Tag: psychache

spoonie day completed

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

Spoonie day completed

I woke up in typical fashion after a night of horrible pain, low pain in the morning. I took advantage and showered. I also made oatmeal pancakes and coffee. I wanted to cut my toenails on that foot but didn’t want to push it. Now it’s impossible because I am flared up again. I got up to get my night meds and boom, my foot went out in pain. Great.

My psych wanted me to page her in the afternoon so I did. Unfortunately, my mother called at the same time she did so she got sent to voicemail. My mother wanted me to make her lunch as she was still hurting with her knee. I made her the sandwich and then paged my psych again. I was expecting a quick callback but nothing. Here it is almost six hours later and nothing. I emailed her to tell her I paged her but never got a response. I am going to email her again in an hour telling her I will be going to bed soon. I sent her a goofy email while I was drugged up with my pain meds and she is worried about me. I read the email this morning and it was not one I normally send. I told her I loved her and some other sentimental things, totally out of character for me.

I’ve been doing some PT stuff, mostly imagery. I haven’t used the app today. I probably will after I write this blog. I didn’t use it yesterday because I just wanted an off day of doing nothing. For the first time this month I had a day off from appointments and leaving the house so just stayed in bed. I was in pain anyway so there wasn’t much I could do. Now I will be on my bed the rest of the night. I hope I can sleep.

I’ve been feeling good despite my flare up just now. It was a relief to have a temporary low pain and still do things. My middle sister dusted and vacuumed for my mother ¾ of the house. She said she will be back in the morning to do the bathroom and kitchen. While she was here, she bitched about her kids and my crazy cousin, who is a kleptomaniac. My 2nd youngest niece hangs with her and I hope doesn’t get involved in the stupidity my cousin pulls. My cousin loves diagnosing people and I can only imagine what shit she has told my niece.

Yay! My psych called me back. Unfortunately, she changed our appt time to the 30th after I told her I was stopping treatment after Oct. I just don’t want any appointments in November for reasons I didn’t tell her. I felt like I bullshitted her while talking for the first time in my life and it didn’t feel good. We talked about the transgender stuff and she told me the hospital will be expanding care in the future for transgender people. That’s cool and about time! Monday I will legally be G Collerone and I hope that will be on my death certificate. That will be very important to me, but then I’ll be dead so I won’t know. I’ll haunt my family if not, haha.

hot day, therapy, and other things

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

Hot day, therapy, and other things

I woke up around 0630 in pain. I took some meds and then checked my bank account to see if my check was deposited. It was so I paid some bills and reordered my grocery as I had to cancel the order because of my PT appt yesterday. I just ordered the bare minimum because PeaPod hasn’t yet credited my acct and I didn’t want to spend that much. I’ll just buy what I need at the grocery store if I’m up to it. I might do another order for the stuff I didn’t get but I am hesitant because I want to make sure I have enough money for changing my name in two weeks.

After I paid my bills, I set my alarm and went back to sleep. My mother called me around noon, before my alarm went off. She wanted to know where I was and what I was doing. I’m 41 and still get asked this, every single day! It’s annoying but there is nothing I can do about it. My alarm went off and I didn’t want to get out of bed. I forced myself to and went downstairs to brush my teeth and get ready to go out. My aunt was over again so I exchanged pleasantries. On the way back up to my room, my ankle went out. Not a good sign. Luckily, it wasn’t painful. I limped back up to my room and then took more pain meds. I got dressed and then left the house.

There was construction on the sidewalk. A big machine was blocking my view of the street to see if the bus was coming. Luckily, I got up in time to check and it was coming. When I got on the bus, I ordered my Starbucks and something to eat. I had timed it right for my therapy appt as I only had about a half hour to write in my journal, which kind of sucked. I went to the train station and it was hot as an oven and by the time I got to my therapist’s office, I was sweating. I wished I had brought a facecloth to wipe off the sweat but I wasn’t thinking.

Therapy went well. I thanked him for rescheduling the appt. We talked about what went on yesterday with PT and that I am starting with a PT specialized in CRPS. Then we talked about my father and my suicidality. Yesterday was the first day in about 16 days straight that I didn’t think of wanting to kill myself. We talked about that for a while. Then we talked some more about my father and his death. It was a good session.

I went back to the Square to wait for the bus home. It was late. I was really sweating by the time I reached home. I had to go to Walgreens to pick up my meds. On the way in, I saw one of the pharm tech girls with her dog. It was cute. I think it was a bulldog, my favorite kind of breed, well one of many. She was walking down the street with him the way I had to go. I almost caught up to her when she reached my house but she wasn’t paying attention so I just let her keep walking. My t-shirt was soaked and it was hot in my room. I put the AC on before I dried off and peeled off my shirt. I waited till I cooled down before I put on another shirt. Then I ordered food as my mother didn’t cook anything. She just reheated some soup from the other night.

My therapist said that I needed to do some “fun shit”. I said I don’t have much things that I do. If I make it to Starbucks for the day, then it’s a good day. He said that I should work on doing that more often. I was kind of stunned because I thought he wanted something more but going to Starbucks does make me happy, if for a little while. I need my espresso fix as they no longer have any Clover coffees that I like. I can’t remember the last time I had coffee at Starbucks. I do make it at home as I don’t have an espresso machine. I will never get one of those because I may never leave the house again.

My Thoughts on Zero Suicide as a Person with Lived Experience

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, depression, mood disorders, suicide, suicide attempt

My thoughts about Zero Suicide as a person with Lived Experience

There has been a lot of talk on Twitter about Zero Suicide and it’s mission to reduce the suicide rate to zero, because 1 is just too many. At first, I was appalled that clinicians think that is possible. I for one think that it is outrageous because there is always going to be someone who dies by suicide. Maybe not in their organization but outside their organization. But then I learned that it’s not an individual’s practice but an organization or health system that strives to achieve this goal. They have trainings and meeting with those in the suicidology world.

Something kept bugging me about this. I kept quiet because I didn’t want to anger those that are for it, though I think there are a few blogs that I wrote about it before I understood the mission. While talking to a friend that is a suicide loss survivor, the bells went off. She said that it goes against Shneidman’s questions, where do you hurt and how can I help?

I am a big supporter of Dr. David Jobes work with his framework called CAMS (Collaborating, Assessment, and Management of Suicidality). I don’t know if Dr. Jobes trains these Zero Suicide clinicians. And even if they are trained, I am not sure it will be used. Most clinicians have the attitude that their skills on suicide risk are good enough when it could be faulty. Worse, they go through the training yet don’t use what they are taught. That drives me up the wall. Why bother going to a training (unless it’s a mandatory thing) if you aren’t going to take away from it?

I really think CAMS is a tried and true framework to prevent suicide based on my experience of using it in my former therapy. I also used the Suicide Status Form. Unfortunately, my therapist did not want training in CAMS and we drifted apart, thus ending our relationship. We did, while we worked together, use the initial and tracking forms but unfortunately, we never got to the outcome form. She wasn’t committed enough to see it through and that kind of pissed me off. Every time I had a suicidal episode, she just wanted to know one question on the form, The one thing that would help me no longer feel suicidal. It is an open ended statement where the client fills in their thoughts on the matter. Unfortunately, I could never come up with a satisfactory answer as I really didn’t know the reason for my suicidality. I just wanted to die and that was that. I wrote a blog about CAMS if you would like more information about how it is formed and the use of the Suicide Status Form.

I went on the website for Zero Suicide but could not seem to find the specific training that they went through. From what I gathered on Twitter from their live tweets, some of it is CAMS and some of it is using risk factors for suicide. Unfortunately, risk factors alone are not predictive of a suicide attempt. CBT has been useful in reducing suicide attempts but not all clinicians are trained in this modality. The book by Craig Bryan on CBT for preventing suicide attempts is a good book to learn more about it. I also wrote a review on the book that you can see here.
The other thing that gets me is that no where among Zero Suicide is there talk of a person’s psychological pain. There are measures, if you look for it. Dr. Holden at Queen University in Canada has created a scale to measure what Dr. Shneidman calls psychache. See my review on the research article for more information. I think it is a good psychometric to gauge a person’s level of suicidality and pain, which ultimately leads to thoughts of suicide. This must be included in any talk of preventing or intervention of suicide and also postvention, should a suicide attempt occur.

My final thoughts of Zero Suicide is that it is a novel idea but as Dr. Shneidman says, “How many suicides do you want, and I say I don’t want any, but I want there to be the freedom to do it. I study suicide but I am not pro-suicide. I’m for suicide prevention.” I share his sentiments. I do not like the talk of “suicide is not an option”. To me, that is hindering free will. I do hope the rate of suicides goes down, but the way that health care and mental health are going, I think there will be more before it lowers, especially among the chronic pain patient population.

Foot Pain, Ankle Pain, Psychache, when will it end?

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

I feel asleep around 2100 only yo wake up 3.5 hours later. I had to use the bathroom. While I was there, I figured I might as well brush my teeth. My foot started hurting so I rushed.

I went back to my room and couldn’t settle down. It’s starting to be a never ending story of pain. Now my heart is breaking and I don’t know why. I should feel better now that I know my mother knows I am a man. I thought that would take away some of the depression but it hasn’t. I still feel hopeless.

I wrote a tweet and someone flagged it on FB. I got a message asking if I needed help or someone to talk to. The report is anonymous so I have no idea who reported me. I’m just glad no cops showed up at my door. 

I’m so tired of this crap. I’m sick of being in pain all the time. I wanted to make cookies and instead, I slept all day. I might do it later today. I love the cookies.  My niece wants me to frost them so I might so that. I think they taste better without the frosting. But, I can only make the cookies if my pain is down and it shows no sign of that happening. 

I never bought the zucchini. Maybe I will Monday when I am out. I really want to make the zucchini bread. I really like it and it is easy to make. One of my friends posted a recipe for dark chocolate molasses cookies but you need brown rice flour. I’m not sure where I can find that. I also need to buy molasses. Maybe the next time I am in the Square, I’ll look in the grocery store there. They have some organic stuff and might carry the rice flour.

I don’t know why I feel so much psychache. I guess it may be due to my friend not really loving me like she says she does. I’ve known this for a while now. I’ll go for days without hearing from her and then she will be in some crisis or another, needing to talk to me, usually late at night when I want to sleep. It just annoys me that the only time I hear from her is when she is feeling bad, like I don’t exist until she feels she needs me. I just learned to distance myself from her.

I had texted my therapist about the news about telling my mother that I am transgender. He responded. He is glad I did so. I also texted my former therapist and she never did. I don’t think she will. I emailed my psych and she didn’t respond either. I see her this coming Friday so I’m sure we will talk then. I should be feeling elated that my mother knows but I still feel like shit. I think the pain of my ankle/Foot is just bringing me down so much that I can’t feel anything else but misery. 

Not sure if I mentioned it but I have decided that Oct 10th I’ll be changing my name, legally. It will cost me around $200. I’m going to make sure I get enough extra paperwork so I don’t have to go back to the courthouse. I’m not sure how many I will need to change my name on various things. I’m excited and scared about taking this step in my transition. But none of that will matter if my pain causes me to end my life. 

It is a constant battle trying to keep myself here. It is a roller coaster of emotion all the time, from feeling deep despair and suicidal one minute to feeling ok the next. I know one day I will end my life. I just don’t know when that will be, sooner or later.