Tag: grief

Writing Itch 3

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

Writing itch 3

My writing itch continues. I am afraid that it started when I was reading a book about writing a novel. I have no clue how to write a novel nor do I ever plan on writing one because, frankly, I am not that creative. I basically write about my experiences in my blog and then if I feel that particular blog is good, I store it in my “book” folder to be published later. I feel like I am writing a second memoir though it’s really just short stories about mental illness, particularly about psychosis. I was going to throw in a story about narcissism but it was too close to my father and I just couldn’t write about it without thinking about him.

Speaking of him, I still haven’t cried for him, at all, since his death three months ago. I get sad about this but how can you cry when you are relieved he is gone? That the terror you felt as a child and an adult is finally out of life for good? I can’t call him a “dad” because he wasn’t one in any sense of the word. To me, he will always be my father and that is all.

I am wicked tired but I can’t sleep because of this writing itch. I like that I get into these itches but what I write is garbage. They are just words on a screen. I don’t even know if I make sense. I was feeling tired earlier this evening. I should have napped then but then I would probably wake up at this hour and be doing what I am doing. Writing nonsense.

I added a story to my book. I am up to 115 pages so far. I have 85 pages to go. Once I finish reading the Adler chapter, I think I am going to write some pages from the Daily Post word prompts that I have been saving. I think it will do me some good to write them. Lord knows I have enough notebooks to write my stories in them. I just hope that I write at least 850 words per word prompt. That is my word goal. If I write more than that, so be it, but I want each prompt to be at least 850 words.

I finally broke down and wrote to my favorite author, Lawrence Block. I felt like I had to because it felt important to me that he should know how I feel about his work. I don’t know if I will get a response or not. But at least I told him my feelings.

Today, there was something on Facebook about ISIS. It set me off in my delusions. I also read my blogs from March 2015 and realized my delusions started then about ISIS. I am really surprised that neither my psychiatrist nor my therapist gave any weight to my delusions. I think if they did, I probably wouldn’t be struggling today with so much psychotic symptoms. Of course, this is all in hindsight. This stuff won’t be making it’s way into my book because I am not sure of copyright issues and stuff. I just have been calling them snakeheads because they are being controlled by alien parasites that look like snakes, though they are far more uglier than snakes. Still scares me though.

Tomorrow I am going to try and sweep the stairs of the dust that has accumulated on there since the last sweeping. I will try and wash them as well but it all depends on if my back cooperates with me or not. Lately, the slights movement and it seems to go out on me. I made dinner tonight and had to sit down while cooking because the spasms were so intense. I don’t know why it gets like that. Drives me crazy.

Do Nothing Sunday

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

Do Nothing Sunday

I listened to the ballgame today and that is the extent of my activities. I woke up late though I wasn’t intending to. I woke up around 0845 and the next thing I knew it was 1300. I fell back to sleep. I heard my mother get up and that was the last thing I heard before returning to the dream I was dreaming.

Sox won and I am happy because they almost lost it again. They had an 8-3 lead that they squandered. The final score was 8-7. Porcello gets his win and though I usually call him “poorfellow” he is actually the best pitcher next to Wright. They have the most wins on the Sox.

I had to take a shower because I need to leave early tomorrow and I am not sure I am going to wake up early enough. Lately I have been sleeping past 0900 and I need to catch the 0950 bus tomorrow. I am seeing my psych. I hope she will agree to writing me a script for taking the trilafon twice a day but we’ll see what kind of mood I am in. Sometimes I will ask for it if I am in the mood but sometimes I am not. I am not good at getting what I need only because I am afraid to ask.

My left thigh has been killing me most of the day. I woke up with the pain so not sure what I did during the night to cause pain. It’s been another hot day so I didn’t go out. Just making breakfast/lunch in the kitchen was causing me to sweat. It’s so hot in the house. I have been taking my pain meds to ease it but I am afraid it hasn’t been doing much for it. I am not sure if it is nerve pain or what but I just know that I am in pain.

I filled my pill box and realized I needed refills on four meds. I thought about getting them today but I got lazy. I really just didn’t want to go to the store just to work up a sweat. Then I would have to shower. I need to go out tomorrow so will get them then. I don’t need them right away. My blood pressure pills came yesterday so I am good with them. I am so glad the doc sent them to the right pharmacy.

If I am able to leave my house early tomorrow I will bring my psych book to read while I am at Starbucks. I hope to get paid tomorrow but it might not be until Tuesday. Drives me crazy because technically, I am supposed to get paid today but because it is Sunday, the bank is closed. I have just enough funds for an espresso over ice. Whenever I do get paid, I need to get coffee for the house because I am out. I am going to experiment making iced coffee once I get more coffee. I think 3 scoops of coffee to the same amount of water over ice might be perfect. I might have to play with it to get it right.

I really want to see my therapist this week. I am going to try and make it happen. I would like to see her the week of her birthday but I don’t think I can swing it. I got a huge grocery bill to get because my mother wants meat and I want my steak. I decided to get a filet mignon so I can grill it. I plan on marinating it first with the other steaks that I bought. Hope the marinade is good. It’s the first time making it. I have been trying to keep the grocery bill between $150-$200 but I am not sometimes successful. I do review the order and then take away things that are expensive or junk food.

My mood has been down for most of the day. I think it’s because I have been sleeping more. The psychosis seems to be controlled. I have been trying to just take 1 pill a day and see how I do because I only have 6 pills left. I need to wait for the refill to come in, which won’t be until later this week because my doc called in the mail order instead of the retail pharmacy. Now that I think of it, I could have taken the bottle to the pharmacy for a faster refill, duh. Oh well.

Saturday Blog 57

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

Saturday Blog 57

It’s another hot day. We are in the middle of a heatwave as the temp has been above 90 for more than three days. The humidity sucks. I was going to go out today but I overslept. You really have to get up early and go to Starbucks or you might not be able to get a seat. It was too hot out to attempt it so I just stayed in. I made my own coffee, which I think I only have one cup left. Hope it’s enough to get me through till Tuesday when I get paid next.

I read a little bit today. The story just seems to be dragging on and on. No real drama or action. I am close to being in the middle of the book and still have no idea where the story is heading. But I will read the book anyways because I am a stickler like that.

I didn’t have lunch or breakfast until about a half hour ago. My mother was asking why I didn’t eat. I told her because I was sleeping. Then I had coffee and it killed my appetite further. The house is really hot so I try not to be outside my room for too long. I think for supper I am going to make a tuna sandwich. I don’t know why I have been craving tuna lately. It’s like my go-to food when I don’t know what else to eat.

I have been feeling down since last night. I thought about my father and it brought about a deep sadness. I texted my sister and she said she felt the same way whenever she thought of him. Then I was a little bit haunted by suicidal thoughts. I just thought about what it would be like if I was dead. I so just don’t want to live anymore. I don’t know why I am living. My life just seems stupid.

One of the clinicians I follow on Twitter was looking for readers for his upcoming new textbook. I emailed him to see if I can read one of the chapters and give him feedback. I told him I am not a student but I have lived experience. I hope he doesn’t turn down the request. I plan on getting the book anyways but if I do read it, it will be a free copy and my name will be in the book.

I keep perusing my blogs hoping to find one “good enough” for my book. There hasn’t been many that I have come across yet. I know most of my blogs are just my day to day struggles and accounts of my daily activities. Most of the blogs deal with my never ending nerve pain or some type of pain that I am having in my foot/ankle. I think I wrote more about my pain than about my suicidality/depression. Now my blogs are mostly about my psychosis and dealing with voices. I am still in pain but I just don’t write about it.

I also used to write about my father as he was always the source of aggravation for me. Since his death, I just been dealing with his loss. The memories of what he went through the last four months of his life are still fresh in my mind. I never got to finish the story of his last hour of death. Maybe it’s better to keep it in my mind rather than on paper.

Evening Saturday Blog

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, grief, mood disorders, suicide

Evening Saturday Blog

For the first time in the last two weeks, I missed my afternoon dose of trilafon. I am kind of beating myself up about it but there is nothing I can do about it unless my symptoms come back in full attack. They haven’t so I think I am okay with just taking 4 mg tonight. It was one of those, yea I will take it in a minute and then forgot when the minute passed. I do the same thing with my blood pressure meds, which is why I have an app that reminds me to take my meds.

I usually take my first dose of trilafon a few hours after waking up, usually after or while I am having my coffee. I figure if I take it with the coffee it fights off the drowsy effect. Today I had two cups of coffee and I was still tired by the end of the baseball game. I pretty much watched it from beginning to end, well, watched a couple of innings and then listened to the rest of the game. I am happy they beat the Skankees again. When Sandy Leon was batting, I just had a feeling he was going to hit a homerun. I didn’t say anything because that jinxes it. And when I heard Joe Castig say that ball is gone, I was whooping up and down on my bed. It was so sweet. That made it 5-1 at the time. The final score was 5-2. It was a good game.

I finally finished one of the books that I started but my Kindle ran out of juice. That is the only problem with technology, needing power. A regular book doesn’t need that kind of power. You just have to remember to carry it with you. I had already finished the single but at the end it had the beginning chapter of another Keller series. I think I already read it as it sounded familiar. The book is written by my favorite author Lawrence Block. Keller is one of his characters that I like. He plays a professional assassin. Block’s first book that I got hooked on was “Eight million ways to die”. He had this series by another one of his characters called Matt Scudder. I just fell in love with Matt when I was 15. He was struggling with his issues with alcohol and I was struggling to stay alive with my suicidal thoughts. Block’s books gave me the much needed distraction to keep going. I feel like I should write to him, but I don’t want to sound corny. I do have his email address because what I have to say will be longer than 140 characters in a tweet. I am not that tactful.

Now I am trying to get into a Scudder-like mystery/crime novel written by Robert Galbraith aka JK Rowling. I read the first chapter this morning and it was so meh. It was just so ordinary. It reminded me of a book by Block, “out the window”. I know that I shouldn’t be judging this like a Block book but when that is all you have read for the past two decades, you kind of have a standard. But this book, “The Cuckoo’s Calling” was a National Bestseller so who am I to judge it.

I have been reading my blog from two years ago. Seems like almost every day I wrote more about my pain than about the suicidality I was feeling. My blog has taken such a turn from being about my suicidality to chronic pain that I had to change the brief description as it was more about my physical pain than my psychache. I know I don’t write about my suicidal thoughts that much anymore. I still get them when my pain is off the charts. But it’s mostly my physical pain that is off the charts lately. My psychache seems to be in check. I guess being on an antidepressant has benefitted me the last few months. There was a time back in September 2015 after my New York Times article was published that my depression got worse. I am so used to it that I hardly remember when the episodes start and when things get worse is usually when things start clicking that something is wrong. It’s rare that I get physical symptoms of depression. But that is how bad things got. I just wish the weight I lost was more significant than it was. Only because I gained it all back, sadly. I was so damn close to losing my ideal weight but nope, it wasn’t meant to be. I am just grateful that my NP isn’t a big weight freak like my PCP was. It was really stressing me out and actually caused me to gain weight than lose it.

I have no idea where my writing is going. I have thought about it a million times but nothing comes to mind about what I want to write. It’s been months since I wrote something. The only thing that I did write while I was in the hospital was the first hour of my father’s home visit before he died. He lived only two hours after bringing him home from the nursing home. I still haven’t written it up. Nor did I finish it. The last hour was difficult to write without having PTSD symptoms. I never wrote it. Tonight I was thinking about the last time I saw him before he died. It wasn’t as painful as it once was. I also wrote a lot about him in 2014 in the blogs that I read. That was when he had a GI bleed and his hydrocele surgery. I didn’t write in detail about his illnesses because it is my blog and feel that I should be writing more about my feelings than him. He was the source of my suicidality for a long time. Now that he is gone, I am less suicidal. Don’t get me wrong, I still get suicidal. It’s just that his joking and torturing that made me want to die is gone. He just made you feel like a nobody. And that is how I felt whenever he was around. I also felt like I didn’t matter, that his needs were more important than mine, because they were. He had to come first and if he didn’t, he got so mad. That was how he was. And unfortunately, I miss the bastard.