Tag: mental illness

Can’t Die Without Explanations

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

“One can’t die without explanations”. Fyodor Dostoevsky p 513, the Idiot

This statement struck me tonight, in more ways than one. I think, this is the purpose of Hyde, to explain my death to people so they know of my suffering. I am very tired at the moment. I just woke up from a short nap and now I am in pain because I almost fell while getting up off the toilet. I lost my balance and fortunately, sat back down, but harder than I would have liked. My left knee didn’t like it much. I woke up with it hurting me. But once I started moving, the pain went away. Mysteriously as it came. Until I nearly lost my balance. Weird.

My back is hurting and I don’t like it. I can barely sit up. I keep thinking about death. I don’t want to live anymore. I know I have said these things time and time again, but it’s true. I don’t know what I am going to do when my date comes in the next few weeks and I am left all alone with my thoughts. If I don’t kill myself, it will be a defeat. If I try, at least I can say I tried. I won’t know if I succeed if I don’t try.

The quote is from a character in the Idiot, Ippolit, who has consumption (TB or Tuberculosis) and is in the last stages of the disease before death. He has been given just three weeks to live and keeps on telling people that he must tell his “confessions” before he dies. I feel the same way, though I don’t feel there is anything to confess. I have not done anything wrong. I just feel like a lowly human being that deserves to die. I am tired of the mental anguish I suffer day in and day out. I am tired of my physical pain that prevents me from working and “having a life worth living”. Today I drove and it cost me pain in my ankle. I don’t know why. I always feel this pain while driving/sitting for too long. It is a pain that starts at my ankle bone and goes into my foot. The pain is like a wrap that no one can see but I feel. They say it’s the peroneous tendon that is inflamed causing this pain. If you look at the skeletal structure of this tendon, you can clearly see how it goes from the ankle to the three damn toes of the foot. That is where I have most of my pain. The last three metatarsals in my foot. It haunts me like it does now. And I am in severe pain.

Aside from my transgender issues which will never be resolved, I have body image issues that are distorted. I am ugly, yet people have told me I am handsome and sometimes, cute. I don’t feel this way. I feel like I am very ugly that I will break a camera or mirror if I look into it long enough. I have a negative self-image. I can’t stand the way I look or how my body feels. I have a self-loathing so deeply ingrained in me that I doubt my therapist can ever get to the bottom of it. Having breasts is just one of the reasons I self-loathe. I cannot stand myself. I really want to die. I don’t want to breathe anymore. It hurts to breathe. I tell my psychiatrist this and she doesn’t think too much of it, about the hurting to breathe. But then, there is nothing she can really do about it. I am not in distress. My skin color isn’t blue. I am oxygenating very well. There are no obvious signs that there is a weight on my chest, unless you count the things that are there (breast tissue). But every woman has them and they don’t cause interference with breathing. No, I am not saying there is something pathologically wrong with me. I know that this heaviness is this depression that I feel. It makes everything heavier than what it should be. Probably why my knee hurts. It can no longer carry the weight that I have put on since my last hospitalization. I have tried to lose this weight but it is difficult. I eat the wrong things. But I eat the things that make me happy, like cheeseburgers, bacon, and ring dings. Not all the time. Just once a month when I get paid and can afford these things.

These things taste good when I am feeling up to eating them. Lately, my taste buds have failed me and nothing tastes good. I eat only because I need to, though I don’t enjoy it like I once did. Nothing brings me joy or pleasure. Used to be that I have a mocha from Starbucks and that made me happy. Now it just tastes like sugar and I don’t even taste the espresso like I used to. I feel like I am wasting my money on this drink. Maybe it’s time to try espresso by itself, but I am a creature of habit. I order the same thing all the time. It’s hard to break from that.

Today I was thinking about my diagnosis. Used to be that I had recurrent major depression, with psychotic features, NOS. Now I am depressed but it’s not under the same classification. Not that I need to know what it is. I don’t really care, but I would like to know if it is a bipolar depression that I am suffering. I had highs a few months ago, back in February. Those were lovely, though a bit terrifying. I am not used to feeling up. I am used to feeling down all the time. And this time I have hit an all time low. I think about death constantly and when I am not, I am dreaming of funerals and wakes. I often wonder, if I do have a wake, who will show up. I doubt I will get the same sympathy as a friend of mine who died from diabetes. People who die by suicide don’t get the same sympathy as other who die by illnesses. But that is a debate for another day.

My explanation of my death is this, I am tired of hurting, both physically and mentally. Physically, my pain is well controlled, though I still hurt every day causing me to be on medication to control it. Mentally, there is no medication for me. Sure I take my mood stabilizer and anti-psychotic pill to ease those symptoms caused by the bipolar and psychosis that I have. But it doesn’t help the mental pain, the psychache, the deep down to the bone ache that no one can see or feel. I have been struggling with this ache since I was 8 years old. I am tired of fighting it every single day. 32 years is a long time to be fighting something that no one else can feel or see or measure even. There is no test that my pdoc can give to see where it lives, where it abides. Sure, I know there are measures out there but no one uses them. My therapist has stopped using the psychache scale. I have even stopped using the psychache scale, not because it wasn’t effective, but because it just was a number that couldn’t be brought down. It was up and it stayed up, until my crisis was over. This time, I don’t think my crisis is going to be over. Hell, I don’t think I am going to last that long period. What the hell am I waiting for?? Why can’t I go through with it tonight. Fear. And that I don’t want my family to find my body. It will be hard to be dead by suicide. Harder still and more traumatic to find my body. I don’t have a place I can go to end my life. And that is really sad. So I just sit here and complain about why I cannot go on living knowing I can’t take my life because I have no place to end it. And that is the funny thing about my therapist and psychiatrist. They have never asked me how I am going to do it, where, when. I just tell them I am suicidal and they just leave it at that. They never know what my plan truly is.

Times Have Changed But My Suicidality Has Not

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

I woke up because of having to pee and now I can’t go back to sleep. My room was freezing so I turned off the AC but then I realized, if I went back to sleep, I would wake up hot. So I have the AC on energy saver and hope the turning off and on doesn’t disrupt my sleep too much.

I am kind of in a dark mood. I just bought three journals because I needed them. The ones that I have are half way filled and I know by the end of the year, I will need a new one. I like the ones I bought. I am glad Barnes and Noble has such large journals. I do a lot of writing, in case you haven’t noticed.

I read one of my journal blogs that I wrote back in 2014. It was an entry that said that I cut myself and I went on about how scared I was that my therapist was going to flip out. I also didn’t want my psychiatrist to know because I knew it would cause her concern. The weird thing is, I don’t remember the incident at all. I had cut because of my TG issues. Now I am just suicidal. I have been struggling with this for months and I can’t seem to walk away from it. Like I wrote to my psychiatrist, I think there is a chance that I will go through with ending my life in a couple of weeks. I want to try it anyways, even though I know I am not going to like doing it. Suffocating oneself is difficult to do. But it’s the only means I have available to me. Worst thing that can happen is that I will be found before I am dead. That is my fear. And if that happens, I could have brain damage from lack of oxygen. That fear of being brain damage really wants me to stay away from this method. But it’s not like you can just buy arsenic pills on the internet like you used to. Maybe you can. Google hasn’t been much help in this arena. Even buying hemlock juice has been tricky. So I have come to the simpler methods that I have on hand.

I want my pain to end, permanently. Funny how I am writing about buying journals to write with and yet I want to take my life. How will those journals be useful to me? Most likely they will just be donated or given to my niece after I am gone. I am not sure what will happen with my things. Trash most likely. I haven’t written a will. I still have time, though I am not looking forward to it.

Since writing to my psychiatrist, I am afraid to write to her anymore. I don’t want to get a phone call after an email because she is concerned about my safety. Literally, she sent the email and within ten minutes she called me, after I sent the email the night before. I am so tired of worrying her and my therapist. Both want me to live. A lot of people I know want me to live, but how can I do that when I want to die so badly? I have been following the zero suicide academy postings on Twitter the past 24 hours. Jobes was there giving a talk about evidence based treatment. DBT, CBT, CAMS, and non demand follow up were among those shown to help decrease suicide. It got me thinking that maybe I should try to see another therapist to help with my suicidal feelings. Only problem is, money. I no longer have the money for copayments and I am on Medicare which only covers 80% of the visit. I would be responsible for the 20%. I wrote to my consultant last night. I gave him a blog reading of the “Love/Hate” that I wrote. I know that he would be interested in reading it. He was always curious about the relationship factor between my therapist and I. Now he will know in greater detail.

I follow suicide prevention because I am hoping it provides me with something to help my own suicidality. I don’t feel hopelessness. I think my depression would be 10 times worse if I were hopeless. I just feel so down that I just want it to end. I really think that if I try and see someone new, maybe they will provide me with some insight that I am missing. But ultimately, the choice is mine. No one can stop me, though they can try. I don’t think going in the hospital would be in my best interest. All they do is babysit you for 24 hours every day and drug you up. No real treatment exists in the hospital anymore. It’s not like it was back in the old days, where treatment and care were more important than containment and safety. I literally had to beg to be kept in house because I told them I was going to kill myself when I got out. Their response, “You are putting us in a difficult position”. I kid you not! And this was at a world class hospital! I won’t go there again. I won’t be subjected to non-treatment. Besides, the only ones that really cared were the nursing staff members. They took the time to get to know you and try and help you deal with shit. More so than your “treatment team”. It has been almost 11 months since my last admission. I like to say I am doing well staying out, but am I? They call you “stable” if you are able to stay out of the hospital for at least a year. How stable can you be if you think about ending your life every day? I just am not impulsive to act on my feelings every time I have them. Some people have not learned that self-control. I learned the hard way. I learned to keep my feelings to myself or I would have ended up in a state ward. This was twenty years ago. And times have changed.

Dark Moments

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

Dark Moments

My psychiatrist called me tonight after the email that I sent her. Here is what I wrote:
“things aren’t any better. I feel like all I am doing is going round and round on a guinea pig wheel. I am so tired that I can’t stop. Fatigue has hit me hard and fear the demons might come out tonight. I just wish this would all end. I’m tired of fighting the same battle with the same result. Bozo is going on vacation soon, for two weeks. I plan on taking my life the first of the two weeks. I just feel like a failure if I don’t try. Course I might be a failure if I do. I haven’t been too successful in either department. I still am getting heaviness in my chest. It’s like this invisible weight comes out of no where, pushing me down. Sometimes I can’t breathe. It’s not like a panic or anxiety attack. It’s just psychache that is very heavy. I don’t know if I am making sense”.

She wanted to know if I would still be seeing her on Friday. I said yes and I will be sporting a new haircut. This is how psycho I am. I am talking about taking my life and yet I want to get a buzz cut. I feel really anxious and I know it has to do with her call because I am so nervous. If she didn’t get in touch with me, I would be sectioned right now. She really was concerned. I told her something just gets a hold of me and I just write these things. To me, they are just words on a computer screen. They don’t mean anything to me, but when someone reads them, it is cause for concern. I don’t understand it. I know Hyde is responsible for some if it. I know he has been out more. Whenever I am dealing with TG stuff, he comes out more. I don’t know if I will be in the hospital or not. I am hoping not because Hyde won’t come out. I don’t think I am in danger. I just write my dangerousness out. I don’t think I will act on it, as much as I really want to.

These dark moments really get to me, after the fact. While I am writing them, they feel normal and translucent. It’s like I am not really writing them. I vaguely remember them in the morning. This is the second time that my psych has called me after sending her a terrible email of my dark thoughts. I try not to send them to her because I know they are cause for concern but I just can’t seem to hold back. She wants to know how I am doing so I tell her, honestly and truthfully. I know I probably should hold off sending them to her but I always hit send instead of save. I don’t know if I wrote on my laptop or if I sent it by my phone. The phone is easier to hit send than save.

I just feel like I am wasting her time in her trying to save me. I am just so miserable. There are no medications that she can give me to ease my pain, my psychological pain. There are times I just want to overdose on everything that I have to ease this pain, this psychache. But I don’t do it because I don’t want my mother to find me like that. I need to really do something about this. But I don’t know what to do. How do you cope with demons?? These are more than just dark moments. They are pure suicidal moments and they might just kill me.

I just filled in, the best I could via text message, to my therapist. I told her to call me today. I really need her assurance I am not losing my mind. Or if I am losing my mind, what we are going to do about it. I really don’t think going in the hospital is gong to help me. It never does. It sometimes makes things worse because I get frustrated. I just don’t know what to do. I wish there was an easy answer but there isn’t.

motions of living

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, psychache, suicidality

It’s after midnight. With all the meds that I have taken because of my back pain, I should be out like a light. But as usual, the darkness has taken over me and I feel the need to write. I am thinking about my suicide plan, again. I can’t seem to not think about it. I know people need me to be here. And I want to be there for them, but I am suffering to the tenth degree of hell and I don’t know how much more I can take. I am not in serious pain, though my foot is throbbing like my heart beats. I can never get away from the throbbing.

I was reading a self-help book tonight about shame and perfectionism. It got me thinking about how much I am hurting because I was abused but I never talked about the abuse. My therapist calls it “loyalty” to my parents. I won’t say that about my cousin because I have little to no contact with him. It makes me sick and triggers me every time I see him or hear his name. What is worse is that he has a brother that looks just like him. Freaks me out every time I see him. But I have to remind myself that he is not the one that hurt me. I don’t know why this stuff is coming up now. I guess it’s because it hasn’t been dealt with and keeps surfacing at inopportune times. Like do I really need to talk about this stuff? It’s not the reason why I want to kill myself. Though maybe the shame is. Shame is a big thing. But most of it has to do with the fact, I am ashamed of who I am. I am not a male like my brain thinks I am. And it hurts. Being in chronic shame hurts. I feel disgusted with myself about this. I am appalled that I have breasts and get a menstrual cycle. In a few weeks, I will have to have a pap smear. I am not sure how it will go as it is a new person. I don’t know if she will be good or bad. But I am a trusting type. I will tell her to use a small speculum and pray that I don’t feel anything because of my nerve injury. I think the stress of this has spilled over to shame. I hate my privates being looked at, even by a medical professional. It just makes me feel dirty though I know logically, there is nothing wrong with this. It is a medical examination to make sure things are “normal”. It has been ten long years since I last had an exam of this nature so I am long overdue. This person doesn’t know my history of abuse, my history of nerve damage, nothing of the nature. I just hope I don’t shock her when I tell her I can’t feel her touching me. It’s just another thing that I am embarrassed about.

Then I think, why bother with this exam when I am going to kill myself in a few weeks from the time of the exam. It makes no sense, but yet I go through the motions of living because it is expected of me. I hate this responsibility to others that is preventing me from killing myself. And why do I have it!?? My therapist says it’s because I am not an impulsive person. I used to be an impulsive person, but that was more than 20 years ago. I used to cut back then because it was my only way of coping with the pain. Now, I just think of these elaborate ways to kill myself that doesn’t involve drugs or cutting. I have moved past that and that scares me because the methods that I have chosen are more lethal. More lethal and less window of survival. I have thought it out very carefully. But again, my heart is conflicted. As much as it wants to die, it doesn’t want to cause others pain. I know that I will be dead and that it shouldn’t matter, but I am a sensitive person that thinks of these things. I wish I could be selfish, just a little bit of the time so I could try and take my life. But I am not. It was drilled into me at a young age to always put others first. And I am putting others first before taking my life. My therapist says that she will never recover from my death and I know that is true. UGH. I hate her for doing this to me! Why did she have to shed a tear when I told her years ago that I was going to take my life? It was that tear that is killing me today and part of the reason I am still here. Without her passion and love, I wouldn’t be here. I don’t mean love in a sexual sense. We are not “lovers”, just have a huge feelings toward one another. With my psychiatrist, there is a pride and joy I get from her. Her smile and comfort keeps me going. I know she will always be there for me, no matter the hour. And I do love her for that.

I really don’t think that if I didn’t have their belief in me when I feel so worthless and hopeless, I would still be here. Yet I still struggle to take my life. The constriction has its hold on me during these dark hours of the night. Yet they don’t show their face in the morning light. It’s terrible going through this night after night with no relief. If I could, I would end things now. But I don’t want my mother to find me. I feel that will kill her. I have to find a place to do the deed. And I have been lazy trying to find a spot. It’s not like I can google it. Why must suicide be so hard? Yet people do it every day. I envy them, I really do. No one sees this side of me. No one is there. Sure, there might be a hotline or crisis center I can call, but why bother. I am not in distress. I am not in imminent danger. I just feel like killing myself because my heart hurts. The heaviness is back and it’s hard to breathe. My left breast feels like it weighs 6,000 pounds upon my chest. Yet I often think of cutting it off with piano wire. I just am afraid of the ensuing blood coming out of me that I won’t be able to stop. I will bleed to death and that is not a good way to go. I hate myself for feeling this way. I feel evil. I feel like I have to do something to ease my ache in my chest but what? Tylenol won’t work or any other analgesic. Even my opioid pain meds won’t touch this ache. How am I to relieve this suffering? I can’t sleep. My brain won’t shut down. I am dying a slow death. I am tired of hurting this degree night after night. And it’s a lonely struggle. I smile it away so no one can see the hurt beneath the surface. It is for me to bear and me only. It’s called the motions of living and it sucks.