Tag: mental pain

Harry Potter and other things

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

Harry Potter and other things

I made my monthly trip to Harvard Square to pick up my copy of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Just as I thought, it was a script of the London Play that opened up July 30th. It will be interesting to read as I never read a script before. It’s in my pile of “to read” books.

While I was waiting for a friend to get back to me on whether or not we could meet up, there were a ton of police cars racing toward the train station. I have no idea what transpired in the minutes it took for me to walk to the bookstore. I saw that they arrested someone and was being attended to by EMT personnel. Maybe a fight broke out or something. It didn’t affect train traffic, thank goodness. It was all outside the station.

My friend just got back to me. He is booked till late tonight. That’s too bad. I am sure I will be back in the square one of these days so our schedules will match up to meet.

I got really tired as the humidity was bad. It was my first day out in a few days as I have been sleeping almost non stop since Thursday. I had therapy in the afternoon and was pretty alert during session. We talked a little bit about how much the pain is draining me and that I don’t get that much support around my medication issues. My family thinks I shouldn’t be taking anything for my pain or that there should be some magical cure for it. That would be nice but unfortunately, the damage has been done and there is no undoing it.

I did tell my therapist about my sleeping and she said that it could just be that I am exhausted both mentally and physically from dealing with it. I told her the most I have done is taken a shower during the day or afternoon. I took one today and it wasn’t too bad. It woke me up some more. I really wanted to go to Harvard today even though by the time I got to my Square to get coffee, I just wanted to go back home. The bus was there as if taunting me. I walked by and proceeded to Harvard. Also while waiting for my friend to tweet me back, I went to Starbucks and got something to eat. I was kind of hungry as I didn’t eat anything all day. Then when I came home, my mother had a chicken salad. It was good and light. Prevented me from having to cook. I might make something later as those were the only things that I ate.

My therapist didn’t read the blog I sent her so I had to look up what blog I sent her as I didn’t remember. I also don’t remember writing the blog as it was late at night. I was sort of reading it while on the phone with her but it wasn’t registering in my brain. I still have no idea what I wrote. It was about dealing with chronic pain and suicidality. I told my therapist about how I felt about my medication and how it’s really fucking with me right now. I hate being on it but what choice do I have? I hate being on all the meds I am on but again, what choice do I have? And the voices don’t help because they want me to either not take anything or take everything. This is poison, this is okay to take, that isn’t, this is. It’s always a constant battle going on in my head. Most of the times I win, but sometimes I lose. Then it’s more medication to control what I have lost. Sucks. Sure the pressure would be easier if I was in the hospital. They would be controlling my meds but they don’t know how I take my pain meds at home because it’s not written the way I take it. I have tried to get them to change it but it’s no use. I never run out because I still use the same amount of pills a day. I just take two pills instead of 1 twice a day. Sometimes it is more than that but it’s rare. My ex-PCP knows this because I always was straight with him about how I take my meds. But the NP doesn’t ask and I just don’t offer. Then there are days when I am only taking two pills a day. It all depends on my pain level for any given day. But the chronicity of it is what is getting me down.

You would think that after dealing with it for so long (4+ years), I would be used to it by now. I’m not because I could be having low pain like right now and then my pain jumps to 10 in an instant. I could be resting for hours, lie down and wham, pain out of the woodworks. This is why I try to take my pain meds either before my night meds or after because I never know what level pain I am going to be in. That is also hard for me to be in the hospital because I could have no pain, high pain, or low pain. It’s difficult to gauge. And then they are only give me one damn pill and that just pisses me off. I also need to time it right so I can get it on the same shift as day or evening. Only exception is if I wake up in the middle of the night in pain. Then I got night shift to give me my meds. It just sucks.

Dealing with Chronic Pain and Suicidality

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, grief, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, psychache, psychosis, suicidality, suicide, suicide attempt

Dealing with Chronic Pain and Suicidality

Over the past few days, I have been in moderate to severe pain. I have a pain syndrome that flares up without warning, usually right before I am to go to sleep. I will lie down and my ankle and foot will flare up with pain. Normally, I will just take a couple of pain pills, wait for them to kick in and then go to sleep. The pills work because it’s physical pain. What is really troubling me, lately, is the persistent pain, night after night after night.

It doesn’t matter what I do during the day. I can go out, have my daily routine of going to Starbucks and writing for a bit before returning home. I might be out for an hour or two, depending on how much I feel like writing and if the coffee holds out. Lately, despite drinking coffee, I just want to sleep. I have been sleeping more the past week that I have the entire year. A dear friend says that it’s because I haven’t been sleeping and I should take advantage of it because it might not last. I agree with that. It’s unusual for me to sleep all day as I never usually do unless I am deeply depressed.

The other night, I snapped when the pain hit. I became really suicidal and seriously wanted to end my life that night. Trouble was that I was in no position to do it. I vowed never to kill myself in my home where my family members could find me. I have a place that I want to go but the heat has been the only thing holding me back, at the moment. I feel like I don’t have a life. That this battle between chronic pain and depression is just too much to bear. I am tired of fighting it night after night after night.

It’s a tiring battle. I think that is part of the reason I have been so tired lately. I am just mentally and physically exhausted from dealing with my mental illness and my physical illness. No one knows how hard it is unless you deal with one or the other. The past few hours, I have been dealing with a rebound of songs in my head that sound like they are playing but they are not. It’s part of the psychosis. And for the past year, I have been battling that aspect of my illness.

I have known since I was 16 that I needed to be on medication for the rest of my life for my mental illness. I knew there was no other way to deal with it. Through trial and error, I finally found the right combo of meds. Unfortunately, finding the right antipsychotic meds has been elusive. Medications that used to work, no longer do so. I have gone back to the older generation of meds because they work for me better than the second generation. It’s a little bit more riskier because of side effects but I am not on that high of a dose. I just hope that in a month or two I am still on the same medication and that I don’t need to change. That is my fear.

I have known for a very long time the odds of me taking my life is great. I am in the high risk category of risk because of my past history. I can write about this history but it’s not important and will take up too much of time. I just know that one day my life will end by my own hand. I know that this will happen because I feel it. I know that it will happen sometime this year. My biggest fear is that if there is a heaven or hell, I will spend eternity with my father and that is something that sometimes keeps me here. But I don’t believe in those things but who knows what truly happens when you die.

They say that most people who are suicidal just want to end their pain. That is true. I want to end my pain and my suffering because no one can help me with it. Yes, I take pain meds to deal with the physical aspect of my suffering and it does help. But it does nothing for my psychache, for my psychological pain that I feel. I still feel that I should die because I am so damn tired of living this so called life. I don’t have a reason for living. I don’t have a purpose. I have nothing keeping me here. Sure I have my family that are dear to me. But what good is it if I can’t enjoy their presence because of pain? That I can stay with them for a short while and then have to go back up to my room to put my foot up because otherwise I am in too much pain to be good to anyone? Sometimes, I really think that my family and the people in my life will be better off without me.

It’s Friday, not Saturday

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

It’s Friday, not Saturday

After my third nap today, I could have sworn it was Saturday. I had to look at my phone to see what day it is. It was Friday. And it was well after 1700 so I didn’t want to page my psychiatrist. She is going on vacation next two weeks. I am to email her with any problems as her pager is being signed out to another clinician.

I realized now that I am awake that I missed taking my afternoon dose of trilafon. I took it now as I am a little on edge with the voices being rowdy. I did take a shower tonight and brushed my teeth. I have been bad about doing both on a regular basis. I usually do try to remember to brush after my morning pee but sometimes it just doesn’t happen.

Because I have been sleeping so much the past few days, I am a little disoriented as to what the hell day it is. Pain flare ups always do this to me. It didn’t help that I was in the middle of a dream when my fucking crazy cousin called me for the third time today. I just don’t feel like talking to him so I let the phone go to voicemail. He really disrupted my sleeping today because he kept calling. Totally pissed me off.

I finally read a couple of chapters of Cuckoo’s Calling. I really want to get through this book by the weekend so I can start another book. I haven’t gone back to Dostoevsky in a while. I should read some more of that book. I really wanted to finish it by summer’s end and it’s almost August. Monday I will be going to Harvard Square to get another book. It’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It’s basically the script of the play they had in London. I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan so I have to have this book for my collection.

Tomorrow, if I am not in pain and if I wake up early, I plan on going to the Square to read a chapter I promised someone that I would read. It’s 62 pages and I need to have it read and critiqued it by Aug 22nd. I thought I had till October but I read the email wrong. It’s a chapter on the Alderian theory. I have no clue about it, which is why I picked it. I hope to learn from it.

My pain levels have been up and down the past couple of hours. It’s tolerable but I still don’t like it. It’s still making me very uneasy. And I still want to take my life because of it. I just honestly, don’t give a shit anymore. I still wonder if I would be able to take my pills and end my life. It will be a long period to wait till the pills work. And the place that I have picked out wouldn’t be a comfortable place to lay back and wait. I just hope there isn’t people around me when this is happening as it will be a public place. I just don’t want to fail again. That would be worse than dying. Other than my blog, there really isn’t anyone I can talk to about this kind of agony. If I talk to my psychiatrist, I might get hospitalized. If I talk to my therapist, it will just be analyzed and stored but not discussed openly. I can’t talk to a family member because they just want to “cure” me of my ailment, that I should see another doctor that might help me. Or go back to the one I see for more treatment, like they have to have some magical cure.

Don’t get me wrong, the meds that I take for my pain are adequate. They work as long as I take them. But it’s the taking them night after night after night that is what’s bothering me. The pain is relentless. It doesn’t matter what I do or don’t do anymore, I just hurt. And I am tired of hurting for no reason.

Major shopping done and the suicidality from last night

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, mental disorders, mental illness, mood disorders, physical pain, psychache, psychosis, suicidality, suicide

Major shopping done and the suicidality from last night

I got my monthly groceries today. I just finished putting everything away that needed to be put away. The breads I left out for my mother to deal with as the refrigerator needs some shuffling. I am not good at that. I am disappointed they didn’t have my hot dogs and one of the 12 pks I ordered, they decided to give me two 2L bottles. I rather they just give me a credit. I should have sent them back with the guy. But oh well. I have my diet soda that I drink. It’ll come in handy on these hot days.

I must have spent 15 minutes shopping at Walmart and walked out with $66 worth of clothes. It was all the shorts that I needed for the summer as I was wearing out the jean shorts I kept on wearing. I figure it will last me three years at least. That was the last time I went clothes shopping. I hate shopping for clothes. If something doesn’t catch my eye right away, I don’t get it. There were clothes I wanted to get but they didn’t have my size. I was disappointed.

After shopping at Walmart, I went to my therapy appointment. We talked about last night. I am glad that I didn’t email my psychiatrist at like 2 am. I know I would have received a phone call this morning if I did. I was not in good space. My ankle is starting to throb but it was nothing like last night. I still feel like I should be dead. I told my therapist I had every intention to cancel our appointments for next week but she wouldn’t have one word of it. I also told her I felt like texting her but I didn’t feel like it because I knew we would end up talking about it. She told me I could text her any time, day or night. That is good and all but it sucks when you don’t get a response back. I didn’t tell her this.

Our conversation was all over the place. Whenever there was a break, she brought us back to the suicidality. She wanted to know more about it. I really don’t remember much, though I still remember feeling suicidal. I think if I had a solid plan, I probably would have executed it today, regardless of the consequences. I woke up really groggy as I didn’t go to sleep till well after 0200. I did text my therapist around 0211 so I was still up at that time. I just said I was in a “dangerous mood”. I really didn’t want to get up but I couldn’t forfeit the Zipcar. It was well past the time I could cancel it so I forced myself up. I was so sleepy that I didn’t even get myself coffee before leaving Boston. I was half way to my therapist’s location when I realized I didn’t get coffee as I was getting sleepy on the road. I am so glad there is a Starbucks near her office that I always go to. I also got something to eat as I was getting hungry.

I should probably email my psychiatrist and let her know what happened last night and that I am still feeling suicidal. It was very difficult NOT to do something last night as I just was fed up with being in pain all the time, night after night after night. I wish it was close to 2000 so I could take my meds and go to bed. I am so fricken tired. I tried taking a nap before the groceries got here but some idiot from South Carolina called me and woke me up. It was a sign because it was close to when my delivery was scheduled to be delivered. So I never got my nap. I so could use a coffee but I don’t want to fuck up my sleep further.

There was hardly any traffic on the way home, thank goodness. I had enough time to make a run to my house to drop off my shopping bags and then return the car. I am glad I have a location near my house that is within walking distance. There is another location near me but it’s up a hill and I don’t do hills. If I could, I wouldn’t be disabled. My ankle already didn’t like the walk back home but I took my pain meds to quiet it down.

This is why I don’t understand why I got so suicidal last night. It’s not like I don’t have meds for my pain. I do and they work, though taking them before the pain is bad has always been a challenge. I could just take them and within minutes my pain can climb or it could be two hours after I take the meds and then my pain shoots up. There is no rhyme or reason to what brings me pain. The slightest movement seems to make it explode and for some reason, it hurts threefold when I lay down versus when I am sitting up. But I can’t sleep while sitting. It hurts my back and neck being in that position all the time. I have tried to use a pillow and sleep but I always turn over on my side and sleep, sometimes with the sitting pillow as a back support or it ends up on the floor.

I told my therapist about the anger that I was feeling last night when the pain happened to get out of control. I really wanted to punch a wall. I was so done. I have no idea what will happen tonight if my pain returns when I try and sleep. I know part of the reason is because I thought I took my pain meds but I didn’t. I usually take them either before my night meds or after but because I was watching the game last night, things kind of didn’t follow my routine. I also now realize that I was on my feet more because I washed dishes before going up to bed. That could have been why the pain was so intense last night. I did them because my mother would flip if I left them for her in the morning.

I feel really sad that I got so suicidal last night and didn’t act on my feelings even though they were really strong. I think if the voices were not controlled I probably wouldn’t have stayed safe. I don’t know what I would do as most of my medication is three feet from me and I don’t think my foot would have allowed the journey, no matter how suicidal I was. I knew things would be better in the morning (even though technically it was morning) but I couldn’t see it. I had to do something and ended up doing nothing. I feel like a failure.