Tag: disability

midnight ramblings

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain

Last night I was in pain again though I don’t know why. It’s a late hour so my mood has tanked south. I don’t know what it is about the night that makes all the pain come out but it sucks. Thoughts of death are swarming around my head. I’m listening to The Band Perry’s new CD to try and relax. I haven’t listened to music in a few days. I do tend to feel nervous when I don’t listen on a regular basis.

I tried taking a break from my therapist this week. It didn’t happen the way I wanted it to. Usually I take a break and become more analytical and come up with these great ideas. But this time, it just didn’t happen. I guess being wrapped up in pain left no room for thinking about things. I usually end up writing her these long letters about how I am doing and what I am feeling. I didn’t so much as do that.

I came up with some idea to write about songs that I have a knack connection with but have not started that project yet. I just haven’t decided what songs should go into this. I guess I’ll know when I hear it.

Tonight I have my cousin’s wedding. I know I am going to get asked about my work and I’m going to talk about my disability. It gets old after a while but I can’t help but feel like a loser after I tell my family that I am no longer working and why. It kills me that I am no longer able to function to the point of working. And what is really tough is that I haven’t had surgery in seven years. That was the last time I was in rough shape. People usually think you get better by now. But I am not. Nerve damage takes so long to heal and no one understands that.

Monday I am to see another doctor for the same problem. I don’t know why I am bothering. It’s not like she is going to have any new answers for me other than to lose weight. That is the doctor’s cure all. If you lose weight, you won’t have this problem. Lose weight and you won’t be so depressed. Lose weight and your back will feel better. I wish I dropped a pound every time someone told me to lose weight. I would be skinny in no time. But I seriously doubt that my weight is the ONLY reason I am hurting. Even if I weighed 80 lbs I would still have a bad back and still have nerve damage. Weight cannot change the fact I have had four back surgeries. I have been trying to lose weight for the past three months. It is wicked hard. It takes a lot of work and with the depression it just makes it that much harder. I don’t always stick with it because I get the fuck its. But lately I have been having no appetite so I just been eating cereal as my caloric intake. Also been eating yogurt to try and get my bowels on track but that is the harder road. It sucks eating healthy or at least trying to when junk food is so accessible.

There has been a quote floating around twitter the past few days, that if a crush lasts more than four months, then it probably is love. Then I guess I am in love with my therapist. I have had a crush on her from the very beginning. Another quote fact that has been circulating is that relationships that last longer than seven years tend to last a lifetime. I have found this true with my therapist and psychiatrist. I have known my psychiatrist for nearly half my life and we just past the twenty year mark of working together. I’m screwed.

My left foot is on fire as I am writing this and I’m finding myself feeling empty hearted. Not really downhearted, just feeling empty, like I have nothing inside. And because I feel nothing, I also think I am nothing, that I don’t matter at all to anyone. I’ll just be better off dead.

What would being dead look like? Frankly I don’t know. I’ll be dead. I won’t be in existence anymore. The pain that I feel will cease to be. I will finally be free of pain and misery. Lest I hope I will be. Being free of pain is all that I want. If I didn’t have pain, emotional or physical, I probably would want to live. And I don’t know what that would look like. Probably the same as it does now.

ankle chronicles 3

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

I went to my appointments today for my primary and psychiatry. Neither had much to offer other than doing the same old same old. My primary wants me to see yet another doctor for the same problem I have been having. I want to refuse but I will make the appointment Monday to show that I am making an effort at getting to the bottom of my pain even though no one knows why I am in pain. They have different theories, each doctor I see has a different opinion or that there is nothing wrong with me because it doesn’t show up on an MRI or X-ray. I just want to be able to control my pain. Is that so wrong? That is why I see him, to get medication for my pain so that I am not suicidally inclined to end my life because of the physical pain in my foot and ankle. But let’s take it from my perspective. I have seen at least 10 medical professionals in the past year to find out what my pain is about. I have had countless sessions of physical therapy, all that have no helped my pain or ease the misery of it. And now he wants me to see my physiatrist to get yet another opinion on what is the reason behind my pain. He thinks that it is tendinitis. If that were so, I would have been cured of that within 6-8 weeks after immobilization. I have worn a boot for almost three months and still my ankle felt like it was going to fall off. To be up in pain night after night of doing NOTHING the past few months have shown that something nerve like is the culprit and not a mechanical problem like it was. Unless I am going up and down stairs wrong after 37 years. Then maybe I am doing something mechanically wrong flexing and reflexing my foot in the upward and downward motion of stair climbing. But no one know this for certain. Hell I don’t even know. I have to take the steps one step at a time to avoid falling. I have gotten so into the habit that I no longer do one step after the other on the stairs leading away from my bedroom.

I am tired of having to explain my pain every month but have decided that I am not going to take my pain medicine every day that I am suppose to. I have no appointment with my primary in a month like I supposed to either. So my little experiment will be can I go a few weeks without pain medication. I know this prospect scares me a little but I feel that I have to at least try this. My only fear is that it will bring on a pain cycle that will be hard to break once it starts. I know that if I don’t do this I might as well try and kill myself now. What is the point of going on like this if I am just going to have panic attacks worrying about pain all the time like I do. I have zap pain, I have burning pain. I don’t have pain down the leg. I don’t have back pain. I just have this fucking pain in my ankle and foot that does not go away except for when I sleep. It is with me 24/7. Some of it I am not aware of because I have gotten so used to it. But if I stop and think about it, it is there, buzzing like a bee.

lack of sleep is a costly thing

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

I can’t sleep but then it’s early for me. I have been thinking about all the nights I have not been able to sleep because of pain, because of worries, because of things that keep running through my head.

Tonight I feel suicidal but I am not going to act on it. I just don’t feel the lethality of my thoughts anymore though if given a chance to actually act on them I might do it. I just don’t care anymore. If I live, if I die. What difference does it make. I still will be doing the same thing tomorrow that I am doing today, nothing. I realized that because I don’t sit down, say in a chair, it has helped my leg get better. I don’t know how better as the pain is less but when I walk or have a long day, it will flair. Even on days when I don’t have long days or walk it will flair up. There is no rhyme or reason as to why this happens. But it bugs me. I need something to do because I am going out of my mind. I have MASH DVDs that I can watch but I don’t watch them. I have other programs I can watch but I don’t. I can clean my room but that just overwhelms me. I try to go out at least once a day but even that seems to be too much of a hassle for me. I am becoming a hermit and I don’t like it. I know tomorrow I will have to go out to pick up my prescription. I probably will get a soda as I have not had one in a few days. I might get a tonic water to avoid the calories of a soda as I am watching my weight. I also might mix this tonic water with some gin and have a drink. I love gin. It tastes so good but I can’t have too much or I will get sick.

I just tried stretching my legs. It felt good. I wish I could remember to do it every day. Maybe then they won’t be so tight. Right now it’s nine thirty in the evening and I am thinking of going to bed but it hold no good dreams for me. I dream about work or killing myself. And this saddens me. I hate trying to go to sleep. Unless I am severely exhausted, I will fight it till the end. No matter how many pills, I take to get to sleep it seems my body always fights it no matter what. It is so frustrating. My lovely Neurontin that I love to take to zone out no longer works for me, even at high doses. I used to be able to sleep a good twelve hours, now I’m lucky to sleep five. That is my interval, four hours maximum. Where I used to sleep till 10 am or later, I am now waking up between six and eight in the morning. I hate this. I need something that makes me sleep longer but I don’t know what to take to let me sleep. Maybe some benedryl. I don’t know…

And this is all if I don’t have pain keeping me up. If I have pain then I am not sleeping at all. I writher in agony until the pain meds bring me some relief. Then soon as they wear off I am in pain again it starts the cycle all over again. The doctors don’t get it. They see me at 2-3 in the afternoon when I am not at my worst pain and think I am doing ok or better than I was the month before and give me my pills and say have a nice month before coming back to tell them the same story of losing sleep because of pain. Pain that wakes me up. Pain that keeps me awake. They don’t care. I am the one paying the price and they don’t care. They think that 2-3 pills a day is an adequate dose to keep me from withering in agony but they don’t see the price it is costing me. Lack of sleep. Lack of ambition, lack of motivation to do things I normally do. I tell them all this and still all I get is lose weight and be more active. I’ll be more active when I am dead…

new coffee and ramblings

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

I made it to my Starbucks and ordered a new coffee, Isla Flores from Indonesia. As long as it keeps me awake, it will do it’s job. It tastes really good so I am glad I got it iced.

Yesterday was a bad day for me. I slept most of the day. I don’t remember if I had therapy I was so sleepy. I didn’t sleep too good the night before. I feel asleep around 2200 and then woke up at 0200. Stayed awake till 0400 when some moron called me at 0821 and then again at 0921. I was pissed because it was an unknown called. I wouldn’t mind the wake up call but I was in the middle of a dream and if left me feeling really sleepy. I think my therapist called two hours later and I know I feel asleep until 2pmish. I stayed up enough to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and after that I think I went back to bed. No writing, no journaling, just sleep.

Today I am feeling a little bit hungover from sleeping so much but at least I am out. I plan on working on my book long as the coffee and sandwiches hold out. Though I am tempted to go to McD’s and get another cheeseburger for dinner. Maybe I will…but not now. I need to do write this blog.

The group went ok even though I still am on suicidal watch with my therapist. I just got so upset I told her anything that would get her off the phone. I was so tired so she didn’t believe me. Figures. I really hate my life and I want so badly to end it. Sunday is my father’s birthday so I guess I can’t do it this weekend even though I should. That would send him a message but he is probably too stupid to realize it. Today is my fiend’s Ivan’s birthday. I don’t know if I should call him as we don’t really have a policy of calling one another on each other’s birthday. But I bet it would surprise him.

I wrote my vocabulary of suicide the other day and posted it. It got a few hits. I don’t know why I can’t be writing like I used to be. I just am so tired lately that I can’t think. All I can do is play my internet games and then go to sleep. My mother said that I should get a job as it would get me up. But I can’t work right now. I don’t have the patience to go find a job nor do I think I can handle the pressure of work right now. I know it’s been almost a year since I have been out of work but I am still afraid that I will have a set back and want to kill myself more than I do now. Plus it would cause trouble and I might lose my insurance from my old job if I do.

As I am listening to Starbucks, a new Mary Chapin Carpenter song comes on the radio. This makes me happy. I love MCC. I am going to see her in May with Shawn Colvin, who I don’t like as much. But Mary Chapin is the only artist that I can hear when I am in a bad mood and feel better afterwards. She has such a soothing voice. I wonder if her voice sounds the same in real life. I always wanted to meet her. I would die if I ever did, but I wonder what it would be like meeting with her in person. I think I would be so filled with awe in would take me few minutes or more to compose myself.

I have to buy dress clothes next week for a wedding as nothing fits me anymore. I figure I will buy some Dockers and a new dress shirt. Black and blue shirt should do fine. I wish my chest binder would be here by then but it won’t come in until after April 10th. I hope the weather is warmer by this wedding and there is no snow. We have had too much this winter but then we didn’t get any last winter so it’s a trade off. I can’t believe my little first cousin is getting married. Though she is almost 30 years old, I still think of her as my little cousin. They grow up so fast.

I cleaned out my DVR recording of old Criminal minds episodes that I have already seen. I don’t know why I have gotten out of sync with the show. I just stopped watching it after the 6th season and can’t seem to get back into it. I guess after Haley died and Hotchner felt that huge loss, I did too. Plus the show just got weirder and if people are really out there doing this stuff it scares me. Sometimes the line between fact and fiction can be so blurred.