Tag: mental pain

Am I still a midnight demon?

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

I am up again in pain. I am thinking of changing my name from midnight demon to something else as I no longer write in the wee hours of the morning anymore. I guess I wrote in the wee hours because I was up late from my job and couldn’t sleep because of the dark thoughts that I had. Now I write at any time I feel like it, morning, afternoon, evening, or even after the midnight hour. I have the time to write more now that I am no longer working. I don’t know if this is a good thing or bad. But least I have the flexibility to do it.

Like I said I am in pain. My throat is killing me again. I thought it was getting better but I guess not. I plan on calling my primary’s office soon as they are open to see if I can come in sooner than Thursday. This is just getting ridiculous. The pain is much less than it was but still, I have to take my pain meds to quiet it down and I don’t like using my meds for something as benign as throat pain. The cough syrup helps but it only lasts about a half hour to an hour, which is about the time my meds kick in. I know I don’t have strep because I think I would feel worse than what I have been feeling. Who would have thought that a sneeze can cause all this. I think I might have an infection. If I don’t they I really screwed up my throat muscles or connective tissues when I had that horrific sneeze.

The pain is not bad enough that I am thinking of killing of myself but then, pain doesn’t have to happen for me to think about it. I just keep wondering how it will be when I am dead. To not be able to feel anymore, to not hurt psychologically anymore. To not actually be dead when I already feel dead inside. Since work ended, I thought that things would change for the better but I still feel the same. I might not have the same pressures I did when I was working, the whole being at work on time and dealing with the idiots at work, but I still feel this pressure on my chest every day. Sometimes it is so bad, I can’t breath. I know my respiratory system does my breathing anyway but it just feels like I can’t breath because of this weight. I guess even though the job is away, the psychache isn’t. I still have the psychological pain, pressure, and press. What made me want to kill myself to get away from my job, I now want to get away because I can’t stand living. I know that if I had some purpose to my life I would probably feel better. If I had some direction or something to do other than just thinking of writing or playing my internet games, maybe I wouldn’t feel so low. But it’s hard when your depression causes you to feel unmotivated. I could have cleaned my room twice over by now if I had the energy to do so but I don’t. I look at the mess and I just get overwhelmed with it and say the hell with it. I have no where to put my clothes anyway. I can’t hang them up as my closet is full already and so is my one bureau. My room is small enough that it cannot fit another one. I bought a bookcase for my room thinking I could fit some clothes on it but it got full with all the books that I have lying around. I buy a lot of books. I am currently reading like 5 books right now, though really, I am just spending most of my time on one. But even reading I have a hard time doing sometimes. It takes a lot of energy for me to read for an hour. The book that I am reading interests me but I can only pay attention to it for so long before I want to go to sleep or go back on twitter. I am a Twitter addict, I confess.

I had read a few short books for a friend so I could review them. That was something to do. The hard part was actually writing the review. The books left a positive impression but I couldn’t get it out on word. This is the third time that I have written a review for my friend. I am thinking of doing that for all the books I read from now on. It doesn’t take long to do it. But there are some books like the suicide books I read that are a bit technical for some people. They may not be a favorite but it is good to have a review for people to read. I wish I had done that for the suicidology book I bought. That book, you would think would be a textbook on the working of suicidology, actually sucked. It just talked about what I call the outer layer of suicide. If a person is suicidal, this is what you do rather than what you do to help the person. The book is not empirically based, least I don’t think it is from what I remember. But then some time has past since I last looked at the book.

Why do I love reading about suicide? Because I think that if I understand it better, I can help myself so I can be less suicidal. But back in 2012, when I was at the annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology, I realized that I am a hopeless case. That I will never get better because I cannot find someone to stand the pain with me. My therapist tries, but she gets anxious when I talk about suicide and then we spend more time talking about other stuff than what is important. I recently asked her if we can talk about the roots of my suicidality and didn’t learn much about it. I started thinking of suicide when I was eight years old. I had tremendous pain at that age that no one knew about. I learned to live with it all this time by not speaking about it. Why was I in pain? I don’t know. My memory is not as good as it once was. They say that all the answers lie inside you but for answering why I was suicidal I have no clue. I don’t know why I was in pain. I could have been in pain because I did not have a happy childhood. I had an abusive father and an abusive mother that was sexually interested in me. I also did not believe that I was a girl growing up. I wanted to be Mike but I couldn’t show it or even speak of it for fear of getting the shit kicked out of me. Maybe that is the reason for my pain. I don’t know. But whatever that is causing this pain is making my life intolerable.

410

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging

410

410. what does this number mean? It could be a time, a place setting, or just a number. To me, that number was my tech code during the fourteen years I worked at a major medical center. I held that number and it was the lowest among my peers because I was the one with seniority.

Recently, this number came up as the number of comments my blog had. It was held at that number until today. With this number I thought over the years the funny times, the serious times, and the not so great times. I remember during my first year there was a kid that had a transplant and didn’t make it. We had worked on this kid for days trying to pull him through. It was the most critical case so s/he had priority over other samples. When it was found out we lost him during the night, I felt so bad. It was the first time that I lost a patient, and it was a child no more than three years old. It was tough. I could only imagine what the parents were going through. I had a toddler nephew at home and thank god he was healthy even though he could be a handful at times. I couldn’t imagine losing him to some disease.

I also have seen some good times where co-workers got married, had kids, and also seen co-workers pass away. They say that things happen in threes. In one year, we lost three co-workers, two of whom I worked closely with. It was a very tough year. To Tessie and Donnie, I still think of you.

Toward the end of my work days, my number was seen as the most proficient in the lab. I typed the most because I had the most experience. I knew my job inside and out. I knew how to help those that needed it and guided the newer employees through the work day. I miss that. But in the end, I truly was just a number and my loyalty meant nothing. My seniority meant nothing. I was treated like an old mule and basically shot dead and told to move on due to my medical restrictions. I couldn’t just sit and type. I had to be mobile and because I couldn’t be, my job left me and I was out.

It still hurts that I was not held on to. But without them I would not have this blog. I wouldn’t be publishing my stories and papers. I guess with that I gained another opportunity that I would not have had.

Chronic Pain and suicide

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, CES, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain

researchers have found a link between chronic pain and suicide.

that is something that I have known for sometime now as I am a chronic pain sufferer and have thought of killing myself numerous times to get rid of the pain. it is why sometime this year I plan on killing myself. it is not going to get better. I have a chronic pain condition and I really don’t care anymore. I will go through the motions of getting treatment knowing it is not a cure. just a bandaid and it hurts. But clinicians need to ask the question if they ever want to prevent suicide. I am a hopeless case. I have mental illness on top of chronic pain. it is worse with my condition. I feel like I can’t talk openly with my provider because then he tampers with my pain meds. I will not kill myself with my meds. I have other methods running through my head. but this article is interesting. I hope that people who read my blog that suffer from chronic pain do call the 800 number to talk to someone. I hope that it can work that way but I know that most people will not pick up the phone and call. I don’t know why that is. I know I have called but I am still where I am. I have found it helpful at times but sometimes I feel like they are just pretending to care when they really don’t. Just my experience. but that shouldn’t stop you from calling.

TIVO AND THERAPY

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, depression

I started the arduous process of transferring my Tivo recordings to the computer. Because my new laptop is new, I have to use my old laptop to transfer the data. I had to download a patch to get it to work. It can be very frustrating.

I had therapy today and did not like it. I had to talk most of the time because my idiot therapist wanted clarification of some things that I wrote on the blog the other day. I had to read it so she could take notes so we could talk about it. I was annoyed because I hate reading what I write. I found that it sucked what I wrote and there were stuff in it that did not make sense so now I have to go over it and fix it. I sent her my suicide attempt blog because she never reads her email, which has my blogs sent to it.

I don’t know if therapy is helping so much as it is just keeping me alive. My therapist and I have a connection that formed in 2005 and since then it has strengthened. though I sometimes wonder if she is a little bit too possessive of me. She was having mini heart attacks when I was going through trying to find another therapist near me. I think she was glad that I never found one and the one that I did was too scared of me to work out. I don’t know what it is that drives me crazy about her. I know she loves me and i love her to some degree and I think that is the problem. We don’t have a sexual love just a very intimate one, least that is what I think we have. I have been burned by so many therapists that even though I have been with this one for 12 yrs I just feel that she will be moving on even though she has not one inclination towards that. We have questioned whether this is right for us, even had a consult about it several times. there is just something I am missing and maybe the help thing was one of it that she picked up on and i am hesitant to ask. I don’t ask for help when I need it. I tried to kill myself at 10 and my mother knew but never got me the help that I needed. I somehow figured that I was left on my own to seek help and then when I got it, i got burned many times. She does help sometimes and sometimes she aggravates the fuck out of me. I have the letters to prove it!!

I know what you mean about the pain. It is when it lingers that it causes problems. I got so much pain, physical and mental, that I just don’t know what to do anymore so have decided that was it but I am still hesitant. My niece is 8 and i dread how my sister is going to tell her I am no longer here and that kind of keeps me going to NOT want to end it but then I get the whole friggen burden thing and think she will be better off without me in her life.

Just wish I knew what my purpose was. Been thinking of what kind of ideas people have when they think of suicide prevention. Yea you can know the warning signs but not everyone will fit into them. What will you say other than you need help? Like if someone unknown to you asks the suicide question or hints around it and you help them out for that day does it really lead to prevention when another person is too guarded to ask for help or even tell someone about it? It drives me crazy thinking about it and then I want to ask these people, like the prez of AAS how can you prevent something you don’t have control of? Even Shniedman said that he would not want to live in a world that is free from suicide. I am rambling…