Tag: mental illness

school worries

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, psychache, psychosis

Just got the notice that my state refund was redirected to the state university towards the money I owe. Now with the close to $900 I will pay off the entirety of what I owe and be free to hopefully enter class in the summer. Though I am a long way from actually going there right now. I just learned I got to get readmitted and it has to go through a review process. I know my transcripts hasn’t been great at the school, but working two jobs and going to school was tough. I was lucky to get a B or even a C. Though I have more W’s than I do actual grades. I also have a couple of incompletes that are now F’s so I know my GPA sucks right now. I feel really rotten as it is and summer is a long time away from now. I have until the middle of April to sign up for this class I want to take. I really, really want to take this class. It is the history of psychology and is only offered over the summer. It is a summer long course and is upper level. I will have my work cut out for me because it will also be my first online course. I’m now starting to chicken out. Plus it really won’t matter if I go through with my plans for the end of the week.

The typical worries I have is what if I don’t get accepted back? What am I going to do? I really want to go back to this university as it will suck to start over somewhere else. I know the professors in the psych department so know what it’s like. I won’t have that advantage at another school. Plus I can take my time this go round because I won’t be bothered with the demands of work. The hard part is going to be paying for it as loans are out of the question. I’ll have to save some money every month and be on a strict budget to go back.

The whole process is kind of freaking me out. If I don’t get accepted I have to go to another school. If I survive this week and don’t do what I want to do. Maybe school is too soon after this mental breakdown I have been experiencing. But then, the reason I left school was because I had a breakdown. I just couldn’t handle school and work and became psychotic. But now I will just have school to focus on. Maybe I will excel maybe I will just be as overwhelmed and it won’t happen like I plan. Nothing happens like I plan it to go. I will be a fool to say that everything goes right for me but it doesn’t.

struggles

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

Been thinking really hard today about what my next move should be. I told my therapist goodbye but she didn’t accept it. She refused my cancelations so I have her on voicemail only on my phone. See how she likes that. Not like talking to her does much help anymore. Nothing seems to help. I am just a pitiful excuse for a human. I feel so awful I can’t even begin to describe it. I haven’t showered or brushed my teeth since Wednesday. I am going to brush after I send this blog out. I hate not being able to take care of myself at times. I just don’t think about that kind of stuff anymore since being out of work.

I am still thinking about my plan. I always have a plan. It is how I cope. Doesn’t mean that I will go through with it but I have it none the less.

I have a busy week next week. I have to see my PCP to get my pain pills refilled then see a friend on my way home to pick up my gift for my psychiatrist. It will be perfect because I see her on Wednesday. That is the other thing that is bothering me. How can I tell her happy 20th anniversary and then kill myself that weekend? I hate this tug of war with life. I really do. And don’t give me the crap that because I care means I am fighting to live. I can counter with I am fighting to die too. You people that think that way have no clue how frustrating it is to try and want to kill yourself and having all the responsibility to stay alive around you. You want so badly to die yet something keep holding you back. I call it hope at times that gives me another day. I really do because without it, I know I would not give myself a week to plan my death.

I also have group. Yes I will be going back if only to see if it is better than I think it is.

Struggle. That is all I do and I hate it. I just want the struggle to end. Is that too much to ask?

support groups and other things

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders, psychache, suicide, suicide attempt

I had emailed my eye doc saying I was having problems with my eyes while reading, especially when I was tired. I just coughed it up to being fatigued but he wanted to see me the next day (today) and did some tests. Apparently my eyes have decided to go in different directions when I am reading so I have to go to visual therapy. It is basically physical therapy for the eye. Oh joy.

I am going to dinner tonight in Stoughton, south of where I live with some friends of mine. We have a good time and because my friend just came back from Germany, I am sure she has some chocolates for me . German chocolate is sooo good. Last time I had it, the damn mice ate it when we had a few. I was so mad. Mice enjoying my chocolate. Damn rodents!

Yesterday I was supposed to have a blog post in the AAS but it got scrapped for another few weeks. The post that got published was a hit. It was about support groups and now everyone wants one for suicide attempt survivors. If I knew the platform, I would do it. I am glad my post got bumped because support groups are important. I know that if I didn’t have my CES group, I would feel alone and probably would have killed myself because of the isolation you feel after something so traumatic happens to you. You are never the same after something like CES affects you. I know with suicide attempt it is similar. People attempt for different reasons but mostly to escape the psychological pain they are feeling.

Speaking of psychological pain. I recent came across another psychological pain scale that has some promise if it ever gets across the board. But the hard part is that most of these scales have to go through rigorous critical review from committees of all sorts before being accepted as an assessment tool used for the emergency rooms and urgent care units. Plus in busy settings, things will get missed and then what are you going to do when the person is positive for psychological pain? You can’t just leave them hanging and say have a nice day or come back when you have more pain. That would be unethical and unprofessional. And most academic psychiatric emergency rooms are almost always filled with “real” psychiatric emergencies such as the actual attempts and psychotic behaviors of drug use or because of schizophrenia/mania. Though each case should be evaluated by a mental health professional before an attempt be made. I suppose if this were to be implemented a special unit would have to be designated for it to speed up the process and long waits avoided. Or if this were implemented in the psych ER it would be more ideal than the general ER (Emergency Room/ward/department).

new journal and Crisis Response Plan

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

I started a new journal tonight. And like every other journal before it, the first two things that go into it is my crisis response plan and the Holden psychache scale, though lately it just is my response plan.

I tried finding the response plan online but all I found was emergency planning and a very LONG one that the Navy cooked up, most likely from the article I read about military suicide crisis training. I tried to find the article but I am unable to locate it in my files. I haven’t searched my thumb drive because I can’t locate that either. GGGRRRR so I hope I am not plagiarizing when I post this plan here on my blog:

Crisis response plan:
When thinking about suicide, I agree to do the following:

Step 1: Try to identify my thoughts and specifically what’s upsetting me
Step 2: Write out and review more reasonable responses to my suicidal thoughts
Step 3: Do things that help you feel better for at least 30 mins (examples can include, trying to sleep, play internet games, brush hair 100 times, write in a journal, listen to music, etc)
Step 4: Repeat all of the above
Step 5: if thoughts continue, get specific and I find myself preparing to do something, I will call XXX @ 555-555-5555 or suicide hotline
Step 6: if I cannot reach above I will call my therapist or psychiatrist
Step 7: if I am still feeling suicidal and I don’t feel like I can control my behavior, I go to the ER or call 911 (or whatever the local emergency line is for your country)
I have found having this in my journal useful when I have been hospitalized because it provides a plan of something that they need for discharge and I don’t always carry the card or the paper with me but I do carry my journal.

The second thing is Holden’s(Holden, Mehta, Cunningham, & McLeod, 2001) psychache scale and I don’t feel comfortable posting that here but you can look it up in the reference I have posted if you have access to the library.

I tend to hold off on it because I haven’t been using it lately. I know what the scale looks like and after a while you can manipulate it to whatever you want it to be from high to low. Plus when I feel numb or “fine” it’s hard to tell what kind of psychological pain I am in. My therapist and I used to use it to gauge how suicidal I was but then it just got to be like a joke. Or that the tables have turned on me because I was the one that brought in the scales and the response plan. My therapist didn’t have a clue about suicidality, which is typical of most therapists. That is why they like to pawn you off or come up with lame “safety contract” that is really a legal form for THEM not YOU. Least with the Response plan it give you something to take home with and is more detailed than anything I have come across.

Holden, R. R., Mehta, K., Cunningham, E., & McLeod, L. D. (2001). Development and preliminary validation of a scale of psychache. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 33(4), 224-232.