Tag: mental illness

About Therapists

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

About therapists

I have been thinking about writing this for a while, just an overview about the many therapists I have had from all different degrees and orientations. I started off seeing a school counselor. She was getting her degree in counseling, though I am not sure if it was as a school counselor or a social worker. We only saw each other for a few months and then when school started again, I started seeing a social worker that worked at another school. She was good. Had the idea that I shouldn’t use drugs or alcohol. We had a “safety contract”, which my first 10 or so did. It mostly said I wouldn’t kill myself until the next meeting and if I did feel like acting to go to the emergency room or call 911. I only saw her for about 10 months. She left and I saw someone new, a person who was also seeking their degree. I basically feel like she took advantage of me and was only interested in collecting my insurance. Nothing got worked on. I was hospitalized every three months, the last one was when I came out as “gay”. Transgender was never talked about with any therapist until the one I saw prior to my current therapist.

As I had state insurance, therapists were coming and going. By the 10th one, I was tired of them leaving so I left the system for private as I then had private insurance. Only problem was that this therapist didn’t take my insurance. When I switched in 2001, we saw each other for a month before my disc blew and then I didn’t see her again for another three months. We kept in touch by phone. It was a lot to go through. I didn’t talk about my psych issues as I just had my physical health jeopardized. We worked together for sixteen years. All throughout, I was suicidal. But I had the odd hospitalization because we worked on stabilizing using frequent contact. We saw each other sometimes three times a week when I was bad. Then we saw each other twice a week. She moved offices until she moved 30 miles away from Boston. It was tough because I didn’t have a car. I did but it broke down. We just had phone therapy. This went on for about five years. I would get a zipcar once a month to see her but that took some planning around my pain and weather.

The suicidal ideation I had made my therapist nervous. We tried different things, but she never consistently held me to them. I chided away from it because I knew what she was looking for or rather had an idea. I knew it wasn’t going to change. During the last year of therapy we had, we were constantly fighting over my suicidality. She just wasn’t listening to me anymore. I couldn’t explain why I was suicidal. I just mentioned it and she would “hog” the rest of the session with her endless talk, which I just took as her anxiety. It was interfering. I found out she was seeking consultation over me and I felt threatened by that. Eventually we just called it quits. I didn’t see anyone for few months. I had to collect myself. She gave me a few therapists but they weren’t taking on new clients.
Enter my current therapist. He had called back within a few hours of me leaving a message and we had set a time up with in a few days. He sent me his paperwork and other insurance stuff. All throughout seeing the previous therapist, we had tried different suicidal safety planning and scales and whatnots. This guy was not for it. I think the less paperwork, the better. And it bugs me! He just wants to talk things out. For the first six months I didn’t know if this was going to work out. But I had no where else to go. I was tired of searching for therapists only to be told no when I revealed I had a suicidal history. He wasn’t afraid of me talking about suicide and I ease up. Even when I told him I had a plan, he didn’t freak out on me. He understood why I felt that way and we talked it out. It decreased my feelings so I didn’t feel like no one was on my side. I often felt better after sessions but there were a few where I was more frustrated. I texted him a few times and got supportive responses, something my previous therapist did not do, at all. She only responded if we had to change appointment times.

I have been seeing this guy for 16 months. I still find it totally weird that we have an understanding of why I am suicidal yet there is no plan in place, so to speak. He is okay if I live and okay if I die, as long as I don’t do it in his office. He hasn’t taught me things I don’t already know. He would like me to be more social, but that is kind of hard with my physical pain. I like being alone anyway as noise can irritate me, like it is today. Hell, just being in Starbucks when their music is loud is enough to have me leave after I finish eating or when I am ready to write. He doesn’t try to pin things down and my biggest annoyance is when he says we will work on something but doesn’t go further than that. And then when I bring it up next session (I have to bring things up, he won’t), it still doesn’t go anywhere. But I have had that happen with the last therapist I saw, too. She would say we need to work on this and we never did.

I don’t mean to write this to defer you from seeking therapy, that isn’t my goal. I just wanted to write about my experiences with therapists and how they react to suicidal thoughts. Everyone is different. And maybe you started seeing a therapist and then the suicide thoughts started happening. The therapist freaks out and you are then forced to see someone else. Or you attempted and now the therapist doesn’t want to work with you anymore. That is sad and unfortunate but I know it does happen. Suicide is like an elephant (or hippo as someone called it that the other day) in the room that you both know is there but don’t want to face. Or maybe your therapist is trained and does work with you on the issues as long as there is a safety plan in place first with contact numbers and you collaborate on what will work and what will not work. The focus has to be on YOU not the therapist’s comfort level. While my therapist does that and gives me the time to try and work things out as well as support me in any way he can, I still sometimes feel like he just doesn’t get it or dropped the ball on an issue that is never going to see light of day again. I know they are busy people. They have lives outside the office. They see so many patients per day and then deal with the wonderful insurance that can or cannot accept their claims. I don’t know. I am not making excuses for them but if you have a therapist that cares about you and takes your suicidal thoughts seriously, works with you on keeping you safe, and the chronicity of the matter, great. I just am still trying to work with someone and cope with a therapist that says you can kill yourself as long as it isn’t in my office.

Sunday Blog 23 Sept 18

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, cauda equina syndrome, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, mood disorders

Sunday Blog 23 Sept 18

I saw my friend in the hospital today. It was good to see my friends. Even though I worked at the hospital and knew where to go, it was exhausting walking around. From the garage to the building he was at, just exhausted me. He wanted something in the café and that was another excursion. The café had changed so much I didn’t know where the ice machine was. By the time I found it and went back to the floor, then back to his room, said our good-byes, and then walked back to the garage, I was glad we didn’t go to the restaurant. There was no way I could walk there. My foot was really bothering me. I forgot my pain meds.

I came home. I wasn’t hungry right away but knew I needed something more than a few cookies that I had with my coffee earlier this afternoon. I rested and then the pain got bad. It was about 6 pm. I have noticed my pain seems to increase around 12 and 6 hours. I don’t think the extended release is doing anything. I am afraid to say this because they could just say they won’t give me anything. That will be worse. I also know that around 9 my pain is much worse but that is most likely because the extended release has worn off.

I waited a bit and then got hungry. I didn’t know what to have. In the end I decided a burrito would do. It would be a few seconds and no cooking would be involved. I had to take my meds. I didn’t fill my med box for the week so that took some doing. I brought up a bag full of powerades and my leg didn’t like that. I am in so much pain it’s not funny. I saw something on my big toe. It was some skin that was off. I pulled it off but didn’t want to tear it off. I cut it and tried to get it closer to the skin but the position I had to have my ankle/foot didn’t like it at all. I am so sick of being in pain.

I am also sick of the Kavanaugh proceedings. If he was a decent person, he should have withdrew his nomination by now but he must be an asshole like the rest of the elected GOP is. All throughout my Twitter it was football, baseball, and then bullshit tweets. It is driving me crazy and it is triggering me because it is making me remember my own sexual abuse that was between my ex and a family member. There is other abuse but I won’t talk about it because a few members of my family read my blog. The family member I mention is known to be a predator. The other one not so much. Still, I am on the fence on talking about it. But remembering it all doesn’t fucking help. I have therapy tomorrow so will try and bring it up. It will depend on how I feel. There is no point in texting my therapist about it because it will be ignored. Anything I want to talk about, it has to be in session only. Fucking sucks big time when you want to talk about something hard but have no idea how to and you think a text might be a Segway into it but it goes into the cyber void. It still might go to the cyber void when I talk about it in therapy. Sometimes I talk about stuff and I have no idea why I brought it up because he didn’t do this or that with what I told him. Sometimes I wonder why I continue to go, like what the hell is the benefit if I am not getting the help I am looking for. I am trying to write about this in the blog I am writing. I wanted to work on it today but I was too distracted with my friends coming to get me and then going to the hospital.

I shaved and showered. I am one week post my haircut and there is some semblance of it still present. I give it another week until I need to go back and get it cut again. My royalties for my kindle came in at a whopping $14 so I can afford a haircut now. Only thing that sucks is that I am not sure my new disability pass will come in before the end of the month to get the monthly pass. That will suck because I have a lot of appointments in Oct so will need the pass. Otherwise I have to keep track of the balance so I don’t get low. That is a pain in the butt because I will have to make sure I have money to put on the card if it does until the end of the month. I hope the new card comes this week so I can stop worrying.

Ah, what is a little psychosis and a lot of anger

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, disability, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, painsomnia, physical pain, psychosis

**may contain errors as I am on my phone**

My day started ok. It was raining pretty hard so I canceled PT. I tried to reschedule but there was nothing open the rest of the week.

Then FB had this you got 4,000 like thing. The 1st pic was my legal document stating my legal name change. I decided to post it to my support group for CRPS. Everyone was supportive except this one person who thought I should give my mother respect and she went on about my mother’s feelings and shit like she knew her. It really upset me and made me angry. I didn’t respond right away. I didn’t think I would but a few hours later I did. I told her you don’t know anything about my mother so stop pretending that you do. I didn’t say nothing more. Then she responds with “I didn’t mean to offend you” bullshit. I didn’t read what she wrote. I was seeing red. My damn foot was hurting me. And that made me more angry.

I kept on having bursts of anger throughout the day. Other than this incident, nothing else was going on except pain. I tried to nap. Pain got worse. It was making me to angry. Then I was reading Twitter and the stuff about the SCOTUS judge nominee who is being accused of rape just flipped me out. Some people were on his side. Others were like why she wait so long, and other stupid shit that I can’t remember now. As a sexual assault survivor, it made me so fucking angry. And what really was the killer that it wasn’t just men saying this. Some women were too. Are you kidding me?

I couldn’t escape the fight over who was innocent and who was guilty. In the end, the vote was postponed, which I was happy about. Now the accuser is facing death threats and is in hiding. She has to make an appearance for something but no one has heard from her. I hope she is okay. That really ticked me off that these high profile cases get death threats and then people wonder why women don’t come forward with their attacks.

The third attack that caused me to be angry was a fucking idiot that didn’t know there was a difference between addiction and dependence. This person was adamant about it being the same thing. WRONG!! This person attacked anyone that said different. I have no idea if this was a troll or not but I didn’t respond. It just fueled the fire that was burning inside. I honestly felt like cutting to release some of the tension. I texted my therapist about what to do about this anger and he said we need to talk about it. What? Talk about being angry? First you want me to be angry and when I tell you I am we need to talk about it? Are you fucking kidding me?? I am ready to rip someone’s head off and you want to talk about it? Fuck you.

More gas to the flames.

I talked to my BFF. She was mad at her husband for doing something without her permission. I am on my friend’s side. He shouldn’t have done that. It helped me to calm down a bit. Her grandkids were on IG and OMG they are so fucking cute. I want to cuddle them. I felt a little bit better afterwards, until the fucking Sox blew the fucking game with the snakes! After the loss, I felt weird and was hearing male voices. I felt paranoid and anxious. I really feel like i am being spied on. I was tempted to call my psych but it is late. She probably would tell me to take an ativan and then call her tomorrow/today. Meds are kicking in. I had to take some neurontin because I was having an L shaped pain and it was indescribable. It drove me nuts. I felt like my head was spinning. I need sleep. Then I saw an article saying if you have less sleep, it could lead to Alzheimer’s. I have it on both sides of my family so I am screwed either way, if I should make it to old age. I just hope this psychotic episode goes away. Male voices scare me as they aren’t my regular ones and usually land me in the hospital. I won’t go though. I don’t want to go back. They screw up my meds all the time and I finally have them all straightened out.

I have therapy tomorrow. Hope I get angry with the jerk.

30 Aug 18

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

30 Aug 18

I am in a flare right now because I helped my mother with dinner. I was in my room and she yelled for me so I kind of ran down the stairs to make sure she was alright. Next thing I know she is telling me to do this and that for dinner. After things were cooking, I went up my to my room to shut the light off and close my door as the AC was running. When I went down a few steps to go eat dinner, my ankle crapped out on me. I tried going down a few more steps but it just hurt more. I called for my mother to hand me my cane. I needed to get back to my room for breakthrough meds. Though I am hurting so much that it isn’t touching it. I just moved my damn foot to shut the ceiling fan and that just sent pain waves through me.

I went to Starbucks earlier today. I wanted to get my haircut but my barber was not in. I will try to go tomorrow. It all depends on what time I get out after I see my friends. We are meeting late morning. I see my pain doc in the morning and then will be going to another part of Boston to see them. As I now had time to write, I wrote in my journal for a bit and then I saw something on Twitter that sparked me to write an essay about suicide and hotlines. I wrote until it became too emotional for me and I had to stop. Then I spent too much time on social media on my phone and lost my train of thought. I thought I would type it up when I got home as I knew it would be less than 300 words but I really don’t want to stir things up with this flare I am in.

I am very tired and just took my night meds. I plan on taking another breakthrough med with my night time pain med. I’ll also take some Neurontin to help with sleep and any nerve pain I might get once the physical pain settles down. I just used the bathroom and it was hard coming up the stairs. I wish the bozos at the brace clinic fucking listened to me so I could have something to put my foot/ankle in so when I flare, I don’t use it and it can rest. I know it is because it is fatigued and that is why it doesn’t want to “work”. I can feel the fatigue. I also had a spasm just from moving it a little to shut off my fan. My stupid AC isn’t working right. It is on 60 on medium. I should be freezing but am just a little cold, which I can tolerate without having to put on my long sleeve shirt. I can’t stand long enough to move the stuff in front of it to see if the filter needs to be cleaned or the vents need to be adjusted. I thought with the ceiling fan off, it might feel colder. It has, just a tad.

Hunter Hayes just came out with a new song called Dear God. It is so good. I am not sure if the song is out. Figures a male artist comes out with a new song but when Terri Clark came out with a new song last week on radio, Boston didn’t pick it up. I am so mad there are more male artists than female on the radio. I have more male country artists than female. Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert dominates the radio waves. I heard a podcast that Terri Clark has and she said it infuriates her that female artists just don’t get the same radio play as male artists. I honestly wondered why Martina McBride, Sara Evans, and other female artists that I grew up on were no longer on the waves and I guess that is why. Sara has come out with a new album as I follow her on social media. Other than that, I wouldn’t have known. I am more of buying albums than individual songs for certain artists and she is one artist I would buy the album, if I have the money for it. Sometimes it takes me a while to budget for albums, but if I want the song, I will get it. Like Luke Combs, I first heard his song Hurricane and liked his beat so bought the album. I loved his album, though I think the deluxe is a rip off as it is the same album but has a few more songs. If I had known that, I would have just bought those songs and made a playlist for the entire thing. I did that with Blake Shelton’s greatest hits. I think I just had to buy one song on the album and made a playlist for the album, boom, I have the album. I didn’t have to buy songs I already have!