Tag: grief

Post 1792

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

Post 1792

I had therapy today and it went okay. We didn’t talk about anything we didn’t talk about yesterday. She wanted to know more about my “Purpose” blog, but I changed the subject. I have a knack of throwing her off a subject and only if it’s really pressing to her does she come back to it. She is concerned about my REM sleep as it happens very quickly. I don’t know why I can go to REM within about 35 minutes of sleep but I do. Today, for example, I took a nap at around 1110. By 1140 when I woke up, I had a dream. I don’t remember what the dream was about now but it was again, weird. I kind of wanted to tell her about my dreaming about my father but held back. I will one day, if it become more troublesome. Right now I am ignoring him in my dreams so it’s not like I am doing something or he is.

While I was at Starbucks, I was listening to a Rascal Flatts song about a father that had been estranged from his daughter for like 30 years. He then calls her when he is dying and then they both “forget the past”. It set off flashbacks to the last four days of my father’s life. He just deteriorated that quickly. His breathing had changed Friday and he was dead on Monday. Images kept flooding my brain, mostly of how he looked and had, in his last day, a glassy appearance to his eyes. I’ll never forget the look or the sounds he was making.

I texted my therapist that I was having flashbacks and if it would be okay with her to talk to the grief counselor. I think if I see the counselor, it will free up more time for other things to talk about in therapy. I just feel like all we do in therapy lately is just talk about my father. I know he was a big part of my life and he is gone now but there are other things going on in my life, too. Like managing my time, self-care, and handling my illness. I am seeing an ankle surgeon tomorrow for the boney formation that is near my Achilles. It is kind of freaking me out because I think I will have to have surgery to remove it. I know I will have to have an MRI before anything is done. But I am just worried that the stress of surgery and what it will do to my “bad” ankle if I have to put weight on it because I don’t think I can bear weight on my “good” one. It’s going to be tricky. I will weigh the benefits and stuff. But I just don’t want to damage the Achilles further, if it is. X-ray doesn’t show soft tissues so I don’t know if this bony formation has. I know she isn’t a medical person but talking to her about this anxiety is what therapy is about.

I know talking about my father is important too. I just think talking to someone specific about grief might be helpful and let me deal with it more. It’s been almost two months and I still haven’t cried or grieved him. Days I don’t have therapy, I just space out. It’s affecting my writing because I am just so sad. I want the sadness to go away and I don’t know how.

A Lot of Things on My Mind

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

A Lot of Things on My Mind

Since I responded to that Psychology Today article, I have receiving emails from whoever comments on it. No one has responded to my comment. But from what I gather from the comments, people are pretty upset, mostly chronic pain folks.

The sauce I made is almost gone. There are about two cups left of the batch I made. I can’t believe it because this time I used two cans of tomatoes. It did come out really good. I wasn’t able to put in the ground beef I wanted to but I will make another batch, in a larger pan, next week. My sister and brother-in-law really loved it, which is why it’s gone! LOL

I have been in a depressed state for most of the day. I really wanted to change my sheets this weekend but now the weekend is over and the sheets are still not changed. I will do it hopefully tomorrow. I still need to clear off my bed. There is not that much stuff left as I have been slowly removing stuff when I walk by. I have no idea where I am going to place the three books that are in that spot. I guess I will add it to the pile that is by my hamper.

I haven’t been feeling suicidal but I have been thinking about it. Mostly, I just been thinking about what it would be like not being alive anymore. I try not to think about it because then I will start planning and that will not be good.

I have changed my name on my blog as the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network (TSPN) outed me. Instead of being Midnightdemons7, I am G. Collerone. I really didn’t want to do it but the more that I am out, the better things will be. I don’t think I will ever work again so I don’t think there is a chance future employers will look at my blog. My domain will still be midnightdemon.com. I won’t change that as I like it too much.

After I made the sauce, my ankle flared up. I had to take some pain medication to calm it back down. I rested for the first time all day. I was just about to go to sleep when my cousin called me. He owed me money and was giving it back to me. My ankle didn’t like going up and down the stairs to meet him. It also didn’t like me taking a shower afterwards. But I needed a shower because I felt icky with my menses and stuff.

I meet with the ankle surgeon this week for the lump that is on my Achilles. I know that I will have to go for an MRI to see if there is any damage to the Achilles. I want the lump removed. It is just painful and shouldn’t be there. It’s kind of funny, I was thinking about surgery and then what will I do for my father’s appointments. I still have him on my mind. I hope I won’t be too laid up with it. Tomorrow will mark six weeks that he has been gone.

Purpose

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

Purpose

Everyone needs a purpose in life. It is what drives us. But sometimes when we are very depressed and feeling worthless, our purpose might not be so clear cut. We often think while depressed, that people will be better off without us, that we don’t matter. This may lead us to become suicidal. And then our true purpose is lost to us. All we think about is death because we have no purpose to go on living. It’s especially precarious after we lost the ones we love due to illness, divorce or if we lost our job. What does it mean to go on after so much loss?

In therapy, therapists often try to give us a life worth living. But what does that mean if we have no purpose for being? It often hurts too much to go on living. Sometimes there are protective factors that keep us here, like family, friends, or children we love and wouldn’t want to hurt with our death. It’s difficult to balance this when you feel so damn low and want to end the pain so badly. It tears at you night and day to go on living in this pain.

My sense of purpose is construed. Others can see that I have one but most times, I don’t see it in myself. It’s hard going on without something to keep me going. I often wonder why I am here. I should be dead three times over, yet I still exist. I am tired of just existing. There is so much I want to do yet I am hindered due to my disabilities. I am often frustrated and suicidal, not a good combo. My depressions are severe and debilitating. My chronic physical pain is as well. I can’t work anymore. I don’t have any friends that are close by that I talk to on a regular basis. I have my online friends, without whom, I think I would feel totally alone, trapped in my room. My therapist and psychiatrist think I am a writer. But since my father’s illness and subsequent death, I have not written much. I had this blog to keep me going, as a challenge to myself to write something every day. Sometimes, I would write two to three times a day. But it’s hard work. Some days it is easier to write than others.

My blog gives me a purpose you can say. I write and get feedback. Most times I don’t but I know the readership is there because I am a stats freak. I watch my numbers go up every day. Sometimes it’s the same blog that gets read several times, and that is ok. My purpose has been fulfilled if it helps someone to understand what it is like living with chronic depression, suicidality, and physical pain.

something about grief and other things

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

Something about grief and other things

I have been trying to write for the past three hours and I am failing. I am so overwhelmed with grief that I don’t know what to say. I had therapy today. It went okay. We talked about how Thursdays are tough for me because I had a routine. Now I don’t have it anymore and I don’t know what to do with myself. It’s like I lost something and I can’t get it back. I have been feeling numb the past few hours because I just don’t know what to say. My mind is kind of blank.

My back is a little better today. I was able to stand up straight for the first time in the last five days. It still hurts but I am moving around better because the temps have leveled off. It was starting to get me depressed because I couldn’t move. I have been resting for most of the day. It has helped.

Yesterday, I got an update message on my phone. It needs to update the system software. The last time I allowed it to happen, it wiped out my music playlists. I just got some of them back to where I had them before they were wiped out. I don’t want to recreate them because it’s a pain in the ass. The artist only playlists are easy to restore but the others are a little more tricky. I have to go into the individual artists albums to pick the songs I like and then add them to the playlist. It just takes a lot of time and patience because if you accidently play the song, you have to start all over again.

I am almost done reading “Risk Management with Suicidal Patients”. I have a chapter and a half to read. I don’t know if it is going to be tonight that I will finish it. I am pretty wiped out from all the pain meds I took today for my back pain. I have been taking them consistently every 4-5 hours to deal with the pain. I think that is the other reason I am having trouble writing today. My cognition just isn’t there.

I was talking to a friend today about emotional pain. She can be a little self-righteous and that pisses me off. I usually don’t respond to her texts when she gets that way. Then today she called my therapist a “transgender” therapist and I really got angry for some reason. My therapist isn’t a specialized therapist but I felt that if I set her straight, I was just going to say something I shouldn’t so I just let it go. She started off the conversation with asking about Hyde. I don’t know if I should continue to talk to her. Sometimes she just doesn’t make sense.

I think tomorrow I am going to type up what I wrote in the hospital. I really don’t want it to be all on paper because if I continue to write and finish the story, the harder it’s going to be to type it up anyways. This is all if I am feeling up to it. My therapist says it will be good to talk about it and write it. She asked how much more I have to write and I told her I am in just in the first hour of him being home. I haven’t written about the part where he hears his stupid clock. What I can’t remember is what time the hospice nurse left. It was like she left, my sister came back to the apartment with diapers and food, we ate, and then he died. I don’t know why this detail is important to me. Maybe I feel like if she was there he wouldn’t have died? Or maybe she would have been there and then we would have had a more concrete time of death. These are the things that I keep going over and over in my head.

Monday I will be getting the stuff I ordered from Amazon. It seems like I ordered them weeks ago and now they are finally being shipped. I bought a food processor because there is this cranberry relish I want to make. Of all the gadgets my mother has in the kitchen, she doesn’t own a food processor. I need to get a new can opener because the one she has sucks really bad. We had a good one but it broke. I loved it because it was the first electric can opener I could use without fail. Now we have a cheap one and I can’t get it to work at all. I am also going to get a hand one just as a back up.