than as storage for other things. I haven’t read Dostoevsky in the past few days. My brain just hasn’t wanted to read the dynamic between Aglaia and Myshkin.

I need to take a shower tonight. I was going to take one before going out but time got away from me and the next thing I knew it was time to leave for the bus. I went to Starbucks today but I didn’t write. I really wanted to sleep. I had my mocha, which I don’t think they made right. You are supposed to have 3 shots of espresso in a venti and I think I just got two. I told them my name and they spelled it wrong. It was a new person so didn’t know my name. How can you get a letter of the alphabet wrong?? I don’t know why they put your name your drink anyways. I know its probably so no one takes your drink if you happen to order the same one as a customer before or after you. It’s just annoying that my name is simple and they get it wrong. Maybe I should just go by Mike and there won’t be a problem. Apparently my initials are too hard.

I did write another suicide ramblings again last night. I was trying to stay on topic but it was really difficult. My attention span only lasts for so long and then I get off tangent. My ankle is killing me and I have just been home for less than an hour. This isn’t good. It’s not even the evening time when my pain is at its worse. It’s still the early evening, like 1545. I guess all those stairs are now having their consequences. I really don’t want to take my meds this early because I will be sleeping and it will mess my already screwed up schedule. I guess I won’t be taking that shower I really need. I won’t be able to stand long enough to take it. Being disabled sucks.

More Suicidal Ramblings

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

Tonight I was going through my blogs and came across one called “Am I still a Midnight Demon”? I remember writing that one because at the time, I was writing during the day, not at my usual midnight hours. The time had shifted because I was sleeping regularly and wasn’t so suicidal.

Now my sleep is messed up and I am again thinking about taking my life. I have been thinking about this plan for a long time now. But as much as I want to go through with this date, this time, I just can’t. I cannot take my life because I am stuck here. I would hurt too many people, those around me, those far away from me, people I don’t even know that well. So I am writing because my heart is dark. I recently took a “Rorschach” type of test on the internet. It said that I was dark. My aunt had used that term after she read my book. We were supposed to get together for a chat but we never did. Typical of my family. They always make these plans on getting together but never follow through. No matter. The chat might have caused me to feel bad and I would have hated that. She would be one of the people that would have been hurt the most by my death.

I recently did a google search for a former therapist so I could send her my book and give her a little update on where I was. If she contacted me, and I was dead, that would so suck. I am not expecting her to contact me, but you never know. I hope she remembers who I am. I spent three years of therapy with her so I hope she does remember me.

I really feel at a loss. If I don’t go ahead with my plan, I will be forced to “live” and I don’t quite know what that means. I have been struggling with death for so long that I really don’t know any other way to live. My life, to me, feels worthless. I don’t have a future. Hell I can’t even imagine what will happen tomorrow and that will be happening in the next few hours. I know my sleeping problem is part of the reason I am depressed. I tried to convey this to my psychiatrist at my last meeting but I think I just made light of it and it wasn’t heard. I often say that I am depressed but really don’t tell her how bad things are. I still have appetite issues, even though I haven’t lost or gained any weight. I think my on/off appetite makes up for it. The caloric intake that I have equals itself out on my eating and not eating days, I guess. I feel useless, worthless, full of guilt at times. And you can’t forget about the psychache. Tonight I have had to take deep breaths trying to dislodge the heaviness in my chest. It’s like a heavy coat that I always carry but no one sees. I wish my psych had some magic pill I could take to make it go away but she doesn’t. Her hands are tied because I am such a fucking treatment resistant case. No pill has worked to alleviate my depression, successfully, for a long time. It was remeron that saved me last summer but I don’t think it is working anymore. Hell, I want to give up all my psych meds except my abilify and Ativan. But I know that if I do, I will just feel worse and might be impulsive enough to try and attempt suicide. I need to stay on the abilfy to keep the voices and other psychotic symptoms away. The Ativan I just need to take with the abilify to keep the side effects away. I also need the Ativan to keep the crazies away when I need sleep. It helps to shut my brain down enough so I can go to sleep when I am hyped up, for whatever reason. I don’t get hyped up too often at night but sometimes when it’s after 0200, I need the shut down. Otherwise, I might be up all night. The “crazies” are when the thoughts that are ruminating and I can’t turn them off. I often don’t know what to with myself.

I often think about what my death would bring. If people would be better off without me in this world. I sometimes feel like I am a burden to all that I touch. I hate living this life feeling this way. Nothing makes me happy or brings me joy. I always feel discontented all the time. The only thing that I value in my life is my writing, which sometimes I feel is useless ramblings. I got the brilliant idea of collecting these ramblings and making another book out of them. But then I thought, who wants to read about my suicidal feelings? It’s one thing to post this to the internet. It’s free. But having a book means someone has to pay to read it and not that many people would, I think. My words are meaningless.

I just started a book about shame and perfectionism. It’s a self-help book that deals with insights into what is causing shame. Author has ADHD. She talks in circles and it’s hard to follow her. I don’t know if I am going to get anything from this book but I have learned what has caused my anxiety with the few pages that I have read. I never had anxiety until I moved into the town I currently live in. And it’s because of change I get anxiety. Having a chronic pain illness changes you and I have anxiety because I never know when that pain is going to shoot up. The author doesn’t talk about suicide or suicidal thoughts. My guess is she veered away from that as much as possible. I seriously doubt that in the 20 years she has been practicing, no one has been suicidal at times. But then she doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know that part of the reason I want to end my life is because I cannot take the physical pain I feel nearly every day. Tonight the pain is way up there despite taking my pain medication. I might have to take the stronger pill to quiet it down. I just never know when and if the pain meds are going to work. The pain is from nerve damage that caused a pain syndrome. Most of the pain is physical because the pain meds usually do work but tonight I am feeling different kinds of pain all at once. And it is shooting up my heart rate causing me to feel panic. I think that I might get something known as Cauda Equina Syndrome again and it sets off my post traumatic stress disorder symptoms nearly every time. This change is what causes me to panic. I might not have a full blown anxiety attack but I feel really nerve racked. I try different things to get the pain under control besides medication. I write, I distract, I listen to music. I even talk to my “normal” voices. Sometimes that helps. Not every time, but it helps the anxiety more than the pain flare up. I don’t know if the anxiety that I feel jacks up my pain levels or vice versa. It’s hard to tell. I just know that since I developed this pain syndrome, my life has changed and it hasn’t been for the better. Another reason why I want to take my life. I just want the pain to end and if that means my life has to end, too, well so be it.

Another thing this author talks about is dignity. She states that it can never be taken away because no one can take it from you. How wrong she is. My dignity has hurt in so many ways from my pain illness it’s not funny. I have bladder and bowel accidents. Every time I crap my pants it hurts. My dignity takes a hit. It takes me days to recover from this. My bladder has leaked more over the last few months and I am so used to it that it doesn’t really bother me as much anymore. It’s still in the back of my mind, but it still reminds me that I am not a “whole” person anymore. Those days are gone, long, long gone. I have been dealing with this loss for nine years now. I wish I could say that it gets easier but it doesn’t. The smell always reminds you that you are not a fully functioning person anymore. I used to wear diapers when I went out for more than four hours. But now I don’t. It depresses me more when I take the diaper off and I have urine stains on the it. I don’t realize I leak because I can’t feel myself due to a nerve injury to my cauda equina nerves. They are the nerves in your back and control all the functions below the waist. I usually don’t drink enough fluids throughout the day because the more you drink, the more you got to pee. But some days I am just so thirsty that I need to drink, especially now that summer is approaching. It just sucks.

Sunday Blog 3

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, depression

Rather than listen to the game today, I decided to watch it on TV. It was a scoreless first inning and then I don’t know what happened at the top of the 2nd. I missed it and by the time I went downstairs to watch it on TV it was 3-0 A’s. I cussed. In the time it took me to check FB and Twitter, the A’s scored 3 runs. Unbelievable! Then when they scored their 4th run in the 4th, I stopped watching. Sox are not known to come back from a deficit this season. It might be a shutout game or they may get a few runs but not enough to win. I am always hoping to be wrong, but we’ll see.

I woke up late today, like after 0800 late. This is the second Sunday in a row that I slept late and then was able to take a nap and feel somewhat rested. I still have some pain that I am dealing with. Nothing too severe, just my normal throbbing in my ankle. For some reason, the Achilles in my right ankle is bothering me today. I don’t know what I did but I took an extra baclofen to try and settle it down. My calf is tight as well so I have been stretching it most of the day to ease it. I normally don’t get problems with my right leg. It’s usually always the left that bother me. I don’t get it. I haven’t done anything strenuous to cause my right calf pain or injury so it is a mystery.

Since getting my new phone, I have been testing the battery to see how long I can go between charges. I have to say the battery life is MUCH better than my previous 2 phones combined. Charging does take a long time though, the only draw back. I am still getting used to the noises it makes and trying to distinguish them, like what noise is a text message and what is an email. I have all my MSN/Hotmail accounts in the same app for the first time because the Outlook app didn’t load my messages. I have a different email for different things. I have my personal that I use for most of my email, one for my blog, and one for my support group. I used to have, at one point, 11 different email accounts. Now I just have three that I mostly use. The others I still have, like my Verizon, but I hardly use it. I might use it for spam though, like when you need to give an email account but don’t want to use your personal one. I have had my main MSN since I got internet in 2001. I like it better than Yahoo or Gmail.

Last night I was feeling low again and thought the writing bug was going to come out before I was able to sleep, but I was wrong. I was able to go to sleep without writing, much to my relief. I do love the writing bug when it hits, but it keeps me up at night, making me restless and anxious. I ponder if my writing is any good. It feels good writing, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes afterwards, I wonder if it is “good enough”. People have always commented on my writing as being well written. I guess I just have that knack. But for my writing to be most effective, I have to have strong feelings behind it, otherwise I just feel like I am writing bullshit. It’s easy to give a narrative of the day for my daily blogs but for my book writing, I have to feel something to make it worth the while.

Saturday Blog 23

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, depression

Saturday Blog 23

I bought the wrong Otterbox for my phone. I bought it a few months ago so it was too late to return it. I ended up selling it on Amazon and last night, someone bought it. Now I have nothing protecting my phone. I should have waited until I got a new Otterbox that actually FIT my phone. I didn’t realize I bought the one for the active S5.

I had an interesting conversation this morning with a couple of my Twitter buddies. My friend Bart kept retweeting most of the last six or so tweets that I had tweeted last night, including my blog, “Motions of Living”. I had tweeted that I didn’t think it was very good. My friend read it and was wowed by it. He said it was very well written and heartfelt. I felt good that it didn’t suck like I thought it did.

I am listening to the game. It just started. Soon as it is over, I will be making a cheeseburger for dinner. I have been looking forward to this burger all day. Nothing special about it, just a burger with some relish and cheddar cheese. I ran out of my sandwich pickles. I can’t believe that I went through a jar of pickles. I do love them. I created a sandwich where I had cheddar cheese and pickles on a roll.

My mood has been pretty down today because I have been up since 0630. I have been fighting the urge to sleep, hoping that if I don’t sleep, I will be able to get some decent rest tonight. Part of the reason I didn’t go back to sleep was because I had to mail out the Otterbox because someone bought it. It took me a while to figure out how to mail things out and to make sure I had enough for postage. I am glad I had a printer. It made getting the slip and stuff out quickly. It’s Saturday and the PO closes at 1300 so I didn’t want to miss the chance to mail it out today. Afterwards, I bought some donuts for my breakfast. I already had my coffee at around 0800. I had to babysit my niece and made myself a cup of tea to try and keep me awake. So far it hasn’t been working.

I started working on my second book today. I have decided to make my “Hyde” writings into a book. Maybe it will help someone. I am not sure what to call it yet. I am just glad I am working on something. I just hope I can keep it up.