Tag: depression

Rambling 45

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, depression, mood disorders, suicide

I have been trying to collect my thoughts to write this blog while listening to my “mood” playlist and keep getting distracted by the songs.

Last night I wrote my therapist a letter. I think I will write one for each day that she is gone. It is some thing that we do. I can’t explain it but sometimes something good comes from it. I have some deep thoughts or something that I want to talk about. Sometimes it is just a bitch letter because I don’t have someone to talk to about something that is going on. I have notice in my old journals, I would write with the beginning of a letter. Each entry started with her name Dear A. and the later journal entries start with Dear Bozo. I started calling her Bozo to piss her off and maybe she would dump me. Six years later, she still has me so it didn’t work. I still call her Bozo. Her middle name starts with a B anyway so rather than call her that name, I call her Bozo. I am such a prankster. I once got a sticky and placed Bozo on her sign in her office where A should have been. She had no clue for three days!! That was and still is hysterical.

I found a clinical paper last night going through my files so I posted it as a blog. It’s about schizoaffective disorder and I think I wrote it for one of my psych classes.

I had the BEST homemade iced coffee today. I am so JACKED right now on it. I am really feeling hyper from it. My brain neurons are firing left and right. I like it when I feel this way. I am able to get a lot of writing done. I am sure that I will probably crash in an hour but this is kind of fun. I already did my shopping. Now I am just waiting for the mail to come to see if my doc sent out the prescription for my pain meds. I have only a few to get me through the next few days.

I have been up since 0800. I woke up and I couldn’t go back to sleep. I don’t know why. But it gave me enough energy this morning to go food shopping. Tonight I will have PF chang’s general Chang. I love their food. I wish I could have gotten some of their appetizers but I had only so much money. I still have some money left over for my meds that I will need in the middle of the month. I know I am going to be hurting tonight because I had to go up and down the stairs to bring up my groceries. It was only a few bags and a couple gallons of water but still. The trips are going to cause havoc on me later.

I am so happy I made my coffee. I also got my donuts like I wanted. I was so craving a jelly donut. I got a ½ dozen rather than a dozen like I was thinking. I was disappointed they didn’t have powdered donuts.

I know the coffee is making me feel hyper and feel good. I don’t trust it. I know the demons will be back tonight when the sun goes down. And I will be in pain. I wish I could feel like this forever. Then I wouldn’t be thinking of killing myself every night.

Schizoaffective Disorder: a clinical paper

by Midnight Demon, posted in mental disorders, mood disorders

Schizo-affective disorder is a mixture of two kinds of major mental illnesses, mood disorders and schizophrenia. The patient meets criteria for either major depression or bipolar disorder and criteria for schizophrenia. The illness usually begins in early adulthood and is treated with both pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy. The diagnostic criteria for schizo affective disorder is an uninterrupted period of illness during which, at the same time, there is either 1) major depressive episode, 2) a manic episode, or 3) a mixed episode concurrent with symptoms that meet criteria for schizophrenia. The type is usually specified as either bipolar type, if it includes mania or a mixed state or depressive type if the disturbance only includes major depressive episodes.
Criteria for Major depressive episode is as follows:
Five or more of the following has been present for at least 2 weeks and represent a change in functioning; at least one of the symptoms is either depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure. Depressed mood is present most of the day, nearly every day, marked diminished interest or pleasure in all or almost all activities during the day, significant weight loss or gain, insomnia or hypersomnia, psychomotor agitation or retardation nearly every day, fatigue or loss of energy, feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt nearly every day, diminished ability to think or concentrate, and recurrent thoughts of death, suicidal ideation without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or a specific plan for committing suicide. The symptoms do not meet criteria for mixed episode or cause significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important area of functioning. The symptoms are not due to drugs or a general medical condition or caused by bereavement, i.e., after the loss of a loved one, the symptoms persist longer than 2 months.
The criteria for Manic episode is a distinct period of abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood, lasting at least 1 week. During the period of mood disturbance, there are three of the following symptoms: inflated self-esteem, decreased need for sleep, more talkative than usual, insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day, psychomotor agitation or retardation nearly every day, flight of ideas or racing thoughts, distractibility, increase in goal-directed activity, and excessive involment in pleasurable activities that have a potential for painful consequences (e.g. unrestrained buying sprees, sexual indiscretions, foolish investments.) The symptoms do not meet the criteria for mixed episode and are not caused by drugs or a general medical condition.
Criteria for mixed episode are met both for a manic episode and major depressive episode for nearly every day for one week. The disturbance is sufficiently severe to cause marked impairment in occupational functioning or in usual social activities or to necessitate hospitalization to prevent harm to self or others or there are psychotic features. The symptoms are not due to the direct effects of drugs or a general medical condition.
Criteria A for schizophrenia is the following symptoms that last for at least 1 week: delusions, hallucinations (auditory and visual), disorganized speech (incoherence), grossly disorganized behavior or catatonic behavior, and negative symptoms such as affective flattening, alogia, or avolition. Only one symptom is required if delusions are bizarre or hallucinations consist of a voice keeping up a running commentary on the person’s thoughts or behaviors, or two or more voices conversing with each other. During the same period, there have been delusions or hallucinations for at least 2 weeks in the absence of prominent mood symptoms and meet the criteria for a mood episode that are present for a substantial portion of the illness. The disturbance is not caused by drugs or a general medical condition. (from http://www.psychologynet.org/schizaff/html).

© copyright collerone, g

crappy day

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, depression, mood disorders

I am having a crappy day. I had to go see my pdoc today. We talked about my week and that I am considering stopping my meds. She said she wasn’t sure how that would help my blood pressure. Little does she know that I stopped taking it a few weeks ago. I am waiting till next month when I see my PCP to see if I need it or not. I don’t think I need it but then it’s not like I am checking my blood pressure regularly either. There are no signs of being hypertensive. I just hate taking the pill. It’s a thick round pill and sometimes I have trouble swallowing it.

Then to make my day that much better my ceiling fan is on the fritz. I turned it on when I got home and it’s making a grinding noise. I don’t know if it is a motor thing or a fan thing. I’ll have my brother in law look at it tonight. Don’t think there will be much he can do without taking it apart, which is going to suck. I took two of the non working lamps off and that seems to help with the noise but didn’t cure it. It is driving me nuts but I need air on this humid day. I would run the AC but it’s too cool for that. Just another annoyance for today. Least I have a smoke detector in my room in case it really goes.

I haven’t showered all week. I meant to take one today before going out but I slept too late and didn’t feel like it. I still don’t. My ankle is bitching at me and I wish I could yell back at it but it won’t do much good. It’s going to hurt anyways. I might take it later tonight when it isn’t so angry at me. For some reason the ceiling fan is causing me to have a “brain freeze” affect in my ankle. I think I will have to shut the fan off soon so I can take a shower. Maybe that will help the mood that I am in.

I hate the new update for my rocket player app. It is the app I mostly use to play my music on my phone. I have an android app but it doesn’t pop up on power up like rocket. The latest app shuffle sucks. I listen to a whole album of the same artist before it “shuffles” to the next artist. It then plays two songs and then plays an album. ANNOYING!! I have switched to the android player for now. It still suck shuffling but not as bad as the rocket app.

I told my pdoc what my therapist did about reading my blogs without my permission. She didn’t offer anything about it. But then there really isn’t much to say. My therapist can read my blog like a million other people. I wish I knew why it bothers me so much. I know I should let it go but I just can’t. My therapist is on vacation this week. I have one full week without her annoyances and nosiness.

My pdoc informed today she is on vacation the middle two weeks in August but she is still available via email if I need her. She also has not had a chance to read the paper I sent her for some input. It is a paper I already posted as a blog but I think needs some final touches to but don’t know about. My friend hasn’t gotten back to me about the suicide and relationship one that I started. I think I wrote a page about it and now have no idea where the ideas went.

I am having my own Taylor Swift concert in my room tonight rather than watch Lackey pitch. From the sounds of Red Sox Nation, it looks like they are not doing too well. I am passionate about my Sox but I love Taylor so don’t mind listening to her. It has been a while since I heard her songs. Other than the ones I have picked for my “mixed” playlist, I really don’t listen to her other songs. Just hope the Rocket app doesn’t mess with playing all the albums one by one. I would like some of the older songs mixed with the new. Wonder if I can tailor it to my satisfaction?

surviving depression

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression

I know what you are going through. Sometimes I think that everyone would be better off without me. The only thing that is keeping me alive these days is my word to my therapist that I won’t go through with my thoughts. The pain of living is just too much to bare right now. My therapist often asks me how I get through this. There is a quote that I keep telling her that I got from one of Kay Redfield Jamison’s book, “Only one option left, to suffer”. She is my inspiration as she has bipolar disorder, tried to kill herself, and is one of the leading researchers/teachers of the disorder. I know it doesn’t make sense to suffer all the time but millions of people out there do it everyday. We few that are in this group do it every day, though it is most difficult and we come from different backgrounds and sections of the world. I know it sucks, but the trick is to realize when we feel this way, it is NOT our true selves, it is the disorder that is talking. I know we all feel like scum of the earth for no reason other than for being allowed to breathe, to be something called alive that we wish we didn’t have to be. One reason why I have read so much about depression and there are a lot of good books out there, is that you have to know the disorder, understand it, then you can know what to do, sometimes when it isn’t hitting you on the head with a 60 lb hammer. Sometimes knowing the demons is better than not knowing them. I know that it isn’t always easy when our physical bodies wreck our lives and we are no longer feel apart of the human race because our b&b are not functioning and we have physical pain that si driving us insane. But things aren’t always going to be this way. One of the books that I had read said that suicide is complete in 10 minutes and if you wait out those ten mins, you will survive. The same thing goes for depression. Though instead of 10 mins, it’s more like 10 days or more. But it doesn’t last. Eventually it lifts, and we return to “normal” functioning until the next episode. The HARDEST part of this fucking disorder is that we forget that we have survived the worse of it. Every time we are stuck in an episode, we think it is for the first time, that we are NEVER going to feel better, ever. I am telling you that you are. No matter how hopeless you feel right now, tomorrow might be a better day and if it is not, least you survived today. Worry about tomorrow, tomorrow I’ll be here for you. Count on it.

About the mood stabilizers, I suffer from bipolar depression, which is a little different than major depression. I sometimes have periods where I am really hyper, don’t sleep, eat, think I am on top of the world, talk excessively, and can’t stand still. These periods don’t last too long, maybe a week or two, then I either have a period of being normal and/or crash big time. I take Trileptal for it and it has helped some with the Cymbalta. Trileptal is an anti-convulsant that is used a “mood stabilizer”. There are other drugs that are used, but you should be seen by a psychiatrist for evaluation. Most GP’s don’t have a clue about psychotropic meds and it isn’t a good idea for them to play around with it if you don’t have the diagnosis.