Tag: mental illness

my stupid advice

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

My stupid advice

Whenever someone is feeling bad about something and I know it’s more than just the “blues”, I often tell them to seek out professional help. But if I took my own advice, where has that gotten me exactly? There are a million therapists out there, all with different degrees and modes of therapy. You often have to see a few to get chemistry with someone for it to be effective. I saw 11 by the time I was 25. And here it is, 16 years later and I might have to see therapist number 14. It’s getting old. I feel that I should be better by now or that I should have at least feel like I “cured” myself by some magic. I read enough about therapy to know what works and what doesn’t. Doesn’t that count for something?

I have seen psychiatrists, social workers, psychologists, and a psychiatric nurse working toward a doctorate. I can’t really say which profession was the best because they all left me before I could form an opinion on the matter and it hurt too bad. But the one that I am in now, the one with a psychologist, worked out pretty good until things just fizzled out. I think I just became too “smart” for her and she couldn’t keep up. She tried for a while until she realized she couldn’t anymore, that it was hindering my therapy. And now what to do?

The thought of starting over isn’t appealing to me. I really don’t want to go through the process. It’s difficult when you are already used to someone. I have read a lot about suicide yet it still eludes me. I want to act on my feelings of it yet I am still here. I know seeing someone new will have a great burden taking me on. I don’t know if they are willing to take that risk. I don’t know if I am either.

Someone I knew a long time ago and still do took my advice and is still alive today because she took it. She is grateful that I saved her life because she listened to me. I remember she was at a crucial period in her life. She was diagnosed as bipolar and at the time, I wrote a lot about the disorder. I told her she needed to see someone and be on meds to help herself. She is still alive because she took that advice. So sometimes, I don’t give out stupid advice. I just wish I could help myself. I have a great psychiatrist but for things to work in my disorder, you also need a therapist. I have yet to find one that is on the same page as me. I am too smart for my own good. And now another therapist is leaving because of it. Some advice giver I am.

More Reflections about Therapy

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

More reflections about therapy

I started a Twitter rant and before I knew it, I was crying as I thinking about how my therapist of 15 years is suddenly realizing, now, that she isn’t the one for me. I feel that I am the blame for this though I don’t know how exactly I am. I just feel that if I kept that transference blog to myself instead of sharing it, things wouldn’t be like this.

I had thought about what I was going to do with therapy. I figure I would give her a symptom of something of PTSD nature that we could work on and sort out. But now that has gone to crap as we are breaking up. I don’t know if there are any resolutions to us staying together. It is really sad that in her bag of tricks she has run out of things to help me, even though I have offered her many over the years of working together.

From the start, I always thought of treatment plans to help us get going and she was amenable to these ideas. I never thought that she would depend on me so much. I honestly have no idea when we stopped being client and professional to being something along the lines of being “friends”. We care for one another deeply, there is no denying that. But I think we got too close for comfort and that is what is destroying the therapeutic relationship.

I still can’t understand why she cannot take time out of her schedule to become a CAMS trained therapist. Maybe she thinks it will cost too much or that it will take too long. I don’t know. She never said why. All she has said was that she is not a “suicidologist”. You don’t have to be one to get trained. Maybe this pressure is what is tearing us apart. My suicidality is too tough for her to handle anymore. Maybe she is just burned out like any therapist would be with chronic suicidality. I don’t know. I just know that you can’t “expect different results with the same experiments”. Or something like that. It’s by Albert Einstein. I wrote it in one of the book I read on suicidality. Much good my book did for her.

I keep thinking where did I go wrong. I just don’t know. I just know that I was tired of her anxiety interfering with our therapy. Even when we were talking about my PTSD she was anxious and she didn’t even know it. I had to bring it up. What the hell is that about? I’m a sensitive person so I pick up others emotions pretty quick. In my household growing up, you had to or you got smacked. I’m not saying my therapist is abusive in anyway. Not at all. But she definitely has issues that are not my issues to control. I am just a patient in her care. Not for that much longer.

It hurts like hell that after 16 years in January (that is our anniversary month), we will be saying good-bye. We haven’t discussed formal termination. We are just on a break right now. I wanted to talk to her today or tomorrow but I am being a stubborn fuck and not going to call her. I can manage on my own without her. Hell I have done it before, I will do so again. I know I need a therapist that handles PTSD symptoms and other stuff. I won’t say suicide because that freaks therapists out and I won’t be able to get a therapist if I tell them I am suicidal or have a suicidal history. It’s just the way the therapist world works. The care you need the most is not given due to fear. And I have scared the shit out of my therapist so many times she is having anxiety attacks over it.

I also need a collaborative therapist that won’t be up my ass about their treatment style is the best in the world for me. Horseshit. I don’t work that way. Either we work together or see ya later. I don’t know if I can trust someone just out of the gate again. It took at least five years of working together before I was able to let my guard down with her. I can’t imagine how long it will be for another therapist. That is, if I decide to see a new one. I haven’t completely decided to go ahead with someone new. My therapist has a few names for me, which I will take but I doubt they will work out. I’m just a high risk suicidal case with PTSD out of control with chronic pain that makes it difficult to work through. I am anything but “easy”.

burrito for lunch

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

Burrito for lunch

I woke up several times during the night. During one of the times, I tried reading but it made me tired so I could go back to sleep. I left off after reading a page and a half in the chapter. I am glad I didn’t try to finish it because it was a very long chapter. When I fully woke up around 0700, I began reading where I left off. I thought the chapter was never going to end.

I woke up in pain so I took some pain meds because I was in pain, again. As I read, I waited for my mother to leave the house before making my way to the kitchen to make breakfast. I do this because I like having the kitchen to myself without the noise of the damn TV. After I had breakfast I took a shower carefully. It exhausted me so I had to rest a bit. The pain meds helped my pain and I was able to catch the next bus to the Square. I got my espresso and started writing in my journal.

I fellow blogger friend PM’d me while I was writing because she was having a difficult time. We talked nonsense for a bit, like we always do when we have our troubles. I forgot about my writing for a while and when we finished talking, I lost interest in writing. I decided to write a few more sentences and then get a burrito for lunch. After I got it, I waited at the bus stop to head home to enjoy it, or try to. I didn’t want to eat it at the restaurant because it can get messy and I hate it when the stuff gets all over my face and hands. I rather eat it at home so I can wash up afterwards if need be.

I emailed my psychiatrist sometime last night about my pain levels and asked her about the bed situation as I haven’t heard from her in a couple of days. I still haven’t heard from her. It’s not a pressing issue so I will just wait until she has time to notify me on what is going on. I am feeling safer since I know I will be in the hospital and the suicidal urges haven’t been around for most of the week. Yesterday the feelings of wanting to die were there because the pain was all fucking day, but I didn’t have the urge to end my life right then and there. If I don’t hear from her by this evening, I will shoot off another email.

As I was drinking my espresso, I began reading my Twitter line and lo and behold, I read a tweet from the Mass governor that really pissed me off. He wants to initiate a program to get those on work injury off opioid medication and to use alternative stuff. What that stuff is, I have no clue. The tweet didn’t offer a link to click to find out what he was talking about, exactly. I fear that doctors, in the coming years, won’t be able to prescribe opioids unless it’s for terminal diseases in my state. I will be fucking screwed, all because of the damn opioid crisis. I posted my frustration to my support group and found out one of my friends had trouble in Florida getting her meds so she moved to another state to get it. I have no idea if doctors are in this program to help patients get off opioid medication because there will be withdrawals and that can be worse than being addicted to the meds.

I’m back in the land of pain. I just took my pain meds. I only took one pill because it’s too early to take two and the pain isn’t that bad. It’s driving me crazy though because of its unpredictability. I know I went out and that is usually a trigger for pain, but damn, there’s no sense in timing it anymore. Used to be that I would hurt anywhere from 1800-midnight. Now it’s in the afternoon or morning and it just sucks. I brought this up to the new PCP and he didn’t offer any suggestions on dealing with it, other than to keep doing what I am doing. Nice, thanks doc. I am at the end of my rope and you just want me to stick with status quo. Unreal. Course, I wasn’t expecting him to have answers or suggestions. It would be too much.

Saturday Baking and other things

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

Saturday Baking and other things

I had left over cranberries from my cranberry cake and wanted to use them. I made muffins. It took me a fricken an hour to make. My back and ankle are not happy with me right now. I got a wave of the tireds when I started writing this and had to lie down. I thought I was going to sleep through the night so I set my timer for fifteen minutes so I wouldn’t fall into a deep sleep as I had to do the clean up. Fifteen minutes rolled around and I didn’t want to get up, just like I knew I wouldn’t. I forced myself up and went back to the kitchen where my mother was making dinner. She cleared some dishes by putting them in the dishwasher and left me basically all the cooking stuff that I had used. I washed them and got injured. The food processing blade got my finger. I forgot how sharp that sucker is. Then I had dinner. After dinner, I had to try a muffin and they came out good. I ate about three of them. They weren’t that big as I thought they would be. The Neurontin has given me hungry horrors today so I have been eating like mad.

After dinner, I just goofed off on Facebook. Found an article that stated the CDC basically lied about the opioid controversy in their studies by excluding studies that should have been included, according to the authors of the study I read. It was all over my head so I read what I could then went back to looking at videos and pics and memes. God, does Facebook have memes. I hate memes. Some of them are funny but after you seen them once, they lose interest when you see the same pics a thousand times, but with different sayings. I just don’t get the appeal. And my biggest peeve is when they say the quote as their status and then show the damn meme with the quote! WTF. Be original for crying out loud. Twitter does the same thing. Makes me want to take a cyber holiday.

Ohio and Nebraska didn’t have football games this week. I don’t think the season is done because other teams are still playing but I think it’s coming down to the wire who is going to play who in the bowls. There hasn’t been an official schedule yet but I hope it’s soon.

Other than baking, that is all I have done today. It was enough because I am totally wiped out. My ankle and foot are having a battle right now as to who is going to hurt more. I think ankle is going to win. But it doesn’t matter because I have meds. So take that!

I’m still thinking about going into the hospital. As annoying as it will be with med schedules and groups and dealing with potential idiot doctors/social workers, it would be nice not have to worry about whether I will OD every single night. Last night I came very close to taking more meds than I should. I don’t even know what set me off, though it doesn’t take much to set me off these days. A flare up, bad words with my mother, no cream for my coffee. Little things that normally won’t piss me off will suddenly push me off the edge. Maybe I need the safety to be watched and have check ins with people who may or may not give a shit about you. The only thing that will be a bitch is not having my pain medication at my disposal. I might not exactly wait six hours for my next dose but the hospital will, to the exact next minute I am supposed to take it. I can’t take it a minute earlier. The med computer system won’t even dispense the drug unless it’s within the time frame for the next dose. Sucks.

My aunt died this morning. She had been battling breast cancer for numerous years. She had one breast remove and then was in remission for a long time when it came back probably like ten years or so. It spread and she had been going for chemo and radiation, the works. Now she doesn’t have to fight anymore. She was a nice woman but god help you if you got on her bad side. My sister said that she and my father are probably talking up a storm, that is if she let you get a word in edge wise. She was a talker. She will be missed.