Tag: physical pain

Fall Apart

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

Fall Apart

I printed off some stuff for my therapist. It’s only been a few days that she has been gone, but I already miss her. I am really bored and can’t sleep. I keep thinking about how she will be devastated if I were to harm myself while she is gone. It’s holding me back but I don’t know for how long. Things are really tough for me right now.

I feel like I am falling apart. It’s killing me knowing that I can’t end my life this week, or possibly, ever. I am too much of a coward. I spent the night following the All Star Game on Twitter. It didn’t ease my ache. It’s after midnight now and I can’t help thinking about taking my life. I know that I should just go to bed but the thoughts keep swirling like a hurricane. I had a bad headache earlier this evening, but it seems to have dissipated. I took some Advil and it went away. I wish it took the heartache away, too. AL won so they will have home field advantage.

I had posted something about “stopping the use of committed suicide” on my blog yesterday. It was a successful reblog. My cousin read the article and she was grateful as her brother died by suicide in 1998. I didn’t know this. I feel bad for her. I see her soon, I hope. She invited me to a party in August.

I am emerged in suicide tonight. I can’t help thinking about it. But it’s getting late and I should be sleeping instead of falling apart. I hate my life and what it has become. I am tired of being in pain all the time. I am tired of fighting my deepest, darkest wishes. I just wish to be gone. There is no hope for me here. I am a useless SOB.

I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel like I am going nuts. All I can think about is death and dying. I really want to die. I wouldn’t mind it if a bus ran me over right now. Though it will be strange for a bus to run me over while I am in my room. Maybe tomorrow it can happen. Or should I say, later today. I just know I don’t want to be here anymore. I am too tired to go on living this way. It’s horrible to be in pain like this and not have a remedy to ease the heartache. I don’t even know what is causing me this pain. It just came on so suddenly and took my breath away. I hate when this happens and there is nothing I can do but listen to music and take an Ativan and hope for sleep. I am so exhausted and I didn’t do anything today to make me exhausted like I am. It’s like I pulled hard labor but I didn’t. Most I did was walk a few blocks to pick up my niece. It was like walking one big block from home to school and back. I usually don’t walk that far because it hurts my ankle. But the weather was really warm and it wore me out walking. I am not even 40 yet and I get so tired so easily. It’s pathetic. I wish my plan were on for Friday. I would end my life then and it would finally be over with. I wouldn’t wake up anymore. I just pass out and die. I won’t say how I will die. I just hope that I do die soon. I pray for death just like those slaves on the plantations that were treated cruelly. But I doubt it. I have a long genes in my family. Hell, my father is 83 and his sister is 91. I don’t want to live that long. I think 39 is a ripe old age.

Pain and Anxiety

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

Pain and Anxiety

Last night, I took my normal pain pills around 2200. At midnight, the pain got worse. My heart rate shot up and I became nervous, again. I had already taken my night meds at the same time I took my pain meds. It was too early for me to take my normal pills so I had to take a stronger pill. It took another hour for the pain to fade enough for me to sleep. I also took an Ativan to calm down. I spoke to my doc about this and she said the anxiety is the body’s response to not liking pain. Great. Now I have to deal with anxiety on top of my other problems. I don’t like being anxious or nervous. It really irritates me and makes me feel unsafe, like something terrible is going to happen. I have to mentally play with ideas of it just being a physiological reaction, that I am okay, even though I don’t feel that way. It’s very hard to mentalize when your heart is pounding like you ran several blocks. I don’t become out of breath but my breathing speeds up. I have to take deep breaths to calm down, or try to. It’s very difficult to do. And it also makes me feel helpless because other than taking drugs to stop the pain and anxiety, there is nothing I can do. I am not hyperventilating so breathing into a paper bag won’t help me. Music helps to a degree but not all the time. After a while, it just becomes background noise.

I have not been trained in any capacity to deal with anxiety. I don’t know how to deal with it other than take medication. But even then, I have to wait a half hour or more for it to work. In the meantime, I am very nervous, in terrible pain, and keep wondering what to do. I can’t walk because the pain is too intense in my foot, so pacing is out of the question. I usually just have grin and bear it. I don’t like doing this. It just messes with my head. And then I become agitated, which does me no favors. Last night, I tried to read. It didn’t work so I tried writing in my journal. If I could have done something physical, I would have but writing is the only thing that usually works when I am anxious. It is my go to whenever things are going wrong, or are perceived to be.

All this bullshit could be avoided if I didn’t have this pain syndrome. I didn’t do too much yesterday so I don’t know why my foot decided to explode at midnight. I had been resting for hours, but I got hungry and went downstairs to have something to eat. When I came back up stairs and propped my foot up, I got hit with the pain wave. Other than amputation, I don’t think there is anything I could have done to avoid it. I just don’t understand why because I had taken my normal pain meds two hours before hand and that should have avoided a 10+ pain flare. But that is the thing with pain syndromes. You never know when they are going to spike.

I need to pick up my niece later. I plan on ordering pizza before I pick her up. This way, the pizza is a little cooled off before gobbling it up. The last time I had pizza with my niece, she ate half a box! It was crazy but she was hungry. She ate all of it too, crust and all. She is too funny but is still growing like a weed. I just hope that walking to her school doesn’t aggravate my foot more than it already is. I really don’t want a repeat of last night. I have my appointment with my psych tomorrow so I really don’t want to be really drugged up or sleep deprived when I see her. It’s in the afternoon so I should be awake enough when I see her, but sometimes after a bad night of pain, I am not in a good mood the next day. Only day that I don’t have something planned is Saturday. I can rest all day then. I still need to finish my editing, which includes proofing what I have written and then putting those edits in the word doc. I have stuff to take out too, as one of my stories is listed twice, but under a different name. Don’t know how that happened.

So pain and anxiety is not a good thing for me, or anyone, really. Pain causes the anxiety and I don’t like it one bit. It makes me feel helpless. My therapist is on vacation for the next two weeks. I am to write her a letter and text her while she is away. She also wants me to send them to her so when she is back, they will be in her office. We talked about the anxiety part but really didn’t talk about what to do with it. She just wants me to take an Ativan. I am just afraid that I will become addicted to it, which is why I am so hesitant to even take the pill. But I guess, I need it so my heart rate slows down and calms my nervous agitation that doesn’t do me any good. I swear the pain is like drinking five cups of coffee the way it makes me feel. I just wish I had more control over it but I don’t and that is what is so frustrating! I hate not being in control. Pain takes that away from you and then your heart rate soars up and makes you feel even worse. So you are battling the demons in your head, the pain in your foot and the nervousness of it all because it’s a physiological response. How the hell do you combat it?? I guess I am going to have to research what to do about anxiety, an unknown entity to me. I never was an anxious person until pain entered my life. It doesn’t happen ALL the time but when it does, holy hell! I am noticing it more with each pain flare up. I really wish I had better control of my pain, like if I had a warning before the pain would flare, that would be awesome. But I don’t. It’s one minute low level pain and the next high level pain. Sometimes it is because I moved my ankle, either flexed it or moved my big toe. That is all it takes to set the pain off in my foot and/or ankle. It just sucks not knowing when to expect severe pain. It’s the million dollar question that no one can answer. And I am not okay with it, not one bit!

Pain O’Clock Continues

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

Pain O’clock Continues

I woke up again in pain so my plans for going to the bank and the Square went out the window. This time, my pain meds knocked me out and when I woke up from my nap, it was too late to go. I really wanted to get a burrito today, too. But my ankle is killing me, still. It’s not as bad as it was on Friday but I am still miserable. I haven’t eaten too much today because it’s wicked hot and humid today. My mother will be making chicken cutlets for supper, which is good because I haven’t had any protein other than the egg I had this morning. And that was some time ago.

I have to leave the house by eight tomorrow morning. I hope I get up. I will have to set my alarm just in case. I can’t rely on getting up before seven because I never know when I will wake up anymore. I went to bed late last night, around 2ish so I slept till eight. Six hours is good enough. I am reading “Game of Thrones” and Harry Potter. Talk about contrast between the books. I am enjoying Harry Potter more because I know what to expect. I am a huge Potter fan and have read each book at least three times. I know JK Rowling, the author, is coming out with a new book, but it will only be available online. It’s too bad because I can’t read from a computer screen for long. I can read Twitter but eventually that bores me and there is no updates. I never read an online book before. I am sure it will be good. Maybe I can print it off.

Since I didn’t leave my house, I didn’t go to the post office like I hoped to. I have an article I am sending to a staff member at the hospital I was in last year. She is interested in CAMS and found an article related to CAMS and inpatient units. I know she won’t have much pull about implementing CAMS as the unit is DBT oriented, but this just gives fruit for thought. I also gave her an update about how things were going. I told her I am trying to stay out of the hospital as things are going so well. I didn’t go into anymore detail.

Marsha Linehan was at the NAMICon2015. I had two friends attend her talk. One was on Facebook and the other was on Twitter. The Twitter friend was more informative about it because he lived tweeted the entire session. It was a good talk. The important lesson was that you can use the skills and it doesn’t have to be a trained person to teach you, i.e., a therapist. There are some self-help DBT skills that you can find online that are useful in the management of suicide ideation and other self-harm behaviors. It was interesting that even substance abuse use was listed as disorder helped by DBT. So if you know someone with a substance abuse disorder, PLEASE tell them about DBT. It might helped them recover better than NA, AA, alone.

I tried to get an appointment with my therapist but she didn’t have an opening today. I really could have used a session. The pain is driving me nuts and I am almost ready to go to the ER because I am doing so poorly. I just don’t know if I should go to the medical ER or psych to talk with someone. Thing is, they wouldn’t understand chronic pain, so I will be stuck and feel more frustrated than I already do. Maybe I should just email my psychiatrist and ask her opinion on what I should do. I could just page her, but I don’t want to worry her. I am just in the throws of another pain flare and it’s wearing me out. I really wanted to go out today. Tomorrow I have to go out whether I like it or not. I have the appointment with the physiatrist. I hope he can help me because if not, I am done. It will be over. I am tired of struggling with pain all the time. Pain O’clock must end!

Can’t Die Without Explanations

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders, psychache, suicidality, suicide

“One can’t die without explanations”. Fyodor Dostoevsky p 513, the Idiot

This statement struck me tonight, in more ways than one. I think, this is the purpose of Hyde, to explain my death to people so they know of my suffering. I am very tired at the moment. I just woke up from a short nap and now I am in pain because I almost fell while getting up off the toilet. I lost my balance and fortunately, sat back down, but harder than I would have liked. My left knee didn’t like it much. I woke up with it hurting me. But once I started moving, the pain went away. Mysteriously as it came. Until I nearly lost my balance. Weird.

My back is hurting and I don’t like it. I can barely sit up. I keep thinking about death. I don’t want to live anymore. I know I have said these things time and time again, but it’s true. I don’t know what I am going to do when my date comes in the next few weeks and I am left all alone with my thoughts. If I don’t kill myself, it will be a defeat. If I try, at least I can say I tried. I won’t know if I succeed if I don’t try.

The quote is from a character in the Idiot, Ippolit, who has consumption (TB or Tuberculosis) and is in the last stages of the disease before death. He has been given just three weeks to live and keeps on telling people that he must tell his “confessions” before he dies. I feel the same way, though I don’t feel there is anything to confess. I have not done anything wrong. I just feel like a lowly human being that deserves to die. I am tired of the mental anguish I suffer day in and day out. I am tired of my physical pain that prevents me from working and “having a life worth living”. Today I drove and it cost me pain in my ankle. I don’t know why. I always feel this pain while driving/sitting for too long. It is a pain that starts at my ankle bone and goes into my foot. The pain is like a wrap that no one can see but I feel. They say it’s the peroneous tendon that is inflamed causing this pain. If you look at the skeletal structure of this tendon, you can clearly see how it goes from the ankle to the three damn toes of the foot. That is where I have most of my pain. The last three metatarsals in my foot. It haunts me like it does now. And I am in severe pain.

Aside from my transgender issues which will never be resolved, I have body image issues that are distorted. I am ugly, yet people have told me I am handsome and sometimes, cute. I don’t feel this way. I feel like I am very ugly that I will break a camera or mirror if I look into it long enough. I have a negative self-image. I can’t stand the way I look or how my body feels. I have a self-loathing so deeply ingrained in me that I doubt my therapist can ever get to the bottom of it. Having breasts is just one of the reasons I self-loathe. I cannot stand myself. I really want to die. I don’t want to breathe anymore. It hurts to breathe. I tell my psychiatrist this and she doesn’t think too much of it, about the hurting to breathe. But then, there is nothing she can really do about it. I am not in distress. My skin color isn’t blue. I am oxygenating very well. There are no obvious signs that there is a weight on my chest, unless you count the things that are there (breast tissue). But every woman has them and they don’t cause interference with breathing. No, I am not saying there is something pathologically wrong with me. I know that this heaviness is this depression that I feel. It makes everything heavier than what it should be. Probably why my knee hurts. It can no longer carry the weight that I have put on since my last hospitalization. I have tried to lose this weight but it is difficult. I eat the wrong things. But I eat the things that make me happy, like cheeseburgers, bacon, and ring dings. Not all the time. Just once a month when I get paid and can afford these things.

These things taste good when I am feeling up to eating them. Lately, my taste buds have failed me and nothing tastes good. I eat only because I need to, though I don’t enjoy it like I once did. Nothing brings me joy or pleasure. Used to be that I have a mocha from Starbucks and that made me happy. Now it just tastes like sugar and I don’t even taste the espresso like I used to. I feel like I am wasting my money on this drink. Maybe it’s time to try espresso by itself, but I am a creature of habit. I order the same thing all the time. It’s hard to break from that.

Today I was thinking about my diagnosis. Used to be that I had recurrent major depression, with psychotic features, NOS. Now I am depressed but it’s not under the same classification. Not that I need to know what it is. I don’t really care, but I would like to know if it is a bipolar depression that I am suffering. I had highs a few months ago, back in February. Those were lovely, though a bit terrifying. I am not used to feeling up. I am used to feeling down all the time. And this time I have hit an all time low. I think about death constantly and when I am not, I am dreaming of funerals and wakes. I often wonder, if I do have a wake, who will show up. I doubt I will get the same sympathy as a friend of mine who died from diabetes. People who die by suicide don’t get the same sympathy as other who die by illnesses. But that is a debate for another day.

My explanation of my death is this, I am tired of hurting, both physically and mentally. Physically, my pain is well controlled, though I still hurt every day causing me to be on medication to control it. Mentally, there is no medication for me. Sure I take my mood stabilizer and anti-psychotic pill to ease those symptoms caused by the bipolar and psychosis that I have. But it doesn’t help the mental pain, the psychache, the deep down to the bone ache that no one can see or feel. I have been struggling with this ache since I was 8 years old. I am tired of fighting it every single day. 32 years is a long time to be fighting something that no one else can feel or see or measure even. There is no test that my pdoc can give to see where it lives, where it abides. Sure, I know there are measures out there but no one uses them. My therapist has stopped using the psychache scale. I have even stopped using the psychache scale, not because it wasn’t effective, but because it just was a number that couldn’t be brought down. It was up and it stayed up, until my crisis was over. This time, I don’t think my crisis is going to be over. Hell, I don’t think I am going to last that long period. What the hell am I waiting for?? Why can’t I go through with it tonight. Fear. And that I don’t want my family to find my body. It will be hard to be dead by suicide. Harder still and more traumatic to find my body. I don’t have a place I can go to end my life. And that is really sad. So I just sit here and complain about why I cannot go on living knowing I can’t take my life because I have no place to end it. And that is the funny thing about my therapist and psychiatrist. They have never asked me how I am going to do it, where, when. I just tell them I am suicidal and they just leave it at that. They never know what my plan truly is.