Tag: psychological pain

Left to my Own Devices

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

I am having a late coffee that I hope will keep me up the next few hours. I have been so tired all day that I have been sleeping it away, without medication of any sort! My pain has been minimal but it’s so hot in the house that I rarely leave my room except to eat and use the facilities. Even though I have had coffee, I feel like I can go back to sleep. I haven’t had dinner yet. The coffee is killing whatever hunger pains I may have. So it might be a late dinner tonight. I now have my undivided attention to this blog because I am not expecting my mother to call me. Unless Twitter distracts me…

I decided to type a letter to my therapist today rather than write it. I told her of my day, similar to the first paragraph and also about other things. I had a page written before I knew it. I wish I could write something for my book as fast. I have been going back and forth with editing for my book. I have to enter the edits into the word doc. It’s always a pain because I usually have to use the search button to find the place I am looking for. I have decided the last three blogs are not going into the book. It doesn’t fit with what I am writing, not unless I copy and paste things. I might do that. Then I can go back to writing, least that is what I am hoping. But it doesn’t happen on demand. I think I am better off writing at night because my mood is darker then than during the day. I have three nights before baseball returns. Sox will be on the west coast so the games won’t be until after 2200 east coast time. I hate the west coast games because it just further disrupts my sleeping. I usually can’t sleep right away after the game ends around 0100. And I am up till at least 0300. This is the first time that I am having coffee at like four in the afternoon so I might be up till three anyways.

I miss my therapist, even though it’s only been a week since we last talked. Another week and a half before I talk with her again. I don’t know if she will be in Hawaii the whole time or not. I do hope she has fun, even though she is dreading the trip. I am dreading seeing my pdoc on Friday. I don’t know what kind of mood I will be in. I know I won’t be catching the 10 o’clock bus again. That was too early. I was supposed to catch the 1053 bus but my brain was foggy when I woke up and thought it was the 953 bus I needed to get. There is no 953 bus! I really don’t want to see her. But I am afraid that if I don’t, she will be worried. Hardest thing about being suicidal is trusting a psychiatrist with your thoughts. You always have the fear of being hospitalized against your will once it has been done to you. I have had it happen more than once in my lifetime. I have had more hospitalizations than I can count. In fact, I have lost track of how many I have had. More than 30 by now, at least. It doesn’t make talking about suicide any easier. But my psychiatrist is and has been open to talking about it. She knows me better than anyone. We have worked together for more than twenty years. We have built up a trust that is hard to shake. Most people go through psychiatrists like they were going out of style. I just have had one my whole therapeutic life. Therapists are a different story. I have had more than I care to share. I never thought I would find someone stable in the therapy business. I was seeing on every year for the first 11 years. Now here it is 14 years later and I have the same one. Both of my treaters trust me more than anyone that deals with suicide. I don’t know if it is because they know I won’t go through with my plans or they seem to intervene before it gets too late. I still feel dejected and depressed that I didn’t go through with my plans. If you can’t keep a promise to yourself, what good is making promises? Yet I have also promised these people that if I were in dire straits, I would reach out to them. They also know that I bring myself in when I need to. That has changed because the hospital, for various reasons, is no longer my safe haven it once was. Don’t get me wrong, people need these places for safety. But I used to go there for care that I needed and I no longer get it. It’s just talk for a few minutes and then a few days later, you are out whether you like it or not. I had to fight to stay in last time and it was a real struggle. I also knew that if I was out when I heard about Robin Williams, I would not be talking to you right now. His loss was so devastating to me, as it was to millions of people. But I was in a dark place, darker than I had ever been and if I wasn’t in the hospital, I dread to think what might have happened. Both of my treaters were on vacation at the time so I would be left to my own devices.

I haven’t heard from my writing partner and I have a feeling that those emails are going to be far and in between. She has been posting on various social media so I know she is writing. She has a new book that she just finished before her wedding and is promoting it. I need ways to promote my book because I don’t think it is going to sell very well unless I come up with some good marketing strategies. Problem is, I am not a marketing person! I don’t have the first clue how to sell something. I just hope that Facebook and Twitter works their magic and my book sells. I do belong to some author groups on FB but they mostly advertise romance/erotic novels, which is not my genre. I actually have no idea what my genre is, other than fiction, maybe. But it’s based on my delusions, which is in real life so not sure what category to put my book in.

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.

Saturday Blog 27: Struggle with Suicide and Bereavement of Others

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

Saturday Blog 27: Struggle with Suicide and Bereavement of Others

I will never again go to the Square on a Saturday! I got stranded there because there were no buses to take me home. I waited two hours and Twitter was no help in finding out why or the public transportation system for that matter. I had gotten a text saying severe delays due to traffic but not that there would be no service to the Square. I was so pissed. I hadn’t eaten anything but a bag of chips so was starving when I came home. I was lucky my sister was home and could pick me up. Then I got a migraine that just made things worse. So I am writing this blog a little later than usual because of the migraine.

I watched this video about “Life after Suicide”. It really made me think about the people I would be leaving behind and the affect it would have on my “kids”. It also made me feel grateful that I can talk about my suicidal feelings with my therapist and psychiatrist, openly and honestly. I think that if I kept those feelings to myself, I would probably act on it. It helps to hear my therapist say that she would be devastated if I went through with my thoughts. I don’t know how my psych would feel. Probably the same as I have known her for over twenty years. The thing is, I don’t want to live. I had made a decision with myself when I was young to take my life so I wouldn’t be old. Here it is twenty plus years later and I still struggle with suicide. It’s like it gets bashed around, deeply thought about, planned, and just never happens. I haven’t made a suicide attempt since I was eighteen and then I spent two and half months in a psych unit at the local hospital. I had met a psychiatric resident who believed in me and we worked together for three years. It was the most stable relationship I ever had with a professional, aside from my current therapist. I was still in and out of psych hospitals. When I was first hospitalized, I was damned if I was going to end up like the people around me. I was in a lot of psychological pain that I wanted it to end. Even though that pain has subsided somewhat, I still think about suicide. I now suffer chronic physical pain and it keeps the thoughts swirling around in my head.

In the video, the woman who talks throughout it says that you need to talk about suicide. In London, they have a place called the Maytree where suicidal people can stay for up to five days to deal with their crises. It is run by none other than a suicide attempt survivor. I have no idea if a place like that exists in the US. I know in my town, there is something called a residential place that is similar to what they were talking about. It was so long ago, I forget the criteria for going there. I know you had to be a part of the Department of Mental Health system to go to it. I was so ill then. I didn’t stay at the place. It was run down and dirty looking, nothing like the Maytree. But it was an alternative to the hospital. I don’t know if they exist anymore with budget cuts to the mental health system. They closed so many psych units in the last twenty years. Even the world famous McLean Hospital isn’t what it used to be.

Also in the video, there is a segment with Dr. Rory O’Connor (person that I got the video from) that talks about entrapment and how a suicidal person often feels trapped and feels the need to escape. This is often true. I feel trapped because of the guilt I would place on others by my death. I die and others feel hurt. In the meantime, I am left to deal with my own suffering that no one else can feel. How is that fair? And don’t dare tell me life is unfair. I know that already, I live with it every single day. I pissed and crapped my pants today and didn’t know it so don’t bother telling me that life is unfair. Another misery that I have to deal with and don’t want to. Dealing with the physical pain is one thing; it’s quite another to deal with your bodily functions not working right.

Throughout the video, I thought about my friends David and Melinda, who lost their significant others by suicide. David lost his fiancé almost six months ago. His fiancé was my friend Chris. I had felt guilty about his death because I am so involved with suicide prevention and yet I never reached out to Chris. I never knew the demons he was facing. He was always a stand up guy and looking at him, you never knew he was depressed. He hid it well. We will never know what made him take his life. David has been open about his grief on FB and it has been one of the reasons why I am still here. The grief he feels is so palpable it hurts to watch him go through it. Chris was the first friend of mine to die by suicide. I have had other friends die, but not like this. It is a unique death that no one can understand or make sense out of.

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.