Tag: mood disorders

Feeling shitty and can’t sleep

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, mental illness, mood disorders, painsomnia, physical pain, PTSD, suicidality

It is almost 2330. I had a burger later and then got sleepy. I’ve been trying to sleep for an hour but my damn foot keeps acting up. Bottom of my foot has this pressure pain. I am getting zaps in the side of my foot near my toes. My metatarsals are being ripped apart.

Then my brain is working none stop. For some reason, the source (evil demon from Charmed) keeps popping in my head. I will be talking to someone and then their eyes change to black and they want to envelope me. I don’t get it. I don’t usually have nightmares, not since I was a kid.

Pain is driving up my suicidality. I have been thinking about canceling my therapy appt for Monday. But I want to see him. I got 3 appts this week. I was going to have 4 but I am going to cancel my eye appt. I’ll just reschedule it. I have been trying to do the exercises my PT gave me but they are different than the ones we did when I saw her. I can do the one for my right foot but my ankle is too angry to try to do. I have no idea if having my knees up and doing one exercise is going to upset my foot/ankle. It was alright with the AFO on but I don’t wear it around the house. The. There is one exercise that sounds more like part of my notes than an exercise. Have no idea what that is about.

I think I am going to go back to regular pillows and not use the body pillow I have. It is annoying me. I also need to change my sheets but I have accumulated a bunch of shit on my bed that will take a few days to get off. I started clearing off some stuff. I have a gazillion pharmacy papers from my meds. I tried using the privacy stamp on it but it didn’t work. So it is back to the “to be shredded” pile, which is overflowing at this point.

Last night I was in a suicidal mood and sent my psychiatrist an email about things running through my head. I was expecting a phone call today but nothing and no reply. I forgot she was on vacation last week so that was why she didn’t read the article and blog I sent her. I really wanted her to read the article. But because she didn’t, I couldn’t talk to her about what was on my mind. She said she will get to it. I hope so.

Foot is hurting really bad. I took the breakthrough med a little while ago. I think a placebo would have worked better. I also took some more fiber pills. I went a little bit today but that was all. I am expecting a colon blow. But it just feels stuck. I feel really uncomfortable. Usually one will work and I am taking 3 different things. I don’t think the senna works for me anymore. I hope i go tomorrow.

One Drink Ago

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

One Drink Ago

This song is by Terri Clark and Dallas Smith. Terri is my favorite female country artist. She is fricken gorgeous and I have loved her since the early 90s. This song hasn’t made it to Boston radio yet. I don’t know if it will. I hate that some songs are released but don’t make their way up here.

I had a hard time sleeping due to pain and then being over tired. I think I tried to sleep some time after 1. It wasn’t a fitful sleep as my med alarm kept going off for my morning meds. Then I was able to sleep most of the day. I woke up around 12ish, made an egg and coffee. The coffee made me sleepy so I went back to sleep for a few hours. I have been taking fiber pills since last night, hoping to go but nothing is working. I took some more Miralax and fiber when I had something to eat for dinner. I had some more of my zucchini pie. I was going to have a burger but the pie is going to go bad if it is not eaten. I think I might have to throw it away tomorrow. I have been the only one eating it. My mother said it gave her diarrhea and my sister didn’t like the taste. Whatever.

Sox were part of the reason I was up. They took the lead and then lost it in the 8th inning. The bullpen came apart. Game is earlier tonight, 2000. Tomorrow it will be at 1600. Tomorrow is also father’s day. I have been thinking about my father most of the month. Still can’t believe he is gone some days. Today I was wondering what he was doing and almost said it out loud to my mother. Then I said to her, you know what I just thought, and told her. I asked her if she thinks of her mother the same way. She said she doesn’t but she does miss her. My grandmother died in 2006. It was a blessing as she was in chronic pain due to cancer and dementia. She wasn’t the same person anymore. I think it was the only time I cried because my mother had been crying when she passed. I didn’t see her. I didn’t want to. She died at home.

I love Carrie Underwood. Her voice is amazing. I added Something in the Water to my playlist. Her vocals are just mind blowing. So powerful. Her latest song Cry Pretty is another favorite of mine. It made me cry the first few times I heard it because it was talking to me. The lyrics was speaking to me. It is a very powerful song. I think I posted it a few weeks ago. If not, I will post it again. Can’t have too much Carrie.

About depression that I have to get off my chest

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

About depression that I have to get off my chest

There has been a LOT of talk lately about depression being treatable. Let me say first, that for some, it is. Therapy has been helpful to some in dealing with it. Medications and therapy still prove to be useful in treatment of depression or actually any mental illness. It was once thought that schizophrenia was a medication only illness. But I learned through one of my suicidologists that isn’t always true, as there was a paper written by him about he helped decrease an individual’s suicide risk by seeing him weekly or more if suicide was more present. It helped the patient feel cared for. If I find the article in my files, I will share it if you care to read it.

I am in no way saying you should NOT get help if you are feeling depressed. But my experiences (which are not the same to the whole depression population) beg to differ. I have yet to find anything that helps the mood shifts. Since my long time therapist stopped seeing me for reasons I have still yet to learn, I have been the most unstable and hopeless I have been in the 16 years I was in “treatment” with her. We had our disagreements about treatment. Transference and countertranferences were helpful at times but were no long lasting. She stuck with the way she was treating me and I stuck to being, well, depressed and suicidal.

What I have to get off my chest is that sometimes, depression is untreatable in a small percentage of people. There is such a thing as treatment resistant depression. Despite ECT (“shock” therapy), medication, and therapy, one can still feel depressed. There are a trillion reasons for this. Sometimes it has to do with the trauma one experienced. Some has to do with biology itself, that the genetic predisposition of a person makes them depressed. Other times it has nothing to do with a trauma or situation. It just happens that you start withdrawing from life, slowly at first and before you know it, you can’t go back to things you loved because, frankly, you are too depressed. Sometimes you maybe too depressed to seek help and a friend or family member needs to push you to get it. The thing is, depression still exists despite treatment. Some people have suffered depression for years and have never told a single soul. They are the small percentage that still go on with their episodes after they pass. They are less likely to die by suicide. Hell you don’t NEED depression to end your life. It has happened. Look at the Shawshank Redemption movie. The warden was “well” mentally and rather than be arrested and humiliated, he killed himself. Would anyone have thought he would do such a thing? No. And that is what my point is. Although we know what the risks are for suicide, depression and mental illness is only a small window into those risks. There are some people who die that have no history of mental illness yet die by suicide. I won’t go into more discussion about it because this is a loaded issue. I suggest reading the Myths and Facts of Suicide by Thomas Joiner. It is a really good book about what I am talking about.

I can only talk about my experience, no one else’s. I have been depressed since I was 8, maybe younger. I only know this because I started thinking suicide was a good idea at that age. I was 10 when I tried to end my life for the first time. I suffered from depression and after taking Prozac, became bipolar because the medication caused mania like symptoms. Not once during my years of being on medication AND therapy did my thoughts of suicide leave me fully. Neither did depression. There were brief times where I felt contentment. I honestly don’t believe in happiness. Like anger, it is a fleeting emotion and doesn’t last. But feeling contentment does happen for me and I sometimes feel comfortable in it. I know it isn’t going to last long. It never does. The depression always finds a way back, maybe not right away but it does come back. Despite some of my successes in life, graduating from high school, getting my Associate’s degree, publishing two books, I still was depressed. I was elated for a little while but it was fleeing. Just like when I wrote the article for the New York Times. I couldn’t believe and still don’t, that it happened. I still have the check that one day I will frame along with the article. But soon after all the paperwork was filed and I was waiting for it to be published, I was intensely depressed. The New York fucking Times was publishing something I wrote and instead of being happy as a pig in shit, I was depressed. I learned that no matter what my success in life was, no matter how much money I made, good job that I had, I was going to always be depressed. I could do one of two things. I could accept that this was the way it was always going to be or fight it. I chose to accept it.

I knew I had been fighting it since I was 16 that I would always have to take medication for my mental illness. It wasn’t easy but I knew if I was to avoid a lifetime of hospitalizations, I would need to take medicine to hold off the demons. Yet despite this theory, I was still hospitalized. Many times. Some times it was like a revolving door during my worst episodes. In 1994, I suffered a huge major depressive episode. I was hospitalized almost every two weeks and then for two months because I tried to end my life. It was one of the lowest periods of my life. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything. Showering didn’t matter. I gained a ton of weight from the meds I was put on. I started living an almost double life. The life the psychiatrists wanted to see and who I really was at home, when I was by myself. Hopelessness was rampant and totally lost on me. I can’t say that I got better. I just got better at hiding from myself, to keep the darkness at a minimum so I wouldn’t be committed at the age of 19 to a state hospital. Even then the façade I built was hard to put down. I just did what I was told to do and when I felt like acting on my feelings of suicide, I told my therapist or psychiatrist, which inevitably led to another hospitalization. But the hospitals in the 1990s were different than they are today. Today they are nothing but holding pens. Two maybe three days you are in and then you are out. If you need more help and have an outpatient therapist, you see them. You don’t need to be in. Maybe you stay for a week or two. But never more than that. Insurance won’t pay for it. And you don’t really get “treated”. You are watched 24/7 to make sure you don’t harm yourself. You might find a “treatment team” that listens but that is ALL THEY DO. They don’t help you in what you came in for. That is for you and your outpatient therapist to work out. If you don’t have one, you might get referred to someone. I’ve never been in that situation so not sure how that works.

I have lost faith that my illness is “treatable”. Seems no matter what I do, I end up depressed or just stay depressed. I am okay with that. I’ve known for a while that there is no longer an antidepressant out there for me. I am grateful my mood stabilizer still works. I just hope that it does fuck up my sodium levels and I need to some off it. Then I will be really screwed. In that sense, I still take my meds because they help. I no longer have commanding voices every day and the accompanying paranoia and delusions. I have to take a med for that every day. But therapy is still elusive. I honestly don’t know if it helps. Talking with someone honestly, like writing this blog, has been useful. Sometimes it feels good to talk to my therapist and leave knowing that someone understands, even if he thinks I am crazy. He said that he is “taking my lead”, which I am not sure about but it is a learning curve like anything else. And I will stress again, that if you aren’t comfortable with the person you are talking to, if they make you uncomfortable or just not getting it, find someone else. There are a lot of different therapists out there. A lot of different degrees as well (but all should be licensed by the state you are in, if they aren’t, I wouldn’t see them). It will take some time to know if they fit with you. The average is about 3 or 4 sessions. Any more than that might be a waste of time if there is no connection.

Twitter and another day of buses

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

Twitter and another day of buses

I had woken up a few times since 0630 due to pain. I had slept okay for the first time in a while. I took my meds when I woke up and then waited till after 7 so I could shut off my med alarm for my BP meds and try to sleep for a bit. I wanted to be out of the house by 9 but that didn’t happen. So I was pushing for either 10 or 1030 the latest. I had some breakfast. I didn’t feel like making an egg so I just made a peanut butter and fluff sandwich. It is called a fluffernutter. I had a recent follow on Twitter ask what is was. I have to laugh. We (Britain and US) have different ways of calling the same things or different things when it comes to food. Crisps are fries. Biscuits are cookies. But a flutternutter is unique to New England as the marshmallow fluff was created in Somerville Mass, then the patent sold and was then manufactured in Lynn, MA. There is a fluff day coming up soon to commemorate the invention of the sweet spread.

So after I ate, I left for my pharmacy. The stock had come in but due to some computer problem, they couldn’t fix it until tomorrow. I said I would like the copy of the script so I can have it filled at another pharmacy. I just got to the bus stop when the bus came. I would have been pissed if I missed it. I put my headphones on and traveled. I got to the pharmacy, which is way bigger than the one near me. I then waited nearly 45 minutes for it to be filled. I was not happy. I also paid more for Miralax at this store than my home one, which further annoyed me. I then walked to the bus stop but had just missed a bus going to a train station. According to my bus app, my bus wasn’t coming for another 12 minutes. Another bus going to the train station came a few minutes later and I took it as it looked like it was going to rain. My ankle was talking to me. I felt like I am being stabbed repeatedly in the same spot. I took the breakthrough med and hoped it wasn’t going to knock me out.

As I was going to the station, my legs felt like jelly. I had been doing some serious walking the past three days so they were understandably tired. I still wanted to make the zucchini pie when I got home. I was hungry as it was after lunch time when I got home and all I had was the sandwich. I had a pop tart as I started to prepare for cooking. It took me a little while to get things done. The stupid container that held the diced onions wouldn’t open. The butter would cut the way I wanted it to so made a mess. I was getting so annoyed as my legs were about to divorce me. I put everything together and then put it in the oven. I used two more eggs because there was a lot of vegetables and I wasn’t sure it would be covered with just four. I also used two bags of shredded cheese. I was only supposed to use 12 ounces but what is 4 ounces more??

I went upstairs to relax while it cooked in the oven. I checked Twitter and had been checking it on and off all day. It was making me so fucking sad because of what the dumbass in chief is doing to immigrant families. There was a tweet where a 4 month old was taken from the mother while she was breastfeeding!! What the fuck!!! The stories are horrendous and all my representative cares about is how people working minimum wage can’t afford housing. It is a total fucking mad house. I tried to just tweet and not read others tweets. One of the people that I follow follows some police feeds. All the retweets are missing kids. I can’t take it. Game started playing at 3 pm and I couldn’t get what was going on. All my feed was on the immigrant kids, Orange Buffoon’s foolish summit with NK, and the bullshit that is going on with the opioid epidemic. I think I need a Twitter break. It used to be a way for me to know what is going on and stay in the know but now I don’t want to know shit!! I am suicidal enough and politics and kids being ripped from their families are just adding to it. I don’t like what my country is becoming. And nobody in Congress is pushing forward to put a stop to it. What really gets me is a person in Congress will tweet, X should be done. Fucking do it!! What the hell are you waiting for?? Retweets aren’t going to make it fucking happen you nitwit!! Or the other thing is to call the representatives/senators. This has been going on since fucking January 20th, 2017!!! I am tired of it. I am tired of calling/tweeting. Nothing is happening because of these calls. Just feels like a huge hopeless situation.