Tag: mental illness

explanation of myths of suicide

by Midnight Demon, posted in CES, Chronic pain, depression, medical, mental disorders, mental illness, suicide, suicide attempt

Today I did nothing but sleep. I have been in pain the last few nights and today was the first reprieve that I have had since then. I am not entirely pain free but I am feeling better than I was.

I wrote a crappy paper about holiday myths surrounding suicide. The myth is that there is more suicides around the holidays than any other time of year. That simply is not true as July gets as many as 111 suicides. For December, it is only 98. Still very close numbers but what kills me is that they argue that suicides are less but they don’t focus on the attempters. Those ATTEMPTERS may be the ones to complete a suicide during the holiday because they now know what steps to do so they can succeed. I maybe wrong. I had a friend that attempted the day after Christmas and this person is never going to do it again. This person states that she can never go back there again. I hope that is true. Not that I don’t believe her. Most people who attempt once will never try again. It is the chronicity of those that attempt multiple times that need the help the most. They are the ones that truly need the extra support during this time because they simply cannot cope with another holiday that is supposed to be joyous but they are not.

Holidays suck. People put on their happy faces to pretend when they do not care less about this holiday than any other. This day and age has stepped far away from tradition and more on materialistic styles of life. The iPad, iTouch, the cellphones, the big screen TVs. And then in January, they get the bills so no wonder by July people are ready to kill themselves because they can’t afford what they purchased and their six-month grace period is over. Am I being sarcastic? Hell yes. Is there truth to what I just said, maybe. I cannot prove it. I just recently paid off a credit card and find some freedom in that. Meanwhile I still owe Uncle Sam big bucks for my student loans. My credit sucks up the ying-yang. Do I want to kill myself to get out of debt, hell yea, but I don’t because the debt is going to be there regardless if I am alive or not. Granted I have no idea what happens to debt when someone dies. I know it won’t be in my will that so and so gets this portion and Uncle Harry gets this. I don’t even know if I will leave a will.

People talk about suicide notes all the time but the majority do not leave one. I know that I have been through many suicidal crises and have never really left a note. The past few years I have been writing them to save face for my nieces and nephew. So they know that I love them even though the pain I have caused them is meaningless. I hope they never think about taking their lives. It is a horrible place to be in when thinking about it. I shudder every time I think about where I was when I last tried. It wasn’t that long ago. I still remember the desperation I felt. I didn’t call anyone. I didn’t write to anyone. I just took pill after pill hoping to take my pain away.

There has been two holidays that I have tried to take my life. The first was in 1994 and the second was in 2005. I was hospitalized in 1994 for Christmas and New Years, hell Thanksgiving too. It was a bad time for me. I had severe depression and could not get a grip on things. I overdosed on some pills and the next thing I knew I was in the hospital for three months.

In 2005, it was different. I had planned to take my life Nov 5th of that year but my therapist begged me not to and some how we got through it. I vaguely remember it. I didn’t attempt anything but I did plan every single detail. I ended up in partial hospital as gone were the days of long admissions. I learned some things while in Partial but I still wanted to end my life. Thought about it everyday, just kept changing the date. That is how close I came. The following year I took a psychometric class and learned about psychache, perturbation, and press. Not in the class. The professor was an idiot when it came to these issues, but on my own learning. I am somewhat of an autodidact and pick up more on my own than in the classroom. But that semester I learned more than any other. And I was grateful for it because it gave me a chance to learn more about suicidality than I had previously. Finally someone understood my struggle. Finally someone understood my pain. Though I then became a member of the American Association of Suicidology, I still am today. I am a proud member and I get to go to their annual conference and learn more about the treatments are for people like me.

a mumble jumble about fear of suicide

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

This statement can be taken one of two ways. The first that some people are afraid to talk about suicide for fear of sparking ideation. The second is that when someone knows you are feeling low and have attempted before, they are afraid of losing that person. Suicide attempters are more likely than non-attempters to try again until successful.

What I am going to talk about is the second interpretation first. I have a friend who is having me motivate her into writing by me contacting her every day on my own writing. What sparked this was she read my blog about my near suicide attempt a few weeks ago. Now her ulterior motive is to keep me alive the only way she can think of, me writing to her every day. In return, she is to write at least two pages a day for her own well being.

I have to say that since I have been writing I have been in better space. I would not say that I feel more connected but I don’t want to let her down so I try and write a little each day. Our “rules” are to email each other when we are done and we are allowed our birthdays and Christmas off. In addition to days where it is not possible for me to write because of whatever reason, usually because I am in pain or sleep deprivation, we have given each other 3 passes on writing. I am usually the one to finish writing first but that is only because I have more time on my hands than she does. She is a VERY busy person with a lot of commitments.

I sometimes feel exposed because I am bearing my soul to this person that I just met through a friend on Facebook. We both belong to the same organization for suicide prevention. I am guessing because she thinks of me as a sibling, and she did lose her sister to suicide many years ago, she does not want me to end up that way. Sadly I don’t think she knows that it is my belief that I will end up killing myself one day. I know that I will because I just can’t picture myself living a life outside of this constant pain that I feel every day, either physically or mentally.

I am not going to lie and pretend that I don’t think about killing myself every day. It is a constant struggle and I think that I worry a lot of my close friends that actually get to know me or who read my blogs about my struggles. I think that is why my blog has been so successful is because people can relate to what I write.

On getting back to the talking about suicide can bring about a suicidal crisis, that is a common myth. Talking about suicide can actually prevent one but some people are just not comfortable with the subject and so will say stuff that they think the person who is miserable wants to hear, stuff like “you have your life ahead of you”, “Don’t be so down, things could be worse”, or my favorite “you have so much to live for”. If I had so much to live for why would I be thinking of taking my own life?? People don’t understand the pain that is involved in depression or in thinking about suicide. I have been thinking about taking my life since I was eight years old. I was in a lot of pain for some reason or another and it never got taken cared of. Today I think that pain stems from the fact that I am really a male and not a female. I knew at a young age that I was different and back then, there was no expressing how I truly felt. I really think that if I got help sooner, this would have come to light sooner and I wouldn’t be in this pickle today about what to do with my transition.

holiday myths about suicide

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, suicide, suicide attempt

Apparently there is a still a myth that the holidays bring on suicide. The study published today at USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/05/holiday-suicide-myth/1748351/ ) stated that the highest is in the Spring and summer. July brings 111 while December is “low” at 98. Still those numbers, to me anyways, are high. And that doesn’t account for all the suicide attempts or near suicide attempts.

While there is the myth that the holidays brings more suicide than any other time of year, you still have the holiday classic “It’s a wonderful life” to show that there still are some people contemplating their life during the “happiest of seasons”. There is no data that supports my saying this. It is just a well known idea that people should be happier this time of year than the rest of the year. While mood disorders such as Season Affective Disorder is in full swing, there is no evidence that these disorders bring about more suicide. If anything, people want to get help so they can change their lives and be in a better relationship. This is why during the holidays, detox goes up during time of year more than any other. People want to become happy but they do not understand that it is a long road from happiness when you are at your rock bottom. I am reminded of a young kid, we’ll call him Jay for confidentiality purposes. He was with me while I had my hospitalization a few years ago. He was a meth addict and wanted to get sober for his kids sake. He was doing the program of staying sober but he had a lot of challenges. He was on the street and his current resident was the hospital. He reminded me that it is possible to look forward and survive despite having a drug addiction. I don’t know where he is now but I do hope that he was able to leave the hospital with new tools to help him cope better with this addiction issues and that he was able to find a sponsor to help guide him through the rough waters ahead of him.

a migraine rant

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, depression, medical, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, suicide, suicide attempt

3-Dec-2012

I got a migraine today and it sucks. My face is numb and it feels like someone is driving an ice pick in my right eye. I don’t think I will go out today as the weather is too bright. Sometimes I wish I could put a dimmer switch for days like today.

 

I am scheduled for an MRI tomorrow night. I find this kind of scary because I know my head is going to be examined and my back is going to pay the price. I can’t lay flat for too long. I am going to need a muscle relaxer and pain meds to get through this. The reason I am going for the mRI is because I have been experiencing blurry vision despite getting new glasses. I don’t know if it is migraine activity that is causing this or what but I don’t like it and my eye doc is concerned. I have made an appt with a neuro-opthlamalogist. I saw this guy last year when my visual field showed some new defects. I still have the unexplained defect. The doc thinks it is just an atypical migraine causing this. I just hope that that is the case and nothing more serious is going on.

 

Sometime this week I have to trek out to Brookline and pay a parking ticket so I can renew my driver’s license. Sucks that this is the hold up to me renewing. I already paid Cambridge. Hopefully this is the last time a parking ticket stops me from renewing. Last time I had three tickets, all from the city I live in because of “ticket day” A.K.A street cleaning. I swear it is just a way for the city to collect revenue as the machines do not clean the streets anyways. I am glad I don’t have a car anymore to worry about which side of the street to park on. It’s now I think $100 per citation. CRAZY!! Just to “clean” the street. It is awful.

 

I think I’ll make myself some coffee. Maybe that will kill this migraine…

Never made the coffee as I was too lazy to clean the pot. I use a French press and I have not cleaned it out. I did tonight so I can make coffee tomorrow. Migraine has subsided though my vision is still messed up. It keeps on going in and out, the more I try and focus, the worse it gets. It is pissing me off to no end.

 

On another note:

I am HATING the commercials for Cymbalta. I am hating how they are promoting an antidepressant for back pain. I take Cymbalta, and it does not help my pain one bit!! And I have been taking it for a long time. It does help with my depression. I find that I am less weepy and suicidal when I take it. Hence why it is an ANTIDEPRESSANT!! I think it is false advertising in the FULL effect for this drug. It also helps with the neuropathy some what that I have, which is another use of this drug and I am on a low dose (20 mg). I find that my burning foot hurts less when I take, though it will do nothing for the flare ups I have when I spasm/cramp up. I can see people overdosing on this because they will just think it is “safe” because it is not a narcotic. So when they are in pain, they will pop it like Tylenol. I find this disturbing. And I don’t like the depression hurts bullshit. I have also found it does NOTHING for my psychic pain. Yes, depression does hurt. In fact it can lead to suicide and hence kill you. But like I say, people who are in pain can become desperate very quickly, like I did and maybe a little more should be paid to that. Would it kill a PCP to ask if they are suicidal before prescribing this medication? I don’t see how anyone but a neurologist or a psychiatrist can prescribe this drug for the safety of their patients. My neurologist takes the time to get to know me and actually wants me to live a happier lifestyle. But I can never be happy because I am not a happy person. I suffer too much and when you suffer you just cannot put on a happy face all the time. It becomes exhausting. I think that is why since going on disability I have felt a certain freedom. I know it is because I am no longer forced to pretend that I am happy, to show the world the other side that no one sees. Course I will say I am kind of lonely because I don’t have any contact with my co-workers nor do I have an active social life anymore. I might go out with a friend once a month, if that. But that is it. I have not left the house since Friday. I just cannot be bothered to get dressed to get a cup of Joe. I just sit in my room, playing on my laptop, writing blogs, and listening to my Taylor Swift. I order food and have gained a lot of weight because of my inactivity. Do I care, not so much. I have never been concerned about my weight. Course it is a thing I hate about myself but the only other thing I can do is starve myself and what fun is that? I love food and it loves me. What difference does it make I don’t know. Should I diet? Yes, I should but diet implies that I actually give a shit. I just got a twitter message that says the human body needs 1000-1500 calories a day to survive. If I stay within that limit, maybe I will lose weight. I will eat protein bars and have smoothies. Which reminds me I still have yogurt in the fridge I have not eaten yet. I am addicted to Chobani’s Champion yogurt. It is a Greek yogurt and is mixed berries. I love it!