Tag: mood disorders

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.

Saturday Blog 58

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

Saturday Blog 58

I woke up late but not in pain. I didn’t sleep well as I woke up two to three times during the night. I made coffee around 1230 and immediately wanted to go back to sleep. It was like drinking a sleeping potion. I was so tired that I didn’t make something to eat. I waited a couple of hours and then decided to make the filet mignon that I had. It was gross. I don’t know if I cooked it wrong or not but it tasted really bad. I had to throw it away. So I ordered Chinese for supper. I liked that.

After supper, I had to take a nap. There was no way I could keep my eyes open. I was just so tired for whatever reason. So I had a two hour or so nap. My ankle is finally feeling better so I haven’t been taking any pain meds today. I don’t know why I am so bloody tired. Even after the nap, I just wanted to go back to sleep.

If I didn’t wake up so late, I would have gone to Starbucks today. But I knew the place would be packed if I went after 12. I did some reading today and realized I am almost done with Cuckoo’s Calling. I should be done with it later tonight or tomorrow, the latest. What I will read is a guessing game because I have so many books to read.

I have been taking the lower dose of trilafon. I haven’t been needing it during the day so I just been taking it before bed when the voices are apt to be more rowdy. I hate the juggling act that I am doing to keep things at bay. Between my physical pain and my psychotic symptoms, it’s a real struggle. The chronicity of it is what has been getting me down. That I have to deal with one or the other or both every single day just gets to you after a while. You feel like you have no escape from the illness. It has you in your clutches and it is not going to let you go. It sucks.

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.

another day by the wayside

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

Another day by the wayside

It’s been a tough night and morning. I woke up again in pain and said fuck it. I’m not going out. We were supposed to get rain but it doesn’t look like a drop fell. I took my pills and rolled over to sleep again. Then I did the same thing a few hours ago. Seems the pills wear off and then I wake up in pain. I hate my life.

I really had wanted to go to Starbucks today. I probably could have suffered through and made it like I usually do but my resistance is down and my tolerance for pain is at an all time low. I need to get my haircut, which I was hoping to be today. It wasn’t in the cards. I am feeling really low. I have thought about calling my psychiatrist but I feel there is nothing she can do to help me so why bother. It’s another hot and humid day despite the temps being near 80 degrees. It’s a small reprieve from the 90 degree weather we have been having.

My mother didn’t want me to turn the oven on to make my steak. It was only going to be on broil for a little while rather than actually turning the oven on. It was a huge piece of steak so I doubt I will be eating anything else today. My mother had cooked some veggies so I had some of that as well.

I really need to shower today as I am feeling gross. But it’s going to be tricky with my ankle not liking me to be standing. I will have to take some more pain meds and then when they kick in, shower. It’s the only way to do it.

I might make coffee in a little while. My brain has cobwebs in it from all the pain meds I have been taking. I haven’t been taking more than I usually take but between the sleeping and pain, I just feel groggy. If I went to Starbucks, I think I would have had 5 shots of espresso with soy milk. I had 4 the other day and it didn’t do much for me.

Despite a low interest in the book “The Cuckoo’s Calling”, I keep reading it. It hasn’t gotten interesting at all. No drama or action. A pretty boring book. I am disappointed. I just bought another SE Hinton book, That was then, this is now. It’s her second book that she wrote. I plan on reading it after Cuckoo. It’s a short book so shouldn’t take me long.