Tag: mental illness

wicked depressed

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, mood disorders, suicide

With all this technology, you would think that you could just talk and the computer would do the writing for you. Oh Wait, that does exist. Except the software is really expensive when you are on a limited budget. I had to choose between my cell phone bill or groceries and groceries won. Everyone keeps telling me to apply for food stamps but to me that really is a downer and a flashback to my childhood. I thought I was doing better than when I was younger but I guess not. I am just above the poverty line and it kills me that I have sunk this low again all because I am disabled. I feel as long as I have a cell phone, I don’t need food stamps. Let the people who are really struggling get them or the illegal aliens who know how to get them and still work three jobs. I just don’t care.

I feel like crying and I don’t know why. Just texted my therapist that I don’t think I can wait until Tuesday to meet with her again. I just feel so stressed out. I am wicked depressed. Last night I wrote two pages about Darkness. It sent me into my dissociative state because apparently, I sent a text message to my therapist and I don’t remember sending it. The last message I remember sending was me deserving to die. I need to type up what I wrote but I am afraid that will trigger me again. I just hate this dissociative crap. I half remember what I wrote and half of me doesn’t. I just know I must have used darkness repeatedly because that is all I remember. What stinks is that I bought a software program for speaking into the computer to type my words (Dragon Naturally Speaking). Problem is, it is not compatible with Win 8. I have to get the current version and it costs a lot. So I bought what I could afford, I nice headset with a microphone. Next month I will buy the Dragon. I hope that it will be cheaper than what it is now. I could use it on my old laptop that still works but I have to reinstall the software and it takes forever to do it. I just don’t have the patience. Plus the laptop gets hot really quickly so I will burn my legs.

I hate being in a bad mood. Therapy went ok today. She didn’t nag me but went off about how important it is for me to have my pain meds from a psychological viewpoint. It’s complicated to explain, but her theory is that if I have my pain meds it provides me with a type of security blanket so I don’t freak out when my pain is at its worse. Because the pain can trigger my PTSD symptoms really fast, this is why having my pain meds is important. But my doctor doesn’t want me on them long term. I haven’t figured out what long term exactly means because I have been on the same pain meds for last decade or so. I might not take them every single day but knowing that they are there in case I need them is a big relief for me. I would be going out of my tree if I didn’t have them. And if I was in the throws of a flare up, I know I would become suicidal. So I guess that is the psychological viewpoint that my therapist give me every time I see my PCP and he has some lame brained idea to get me off my meds. I’m sorry, but the pain meds are the ONLY thing that has helped me and I have tried all other non-narcotic pain meds, from pills to gels, to creams. Nothing else works as well as my pain med.

I don’t get high off my medication. I don’t use it illegally. I don’t sell my meds nor do I take more than prescribed. The only time I will take more than prescribed is when my pain is at a level of 20, and my doctor knows this. That is why he has given me a little more than a month’s supply to make sure I am covered should I have a flare up.

I guess you can say I am having a flare up of depression. Today it is breathing down my throat in a big way. I find it hard to concentrate and to get motivated. I wanted to go out to Starbucks today but the weather was iffy but it turned out just to be a cold day, no snow (so far anyways). I just feel out of sorts. And I want to die very badly. I wouldn’t mind stepping in front of a speeding semi rolling down the road. Or playing on the train tracks.

Anxiety has morphed into terror

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, depression, mood disorders

I am thrilled to find out that a friend of mine this is in a clinical psych grad program matched to Baylor College of Medicine. That is the same place that one of the suicidologists that I follow did his internship. In fact, I am reading on of his books right now, “Myths of Suicide”. I just started it as I couldn’t really get into Andrew Solomon’s “Far From The Tree”. I am on the second chapter and still have at least another forty or so pages to go to finish it. It is a long book, more than 900 pages. I kind of am planning on reading a Civil War battles book that has been collecting dust. I need to have two books going at the same time, one on suicide/depression and a history book on the other. A friend had given me a book on madness for my birthday/Christmas but I really can’t read that right now. I think I am headed for another psychotic break as the stress I have been under has been really bad. Between my book and my father’s health issues, my therapist says I should take a vacation. I just don’t know where I would go. I can’t afford a car and I don’t have a credit card to rent one. That would be my joy, to get back behind the wheel again and just go for a long drive some place like to the casinos or something. Or, to my family, I can always go into the hospital. But the hospital isn’t fun.

I finally got the courage to email my psychiatrist about some side effects I have been experiencing with the abilify. I have been having hypersecretion of the salivary glands. I have not drooled, but I am close to it at times. I just don’t know if it will get worse. It took almost a year of being on it to get this side effect. And I don’t think my blood pressure medication would cause this. I just don’t want to worry about cavities or anything like that. I don’t think it will but you never know. I just know my mouth is constantly watering like I am hungry but I am not. Between the increase in saliva and the rubber ball/elastic feeling, I say I should probably lower the dose or something, but if I do, and I have a psychotic break, then what? I have been on almost all the new drugs out there and I don’t think changing my meds right now in time will be a good idea. Only if I am in the hospital will that be possible and I want to stay in hospital to make sure I don’t have any weird side effects. I don’t want to start the medication, be on it for three days, then get discharged. That is not good care in my opinion. I know that is the way the hospital works but I don’t want to be one of those cases. If it was an antidepressant, than sure. I know that antidepressants take longer to work than antipsychotics. I just don’t need to play with my medication when my stress levels are already through the roof. And if I do need to mess with them, I rather be in the hospital to do it. I haven’t heard back from my pdoc yet. I just hope she isn’t in email jail. Lately I have noticed that her replies are a different domain than the one I am sending out.

Today I had at least two panic attacks. The first was while waiting for my PCP. My pulse was elevated and I had to explain that it was because I just walked between the buildings before she called me. Which is true. I just signed in after walking through the buildings and had not sat for more than a few minutes when they called my name. The second attack was while I was on the bus. It was an old style bus with stairs by the entrance. Lately stairs have been giving me anxiety. I am terrified that I am going to fall, even though I have not had any indication that I will. It has been a growing paranoia for me. I guess it is because I can’t trust my good foot anymore since I have been wobbly if I turn the wrong way. Now I am having slight chest pains that I can only attribute to the anxiety that I have been feeling the past few hours, even with taking an Ativan and some wine. And I think my doc would have picked up something when he listened to my chest today if I were having a heart attack, or the beginning of one. But my increase in my pulse he passed over as pain related. No one in my family has ever had a heart attack under the age of 40 and I don’t want to break that record. So add hypochondria to my diagnosis.

I really need to discuss the anxiety issue of the stairs with my therapist. I think talking about it will help. Sad part is that I know it is a real possibility with me because I have had two falls over the holidays. One going up and one going down. Some how the anxiety has morphed into terror. I know it is irrational. As long as I am not carrying boxes while going up or down stairs, I am ok. But even when I am not, I still panic. And I have two flights of stairs to go up when I go into my house and up to my room. I just have thoughts that I am going to miss a step and fall and get hurt really bad. Though at this point, I don’t know how much of it is a wish or a fear. I just hope I never do fall. I don’t need more problems than what I have.

NSSI and twitter chat

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, suicide attempt

Just read a blog about suicide ideation. The writer was able to distinguish that her thoughts were due to her illness rather and not have further thoughts about them. I wish I could do that in the moments I think about death but once I start going down that road, it is hard to do. It is hard to pull back. She wants to live, I still want to die. I don’t want to live this life anymore. It is just too painful.

Last night I was on a twitter chat about non-suicidal self injury (NSSI). It was interesting. I know I have been there many times in my cutting days. But the discussion focused on how to differentiate between NSSI and suicide attempt. For me, if I needed stitches, it was always viewed as an attempt and I was sent to the inpatient unit. The discussion focused more on law enforcement but they are not always first responders, unless a family member or someone close to the person who has cut has called for help in dealing with the issue. But that is a different scenario. Most NSSI people are just looking to release their pain and once they do, they get trapped into the cutting/burning because it becomes an addiction. It is very difficult to try and stop this type of addiction. I know because I once left a wound open for two months, repeatedly cutting until I felt no pain. But I was able to stop because it stopped giving me that high that I needed. Now I just have an ugly scar to remind me of that time period.

I like the fact that the President of the AAS (American Association of Suicidology) is a person that doesn’t like the “no harm” contracts that therapists often use to try to stop suicidal or self harm behavior. He knows they don’t work and would like to see more of a “life worth living” contract in this scenario. I wish I could meet him for the annual conference but it is in Los Angelas and that is way too far for me to travel and too expensive to boot. I hope I do get to meet him one of these days, just to say hello and have a person to person contact rather than an online one.

I was rather surprised to hear him talk about contracts. I wish I could remember his exact words, they were very cool. As I just came across David Rudd’s “no suicide contract” journal article, I thought about the wording that he used. It is similar but not quite so “life worth living”. In Rudd’s article he talks about a commitment to treatment contract for the use of suicidal persons. I suppose the same can be made for NSSI, with some modification but it would be really difficult as cutting is so difficult to treat. It just is a lot of pain and misery the person is feeling and also hate. Can’t forget that hate is a main factor in cutting, least it was for me. I hated myself so much I just wanted to destroy myself anyway that I could.

suicide attempt survivor, some thoughts

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, suicide attempt, suicide attempt survivor

Today I wrote to my writing friend to ask for her help in getting someone to read my book just to see if it was ok or mediocre or sucks. I got a couple of people so that made my day. Then I started thinking of how she phrased the request. I know she used the term “suicide attempt survivor”. She uses that term whenever she refers to me. Every time I hear it, I can’t help but feel embarrassed, ashamed, and labeled. I wouldn’t necessarily say that I am hurt. I am not. I just feel weird being called such a term when I don’t feel like a survivor at all. I feel like I am a dead weight, much like a bookend.

I know she means well and I have not told her how I feel because I am not sure how to approach it. Most survivors that write on the AAS blog feel empowered and most like me don’t want to live life but have to. Others feel like their attempt was a blessing and they are happy they survived it. I don’t feel that way. I just feel like I should be dead, pushing up daisies or dandelions or something. I honestly have no jest for living but I just go on because I feel like I have to. Yet sometimes, I feel like I have to die, like it is my only way out of the situation I am in. I am lucky I have a good therapist that wants me here no matter what. Even though the voices in my head are against her right now, I am glad she is here to tell me that I have to go on, if only to publish my book. But what then? What do I do then when my feelings and life story are out in the world, much like this blog? I still have feelings of suicide and I guess I always will. You can throw away these feeling you have been having for more than thirty years.

But why do I feel embarrassed by this term? Why do I feel labeled? It is, after all, an accurate description. I have survived multiple suicide attempts, one that was medically serious enough to land me on a medical floor in the hospital. Yet despite all these tries, I survived them. I lived through them. So why do I feel like I can’t call myself a suicide attempt survivor?? Or do I need to? There is a growing awareness in the suicidology field that want to hear these people stories. Sure, they are rich for research purposes to help prevent more suicides. Once you attempt suicide, you are at risk for life of doing so again, no pun intended. Others are just curious because they find that taking your life is so unphathomable. I find this interesting. That there are people out there that cannot understand why someone would want to take their life. I feel bad for these people because they have never known hardship or mental illness. Yet even those with hardship never think of killing of themselves. I guess I am just one of the ones that do. I come from a poor background. I paid my way through college though I never did finish my degree because my mental illness got in the way. I have more W’s on my transcript than grades. Yet I still want to finish my degree at the same institution one day, if they will take me back. I do have that hope. I don’t know if it is realistic or not. Only time will tell. I am getting older without realizing it and this troubles me. I never dreamed of living to be in my thirties, yet I am. I have good genes on both sides of my family so I know if I don’t kill myself, I will live to the eighties or nineties. I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want to grow old. It is something that I never wanted to have happen. But I can’t stop time. My birthday comes whether I like it or not, most times not. Every year I think of it as my last. I have no future that I can see. So am I really a survivor?