Tag: mental pain

Saturday Blog 84

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

Saturday Blog 84

I woke up around 10 because my bladder said to. I wasn’t able to go back to sleep so I made coffee. After my coffee, I went to Walgreens to pick up my script. It was really hot out but not humid. As I was trying to find my dark chocolate, I came across an ankle compression sleeve that supposedly helps your heel. I hope it will help my Achilles. It was $13 so I bought it. I will use it the next time I go out or when my Achilles flares up around the house.

I had no problems walking, which was good. I never know if my ankle is going to go berserk on me or not. I didn’t wear my AFO brace. I thought about going to the square but I had my burger fix last night. I am just going to lay low today and maybe read Huck Finn as I haven’t touched it in more than a month now. I am half way through reading it. I am getting behind my reading because my pain is so bad I don’t feel like cracking open a book.

I joined a CRPS group on Facebook. It is mostly people in the UK but I haven’t been able to get accepted in any US based groups. I requested to join and haven’t had a response. It’s been good joining this group as people have been responsive to my posts and seem more accepting than the other group I was in. I left it because there were people against my use of opioids for my treatment of pain. They are under the idiotic impression that it’s just an addicting drug and shouldn’t be used at all, only for short term use. It’s bullshit as I would be dead without my meds. The pain is not relieved by any other drug that I have tried.

Today is Boston Pride day and there is a huge parade in Boston. I don’t go because I don’t like crowds. They give me anxiety. So on Twitter, I talked about coming out as trans. I wrote a little story about it using the hashtag Pride2017. I got one like and that was for my post on my memoir. I don’t care. If people read my story, hope it can help others struggling with coming out. I will write a longer blog about it later today. I want to talk about it because it is freeing and lifts my burden. Eventually I will come out to my mother. I am getting close to getting the courage to tell her. I know she isn’t going to accept me for being a man. That is the only thing keeping me from telling her because I fear her rejection of me. It’s bad enough she doesn’t like my haircuts and the clothes I wear.

My new watch came in yesterday and today for some reason, I feel naked without it on. I usually don’t wear it in the house because I have my phone to tell me the time and date. Guess I am just excited that I have a new watch. Tomorrow I think I might go to my little cousin’s graduation party. It’s going to be a long day for me so I am not sure I can handle it. I feel like using a zipcar just so I can have my own transportation home if I need to leave. I can only handle the family events for so long before I get bored and my ankle acts up. My cousin’s house is by the beach. I think the weather is going to be similar today but a few degrees cooler. It will be perfect beach weather. I am not a beach person but I do like to stick my feet in the water. I just hope my pain is manageable tomorrow or it’s going to be difficult for me to go. We’ll see though.

don’t call me daughter 4

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

Don’t call me daughter 4

My family had dinner at my house. We had lasagna that my mother made. It was going good. Then after dinner we just sat around chatting. That when someone said something about my haircut and my mother shrieked and said I was hideous. She couldn’t stand to look at me. And she kept calling me a her. That triggered my suicidal tendencies.

I felt like coming out as most of the family was around. I knew I would have the support of my sisters. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it because I felt like I would just leave and never come back. I would have grabbed my lethal bottle of pills along with my other pills so I don’t throw them up and make it to my suicide spot to have it over and done with.

I still am feeling hurt hours later. I felt like talking to my sister but I know she would just say that I should just “let it go”. How can I when you own mother tells you to your face you are hideous because of your military haircut? I get no support from her at all. This just seals the icing on the cake.

I so badly wanted to correct my sister and mother when they were calling me “she” and “her”. I felt so hurt. The pain was so indescribable that I could feel it and not feel it at the same time. I was just shocked because she said it in front of my sisters, my brother in law, and my nephew. I don’t remember if my little niece was there or not. My mother actually shivered in disgust as she talked about how hideous I looked with my haircut.

I love my haircut and I think I will continue to get this cut every time I go to the barber, if I don’t end up killing myself within the next week or so. I have never felt so ashamed to be my mother’s child as I did last night. I am her first born and to be treated this way, just kills me inside.

My physical pain has taken on it’s life on its own. I have had severe pain the last three days. It starts in my foot and then travels to my ankle. I am getting more and more reliant on my strong pain pill, which is just causing havoc with my bowels. And when you have a nerve injury, things don’t move the way they should anyway. Constipation makes it worse. I have been having to push so much that at times I feel like I am going to pass out. It fucking sucks. It’s only putting more nails in my coffin.

If the weather wasn’t supposed to be so shitty today, I would attempt to end my life. I had emailed my psychiatrist that I wished I was never born. I also posted it on social media and I got the typical “you shouldn’t say that”. Why the fuck not?? It’s my fucking life. You don’t know what I have been through. You don’t know the hell my mother is putting me through. Would it be better if I just died by suicide?? I think it would be. I am tired of living anyway. I have nothing worth living for. I am disabled and there is nothing I can do to change that. I can no longer work or even go to school, mostly because I don’t make the money to go. It’s hard to come up with or save $1200 for one college class on disability. It makes me sad that my dream of just even getting my bachelor’s degree is stuck. Looking back, I should have gone to UMB to get my degree rather than an Associate’s. But what is done is done.

in a very depressed mood

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

In a very depressed mood

Pain has been with me for most of the day. I tried to nap and then my ankle was like “no, you can’t.” I got tired from my night meds and tried to sleep and the same thing happened. I just took some Neurontin, hoping it knocks out some of the nerve pain that I am feeling. My teeth hurt, the whole top so I am not sure if I should see a dentist or a doctor. It could be sinuses as I have been stuffy the past few weeks due to allergies. I am so frustrated that I am having yet another pain in my body.

As I was lying there pondering if I should just lay in bed or take yet more medication, I started to think about ending my life in a couple of weeks. I have the plan. I have the meds. I just need a solid date to play it all out. I want out of this world. I don’t see the good in it and I don’t feel so great about it.

I was going through my blogs. I do this from time to time. I came across one that was very depressing as I was talking about my transgender issues and how people see me. It’s bothering me more and more. I don’t have the energy to correct people anymore. I just let it go.

Apparently sitting up decreases my pain but I can’t sleep sitting up so I am fucking screwed. I hate being in pain. It’s driving the suicidal buttons to a new level. I emailed my neurologist about a TENS unit to see if that would help. She wrote back this morning and said it could help. There is a 50% chance. I don’t like those odds, especially as the device is expensive. I’ll put it on my back burner though and see how it goes.

I just can’t get out of this pain cycle that I am in. Today is really hot. I am glad I have the AC cranking. I had to put a long sleeved shirt on because I got kind of cold. I am wearing a tank top. I just had my lunch and my mother will be making spaghetti soon. I am getting hungry, even though I just ate. I didn’t eat anything all day as I woke up late. I really want a damn burger so tomorrow after my psych appointment I am going to get some.

I am feeling really depressed, like I can’t cope anymore. Everything is either pissing me off or depressing me. I know it’s the pain. Always the pain. I just can’t get away from it. It’s will me all the time, in one form or another. I was thinking of increasing the Zoloft but why bother. I just had an increase a few months ago. It helped for a while and now I am back to being depressed. Seems I always need a higher dose and then I am maxed out. The meds stop working for me. I should just end my life and be done with it.

I heard another musician died by suicide. I don’t know him as I never heard the group Soundgarden. One of my friends went off about suicide not being the answer, ever. If she only knew of the pain that I deal with on a daily basis. This is worse than a cancer patient’s pain. Least they will have an end. I don’t have an end unless I make one.

My mother jibed at me again today, because I was wearing a long sleeved shirt. It’s 90 degrees or more in the house and she asked if I was cold in her condescending tone. I just walked away. I don’t even think I answered her. I was tired of taking it off when going downstairs. I don’t know why she always has to give me a hard time on the way I dress, like I am a little kid.

I feel like life is unbearable right now. I just am so underground. There is no daylight. My heart is heavy and my ankle is throbbing again. I get no relief whatsoever. Death is all I think about these days. It makes me happy knowing I have a way out of this damned misery. One day I will end my pain. One day. And soon.

Review: ASAD, Acute Suicidal Affective Disturbance

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

Review ASAD: Acute Suicidal Affective Disturbance

This article was written earlier this year and I was able to get it to evaluate it. The following are my thoughts about it:

Suicide affects over 800,000 people worldwide but there is not much in terms of preventing death by suicide or attempts. Risk factors mostly focus on suicide ideation. Even though the DSM 5 has created a SBD (suicidal behavior disorder), it is something to be explored but not a full diagnosis. The authors of this article have proposed the diagnosis of Acute Suicidal Affective Disturbance because it is a relatively immediate response to stress or some other factor. The criteria is:

• A geometric increase in suicidal intent over the course of hours or days, as opposed to weeks or months
• One of both of the following: marked social alienation (e.g., severe social withdrawal, disgust with others, perceptions that one is a burden on others) or marked self-alienation (e.g., self-disgust, perceptions that one’s psychological pain is a burden)
• Perceptions that the foregoing are hopelessly intractable
• Two or more manifestations of overarousal (i.e., agitation, insomnia, nightmares, irritability)

All four criteria must be present for a diagnosis and must not be the direct result of an exasperation of a mood disorder or substance use. I am guessing this means that a mixed state would exclude the diagnosis. I also wrote to the primary author, Megan Rogers, to find out if a medical condition would be exclusionary, such as a chronic pain condition, but it hasn’t been established.

Exclusionary criteria for the studies were active psychotic symptoms, imminent danger to self or others, and unmedicated bipolar spectrum disorders.

343 outpatients from a university-affiliated clinic were enrolled in the study. Various measures were used to assess anxiety, depression, suicide ideation, anger, dream activity, etc. 7,698 inpatients were enrolled in the second part of the study. Measures were a little different than the outpatient sample, as the SSF-II (Suicide Status Form) was used to measure ASAD symptoms as opposed to the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation. The SSF-II has a good validity rate (Jobes et.al., 1997). Other measures were length of stay (mean 7.54 days, SD 6.41), PHQ-9, and past suicide attempts.
The statistics of the tables were confusing to me as I am not a stats person so I can’t really interpret the results. The discussion had good markers for ASAD being a diagnosis and I went from there. One take away was that ASAD was associated with numerous psych disorders but was not redundant in association to suicide risk. It was related to past suicide attempts above and beyond symptoms of depression, which I think is important. Depression symptoms only tell one side of the story and not all people with depression are suicidal or have thoughts of suicide.

As with this being relatively new, more research is needed in multiple areas to ascertain whether this can be a useful diagnosis in the management of suicidal behaviors or even to prevent suicide. The authors did note that once ASAD is established, good safety planning is necessary to monitor suicidality throughout the course of treatment. This is important in all therapeutic endeavors when dealing with suicidal individuals, even if the episode has passed. A tailor made plan must be made, not a “one size fits all” model.

Acute Suicidal affective disturbance: Factorial structure and initial validation across psychiatric outpatient and inpatient samples. Rogers,M. Chiurliza, B. Hagan, CR. Tzoneva, M., Hames, JL., Michaels, MS., Hitchfield, MJ., Palmer, BA., Lineberry, TW.,Jobes, DA., Joiner, TE. Journal of Affective Disorders 211 (2017) 1-11