Tag: mental pain

Suicide is painless

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, suicide, suicide attempt

Suicide is painless

I wish that statement were true. It would make my suicide planning that much easier. I have decided to end things this weekend. I don’t know if I will go through with it or if my pesky therapist will intervene and have me hospitalized. She is going to call my pdoc and tell her I am suicidal. I have been upfront with my pdoc all week. She knows the ups and downs I have been having. But she doesn’t know that this weekend will hopefully be my last. I am tired of living in pain.

I am thinking of all that I have to do. I need to write letters and leave instructions. I hope to mail out the books for my review. Kind of sad that I wrote a book about being an attempt survivor and then I kill myself. But I can’t worry about that now. I have decided to let my friend be the person to do the informing. To call my therapist and let her know I am gone. I tried telling her that today but she was so stubborn she didn’t want to hear it. Idiot. I will leave notes for my family. I know it is going to be rough for them. But I am tired of suffering all the time. I am tired of being suicidal and not acting on it. I just hope I can fool my pdoc Friday enough to get by so that I can do the deed this weekend.

I am so in the pit of depression, the familiar abyss. I still haven’t decided on a method to end my life. That is one of the problems with depression, you can’t decide things easily when you are faced with many choices.

I hope to be cremated as that is the cheapest and I want my ashes spread over my childhood place where all my thoughts went by Chelsea Creek. I hope my family carries out my wishes.

My therapist and pdoc are not to blame for this. I am a hopeless case. I am worthless and meaningless. It bothers me that I have known these people for more than a decade and I still am suicidal. I haven’t changed, I guess. Once you are suicidal, you always will be suicidal.

A cousin of mine from Virginia sent me an email today. He said he couldn’t understand why I think about suicide. And in response to that, I can’t think of why he values life. I just don’t understand why people want to live. There were two suicides today. One on the East coast and one on the West coast. The east coast had a jumper from a bridge. The west coast had a person who jumped in front of a train. I am sure there were other suicides today but those are the ones I know I about. Two random people lost their lives today and I am happy for them because I know they are no longer suffering. And soon, I won’t be suffering neither.

wondering if it was all a dream

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, mood disorders, suicide

wondering if it was all a dream

I took yesterday off from blogging. I was in too much emotional pain to get my thoughts together. I emailed my psychiatrist today to tell her how I was feeling. I see her Friday but my last message to her was about how suicidal I was. I wanted to tell her that has lifted a bit but I still have a profound depression that is rearing its ugly head. I also wanted to let her know I got my fucking menses again. For the past several weeks, I have been dealing with the self-hate of being TG. Now having my menses are just fucking with me and my self-worth. I came pretty close to doing something this time. I had the suicidal impulses and that to me was scary. I didn’t do anything, other than take an extra Ativan to calm down the perturbation/impulsivity. Most of the suicidal thoughts are gone since I started menstruating, which isn’t supposed to happen because I am on pills to stop the fucker. But I still am in tough depression.

So I emailed my psychiatrist and told her, plainly, what was going on. I bet she probably figured out before I did that my suicidal tendencies were due to hormonal shifts. I did tell her the next time it happens, I might not be so lucky. One would think that because I have no job, that writing has become more than a hobby for me, and that I keep myself occupied, I shouldn’t really be depressed. MYTH! I could be deeply depressed even if I was working a full-time job. I know, I have been deeply depressed for years when I was working full-time. Now my writing has taken a little more of a hobby capacity. It has become my livelihood. You could say that I am living because I blog. But after a while, I can’t think of something fresh to write about and the depression hinders my thinking. I panic when this happens. I never know when a depressive episode is going to land me in the hospital. I know my hospitalizations have decreased over the years but I still need one a year, lately. It is just a way for me to recharge my batteries. I hate going in because it sucks waiting in the ER for a long time. I get bored and have to try not to use all the battery on my phone because reception sucks and it drains it all. I usually bring myself to the hospital because I don’t want my family to know. Should I be in the hospital because of this last suicidal episode? I don’t know. I am not feeling like ending my life as much as I did this weekend. My therapist was confused about the texts I sent her. It wasn’t a clear SOS. But then, I always become deceptive when I am suicidal. You can’t kill yourself if a professional knows the 411. Course, if I sent the same message to my pdoc, it probably would have landed me in the hospital. My pdoc doesn’t mess around.

I still wonder why I am still here. I should be dead with how heavy the suicidal thoughts were a yesterday. Course yesterday feels like it was ages ago. I am not saying I lost time. I was fully present throughout the day but now that I have my stupid menses, those heavy thoughts are no longer there and I am wondering if it was all a dream. Every time I get those experiences, I often wonder afterwards, was it a dream. But I know from the texts and blogs I wrote it wasn’t.

My therapist read the therapy and coffee blog that I sent her. She is a little embarrassed about it because I make her sound like a nut job. That wasn’t my intention. I asked her if she wanted me to take it down. She said no because I am free to write whatever I feel like writing. But now I am wondering if I should write a blog about lyrics and therapy. I worked hard on the coffee blog. I would hate to take it down.

Therapy and Coffee

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, depression, mood disorders, suicide

18-July-14

Coffee and therapy

Last night I read blogs about how a therapist lost a patient to suicide and how he got through it, two years later. It started to get me thinking about my journey with my therapist. Though this isn’t a linear story and is not about what went on in therapy, it is a story about how coffee brought me closer to my therapist and formed a bond that we didn’t know about at the time.

I was not always a Starbucks coffee drinker. Like many Bostonians, Dunkin Donuts coffee was sufficient. But once you have experienced a full bodied coffee, you can never go back to their coffee. My therapist’s office had an Au Buon Pain French bakery across the street. They sell great coffee. After having their coffee, I really couldn’t go back to Dunkin. I started drinking their coffee and found that I like it much better than Dunkin, even if it cost a little more.

A funny story about the Au Buon Pain coffee. Usually by mid-session I would be finished with my coffee and I would play with the cup, mainly playing with the protective sleeve by picking at the corners. During one session, it was getting intense, and I was playing with the empty cup. Some how the lid flew off in the direction of my therapist sitting across from me. We both laughed at the symbolism and meaning of with this lid. But I guess the lid meant more to her as she kept the it after session that day. It was just a plastic coffee lid to me but she found a treasured object. When we started exchanging gifts sometimes after my 30th birthday (my birthday falls near Christmas), I received the lid back with a corny message. She had placed it in a picture frame and on the back was the message. I am unable to find this frame at this time and I don’t remember what the lid said. I just laughed.

I have a sensitive stomach so it wasn’t too long before my gastritis would act up over my one cup of coffee a day. I think it was around this time that I switched to Starbucks. I figured I couldn’t go wrong with espresso diluted with milk. At first, I couldn’t tolerate the switch as it has been forever since I had a glass of milk. But after a while I got used to it and I am now a full time Starbucks junkie.

It didn’t matter what office we were at, there was always a Starbucks I could find. I swear I have an internal GPS Starbucks locator in my brain. When she first moved to Framingham, 30 miles from her Cambridge location, she said there weren’t any Starbucks nearby. I found two within two miles of her office. I would always have my mocha during sessions. During one session, the lid came off again and this time I spilled my drink on her fancy rug. I felt so bad. Starbucks had changed their covers to flimsy plastic and it didn’t fit right on the cup. This time, my therapist didn’t keep the lid.

I think I have consumed more Starbucks coffee over the years than any other establishment in my area. I now make their coffee at home, which further debilitates my staying in the house. But then, I will only drink Starbucks coffee. Occasionally and in a pinch, I will have Dunkins or Au Buon Pain or even the local convenient store coffee. I still have remained a loyal customer even though the price of their coffee has gone up over the years. I used to solely drink their espresso drinks, but since they out with the Clover system, which makes one cup of coffee at a time, I have gone back to coffee. It is cheaper than the espresso drinks. I have yet to try espresso by itself, however.

Through all the coffee consumption, I still have the same therapist. She has been with me for the past 13+ years. Next month will be technically our 14th year. I say technically because I had my first session with her in 2000 but because she didn’t take my insurance at the time, I couldn’t see her. When I changed my insurance the following year, I called her up and was happy to find that she still was accepting new clients.

Her vacation this year will be welcome. I need a break from her. It’s not that she is doing anything wrong, it’s just that I need some space. I know that I’ll probably write her letters while she is gone. I have always written her letters to say what I cannot talk about. Mostly I write to vent and then I forget what I write. They (researchers) says it’s a cathartic response. And most of what I write is cathartic. Of the more than 700 blogs I have written over the last two years since starting my blog, the only ones I specifically remember are the papers I have posted. The rest I may remember from a tag or title but sometimes, I have found, the title isn’t what the blog is about.

My therapist started her practice at the middle of Mass Ave in Cambridge. She moved down the street several times until her final destination was 30 miles away. Each move, I went with her. She could have stopped seeing me at any point in the consolidation of her practices, as she called it. Course it was very difficult when her final destination was Framingham. I don’t have a car so we communicate mostly by phone. I try to get my sister’s car at least once a month to visit her but it sometimes doesn’t work out because of my pain levels. And usually, I will get a coffee before starting the trip. It’s anywhere from 45 mins to an hour and a half from where I live to her office. It all depends on the traffic. And which route I go. I mostly go one route that is through several towns rather than go the direct route, which is the highway. The highway would be faster but I have had one too many tire blow outs and I am just too afraid now to go that way. It has traumatized me to the point I will only go if I have a very reliable car. My last tire blow out, I thought I was going to get killed because I was stuck in the middle of the road and a semi was coming in hot after me. Since that day I only use that highway only if I absolutely have to.

As much as my therapist is a “PITA” (Pain In The Ass), she is also stubborn. We will butt heads frequently about sessions to my safety. Since she calls me a suicidologist, I have often brought in tools to help with the suicidal thoughts and ideation. Before then, we just used with the “no harm contracts” which suck. Now we use a Crisis response plan. See this blog to find out more about it. It’s good I see a stubborn therapist. The only thing I hate is that she NEVER allows me to cancel a session anymore. I used to be able to cancel whenever I didn’t feel like going in. Those days are long gone. If I cancel due to a legit reason, say my father’s doctor appointment, I need to reschedule. We always meet twice a week. Very rarely do I see her once a week, though when my suicidality, peaks it could be three time a week.

There was one session I really didn’t want to see her. She called me and asked where I was and I told her I was home. This is after I canceled our session. She bribed me with a mocha to come to her office. Who does that?

Chronic pain and therapist suicide experience

by Midnight Demon, posted in chronic physical pain, depression, suicide

Chronic pain is a bitch

I woke up around seven this morning in pain. Instead of listening to it, I said fuck it, and went out today after my therapy appointment. I had to get out of the house to get a coffee and write. I am tired of looking at the walls in my room.

While I was up early, I checked my blog stats. Turns out my comparison of psychological pain scales was high at 3 views so I decided to send the link to the psyD I have been following on twitter. I really like this guy, not in a romantic way or anything of the sort, but as a person of interest in my interests. He talks a lot about GLBT issues and also of his dog. He has a basset hound. Though I am not really a dog person (I prefer cats), I do think basset hounds are pretty good. I could be wrong about the breed, as I only have seen one picture of her.

Anyways, I sent him my paper and he favorited it, which I hope in the twitter world, means like. I am so curious to see what he thinks of it. This is the second paper that I sent him. The first was my analysis of a song paper that talked about how to save a life. He blogs and today he sent out a blog about suicide. I read it later this morning after going back to sleep. I was sad to find out that he lost a patient to suicide a few years ago. He wrote about it in such a way that made me feel for him. He also wrote about how it was difficult to write because he didn’t want to violate his ethics of being a psychologist. There are several blogs about how he dealt with this loss. I haven’t had the chance to read them all, but I will because I think it is important to read. Not many therapists have the courage to acknowledge the loss of a patient, especially on the internet. It is such a sensitive topic for any therapist. I have read a lot about suicide and know that there is a 1 in 10 chance that a mental health professional will encounter a suicide in their practice at some point in their career. Out of the therapists that I have known where this guy works, I say he is the one. But I could be wrong. That percentage might be higher. Not all therapist deal with the loss. They may never want to treat a client again with suicidal tendencies. Or if they continue to see someone with suicidal thoughts, they may shift them to another therapist. Often, the therapist feels like a failure as my twitter friend wrote. But they are not failures. Suicide is a personal, private act. As suicidal as I have been over the years, I never wanted to share my thoughts because I was always afraid of being thrown in the hospital because of them. And after a dozen hospitalizations, I finally learned that if I wanted to keep out of the hospital, I had to stifle the urge to tell someone my thoughts. It became a lonely place. That is why in 2005, I shut down with my therapist and almost killed myself. That year was the closest I have ever been in my adult life, outside of the “chronic physical pain suicidal thoughts”. I say that is a distinction because I wasn’t in chronic physical pain then like I am today. I was deep in psychological pain. And I think that if my therapist hadn’t cried when I told her I was ending my life, I might have gone through with it, even though I told her what I was planning. I still had time to say “fuck you” and end it all, but her crying stopped me. It meant that I meant something to someone other than my dysfunctional family. I couldn’t kill myself knowing that I was going to cause her pain. Sure, she might have had a little post partum depression going on (she was finally back from maternity leave earlier that year) and my suicidal thoughts triggered a response I wasn’t expecting and also for her.