Tag: physical pain

venting about mental illness and suicide

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, mental illness, psychache, suicide, suicide attempt

Spent most of the day today watching my seven year old niece. She was playing on her computer while I was playing on mine. After I finished my games, I decided to read this new book I downloaded for research purposed, why do people have to die by suicide by Thomas Joiner, PhD. It is a good book so far and I find it stimulating. I have been taking notes which I probably will end up writing into a paper that I am working on.

I recently read an article about a mother who’s son has severe mental illness and behavior issues. Three days before the shoot out in CT, this mother had her son committed because he told her he was going to kill himself. The value of the message was to understand serious mental illness though I do not how much more serious mental illness can be. You have something that is mentally unstable. I have a serious mental illness that wants me to claim my life. I hear voices that taunt everything I do but I have never been violent towards another person and god help me, hope I never will. I just want to kill myself because I am a sorry excuse for a human being. I don’t blame my parents or my siblings for the way I turned out. It just happens to be who I am, I may not accept it but it is who I am. I know that some day I will ultimately end my life by my own hand. I know because I think about it every day. But I will NOT take another person’s life other than my own. Do I need to have a lifetime commitment because I am so suicidal? Probably but insurance companies don’t see it that way. As long as you are not in “imminent” danger to harm yourself or others, you cannot be allowed to stay in the hospital for more than a few days time, against your will. I have been there many times and even though I have chronic suicidality, I have never been kept beyond the three days or two weeks because of my suicidality. I might have been kept because the voices were telling me to harm myself, but never because I said I was suicidal after the three days. The mental health system is wrong and should be address these issues I am stating. Because maybe a longer admission is what I need to get better. I have intense psychotherapy with my therapist twice sometimes three times a week and still feel suicidal. I have been on every drug used for psychiatry and yet I still feel suicidal. How am I to live my life when I want to end it so much? How am I supposed to work and go to school when thinking about my death is all that matters to me? No hospital can change it. No psychiatrist can and no psychotherapist can. So the blame then gets shifted on to me. It’s my fault for not “wanting” to get better, that my negative attitude/emotions are what is causing me to be suicidal. If I change my attitude, I will be happier. It’s all bullshit. It’s not my fault being this way anymore than it’s a dying person with cancer fault because they have cancer. And believe me, I would much rather trade places with them because I know they are going to die while this “emotional cancer” is eating me alive and no one can see it. And no one wants to help me either. I can only save myself if I want to. Well, I give up. I don’t want to anymore. What purpose will living my life that I know is only going to end up six feet under. I have thought about cremation but the cost is the same. I thought about buying my own plot somewhere but I really don’t care what my family does with my remains. They are of no use to me anymore. So I am giving myself some time before I do it. And hopefully within this time frame things will change. Because if they don’t I am dead and there is nothing anyone can do to stop me.

physical pain and suicide

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, CES, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, mood disorders, physical pain, suicide, suicide attempt

Physical pain and suicide

 

Past two weeks I have had two episodes of really bad physical pain that had me in tears and wanting to end my life. I didn’t do anything to spark this pain, such as dropping a brick on my foot or stubbing my toe. The pain went deeper than that. And despite taking pain medication, I still was in agony. People think that all you have to do is take a pill to make pain go away and most times it works. But what do you do when you have a condition that doesn’t allow for that?

I have what is known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, CRPS for short, in my left foot. I got it because of another long name diagnosis called Cauda Equina Syndrome, CES for short. I got this former condition as a result of a ruptured disc when I was twenty-five. I didn’t know that it would result in the CRPS until now. Since I was twenty-five, I never learned how to walk correctly and pulled muscles that were not meant for walking. Because of this overuse, I developed CRPS after eleven years of dealing with CES. I have been suffering with CRPS for the past 2 years and it sucks. Every pain flare up feels like it is going to last forever. I am on disability because I can no longer work as a lab assistant. I can’t walk long distances, or stand too long on my feet, which working in the lab you do all the time. You are constantly getting up and down going to the different areas of the lab for the different testing that we do.

The pain started after I sprained my ankle on some ice in the winter of 2011. I went to several different doctors but no one could tell me what was wrong. All the x-rays, MRI’s, and physical condition of my ankle were normal except for some minor swelling near my peroneous muscles and tendons. It is when these get really swollen that I am in agony. As I am typing this, my foot feels really cold, like it is soaking in ice water. But to the touch, it is warm. I have a sock on it to prevent it from cramping. I have to protect my foot at all times from the cold to prevent cramps that are eye popping and then my foot becomes really sore. I don’t have any physical discoloration like typical CRPS. I think if I did I would have an easier diagnosis.

This pain drives me to suicidal crises every single time it flares up. The last time this happened was last week. I didn’t do anything, but I really wanted to die. I am almost out of my pain pills as I have been gobbling them up like candy to try and take control of my pain. I see my PCP next week to get something for flare ups. If he doesn’t do anything for me then I am afraid that things do not look good for me, at least mentally. I wrote a letter to my psychiatrist when I had this pain flare up. She understands the only time lately I become suicidal is when my physical pain becomes unbearable. And my pain is never during normal business hours. It is during the after hours, wee hours of the morning. I can be up all night because of pain. And no matter what I take, once it starts it seems never ending until exhaustion comes into play and I get some relief. Only then do I become a “different person mentally.” The events of the night before seem remote, like they happened to someone else. I guess you can say I dissociate from the pain and what is killing me.

Pain flare ups are hard to predict. Sometimes they come up when I do too much. Making cookies one time caused a flare up. Washing dishes will cause another. Standing more than a half hour for the bus will cause another. I never know what to do when I feel the pain coming on. My first instinct is to pop a pill and try and relax. After a bit I will take a muscle relaxer to prevent anxiety and spasms/cramps. Sometimes this will work, sometimes it won’t. It’s when it won’t that the suicidal self goes into play and all I can think about is death. I often play my fantasy of what the doctor will say if he doesn’t give me pain medication. That truly terrifies me. I often come up with me telling him to sign my death certificate, because that is what will happen. I can’t live with this level of pain every day. Right now it is not so bad. I have restarted another mood stabilizer and it seems to be helping but I still feel I need a longer acting medication that I can use for flare ups and to get me to sleep better. Because without the benefit of sleep, nothing is worth a dime.

just a blog 2

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, depression, mental disorders, mood disorders, suicide, suicide attempt

Today I got a Christmas letter from a good friend of mine. He sends out a Christmas letter every year since I have known him, going on fifteen years now. He is old fashioned and types his letter on a typewriter. For those not familiar with one, it was an old keyboard with ribbons that transfers what you write on a scroll type mechanism. If you watch episodes of M*A*S*H, Radar is always typing on one for his daily reports.

I will not be sending out Christmas cards this year. I thought about it and I certainly have the time to do so, I just don’t have the energy. This is the first holiday season where I am out of work. I thought about sending out a Christmas letter with an update about what I have been doing and that I am no longer working, that I am on disability from work, and that I am a writer or at least working on my writing through a blog and other professional work. I am not getting paid for any of it but they don’t need to know that. Since not being able to work, I have found that my writing is my solace. It is the one place I can be free at and be at least content with it. Don’t get me wrong, I still have my severe bouts of depression, my suicidality that peaks whenever a flare up occurs, and being suicidal in general. Just because writing makes me content doesn’t mean that my illness has been cured. Far from it as my psychiatrist and therapist can attest.

Last night I had one of my flare up that lasted until almost four in the morning. I was not a happy camper. I couldn’t sleep because my foot exploded in pain. I wrote to my psychiatrist at two thirty in the morning, telling her exactly what is going on. The police has not shown up at my door so I am guessing she is ok with what I wrote. I was venting because I needed to and I wanted to let her know what goes through my mind during these awful episodes.

Last night I also emailed a psychologist but for a different reason. I wrote to him thanking him for coming up with his pain scale and the reasons why I use it and how effective I have found it. I have not heard back from him as of yet. Maybe I won’t. Or maybe he is just too busy right now to answer something from someone he doesn’t know. Or maybe he saw the email and thought it was junk and deleted it.

I had a busy night writing last night. My hand was still sore for typing so I used a pen to write down most of my thoughts. My journal entry has at least three pages of writing. Write, write, write. Seems like that is all I did last night. I couldn’t read because I just didn’t have the mindset to do so. I just didn’t have the concentration necessary for it. I was too much in pain and in restless spirits to lay down and read. I really need to catch up on my Hamilton book. This is a 600 page book and I am only in the one hundreds. I have been updating my Goodreads website about my progress which I haven’t done in quite some time. It is an interesting book and keeps my attention. It is just very, very wordy.

pain rant

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, CES, Chronic pain, mood disorders, suicide, suicide attempt

Dear Doc,

It’s 2 am and I am in severe pain. I already took 2 vicoden and 2 ativan (not at the same time). I don’t know why my foot is in such awful pain. I need something to cover me as this is ridiculous. I just want to end my life whenever the pain gets this bad. I don’t know what to do. It’s 2 am and it’s not like the DOC can call in a script for more meds, and I doubt they would because they don’t know you from Adam. Most they can do is tell you to go to the ER. But the ER isn’t going to do anything because you know they are not going to find anything wrong. My foot isn’t red, bruised, discolored in anyway shape or form. It might be a little swollen but that is all. And it HURTS like bloody hell!! I’m tired of this shit and want to put a noose around my neck. This is the 2nd flare up in two weeks. Both have come from standing/walking too much and temperatures fluctuating more than 20 degrees or so. And this is just December.

 

by the time you read this, this will all be just a vague memory but I want it recorded somewhere so I know I am not going crazy. hopefully I’ll get some sleep. Maybe having some oxycontin will be a good idea for nights like tonight. I don’t know anymore. I just know I can’t go on living like this.