Tag: mental illness

Is it possible to be happy while being horribly suicidal?

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

Is it possible to be happy while being horribly suicidal?

Today while waiting for the bus, I was listening to my music. It wasn’t the normal playlist I usually listen to but I was playing all my songs in my music file. A few songs came on that I really love and I caught myself singing along and just feeling happy. It got me wondering what the hell was going on because the past few weeks I have been so suicidal. Hell, last Friday was my death date that I didn’t go through with and yet I still feel the urge to end my life. Yet here I was, singing along to the music like I didn’t have a care in the world.

I know people feel relieved once they make the decision to end their life. It’s like a burden is no longer on their shoulders. That the tasks that were impossible are now possible because things are going to end soon for them. I know this because I have felt it. I have gone through it. Yet somehow, some way, I have managed to survive the death dates and the horrible suicidal thoughts that have plagued me since I was young. My therapist calls me the exception to the rule. I some times call myself a coward for not going through with my plans. After all, I always keep my promises to other people but I never have been able to keep a promise to myself, and that include ending my life at some future date.

I wonder if I have finally lost my mind because I was happy this afternoon. How is it possible to feel joy and happiness after a suicidal episode? It didn’t last too long. Just for a few songs and then I started thinking about writing this blog because I think it’s important to talk about. Suicide claims over 40,000 lives each year in the US alone. Today happens to be “World Mental Health Day”. So I find it even more fitting to talk about suicide.

I’m not going to talk about statistics and data that I could bore you with about suicide. I have just my experience and knowledge that I have learned since studying about this epidemic the past 8 years. When I am not suicidal, I try to learn as much as I can about the treatments for it because it might help me through another episode. There is a lot of research out there. The top ones are CAMS, CBT, and DBT. I have given DBT a try and didn’t like it. That was more than 17 years ago and it has evolved just like CAMS has evolved over the last 25 years.

CAMS (Collaborating and Assessment of Managing Suicide) was developed by Dr. David Jobes and is by far, in my opinion, the best way to manage suicidal episodes. It is comprehensive, easy to administer and score, has a treatment plan, and doesn’t involve more paperwork than regular clinical administrative stuff. That is what I love about this tool. In it you use the forms called the Suicide Status Form to assess suicidal plans and also develop treatment strategies with the client instead of for the client. It’s a collaborative approach because everyone’s suicidal episode is not the same. What causes me to feel suicidal is not going to be the same for the next person.

Brief Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been shown to help those with suicidal thoughts and attempts. It can be used in conjunction with CAMS after assessment has been made. It’s important because this therapy helps with the cognition of suicide better than any other treatment. See the work of Craig Bryan for more information about this.

Despite my happiness lasting for a few moments in time today, I still feel a little content, which is better than I have felt the last few months. I don’t know why this has changed and I hope it’s not the bipolar in me shifting to mania. I always get worried when I am not depressed because it is what I am so used to. But I will take it. Tomorrow maybe totally different than today. Hell, tonight might be totally different than what I feel right now. But I don’t feel like taking my life today, and I think that is a good thing.

Agitated and Aggravated

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

Agitated and aggravated

I have not been able to settle down since coming home. I feel really agitated and things are unsettled. The voices are loud but they are mumbling so I can’t understand what they are saying so I am frustrated. I have tried listening to some music to calm me down but that hasn’t worked. It just gets me more agitated. I just took some Ativan and some trilafon to try and calm down because I really would like to sleep before my pain shoots off.

I am really annoyed at my therapist. I really didn’t want to have a session with her but she plays this game with me that if I can come up with a good reason, I can skip the session. I never can come up with a good reason as the reason is, I just don’t want to talk with her, which isn’t a good enough reason. I texted her that she might get my voicemail or I might block her call. I am so annoyed. In order to avoid the phone call, I am tempted to get another Zipcar and go out to see her again. Course, if I do have the phone call, I can just put her on mute. I don’t get why this fucking woman drives me insane.

Then the ballgame was a shit show. Price, who is getting paid $30 million, gags in big games so we lost tonight because he gave up the long ball one too many times. That didn’t help my agitation, at all.

Voices are commanding tonight. They want me to pick a bottle and take the whole thing. I hope the trilafon works soon. I hate this uneasiness I am feeling. It’s partly my fault the voices are out of control. I missed my afternoon dose of trilafon because I was driving today. I hate missing doses but it happens. I have to be better about taking the dose. I want to page my psychiatrist but it’s late. She will just tell me to go to the ER and I don’t want to. They will admit me and I don’t want to be admitted. This will pass. I can handle the voices by ignoring them even though I am agitated.

Well, too late to beat the pain in my ankle. It has just started. Fuck. I just took my pain meds so now I have to wait till they kick in. I hate this feeling. I am feeling out of control and yet I am in control. I had something to eat so that made me feel better as I haven’t eaten much all day. Sometimes not eating will cause me to become agitated, too. I know part of the reason I am aggravated is because I am overtired. I didn’t nap when I came home from therapy like I wanted to. Then my groceries came and I had to put them away. By the time that happened, I was so tired I didn’t know if I should eat or sleep. So I did neither.

I am so tired of fighting myself all the time. It’s really tiring. Actually, it’s exhausting, between the voices, the depression, the physical pain, the emotional pain, and then the emotions that go with it. I just want to die. I don’t know when this will happen. I hope that it will happen soon but I just don’t know. There are so many factors that go into it that I am just plain scared of it so I don’t do anything but think about it. I don’t tell anyone what I am thinking because I don’t want to be stopped. I pick dates. I plan a destination. But will I go through with it? I just don’t know.

Random 850

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

Every night, I take my night time meds between 2000-2100. Sometimes I take them earlier if I am feeling really tired. It seems no matter what time I take them, I am still up till midnight or later. I don’t understand this as I am very tired but I can’t seem to fall asleep as my brain just keep going round and round.

I know I wrote two other blogs today. Some days, I feel up to writing up to three blogs. I don’t think I have ever written four blogs in one day, unless it was a quote or something. Part of the reason I am having trouble sleeping tonight is because there is a skunk smell in my room and it makes me sick. I have to wait for it to pass before I can lie down. It went away and then another skunk smelled up my room so I sprayed my cologne to help get rid of the smell this time. I hate nocturnal animals.

I was listening to some music as I had music running through my head, as usual. Luckily it’s going now, for the moment. Sometimes music doesn’t help wind me down, especially if it’s music I really like. But it helped me write a letter to my friend in Texas. We are going to be Pen pals now as she wants a break from Facebook. I don’t mind letter writing as I love doing it.

My back seems to be fine now that I am not doing anything strenuous. I hope it stays that way because I have to see my therapist Tuesday. I want to give her my cake that I made. It’s really good. I should have put in more pumpkin spice seasoning but the directions doesn’t call for it so I just eyeballed it. It wasn’t enough. I will know for next time.

I tried reading Dostoevsky. I read two chapters and then I had to stop as it was just endless babble. Then I tried reading a new book and that was a bore. I am marking that off my list of books to read. It’s terrible. I will try a different book tomorrow. Maybe I will read more of the “Dark Tide”. It’s kind of hard to read because it has disaster written before it happened and I hate books like that. But I am a stickler for reading a book through once I am into it. The other book I am not into it at all so bye-bye.

I hope the CBT people call me tomorrow. Something tells me that my suicidality is going to be the hold up. I will cringe if it is. Seems I can’t get any new therapist with my suicidal history, which is so damn sad and frustrating. Doesn’t matter though, because if it doesn’t work out, I will just try to kill myself and see if that works out. Screw the system. I know my therapist will be pissed as all hell but oh well. I can’t keep living in this pain that I am in. It’s too much.

Thursday I am hoping to go to the MFA and check out the Frida Kahlo exhibit. I will be wearing my AFO so I shouldn’t have too much trouble walking around, especially if my ankle decides to be a fart. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. But it depends on my pain levels and how I do going out to see my therapist. Sometimes, going out the 30 miles and coming back just takes so much out of me that I need a day or two to rest. I haven’t been so good on resting after doing an activity but I got to be better at it or I am just going to be in more pain. Like tomorrow is going to be a rest day because I did a lot on my feet today with making a cake.

Today marks the 5th month passing of my father. I guess that is why he was on my mind a lot last night. I still don’t know why his last few hours were so much more on my mind than at any other time during my life. I guess it’s because there aren’t that many happy memories that I have of my father. But I will save the bitterness of his actions for another day. He is gone and no longer a control asshole in it so I am free on some level.

Today in BPD chat, there was talk about Marsha Linehan and her DBT stuff, like “life worth living”, “radical acceptance”, and so forth. I respect Marsha because she lived through a lot and then worked to make it so people would live despite the pain they were in. And her treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder works to give people much needed hope. Now it is applied to other areas of mental health and it’s working. My therapist, when she found out about my date, had said to me that we don’t have a life worth living anymore. We never did, least I never did. Maybe she thinks, falsely, that there was something of that semblance in our relationship. I don’t know. I had given up the beginning of September and I still have clung to the notion that my life is over because I can’t see myself going on and on in pain. Soon it will be over in the next few weeks, unless I get into a CBT program and it works. Then my plan will be off the table, least for now.

I have never understood the “life worth living”. It’s a hard concept for me to take in. I understand it. I am not a complete idiot. But I can’t find value of it in my life because of the pain that I am in physically and emotionally. There was a quote that someone had posted and I wish I had take it down or favorited or something. It held some significance to what I was going through and now I can’t remember what it was. I’ll have to go through the transcript of the chat.

A few weeks ago I had sent my psychiatrist my explanations of dying. She wrote back something and I replied that if I should die, she wouldn’t be responsible or to be blamed for my death. I never got a response back. I hope she knows that I meant it.

Sometimes good things happen at 2 AM

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

Sometimes good things happen at 2 A.M.

Last night I was having a hell of a time sleeping. I was in pain but it was bearable. I was more restless than in pain. Then I got overtired, which is never good for me because I tend to dissociate and write bad things. But this time, I wrote a blog that was well received by all involved, though I barely remember writing it. I just remember saying to myself, I have to get to at least 850 words. I did and a little more for a cushion. I then sent it off to every Tom, Dick, and Harry I could think of that would like it, including my therapist and psychiatrist.

When I had therapy today, that was all she wanted to talk about. The blog was amazing to her. She wants me to get it published somewhere. Where, I have no clue. She wanted to know how I could write that good. I told her it was 2 in the morning and that is typically when I do my best writing. I don’t know what it is about that hour, but things come together and click. I told her it was another dissociative writing because I was in and out of consciousness while writing it. I was so damn tired and just wanted to sleep but couldn’t because I needed 850 words. I read it this morning and it was pretty good. I feel proud of myself for writing it.

All we talked about in therapy was what I wrote about in the blog. If she had a psychache scale handy, she would have made me fill one out. I wasn’t up for that. I could barely feel psychache or perturbation or press. I was feeling sleepy and I just wanted to get espresso at Starbucks along with something pumpkin. Or maybe get a burrito. We did talk about my death date and she wanted to know what it was but I wouldn’t tell her. She is hopeful that I will take it off the table. I am still ambivalent about the date, myself. There are some things that I want to do before I die in the next few weeks.

I asked her if she liked pumpkin and she said she did. I told her I was planning on making pumpkin goodies. Now I can pawn on her half the cake I am planning to make so it won’t go to waste. I feel good about this. I can also hand off some cupcakes, too. That is if I find the recipe for them. If I don’t, I am sure I can get one off the internet. I just hope we have hot water by then. Apparently, my brother-in-law is waiting for a part to come in from his work in order to fix our heater. Why the hell he can’t get it from Home Depot is a mystery to me.

I felt therapy went a little better than yesterday’s session. I talked a little bit more than she did. She wishes that I could sleep before midnight so I wouldn’t have the overtired dissociative writing episodes but then, my good writing wouldn’t come of it. She half ordered me to go to bed before midnight. I laughed because I have tried many times to sleep before midnight and usually I don’t succeed. Sometimes I do, but it is rare. It all depends on my pain levels and lately, they haven’t been good to me.