Tag: depression

can’t kill myself

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

Listened to the Counting Crows today because I was in that kind of mood. Love their song Blue Buildings. The lyrics of keeping yourself away from yourself is so true today. I am in a bad mood despite seeing my pdoc today. We talked about the Sox mostly but also about how crippling my depression and pain have been all week. I really told her how much I wanted to die today but I can’t. I have a book to finish and another to work on. I hate having these things and before I left, she said that I am going to be famous. I told her probably not but who knows. I am glad she has that confidence in my work because I sure don’t. This is after I told her that I was ecstatic that Jobes answered an email last week. I still have that email and I need to print it out. Unfortunately, my funds have run low so I will have to wait a few weeks.

I can’t believe it’s November already. I don’t know where the time flew. I feel like my date of killing myself is approaching and that I should start preparing. But that is too much of an effort. I just can’t put forth the effort or planning again. Not that I have gotten it out of my system. It just is that I know I can’t kill myself no matter how much I want to. The feelings are there but the motivation to go through with it is not. So, I just have to suffer through the miserable depression again and again as it takes a piece of me through every episode. Today is the worse. I had a bladder accident and I have to take a shower. I am not looking forward to the shower because my foot is already screaming at me from going out to see my pdoc.

I didn’t get any editing done today. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I know it needs to be done but I want to be clear headed. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day but I doubt it. I am starting to feel hopeless again. I have been out of breath when I do the littlest thing so I know my weight is up. I hate gaining weight because it is so hard to lose. But I am going to try to lose some of it by watching what I eat. Trouble is my mother has a bowl of KitKats downstairs, one of my favorite candies. And she made chocolate chip cookies for my sister’s birthday for tomorrow. Her birthday is on Sunday but because she is going to the Patriots game we are celebrating it tomorrow. I usually spend a few minutes with the family and then hibernate back to my cave aka my room.

Today is the perfect hibernation day because it is dark, gloomy, and rainy. I really need to rest my ankle so I might take the shower later, after I have been medicated. Yesterday I slept from six-thirty to one-thirty in the morning. It was a good snooze. I ended up taking my meds and then went back to sleep. I think my crops might have withered but I don’t care. The game that I have been playing for more than three years now is aggravating the hell out of me. It has new missions nearly every other day and you need more and more stuff from your neighbors to complete it. You are allowed fifty rewards per day. The stuff you need are around 20-27. Not enough to go around per neighbor. So you have to pick and choose what items to get. I tend to give to older missions because otherwise, there is no finishing them. And that is frustrating!!

A Special Blog Post

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, suicide

This is my 500th blog post. I wanted it to be memorable. And it will be, I hope, to me anyways.

I thought I would talk about David Jobes. He is my idol in the field of suicidology. I talk a lot about his work on my blog because I want to spread the word that there are treatment plans and assessment scales available for those who are suicidal. It took twenty-five years for this to happen. It might not catch on like DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) did for borderline personality disorder but I am hoping that through my blog, someone has at least an inkling about it.

His work is CAMS: the Collaborating Assessment and Managing of Suicide. It is a framework that allows the suicidal patient/client to work with the therapist in his or her treatment plan. By working together, therapist and client, it is hoped that suicidal thinking will decrease enough so a completed suicide is avoided. This does not mean that the suicidal thinking will go away completely. Nor does it totally prevent a suicide. During one of his talks, he spoke of a clinician in Texas that followed the CAMS and the assessment tool, SSF (suicide Status Form) to the letter with one of his suicidal clients. The client ended up killing himself. The clinician did everything that he could. But sometimes, there is still the risk.

The SSF is a seven page form that uses an initial, tracking, and outcome form to monitor and assess suicidality. It is based on the work of several clinicians. I won’t go into great detail about this because you can find out more in Dr. Jobes’s book, Managing Suicidal Risk. The link it to the Amazon website where you can purchase it. I would love to post the SSF one day but I would be violating copyrights, though in the book you can make copies of the form. I just can’t do it electronically, yet.

The wonderful thing about this form is that it is a self report about the client’s thinking about suicide and also has clinical information in the end so that both client and clinician fill it out to assess and document the suicide risk. It doesn’t take more than 10-15 minutes to fill it out (might take longer if the person has trouble understanding reading and writing English or has a disability that prevents that from happening, such as dyslexia). It is individualized for the client and that is a huge thing Jobes tries to do. It is not a fit all in one box, so to speak. It should broaden the thinking of the client and clinician to help bring together and work together to prevent the client from committing suicide. In the SSF, it talks about reasons for living and dying, assess psychological pain, hopelessness, the need to escape, and also asks the question, what would make you not kill yourself? I have used this form in my therapy sessions and that is the first question my therapist asks me when I am in the throws of a suicidal crisis, which happens more times than not for various reasons.
Mostly it has been my word that has kept me alive and I do hate myself for it at times. I have told my therapist that I would keep myself safe and I have, though sometimes, I overmedicate to do so.

Background information of Jobes is that he is a professor at the Catholic University of America and also has a private practice in the Washington, D.C. He has written in at least a half dozen books (some of which I own, if I could afford it I would own all) and countless research articles relating to his work and also to the field of suicidology. He not only write about his work but also about the legality and ethical matters of dealing with a suicidal client.

actors and depression

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

I previously blogged earlier today but wanted to post this before going to bed. I have learned many things about depression and although I know some of you are suffering from this horrendous disease, knowing that what FEELS like forever is not, in fact, FOREVER.

I have been a fan of Wil Wheaton since I was a teen. He was, you can say, my crush. My school had gigantic photos of him in our school cafeteria in middle school and I was able to take them home and literally poster my wall with these posters. I became a member of his fan club, WilPower. He spoke his true heart about his life in letters he sent out to the group that were his thoughts, not those of his publicist or agent. I have been following him on twitter the since I became a member of twitter and he sends some of the funniest things, nerd things, that make my day. But what he doesn’t talk about often, is the black clouds that sometimes follow him around. He talked about them today because he got over his bad day yesterday and the day before that in his blog that he writes. I have included it here to inspire you to know that what I say is true. Depression is a black dog that can haunt your life, but it ebbs and flows like the tide. Some days are really, really, bad. Other days it might not be so noticeable. He talks about that and I am so proud of him and his accomplishments. He is way nerdier than I am as some of his stuff is over my head but he does have talent. I love him and always will, though not in any other way than in a respectful and admiration kind of way. He is not the gender I prefer. But that is not what is important. If I could, I would send him tweet every day saying that I love and care for him and hope that he is having a good day but there is only so much you can do with 140 character limit. And if I get too overzealous and send him tweets he might block me and I am too afraid of that. His biggest thing is that he just wants to be treated as a guy. His motto is “don’t be a dick”. I can respect that.

Others have anxiety, I become psychotic

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

My sister and niece took me out for breakfast this morning. It was a very cool day. We got to the restaurant and these two guys were competing to be heard in the noisy atmosphere. I thought I was going to go nuts. Well I did. Loud noises make the voices come out more than anything and I was starting to feel uncomfortable. While others would get nervous or have anxiety over that kind of stuff, I become psychotic. Lucky they were just finishing up their breakfast and they left a little while after we were waiting for our food. I was grateful for them to leave.

My day started early. I emailed my writing partner around 7 am to let her know I was editing my book. I guess it kind of frazzled me as I realized a whole couple of sections were missing from the printed manuscript I had and the edited version of my document. I was freaking out. Sure enough I had deleted so I panicked. I had to get the original version of my file to copy and paste what I really wanted in the edited version. I was beyond frustrated and have decided to go with an editor. I found one on Facebook and she is reasonably price. I talked with her today and is going to charge me only $250 for my book, where I was looking at other editing services it was 10 times that amount. I think I am getting a good deal. But then this is my first book, I have no clue what I am doing or even if this book makes sense. I have not made a table of contents yet, nor have a solid introduction or forward or something like that. I was hoping to get this published the end of November but it will take me some time to get the money for the editor and the editor can’t take me right away anyway. She has told me that she can’t get to my work until a “few months”. She posts on FB every day that she is working on her projects with other authors and I guess her business is booming from the sound of things. And she did cut me a deal as her normal charge was $350 (USD) for less than 100K words. I just hope I get my money’s worth. This is my baby and I will be trusting it to a complete stranger.

So today I spent a good few hours surrounded by my manuscript pages trying to put it back together. I was frazzled, which did me no good with the psychosis already looming in the back of my head. But I didn’t need a PRN (take as needed) medication. I handled the situation ok. I think what might have helped is taking a Benadryl earlier in the day for my stinking allergies. They are so bad that right now my left eye is swollen. I have been using eye drops and Benadryl and that seems to be helping. It has not been as sore as it was last night. It really freaked me out as I normally don’t get allergies that bad. And of course, my eye doctor is in Brazil and I can’t seem him for another week or so.

The only scary thing when I take the Benadryl is I am afraid of overdosing on it. I bought like a huge bottle to do the deed a few years ago and these capsule are small enough to take a large dose. Course now they are expired times four years ago but I still hold on to it because I don’t really believe that medication expires. I believe they might lose their effectiveness over time but they don’t stop working completely. I know I should just toss them out to the medication dump or something. I am no longer suicidal, or going with that method anymore. But I just can’t seem to get rid of them. And I need to have a couple of Benadryl around me anyways because of these stupid allergies. My regular Allegra doesn’t seem to work since it became over the counter. It says that it is the same stuff but I don’t believe it really is. Otherwise, it should have worked as I have been taking it while I was in the hospital and out of the hospital. I take it every night. But the Benadryl seems to be working more than the Allegra. I guess always trust the older medication than the newer.

I have been up since very early this morning. I had another weird dream where I was at my old job and I had to return library books. But when I got there to pick up the books they also handed me a ton of paperwork that I had accumulated since my absence from work. Very weird dreams I have been having.

I didn’t go out for coffee today. I had coffee at the restaurant when I had breakfast. I thought of going to Starbucks when I got home but I didn’t feel like it. I was already dressed and stuff but I just didn’t feel like taking a bus to the square. My niece is funny as she came in yesterday and said it was her Starbucks! She felt like I had invaded her private space or something…too funny.