Tag: psychological pain

time and patience

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, mood disorders

Last night I was in excruciating pain. It was terrible. I emailed my psychiatrist that I was done. If my PCP wants me to jump hula hoops he has another thing coming. I am not buying into it anymore. I no longer care what is causing my pain. I know what helps my pain and that should be all that matters. He isn’t questioning my blood pressure medication. Why the hell is he giving me a hard time about my pain medication. I am sick of it. After last night, I swore to myself this was it. It’s the weekend so I can’t do a thing about it. My foot still hurts so I won’t be going out like I had wanted to. It probably would hurt me anyways.

I know I posted a lot yesterday and last night. I got the writing bug back so please forgive me. I have to express myself the best way I know how, by writing.

The President of the AAS posted an article about how the mental health care in the UK is going down the tubes. It’s been going down the tubes in the US for some time now. I know, I have been apart of the system. The hospitalizations don’t care about stabilizing you they just care if you aren’t going to hurt yourself when you leave. And then it is up to incompetent clinicians who don’t know how to deal with suicide and suicide ideation. Most don’t want to change their practice to the new system. Some won’t even attend a seminar about it. I think it has to be mandatory, statewide or they cannot renew their license. That is what I think. If they were to get into a program of CAMS or use the SSF I think there would be a lot less suicides out there for people that want help and this way here they won’t be turned down. But I don’t think there are enough clinicians to do the job. Graduate programs only have a minimum of five or six slots per year. That is a very small number for new clinicians. I also think there should be incentives to work with the population that most needs it. It’s all about triage. But can triage really work in the mental health system? Who is to say that the quiet kid in the corner who is hurting is not the worse off than the one screaming at the top of his lungs because voices are telling him they are going to kill him. I don’t have all the answers. But for those that want help should have priority over those that don’t want help. But unfortunately, those that don’t want help are truly the ones that need it the most. Those are the ones that will end up killing themselves. There is no easy balance. Everyone’s needs are different. And if you shy away from that person, you leave a bad impression about being cared for in that person’s mind.

In my case, if I stopped going to a therapist every time they left me, I would not be here. Sure, when that therapist left it gave me a bad taste in my mouth. But I knew I needed help and so I sought it out. Not every therapist is right for every person. Sometimes you have to go through several to find the one you can talk to the most and won’t be so judgmental, or feel like they are. It took me 11 therapists to find the one that I have been with for more than a decade now. It just takes time and patience to find that right one.

annoyed

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, chronic physical pain, depression

My day started out early as usual. I am getting used to getting up before five these days but today it was because of pain and bladder was full. I try not to drink before going to bed but it’s not easy as I have a ton of meds to take and I can’t dry swallow them. I need some liquid to wash them down.

I am in an irritable mood. My foot still hurts and I am just cranky. I thought of getting coffee down at my sister’s but I really don’t want to talk to anyone. I just want my coffee and go back up to my room where it’s nice and quiet. I spend most of my time up in my room though today is mostly going to be a sleep day as I just took some more pain meds. I did too much the last two days and am now paying for it.

Saw my psychiatrist yesterday and we talked about my book anxieties. I feel better now knowing that my editor wants to edit my book as I gave her two chapters and she loved it. One worry down. I also printed off another copy of my manuscript so I can go over it and make changes to it if I feel there need to be. I know there is one section that I want to work on, namely the introduction. My therapist thinks there should be an Epilogue but I am not there yet. Besides, who writes an Epilogue for a memoir? She is going to drive me crazy, more than what I already am. I think she is just excited that I wrote a book after years of telling me to and it finally happened.

Yesterday I was feeling contentment. Today I am just depressed. I just want to sleep and do nothing. I put my status on Facebook that I would work on my short story but I am not that depressed. I need to be in a really dark place to write the short story and I just am not there. FUCK my mother just turned on the living room TV. I might not sleep as much as I want to after all. I am getting annoyed and irritated. And if I just didn’t pop two pain pills, I would be out the door, freezing my ass off for the bus. I really can’t think when I am trying to concentrate but I am hearing LOUD noises downstairs. Then she wonders why I don’t use my office! I swear if my book becomes successful, I am going to rent an office space and just have a table and a chair, maybe a Keurig machine and write there. It will get me out of the house and I will be able to work on my stories without interruption. I won’t have the internet which will not be a distraction and then I can come home and publish what I wrote. Dream world fantasy, I know but it is what it is.

I have been thinking about this story now for days and nothing new has surfaced with it. I think it is done and now I have to wonder if it will be part of my book or not. I have to check to see if I wrote about Hyde. If I did, I will include it in the chapter or the next chapter. So many decisions.

I still need to write something for my short story. I just don’t know where to go. I have never written a plot before or anything like that. But when I do, I will post it on my blog so you guys can read it. I told my psychiatrist about it and I was thankful she didn’t want me to send it to her because I was fearful she would call me out of concern or worse, hospitalize me.

It’s a windy day. House is shaking every time the wind blows. Just wonderful. Add it to my annoyance today. I feel like every time it blows it’s like the big bad wolf huffing and puffing trying to blow the house down. Oh, and to add more to my annoyance, my cell network is doing work in my area. I have not been able to get more than 2 bars in my house since it started. Sometimes I don’t have service in the house at all or outside the house. I tweeted a complaint but never got a response, nor was I expecting one. I have been with the same company now for over ten years. I like them for the most part. Except for right now when I have practically no service in some parts of the house!! I just hope that it clears up by Tuesday when I have my next therapy appointment. Going to be mighty difficult doing talk therapy via text!

a story and pain

by Midnight Demon, posted in chronic physical pain, depression

I have been continuing to add to the “darkness always win” blog that I wrote the other day. I am trying to channel the inner darkness and write it out but it is very hard to do when I don’t feel that way all the time. I felt a little bit of it today so wrote some more but have not typed it up in the word doc. I am really tired. I literally spent the day at Starbucks just writing. I also went to my eye doctor who said that I have just a bad migraine without pain when my eyes don’t focus the way they should. I guess I was more worried about the appointment than I should be as I felt so relieved I almost had to take a nap afterwards. I have been up since eight. I finally got some good sleep. I am hoping to stay up late tonight so I can finish working on this darkness story.

It is cold where I live. And supposed to snow tomorrow night into the next day. I hope they are wrong as that will mean I won’t be able to go out until Thursday. I have to be careful when it snows because I can easily slip and twist my already sore ankle. I wore the AFO today and it was good to wear it as I am not in a lot of pain tonight. I hope that continues but my foot is getting colder as I am typing this. UGH I think I am going to have to take some Neurontin if it gets hot. I hate the burning of nerve pain. Nothing helps but Neurontin and sleep aids (Ativan).

I hope I am not getting sick. I have been sneezing for the last twenty minutes. I hate when I have a sneeze attack. I don’t feel ill, so that is good. But I am tired. I don’t know if I am going to make it till nine tonight but I got to try and stay up late because otherwise I will wake up at three in the morning. That’s not fun! I swear, since losing my job, my sleep cycle has gotten worse because I have no set schedule anymore. I am tired I lie down and if I sleep, so be it. If I wake up in the middle of the night, so be it. I just play my game and be up a few hours and then go back to sleep. Granted it gets more complicated by pain, but lately, my pain levels have been, well all over the place. One day I won’t have any pain and the next it will be soaring high. I think since taking the Neurontin the other night, my pain has been less or I don’t think about it as much. It still throbs every day regardless. It just the level of throbbing that gets to me. Right now it’s at a level of 3 on a scale of 1-10. That could change when my foot warms up and I am ready to sleep. Also for some reason my right foot has been giving me grief in the morning. Naproxen has been able to control it for now but usually, once I start moving about, the pain stops. I think it’s just a muscle thing. I hope it’s not a fascititis thing as that will never go away! I hate it when my left foot gets really cold. I have a sock on it and it is under a comforter and sheets. Just not looking forward to the warm up part of it. I go through this almost every night. It gets cold, then really hot and finally I have to sleep with the foot hanging off the bed because anything that touches the foot will hurt like hell. Classic nerve pain or CRPS. I don’t know which diagnosis I prefer. I just know that either is painful enough to send me into a suicidal crisis if severe enough. And I am not talking about a level of 3. I am talking an 8+ or when there is no level to describe the pain.

I have finally figured out a way to pay off the editor sooner rather than later. My mother has decided to lessen the amount this month that I give her. With this money, though I am supposed to use it for my membership to the AAS, I have decided to pay off the editor so it’s not hanging on my head anymore and maybe that will be incentive for her to push up my number or something. I just want to publish my book and sooner rather than later before the doubts that I am having take hold full force. Because once I hit the send button or publish button, I can’t stop it. Screaming at the computer screen to cancel is not going to work. I have done that with text messages and other emails. You hit send, that is it. It is on the web forever. And I don’t think there is an eraser button for the internet.

they will float away

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression, suicide, writing

I had my weekly therapy session today. We talked about the new book that I was writing as I am not happy with what I am writing and she said that I “write magic and things come together” whenever I look back over what I wrote. So I am going on that assumption even though what I wrote feels like shit. She doesn’t know how I write like I do. I don’t either. I just do. Maybe it’s just my artistic temperament. I don’t know. I felt like she was saying these things just to booster my confidence but I feel so low that it didn’t work this time.

I told her about my lows, how one day I am “fine” and the next I am thinking of killing myself. How can you go from being okay to thoughts of killing yourself is beyond me. My blogger friend was describing feeling empty last night. I guess I am feeling that today. I don’t know if my writing is effective anymore. I just feel like I lost something and I don’t know what it is. I know I should be glad that the feelings of wanting to kill myself aren’t 24/7 like they used to be. Maybe I am missing it. I mean, I have felt like that for YEARS. And to go from that to nothing, well, is weird. I like to think that I turned a corner but yesterday when I woke up, I just wanted to be dead. Course this is coming after a bad pain night in which I wish I didn’t wake up. But after those thoughts passed, they didn’t linger. I didn’t harbor the thoughts or feelings. They just floated away and I got on with my day. Today I am feeling like I am stuck. I am stuck in that harbor with these thoughts and wondering if they will float away.

I have been up early. My mother woke me up early this morning, before her stinking alarm clock went off. She is now snoozing on the couch. She didn’t hear me go up and down the stairs. Pity. I could have called it payback.

I keep thinking of what next to write and I just don’t know. I know that this blog is like my online journal. But I don’t want this blog to be just about my every day struggles. Yes I have not showered in a few days time and I need one but that is the least of my worries in the midst of this low level depression that seems to be sucking the thoughts out of my head. I can’t seem to think with this type of depression. Like my other blog I wrote the other day, to me, my blogs lately have just been words on the screen.

My ankle is hurting so I doubt I will go out for a latte. Just getting my lunch was enough to push it on the edge. It feels like someone is trying to snap it in half. And any weight I put on it, make it worse. So now I am stuck in bed keeping my foot raised to keep it immobile as much as possible so I am not in pain. I am glad when I went out I got some snacks. I know I shouldn’t be having them because I am trying to watch my weight but my therapist seems to think that I am anorexic. We talked about it today and she just wants me to eat protein. Yesterday I had two eggs (one for breakfast, the other at dinner) and I was still hungry an hour later. I don’t know what is driving my appetite increase but it sucks. And I know that if I don’t keep a watch on it, I will turn into a cow. I am not skinny by any means of the word but I would like to get below what my weight is currently. But I think I am PMS’g so I bought some chocolate. Chocolate comes from a cocoa tree so therefore it is a plant. That is my rational for having some.

Because my ankle is now bothering me in the afternoon, I guess I should take something for the pain. But that means I will be a zombie or worse take a nap so I can wake up at 8 pm. I am trying my best to ignore it but it doesn’t want to be ignored. Dammit! I hate that. So much for thinking this will go away on its own. I’m off to listen to Lady A. Maybe their music will keep me calm and awake enough so I don’t take a nap.