Tag: disability

Don’t Want This Night To End

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

Don’t Want This Night to End

This is a song that I love by Luke Bryan. The video is fricken awesome. Though I don’t really like the follow up video. I was kind of hoping it was going to be another song on his album Tailights and Tailgates.

I had therapy today. It went okay though I don’t think we really talk about anything that was of importance. I brought up the letter and we talked about Hyde. I felt him brewing inside but she and I really didn’t want him to come out. He really is another part of me that is purely suicidal. And I think my menses has something to do with it as well as being in chronic pain. The perfect storm for him to come out is when I am in severe, excruciating pain, late at night, and I can’t sleep. It is the midnight demon quality. I also have to be in a writing mood. For some reason, he expresses himself through writing the most suicidal letters possible. The reason we didn’t want him to come out is because there is always the chance I could attempt suicide while in that frame of mind. I have never really attempted with him in control but that doesn’t mean that I can trust him. She didn’t say, exactly, what the letter did but it apparently had a devastating effect on her.

I went to Starbucks after session like I usually do. I had a Snicker’s latte (2 pumps mocha, 2 pumps caramel, 2 pumps toffee nut) and was contemplating something to eat but didn’t get anything. I journaled a bit while drinking my latte. I wrote a little more in detail about the session as it was fresh off my memory banks. I then wrote about other things. I think the last thing I wrote about was the horrific Amtrak train accident this morning. Seven people are dead because the train was going really fast in a slow zone, 100 MPH in a 50. It’s so sad.

I drank a lot of liquid between the latte and the iced tea I had for supper. I didn’t feel the need to go to the bathroom until I left my house to pick up my prescription at Walgreens. The leaking started and I didn’t feel anything. I hate dribbling. Even as I was approaching the house, the urge to go wasn’t strong, yet I had a full bladder. There was no way I didn’t. You can’t have a twenty ounce drink followed by a sixteen ounce and not be full. That’s over 1000 cc’s of fluid right there! I also wasn’t happy to find out that I am having break through bleeding. Looks like I will be stopping the pill next week so I can have a mense. I went through five packs of pills so it was a good run. I am averaging about 5-6 packs between break throughs. It just sucks because I have to wear female underwear and feminine products for a week. It’s just a big blow to my ego.

how can I keep myself away from me

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

How can I keep myself away from me

I tried the not talking approach to my therapist today. I think it works better in person than it does on the phone. I just did not want to talk today at all. She tried to get me to engage with questions and I just shot her down. I kept telling her this is all pointless. Then she went off about how much I mean to her, and on and on with things like that. I just couldn’t hear her. I tuned her out, like I have most of my friends and family lately.

She wanted me to list the reasons why I want to kill myself. I thought about sending her the blog I wrote the other day but I can’t remember which blog it was. Once I write something, I forget it. It’s like mental eraser once I put it in a blog or on paper. So I will make a new list and please don’t think this is a whine list. I am already close to the edge and it won’t take much to push me off.

I don’t want to live anymore because I am not a full human, I am not a man. I will never be accepted by the society I live in, even if I were to get hormones. The people close to me, my family, will never call me a him or he. I will never be an Uncle, though I can’t imagine after almost 21 years, I can be called that. I have gotten so used to “aunty” that it just suits me, even though it isn’t the right gender preference.

I want to end my life because CES sucks. I am tired of being in pain every single day of my life, in some way, shape, or form. I can’t even have a bowel movement without pain, even if the shit is soft, I hurt. It’s all nerve pain so I doubt anything can be done about it. Luckily it goes away but I suffer for at least 15 minutes to a half hour after every movement. I never thought my life would come to this. And peeing myself every day is no help. I thought that shaving my pubic hairs would help but it doesn’t. I still smell if I don’t shower every other day. The worse part is that I don’t even know I am wet. I don’t have normal sensation down there since my second CES diagnosis. I know people can laugh it off but it really sucks for me because unless I use a pad (which is difficult with boxers), I leak. I just don’t realize I am full until afterwards. My urge to go is not that strong.

Dealing with depression and all that comes with it. The mental pain of living every day when you hurt physically and mentally yet you can’t take a narcotic pain med to ease that ache. I have tried. I once took a handful to ease the mental pain and it did nothing, NOTHING, for me. How can you continue to see a psychiatrist or a therapist knowing they cannot ease your pain. I have tried, desperately and in vain, to find something, anything, to ease this psychache. But all I get is talk therapy to address it. I am tired of talking about it. Nothing helps. Writing used to but now I just think I am a whine bag, going on and on about my little complaints on why I want to take my life.

I never will go back to school again. I will never embrace the academia again and that hurts me more than I say. I will never earn enough or save enough to go back to school, unless I hit the lottery but you have to play to win. I don’t even have the extra buck to play. I never will get my degree that I long for. And I feel like I have let my family down because of this. If I never got sick with mental illness, things would have been different. But this damn illness always gets the best of me. I have to go into the hospital at least once a year, sometimes twice because I just can’t handle “life” and need a “vacation”. If I didn’t have yet another breakdown in 2008, I probably would have got my degree by now and I wouldn’t be fucked with my loans. I don’t blame anyone for this. I blame myself for being sick. Living on SSD is not always as it is cracked up to be.

Then we have the employment issue. Will I ever be able to hold a job again? The past two months I have been plagued with hypomanias and psychosis which if I was working, would have been worse and I would be in the hospital again. And this is without a job! How am I supposed to handle work responsibilities when I can’t even handle no responsibilities? With the Long Term Disability still hanging over me, I still cannot get a job even if I wanted to. I really would like to go back to my old job part time. I just want to feel useful again. I don’t feel like I deserve to live because I feel so worthless. And being an author didn’t exactly give me the fame I thought it would. I still fight for every sale, every month. But self-promoting is hard work, harder than I thought it would be. I thought that when my book went on Amazon, it would fly off the shelves, so to speak. Hardly that. I never thought it would reach a best 100 status, that would be impossible and an unreachable goal. But to be in the millionth rank, well, that was not what I was expecting. And then you had to create an author page. I hate the way I look so I neglected for almost a year to put a pic up. I still don’t know what to say in bio so left that blank. All these things you need to do and yet no one tells you. You just learn as you go.

I hate my body image. I hate the way I look. I always have. I really don’t think that is ever going to change. I avoid mirrors like the plague. And no matter what pic or selfie I take, I always look like a moron. I am just not photogenic, but that isn’t what drives me to kill myself. I just hate me, everything about me sucks.

I think I have listed enough reasons why I want to take my life. These are the top ones.

tired of being an outlier

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

I woke up at 0530 today but was able to get back to sleep around 0600. I slept on and off until 1130. I also woke up around three but was able to go right back to sleep. I don’t know why I am having such a hard time sleeping lately. And someone from Indiana keeps calling me at fucking 0815 every single morning. I don’t know that many people in Indiana and I know they don’t have my number. I wish they would stop calling or at least leave a voicemail so I know who the fuck it is.

I need to go to my father’s today to fix his pill box and then I won’t have to go back until Thursday. I have therapy tomorrow that I am not looking forward to. I am going to try and end therapy. I just don’t see the point anymore. I know she is going to be resistant to it but that is her problem, not mine. I am tired of trying to make people happy. It’s going to be tough not having therapy but I think it’s the best course. I just can’t imagine being in therapy while planning on ending my life. It makes no sense. It will be better if I am not in therapy. The less she knows of my plans the better.

I have been trying to think of a way to let my writing partner know I am not going to be here any longer. But even if I do, she knows that I will get through this tough patch. But this isn’t a tough patch that I am going through. I have made a conscious decision to end my life so I don’t have to turn 40 and continue a sad existence. I know this will hurt her. Another loss that she just can’t face. We have been writing to one another for three years now. I am sad that this is coming to an end as she doesn’t know how much she means to me. I wish it was enough to get me to stay but I don’t think there is enough to keep me here. After all the hospitalizations and therapy I have received, I still have thoughts of ending my life. I can’t live with this knowledge that according to all the statistics, I should be dead. I am tired of being an outlier.

Just came back from my father’s. Damn bus was late both ways. Luckily today is a nice warm day. I wore shorts today as it was warm enough. First day in a LONG time that it hit 70 degrees. It has been a long winter. My father didn’t pick up his pills on Friday like I told him to so I had to go get them as he wasn’t feeling well. The walk to and fro nearly killed me. My calf muscles doesn’t want to work for me. They tighten up with each step and it is killing me. I know it is most likely atrophy as I haven’t been walking in so long. Even a short walk, a block or so, will tighten them up. The price I paid for staying in the month of February. I also know it is going to take a while to build up my strength again. I really need to walk a little every day to get the muscles moving again. I also need to build up my endurance level.

Yesterday was National Grilled Cheese Day. I think I will have one or two tonight for my dinner. Just wish I had some tomato soup to go with it. I think I will make an online order so I can order some of the items I am thinking about getting so I don’t forget. I just hope I don’t spend $130 like I did last time. It was a big order but it was all my essentials, no junk food, just stuff that I had really run out of.

Rant of Doctors about CES

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, CES, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain

A rant on doctors (CES)

You are diagnosed with Cauda Equina Syndrome. A misunderstood syndrome that is a medical emergency. Yet the doctors never provide adequate after care. They think that once the surgery is done, you should be healed. They don’t tell you it could be up to 2 years or more before recovery is seen. Meanwhile, you become an infant. You have no bowel or bladder sensation. Are given catheters and told to do your own bowel program. I have tried this and has taken me 13 years to figure out what to make me go and what doesn’t. I was fortunate that I didn’t have to use catheters but I know others that do. What really pisses me off is that there is no help dealing with this syndrome mentally. It shatters you to the core. The pain that is dealt with is intolerable. The burning, the zaps, the throbbing, the stabbing. It never ends. You might get relief for a few hours but most of the time you have to learn to tolerate the pain. You want to give up and when you tell someone this, you are thought of as crazy. People don’t understand the mental anguish chronic pain has on you. I am feel so bad for those that didn’t have the help that I did while I was in the hospital. I was on suicide watch a few times but I got through it. I still have strong suicidal feelings because I just cannot tolerate pain any longer. But I am still here, despite these feelings.

Doctors don’t know everything. You may have to see several different specialists to deal with CES. I would strongly recommend finding a psychologist or therapist in your area to help deal with the debilitating pain, disability, and loss of self. Whatever you were before CES, it is now gone. You will never go back to that life. I will never be able to walk a 20 mile walk a thon because I can barely walk around the block without severe pain. As tough as it is, you must get used to this new life. There are no doctors that specialize in CES. Some have never even heard about it and if you look it up in a textbook, I am sure it is just a small paragraph. That is what makes this syndrome so damn frustrating. You have to see a neurologist if you want the best care. A GP or internist is not going to be helpful. Finding someone to listen is also key, though it may be hard to find. Don’t give up looking. They are out there! The weird thing is, as I was in the ER unable to walk, surrounded by neurologist residents and neurosurgical residents, not one of them told me that I had CES. It was my psychiatrist that told! I paged her at 4 in the morning to talk to her and get her opinion on what to do next. I needed to hear her voice because I knew she knew what I had. I have been lucky that both of my CES surgeries happened in the early stages and within the timeframe. Otherwise, I doubt that I would be writing how I recovered. It took a long time to get use of my legs again. I went from walker to cane to AFO to nothing. It didn’t happen overnight. It took months of rehab and perseverance. If I can get through the pain, you can too.