Tag: mental pain

400th blog post: A post about Edwin Shneidman, PhD

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

This is my 400th blog. I want it to be meaningful so I thought I would write about Dr. Edwin Shneidman. He was a wonderful man that I really admire. He was the father of suicidology and really pioneered the field.

His famous quotes, one of many, was that you should not kill yourself while you are suicidal. I think he meant it to be as a sort of giving yourself time before acting on such a dangerous act. I know that in my time I have been putting it off. It keeps me here.

My favorite book that he wrote was called “the suicidal mind”. I swear this guy was in my head as I was reading it. It perfectly described everything that I was feeling. The psychache, the despair, the guilty worthless feelings, all of it. He was the one that termed the word psychache, which is feelings of psychological pain that can best be described as feelings of despair, frustration, guilt, worthlessness, hopelessness, and helplessness.

His other connotations are constriction and perturbation. These two words are the most dangerous in a suicidal mind. The constriction means there is a narrowing of the mind, a kind of tunnel vision that is set on one thing: easing the psychache at any and all costs, by killing oneself. Perturbation is the agitation, frustration, the “must do something now” type feeling that provides that person to think about suicide and it is difficult to calm or settle these feelings once constriction is in full gear.

Another word Dr. Shneidman often uses to describe suicidality is press. This word is sort of a disambiguation. He uses it to describe a lot of things but mostly the pressure one feels to act on suicidal feelings and thoughts. It can also be used as a sort of perturbation. In Dr. Shneidman’s eyes, the level of the perturbation, press, and psychache will ultimately lead to suicide. If you were to rate each on a 1-5 scale model and have a 5-5-5, the likelihood of completing a suicidal act is greatly increased. In fact, he has stated that prolonged feelings of these three things are a major cause of suicide. No one can endure psychache, press, and perturbation for any length of time. You can have fluctuation of the these three things but once they have been at a sustainable level for any length of time, suicide is likely to follow.

Dr. Shneidman was a man that I greatly admire and respect. And what is very special to me and what I will always remember is him calling me out of the blue one day to discuss my paper that I sent him on “ten faces”. It was a paper that I wrote up for the AAS 41st annual conference and was my first poster session for this organization. I will always be grateful for that phone call.

Tea time

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

Tea

I know most of you who read my blog think I am mostly a coffee drinker but there are times, like when I am sick, that I drink tea. If it is too late, like it is now, to have a cup of coffee, I will usually make a cup of tea to give me the caffeine I need to keep going. I like black teas, though I bought oolong tea and find I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would. I think it is an acquired taste. I do like herbal teas, lemon, orange spice and chamomile. I usually buy only one brand of tea and that is Bigelow. I find their English breakfast really good. I know it is expensive for 20 bags of tea but I like what I like. I also know that 2 bags of Lipton tea will give me the strength I need that one bag of Bigelow does. I guess I just prefer the taste better. I don’t like fruit teas other than lemon and orange spice, though I have not tried them all. I know I don’t like apple tea. I prefer to eat an apple than drink it, though I do like cider, but I have not had it hot. Starbucks makes a hot cider during the winter months but I never tried it. Maybe I will this season, if I am around.

I still have my bloody menses (no pun intended). It is really showing no signs of stopping, even with the new patch. UGH I don’t know what to do. I hope my doc isn’t on vacation when I call tomorrow. I am not bleeding too heavy but it is just aggravating me at this point and I don’t need the aggravation. I especially hate it when I soil my pants, which is happening almost every fricken day now. And because of the pain in my ankle, I can’t shower every day so that poses a very difficult problem for me hygiene wise. I need to shower and have to force myself to and then pay the consequence of standing for ten minutes. I hate myself so bad. I really get mad at myself and start thinking that if only I had done things differently, I never would have gotten CES. But then if things didn’t play out the way they did, I wouldn’t have made so many online friends and have good relationships with people all over the world.

I really can’t wait for my therapist to be back on Tuesday. There is so much to catch up on. But then she will be on vacation again the week after so I am not happy about that. I wish she would have just taken the two weeks off in a row like normal people rather than take a week here and then a week there. But then she is a looney tune.

I was up most of the night. I didn’t fall asleep till at least 5 or six in the morning. I was reading after a phone call with a friend and time got away from me. I am still reading Team of Rivals and it just got interesting as the Civil War started. I really like this book but can’t believe it took 12 chapters to get to the war. I still have 12 chapters to go as I read almost three chapters last night. I think after I read this book, I am going to go back to the Harry Potter books. I have been meaning to re-read them.

I have to get started on my cauda equina paper. I am getting more and more search term hits on my blog. Though my blog Knackered has many hits, it doesn’t necessarily give the information that people are looking for. I did make my post CES a page, which I hope has been helpful to someone.

Night blog

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, mental disorders, mood disorders, suicide attempt, writing

this is the first time that I am writing a third blog in a day. I am sorry for the posts but I am in so much pain I don’t know what else to do. I can’t say that I did too much because I didn’t. I just know that my foot is on fire and there is nothing I can do to stop it. I have taken meds to quiet things down and I am hoping with the Ativan I can get some sleep in a little while.

I actually am afraid of sleeping for fear of having that weird dream again. Or another one. I also don’t know why I had an anxiety attack on the bus again. I guess it is getting to be paranoia that I won’t be able to get off the bus at my stop because I don’t want to fall down. My balance on my right foot has been off the past several months, especially when I am turning. I seem to lose my footing because I don’t know where my foot is. It is so frustrating that when I am seen by people it looks like I am drunk.

I got so upset about my menses after my last bathroom break I needed to talk to someone. I just can’t handle this menses situation anymore. I am now bleeding more than I did last week, which technically, I should be bleeding less not more at this stage of the game. I am not a reproductive expert but I know when a period should end. and after seven fucking days, it should be OVER. I should not be continuing to bleed dammit. I am sorry if this sounds gross or disgusting but it is how I feel. I am so upset by this. I am supposed to wear boxers not pads all the time. I am supposed to be a male and because I am not in the right body, this shit happens and I am distressed about it. I was texting to a friend tonight and as I was, I was also writing to my therapist about hanging myself. that is me, I am splitting tonight. In one instant I am texting about marinara sauce and in my writing I am writing about the length of rope I should use.

I should be sleeping because I took some neurontin. But the stuff has not kicked in yet. I also just took my pain meds and some ativan but I am still fucking hyper and in pain. I bet the pain is going to go away first and then the ativan will kick in to put me to sleep. I just hope I don’t wake up at four in the morning again. that is what has caused all this bullshit. I am not sleeping at all through the night. I can’t remember a night where I slept past eight in the morning. It pisses me off. I think I should be up all night and then just sleep during the day. But then my mother thinks that I sleep too much. How can I sleep too much if I am not sleeping during “normal” sleeping hours??

I finished my Lincoln book that I was reading. I just have to read the Epilogue. but I really kind of don’t want to. I like the book because at the end it gives the same speech in the end as in the Lincoln movie. Maybe I should watch that tomorrow. I have not watched it in a while.

God this pain is unreal. It feels like someone is trying to shove a hot poker through my foot. I know it is nerve pain but I usually don’t get the hot poker feeling so I am not sure what that is about. I hope that my CRPS is not getting worse than what it is. I have been getting “hot flashes” in my foot the past several days now. My foot just feels really hot but when you touch it is cool. I don’t know what is going on. I am scared that the nerve damage is spreading or that I somehow twisted my good part of my ankle and now it is sore. I won’t know for a few weeks because that is when I see my PCP. By then, the pain could be gone and I would look like a fool. Either that or the pain will change to something else. I have had so much different types of pain in my foot I think my doc thinks I am making it up just so that I can get pain meds. I swear I am not. It’s just that the worse part of the pain happens at night and not during the day. Though this type of pain, the hot poker, seems to be happening more during the day and then gets worse at night.

Because of this I am constantly thinking of ways to end my life. The problem is that I don’t want my nieces to find my body. And so I can’t kill myself at home. I wish I could just chop my foot off right now. It is so killing me. I know I am not alone with my thinking of killing myself because I am depressed and in pain. That some how comforts me but at the same time it doesn’t. I know that I can’t beat this diagnosis. the pain changes too much for anyone to really believe me. how can they when one day I say that it is a hot poker and another time I say that it is like a barbed wire going though my ankle? or that my foot explodes in pain and I can’t move my last three toes. This doesn’t happen during the day. it only happens at night so when my doc examines me, I am not hurting. I don’t get the exploding pain, the hot poker, the barbed wire. It is SOOOOOO frustrating!!!! I don’t know if my doc believes me. I know my psychiatrist does and my physiatrist does. but I don’t know if my PCP does.

This is what I think about at night, when I can’t sleep. This is why my blog is called the midnight demons because that is truly when the demons come out, either mentally or physically. it truly sucks!

bitchy blog

by Midnight Demon, posted in suicide attempt

peroneous tendon

I feel wicked agitated and angry right now and I don’t know why. Nothing has specifically set me off other than the Sox losing but I don’t have control over that. I just want to start a fight with someone and I tried that with a friend and it didn’t work. She wanted to just hear my voice and I refused to call her or have her call me. I can’t stand it when she gets into one of those moods. Because whatever I say goes in one ear and out the other. I don’t get listened to.

I know I am partly enraged because I am in pain and I don’t have an outlet for it. Plus I still have my stupid fucking menses and the feminine product is irritating me. There is nothing I can do about that but I can’t not wear underwear while bleeding. My sheets will get messed up and so will possibly my mattress. UGH I am so aggravated!!! If I could cut I would. All I could do is just ride out the storm and this storm is big. I can’t even find the right music to calm me down so I am just listening to my mix of country tracks. I finally got Brantley Gilber’s More than miles song. I have been playing it non stop on Youtube the past few days. I love this song. Right now Luke Bryan is playing. I love him too. Not in any way of a sexual sense just voice wise.

I also feel frustrated because no one got back to me on my papers that I sent out today. I know that I shouldn’t expect a quick response for a three page paper but an acknowledgement would have been nice. I sometimes think I send out emails and it just lands in cyber no where land when I don’t get a response. I should probably take an Ativan to calm the hell down but that is going to do nothing for my pain. Pain has moved up to my leg because like a fucking dummy I had to stand on my leg while my foot was asleep. My peroneous tendon didn’t like that one but so the WHOLE fucking tendon is inflamed. I guess I won’t be getting my hair cut tomorrow like I wanted to. I know I won’t be able to walk the distance. Not after a painful night like tonight. I am so fucking angry. Angry that I can’t do anything about my pain, Angry that I can’t stand for more than a few minutes at a time. That I just can’t do what I used to do. And the surprising thing is that I am fucking hungry but I know I can’t make it down the stairs to get something to eat. All I had to eat today was a coffee and a cold cut sandwich. NOTHING else. I just wasn’t hungry today. But now I am and there isn’t anything I can do about it. I have to sleep with one ear open tonight because my mother had a hypoglycemic episode and she tried to keep it from me. I could tell because she was slurring her speech as she was telling me why she was eating cereal. WTF. I hope I don’t have to call an ambulance. I really don’t need to be going up and down the damn stairs to let emergency personnel into my house. But if I have to, I have to. I should go check on her but my leg is still tender. So much for the fucking pain meds working tonight. I should take two and see if that helps. I just been taking one hoping that would be enough. WRONG.

I know my friend is going to ask me about why I was in a nasty mood tonight and why she didn’t call me like she wanted to. I fucking hate when people don’t get that I just don’t want to talk. I gave her a choice. Either don’t call or just text me. That was the only way I was communicating. Take it or leave it so she left it, and I hope she leaves it at that.

I just checked on my mother and she is sprawled out on her bed. Doesn’t appear to be in distress so maybe I can sleep tonight. But I doubt it because I just acted up my leg again. God forbid I should walk. All because of a stupid disc material. I know it is because I have scar tissue on my nerve root. That is the fun part of having Cauda Equina Syndrome, the emergency ends but the pain doesn’t. You still have to live with the repercussions of the after effects of surgery. So frustrating to live like this.