Tag: mental pain

venting about mental illness and suicide

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, mental illness, psychache, suicide, suicide attempt

Spent most of the day today watching my seven year old niece. She was playing on her computer while I was playing on mine. After I finished my games, I decided to read this new book I downloaded for research purposed, why do people have to die by suicide by Thomas Joiner, PhD. It is a good book so far and I find it stimulating. I have been taking notes which I probably will end up writing into a paper that I am working on.

I recently read an article about a mother who’s son has severe mental illness and behavior issues. Three days before the shoot out in CT, this mother had her son committed because he told her he was going to kill himself. The value of the message was to understand serious mental illness though I do not how much more serious mental illness can be. You have something that is mentally unstable. I have a serious mental illness that wants me to claim my life. I hear voices that taunt everything I do but I have never been violent towards another person and god help me, hope I never will. I just want to kill myself because I am a sorry excuse for a human being. I don’t blame my parents or my siblings for the way I turned out. It just happens to be who I am, I may not accept it but it is who I am. I know that some day I will ultimately end my life by my own hand. I know because I think about it every day. But I will NOT take another person’s life other than my own. Do I need to have a lifetime commitment because I am so suicidal? Probably but insurance companies don’t see it that way. As long as you are not in “imminent” danger to harm yourself or others, you cannot be allowed to stay in the hospital for more than a few days time, against your will. I have been there many times and even though I have chronic suicidality, I have never been kept beyond the three days or two weeks because of my suicidality. I might have been kept because the voices were telling me to harm myself, but never because I said I was suicidal after the three days. The mental health system is wrong and should be address these issues I am stating. Because maybe a longer admission is what I need to get better. I have intense psychotherapy with my therapist twice sometimes three times a week and still feel suicidal. I have been on every drug used for psychiatry and yet I still feel suicidal. How am I to live my life when I want to end it so much? How am I supposed to work and go to school when thinking about my death is all that matters to me? No hospital can change it. No psychiatrist can and no psychotherapist can. So the blame then gets shifted on to me. It’s my fault for not “wanting” to get better, that my negative attitude/emotions are what is causing me to be suicidal. If I change my attitude, I will be happier. It’s all bullshit. It’s not my fault being this way anymore than it’s a dying person with cancer fault because they have cancer. And believe me, I would much rather trade places with them because I know they are going to die while this “emotional cancer” is eating me alive and no one can see it. And no one wants to help me either. I can only save myself if I want to. Well, I give up. I don’t want to anymore. What purpose will living my life that I know is only going to end up six feet under. I have thought about cremation but the cost is the same. I thought about buying my own plot somewhere but I really don’t care what my family does with my remains. They are of no use to me anymore. So I am giving myself some time before I do it. And hopefully within this time frame things will change. Because if they don’t I am dead and there is nothing anyone can do to stop me.

physical pain and suicide

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, CES, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, mood disorders, physical pain, suicide, suicide attempt

Physical pain and suicide

 

Past two weeks I have had two episodes of really bad physical pain that had me in tears and wanting to end my life. I didn’t do anything to spark this pain, such as dropping a brick on my foot or stubbing my toe. The pain went deeper than that. And despite taking pain medication, I still was in agony. People think that all you have to do is take a pill to make pain go away and most times it works. But what do you do when you have a condition that doesn’t allow for that?

I have what is known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, CRPS for short, in my left foot. I got it because of another long name diagnosis called Cauda Equina Syndrome, CES for short. I got this former condition as a result of a ruptured disc when I was twenty-five. I didn’t know that it would result in the CRPS until now. Since I was twenty-five, I never learned how to walk correctly and pulled muscles that were not meant for walking. Because of this overuse, I developed CRPS after eleven years of dealing with CES. I have been suffering with CRPS for the past 2 years and it sucks. Every pain flare up feels like it is going to last forever. I am on disability because I can no longer work as a lab assistant. I can’t walk long distances, or stand too long on my feet, which working in the lab you do all the time. You are constantly getting up and down going to the different areas of the lab for the different testing that we do.

The pain started after I sprained my ankle on some ice in the winter of 2011. I went to several different doctors but no one could tell me what was wrong. All the x-rays, MRI’s, and physical condition of my ankle were normal except for some minor swelling near my peroneous muscles and tendons. It is when these get really swollen that I am in agony. As I am typing this, my foot feels really cold, like it is soaking in ice water. But to the touch, it is warm. I have a sock on it to prevent it from cramping. I have to protect my foot at all times from the cold to prevent cramps that are eye popping and then my foot becomes really sore. I don’t have any physical discoloration like typical CRPS. I think if I did I would have an easier diagnosis.

This pain drives me to suicidal crises every single time it flares up. The last time this happened was last week. I didn’t do anything, but I really wanted to die. I am almost out of my pain pills as I have been gobbling them up like candy to try and take control of my pain. I see my PCP next week to get something for flare ups. If he doesn’t do anything for me then I am afraid that things do not look good for me, at least mentally. I wrote a letter to my psychiatrist when I had this pain flare up. She understands the only time lately I become suicidal is when my physical pain becomes unbearable. And my pain is never during normal business hours. It is during the after hours, wee hours of the morning. I can be up all night because of pain. And no matter what I take, once it starts it seems never ending until exhaustion comes into play and I get some relief. Only then do I become a “different person mentally.” The events of the night before seem remote, like they happened to someone else. I guess you can say I dissociate from the pain and what is killing me.

Pain flare ups are hard to predict. Sometimes they come up when I do too much. Making cookies one time caused a flare up. Washing dishes will cause another. Standing more than a half hour for the bus will cause another. I never know what to do when I feel the pain coming on. My first instinct is to pop a pill and try and relax. After a bit I will take a muscle relaxer to prevent anxiety and spasms/cramps. Sometimes this will work, sometimes it won’t. It’s when it won’t that the suicidal self goes into play and all I can think about is death. I often play my fantasy of what the doctor will say if he doesn’t give me pain medication. That truly terrifies me. I often come up with me telling him to sign my death certificate, because that is what will happen. I can’t live with this level of pain every day. Right now it is not so bad. I have restarted another mood stabilizer and it seems to be helping but I still feel I need a longer acting medication that I can use for flare ups and to get me to sleep better. Because without the benefit of sleep, nothing is worth a dime.

my attempt story

by Midnight Demon, posted in mental disorders, suicide, suicide attempt

I have struggled with suicidality for most of my life. I first thought of ending my life when I was eight years old. I don’t remember why but just felt like ending my life would solve my problems. I never grew out of feeling this way.

I took my first attempt when I was sixteen. I tried several more times after this. I was in a dark hole and wanted to get out of it. My therapist of ten months told me she was moving out of state and that we would have to end. I was shocked and hurt. I felt like there was no one who could help me anymore. I didn’t understand that this was her thing and had nothing to do with me. I just felt like I was a hopeless case and my mood went from black to the abyss. I had to do something to get over these feelings and came up with trying to kill myself with an overdose. I planned it out so that I wouldn’t be stopped. The one thing I didn’t account for was getting sick on the pills I took. After this, I felt so empty inside. I felt like a complete failure and that nothing was ever going to change. I was a loser and was always going to be one. My life as I knew it was over. I have never felt so hopeless than what I did this time of my life. But this feeling of worthlessness was to follow me a couple years later.

My first attempt was when I was a sophomore in high school. My next attempt was after I graduated from high school and was supposed to start college. I never started college. I ended up in the hospital for the next six months, in and out, for suicidal thinking and for an attempt. I again attempted to take my life with a drug known to kill at high doses. I decided to take a tenth of the dose to see if it would work this time. In my intoxicated state, I called my therapist at the time to tell her what I was doing. Little did I know it would lead to a two month hospitalization.

After my hospitalization, I started college at a new school. It wasn’t the one that I wanted to go to but I needed to do something with my time. Having time on your hands is a bad thing when you suffer from depression. I started school and met someone that accepted me for who I was. At this time I felt like I was splitting. I didn’t think I could be whole again. I felt like no one would like me because I had scars on my wrist and if they found out how mentally sick I was, I was going to be labeled crazy. But meeting my friend from Nebraska changed all that. We became the best of buds and he truly saved my life. By accepting all parts of me, he showed me that I could be loved and accepted and truly cared for.

a little more about me

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

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.

I’ve know since I was in kindergarten that I was different than the other girls in my class because I wanted to play with “boy” toys rather than with dolls. I found playing dress up boring as all hell and mostly destroyed my dolls as my mother would tell you. I would always take my toys apart, wonder how they worked but could never put them back together again as I would end up destroying them.

I didn’t mind being different. This was a time where I still thought I was straight so I thought that if a boy liked me, he had to like me for who I was rather than what I am. I still feel this way today, though to a greater extent than a five year old’s thinking. I just know that I was a boy though I could not express what I was feeling. Everyone called me a girl and I just could not understand why. It wasn’t until I started my menarche that I inwardly defied being a “woman” and the feelings of wanting to die grew stronger. I knew there was no way in hell I could tell my parents I was a boy. My father downright refused to let me play sports because I was a “girl” and that hurt more than anything. I couldn’t play soccer but I could play basketball when I got to high school. I still don’t know why I had to go to the girls room and be on the girls team but I just figured I was following the rules of play and that was what I did. I hated starting arguments so I just played along. It wasn’t until I was in my early thirties that the realization of me growing into a boy was not going to happen. I think I am a boy for many reasons. I have hair in places most girls do not and I have facial hair. I love wearing men’s clothing, doing men things like watching sports, and my closest friends are men. I tend to think more of man things like how things work and other stuff that is being more than just being a tomboy. Terri Clark is a tomboy but she shows her feminine side at times. I don’t feel I have a feminine side and would hate it if I did. Things like make up and jewelry just don’t interest me. I think just having one pair of shoes is sufficient, I hate shopping, and I can’t stand hair products.

The depression gets bad and I am always hating myself. I hate my appearance. I hate my body. I hate me, I actually loath and despise myself. There is no other term I can describe how much I hate myself for not being who I really am. This constant pretending is killing me. But I don’t think about it often because it will just drive the suicidal self into action if I do. For years I have kept a lid on who I really was but I can’t do that anymore because it just hurts too much. I have to be who I am and if anyone can’t understand it, then they don’t need to be in my life. It hurts when the pronoun gets misused. I love it when I am called sir but then I kind of feel really bad when they correct it. Unfortunately, now that I am severely overweight, my figures are more defined so I am being called Ma’am more often and it hurts. Sometimes with baggy clothes or jacket I can still be called sir or mister but that is rare these days. I hardly go out anymore. I just can’t face the world. I have become reclusive to my own surroundings. I hate going out for anything even if it is for my one cup of Joe a day.