Tag: depression

a loss you can’t recover from

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

I got a lot done today, thanks to my mother waking me up before nine this morning. I finished my editing and worked on my introduction. I also helped her put up the Christmas tree. My sister is going to help her put the lights on later because I suck at that.

I am getting a little worried about how my intro is going. I started writing about my illnesses and then starting talking about my CES injury and where I was at with that. Then I felt like it was TMI for the intro. It also was filling me up with grief so I had to take a break. I then emailed my support group and asked if that was ok to put. I just don’t know how much of the CES I want to put out there. I know I should probably put it in one of the chapters that does deal with CES. Maybe I will write it out and then cut and paste it there as sort of where I am today section.

I got pretty overwhelmed with emotion and PTSD symptoms. I just couldn’t handle the anxiety of what I was writing. And I couldn’t believe what my life has been reduced to. It is a loss that I can’t recover from and I don’t know if I ever will recover from. That what sucks with CES. You might recover but it takes months or years even. As far as my ankle goes, I don’t think there will ever be a recovery. I don’t know if it will get worse, only time will tell. Until then I just try not to use it as much as possible because it gets angry when I use it. I know it shouldn’t do this. You should be able to use your ankle the way you are supposed to at anytime. But for some reason with my left ankle, the more I use it, the more pain I get from it. Like today, I went up and down the stairs I don’t know how many times. I went to my sister’s apartment on the first floor for coffee, then went back up to my room. After I finished my coffee I went downstairs to rinse the cup off. Then went back up to my room. I did this repeatedly most of the day today. My sister needed some help cooking some chicken wings so I had to go back to her apartment (she lives on the first floor while I live on the second). I must have made at least a half dozen trips. And I know come eight o’clock tonight or soon after I am going to be hit with pain. I sort of prepared this time. I took some pain meds a little while ago to prevent pain from happening. Sometimes this works and I hope this time it does. I don’t want pain that I had last night. I had zaps going through my toes that were wicked painful.

I still am tempted to call my therapist tomorrow to chat. I just have been going through a lot of pain that is driving me whacky the past few days. I don’t feel like doing anything, other than cutting my ankle off. But I don’t have any big power tools to get the job done. I told my sister I want a chainsaw for Christmas, but I don’t think she took me seriously. I often wonder if I could really do such a thing. I know it will make a mess. All I keep picturing is the scene from Scarface when the guy dismembers the other guy with a chainsaw in the bathroom of the motel room. Not a pretty picture.

my demons are enough to handle

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

Not feeling good today. Pain kept me up most of the night and it still is rearing its ugly head today. I was able to sneak in a shower and I think that is what flared it up.

I had coffee today and got a burst of energy to do my editing but I got snagged to babysit and got derailed. Now with my pain meds on board, editing is probably not going to happen. I have been looking over the last few pages and I think its dumb so I am waiting for those feelings to go away before I get back to it. I know I have an editor now but I still have a few things to work out before I can give her my work. I have until the end of March to give her my stuff. It’s going to be a LONG three months. But I am hoping that once I get all my ducks in a row I will feel a little more confident about the book.

This pain is driving me up a wall. I knew I would be hurting today. I really want to go back to sleep but I am kind of hungry, even though I had a huge burger for lunch. I still have a quarter of it left but the thought of eating anything more today is making me queasy. I guess all that grease is making me feel a little sick.

It’s kind of cold today. My room is freezing. I don’t need a room refrigerator for my Gatorade bottles because it is that cold in my room. I should put on my long sleeved t-shirt but I am not that cold and besides after I write this blog I think I am going to try and take a nap. If my ankle lets me rest. I hate that anything I do depends on the ankle. Sometimes I say the hell with it and do things anyway but it always costs me.

I have not read anything since the other night. I am reading touched with fire by Kay Redfield Jamisen. I had read the part where they had discovered that creativity is dependent on mood states. I know this is true. Some of my work is best done when I am depressed and in despair. But if I am in a “normal” mood, it is so difficult to write. It is like pulling teeth to get the words out. Or I have no inclination to write at all. Then if I am really, really, depressed words flow like water. If I am in an agitated type of depression, I have to constantly be writing and can’t stop until I get the words out. I guess those are the days when I write multiple blogs and journal. I don’t know if what I write makes sense during these times. I know that some of it can be pretty dark because I am in a dark place. It’s really strange to me that I can’t write when my mood is up but I don’t have the energy to do anything. It is really frustrating at times.

I was at Starbucks yesterday and a lady sat across from me with her book. It was titled, “Dark Places”. I thought it might have to do with depression but it was a totally different kind of dark place the author was writing about. Killings and stuff like that. I give credit to those authors that can write like that. I don’t think I have it in me to write something sinister and evil. My demons are enough to handle.

on my soapbox

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

Productive day

I had a productive day. I have been up since six and then went on a caffeine high. That was fun seeing my psychiatrist when I was all racy and talkative. My mood has been up and down all week and I have finally been able to spend some time on my book. I just have seventeen pages to go, which I probably will either do tonight or tomorrow. I haven’t decided. I just read one bleak, downhearted blog entry that I included in the book and it brought my high down. I couldn’t/can’t believe how down I really was. Not to say that I haven’t been down all week but still. My writing was very touching to me and I am the author! I don’t know if I should keep it though. In the book, I made several mentions of my upcoming suicidal plan and also of my plan that I had back in August. But as my therapist calls me, I am a planner. I just am not a do-er. Which sucks for me because I have to continue living this crap every day. I guess it’s good that once I write the dark stuff I don’t think about it as much anymore.

My psychiatrist answered an email I sent her from Monday. I told her that I could no longer “live like this anymore” because I got my menses (which thankfully have gone away!) We talked a little bit about doing something about the transgender issues but I am just not ready to go ahead with it as much as my therapist wants me to. I think she gets it but I still don’t think she (pdoc) knows just how much I want to kill myself because I am in the wrong body. I read about my struggles today in my book and it just killed me. Knowing that I can’t go ahead because of my family and being forced to stay in the wrong body. I just feel like a transvestite because I wear men’s clothes. That is what I am. Whatever you want to call me, it hurts. It causes a huge whole in my heart that can never be filled up.

On another note, I belong to a CRPS support kind of group on Facebook. In one of their posts, they listed oil of wintergreen to help with joint pain. At this stage, I am willing to try anything to ease my ankle pain that throbs me night and day, day and night. Well I bought the stuff from VitaminShoppe but it was the wrong kind. I bought the aroma therapy version and not the application version. Who the hell knew there were different kinds! Now I have to plan a day to go to Harvard Sq and return the bottle. I feel stupid. The bottle didn’t have instructions on it, which I thought kind of weird. I am just glad that I didn’t use it as it probably would have irritated my skin. It should have said that on the website and I would have bought another kind.

Last night I made Nutella cookies for the first time. Now it turns out that I have some kind of allergy to nuts. I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then the Nutella cookies and my stomach got wicked bloated. I just had another cookie to see if it was the peanut butter or the hazelnut and I am hurting. DAMMIT! I love these two nuts. I hope this doesn’t include all nuts because I will be pissed! I am going to miss having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. *sad face*

On yet another note, I got an tweet from Medscape Psychiatry today about how a single question can lead to a suicide risk. I read the article and low and behold, if someone is thinking about dying nearly every day it is a risk factor for death by suicide or suicide attempt! Really??? I want to tweet one of the authors and scream DUH!!! One of the authors is actually a tweet follower of mine. But what is sad is that there were 709 suicide attempts and 46 death by suicides that could have been avoided had someone CARED to ask more about their feelings. It’s like being asked do you have heart disease or high cholesterol in your family and NOT being tested for it, in my opinion! That is just negligence. And another sad thing is that the questionnaire used was the same one used by Jobes to help initiate his CAMS framework and SSF (see this blog for more info). Just kills me that people are so afraid of death that they can’t deal with people talking about it so people have to kill themselves because no one fucking cares they are hurting. And you don’t need a whole fucking questionnaire to find out if someone is suicidal. Just ask! 9 out 10 times they will say yes. The one person will probably just end up denying it because of being labeled crazy. But the important thing is to be open about it. Ok I am off my soapbox, for now…

rambling 60

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

I really have no gas today, despite waking up at the god awful hour of five. I had no reason to be up at this hour, other than a slight pain on my pinky toe. I must have had a blister on it or something and it dissipated but I am left with pain. Thank you nerve pain. You cannot tell me that my foot isn’t messed up with mixed nerve signals anymore. There is just so many random things that happen with it. One minute (or more than a few) it is ice cold, then next burning red hot. Other times it is throbbing like I bang it or something. I gave up trying to figure out what I do to make it hurt the way it does. If I stand it doesn’t hurt too much but then I don’t feel the pain right away so who knows. If I walk too much, I won’t know until the next day if I did too much. I just never know what it is going to be. And then I will have a day or two of no pain. Of it acting like my right foot except for the constant tickle that I feel everyday, which is manageable, I hardly know my foot is there.

But I do have to be protective of it. I have to make sure I don’t expose it to extreme temperatures, too hot or too cold and I am going to hurt. I give up. Yet I suffer either way. It just feels so hopeless. And I have become helpless. All I can do is take my pain medication. It is the only thing that helps me. No other medication has helped and I have been on several.

It looks like I might be in the clear with the menses situation. I hope so. I am starting to feel a lift in my mood and that usually changes when things stop. I hope so because if I have another suicidal attack I think I will act on it this time. I just am so tired of fighting it all the time. I know that will push my book back further but what choice do I have? I also know that attempting might mean a hospitalization longer than two weeks and mean that I might spend the holidays inpatient. Oh well, not like that hasn’t happened before. It will be 18 years since my last serious suicide attempt. I still remember it as if it was yesterday. But things were different back then than they are now. Treatment in the hospital is like an inpatient office visit than an actual helpful place. Your “team” meets with you for fifteen minutes and that is supposed to help you? So if you start feeling better to the nursing staff, and they feel you are not a threat, you go home. That is how is works now. No doctors making real decisions, sure they cover it so that it looks that way but it really isn’t.

I am not sure I want to go in the hospital with an attempt. They watch you closer than they do when you go in without one. And you get out quicker. I have yet to see someone attempt and be out in three days time. I am sure it happens but not at the place that I go.

Regarding my book, for those following my blog: I did one paragraph today and organized my ending a little bit. I want to get it to be at least eight pages long so I have four pages to go before that happens. I will work on it tomorrow, I hope. If my motivation comes. I have to see my pdoc tomorrow so maybe I can do some writing before hand.