Tag: psychological pain

Ankle Chronicles 8

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression, suicidality

Ankle Chronicles 8

I was in mega pain last night and still am today. My ankle is swollen and despite being off it most of the day, it has not gone down. I wish I could say that it was because I walked too much or stood too much, but that isn’t the case. It just hurts and I don’t know why.

I really, really, wanted to vote today but never got the chance. I woke up in the early morning and felt like shit the rest of the day. So I laid low and slept. I still am tired and feel like I could just doze right off. I just had dinner, nothing fancy, just scrambled eggs and toast with juice. I didn’t have lunch, unless you counted the handful of chips I had washed down with coffee. Not even the coffee woke me up enough to let me shower. And I really want to take a shower but I guess it will have to wait till tomorrow. I have physical therapy tomorrow afternoon. It should be fun when I tell him that I didn’t do the exercises because they just became more painful as I did them. I tried, I really did but I just couldn’t handle the pain.

I don’t know why I am so sleepy today, other than not really sleeping last night. I feel hung over, like took too many drugs or something but I didn’t. I didn’t even have any gabapentin. That usually gives me a big hangover. But I didn’t take any. I guess I am just dehydrated. Other than coffee and juice that I drank, I didn’t drink any other fluids today other than a few sips of water to wash down some pills. If I am not thirsty, I just don’t drink. I know I should drink more but I just don’t think about it. Especially when I feel like crap.

I feel bad that I didn’t vote today. I had every intention to but it just didn’t work out. Oh well, there is always next year. I really don’t care that much about politics anyway.

My foot is throbbing big time. I suppose I should take something for it. That will make me really sleepy. I had to take a strong pain pill last night to get relief. Now my bowels have stopped working. I am going to have to take something to get them going again. I hate that and with me not being hydrated, that is no fun. But I can’t hydrate myself now or I will be peeing all night and that will not be fun either.

Needless to say, I didn’t work on my writing today. I really wanted to go to Starbucks and write but I was too sleepy after my therapy session. I woke up just in time for it too. Luckily she doesn’t call exactly when she is supposed to so I had a few minutes to get myself together. She read my blog that I sent her about how I had to leave the SPSM chat the other night. I hardly remember what I wrote, I never do. Once the thoughts are out of my head, I usually don’t remember them. But she reminded me and we talked a little about it. Mostly we talked about my ankle pain and how it is driving me berserk. I don’t get any respite from it anymore. Every day I am in some level of pain. And it sucks. I still don’t think she gets it. I honestly don’t think she understands just how much my pain is controlling my life and that there is no more having a life. My life now just revolves around taking pain meds around the clock and sleeping them off at times. I don’t even think she gets the bowel issues that I get from my nerve injury. She says she does but I don’t really think she does. And I know she doesn’t get the level of shame it brings me every time I lose my bowel control. It just sucks and it got me wicked depressed. I don’t think any medication can help me this time. My mood was doing fine until my bowel accidents. Now it’s headed south and I think it is going to stay there for some time. I just hope I don’t become suicidal again. I really don’t want to be in the hospital again this year. I spent 3.5 weeks there in August and I don’t want to go back. They wouldn’t understand my disability anyways. All they cared about was if I was going to kill myself that day and if I wasn’t then so be it. Who cared about anything else going on in my life that was making me suicidal. But that is a subject for another blog post. I really don’t want to write about how crummy that hospitalization was.

So I left tonight’s chat…

by Midnight Demon, posted in bipolar, blogging, cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, psychache, suicidality

So I left tonight’s chat

Don’t know if anyone that reads my blog knew, but a 29 year old woman with terminal cancer ended her life today, on her own terms. She basically committed suicide. It got me thinking about Robin Williams and why his death was not treated the same way. He was battling demons we knew nothing about and a medical illness that threw him off the ledge. I don’t blame him for killing himself. It makes me sad, but also makes me happy that he is in a better place than he was in. No one understands why I have such happiness for those who kill themselves. But for this woman, I am having a hard time feeling happiness for her. I am glad she chose the method of her death and she had free will and all. But a part of me doesn’t like that she was an advocate for choosing to end your life with dignity and she took it. So we lost an advocate and that bothers me.

Then I entered the SPSM chat that was discussing this. The current president of the AAS sends out a PDF of Shneidman’s 10 commonalities of a good death. That’s when my suicidality peaked for some reason. Then talking about how depression was a terminal illness just made me snap. I had to get out of the chat room. I could have just left without saying anything but I said something, that today’s topic is too triggering for me. I got some pleasant responses. Then I got a weird one that said that I should be kept abreast of the topic. I was like “Huh”?

I have no one I can talk to about this and so I just decided to write, like I always do when I am in distress or feeling intolerant of my feelings. It helps me to put perspective to my thoughts. I also have been terrified of crapping myself for the past few hours and it has taken it’s toll on me. I have decided that if I crap myself tonight, I am going to take all of my meds, every last pill that I have will be ingested. I have had enough of dealing with the indignity of crapping myself. I can’t live like this anymore. I am only 38 years old. I should be able to control myself but that control has been taken away from me. I am no longer an “anal” person, so to speak. It is draining me being this way. I could cry but why bother. Darkness envelops my soul. I feel like I should not live like this anymore. Isn’t it my right to die? I may not have “good” reasons. I just want to end my suffering, is that so bad? I have no purpose in my life. I have no responsibilities like I did before. The only responsibility I have is to clean my sheets or clean my room, which never gets done because I don’t have the motivation to clean. My mother takes care of the cooking and cleaning, though it kills her to do it. She cleaned the bathroom and it took her almost three days to do it. She did it a little at a time. And I have to do the same or my back goes out. But lately my ankle pain has been worse so I have been having a hard time standing for any length of time. I was given exercises to do to help do something but all they do is cause me pain. I stopped doing them because I hurt so much afterwards. I shouldn’t be in this much physical pain. I have tendonitis in all of my tendons on the outside part of my ankle starting from where the bone is to my feet. There is a tendon called the peroneous that wraps around the ankle and anchors into the foot. Aren’t I lucky that I have aggravated this tendon and the ones surrounding it. The docs don’t know why. But the usual course when they don’t know what to do with you is to send you to physical therapy, like that is the cure all. I am so sick of physical therapy and it hates me. My goofball swelling has returned and it is throbbing like no tomorrow. Yet despite this pain, I am not suicidal over it. I am more suicidal over the fact my bowels have taken a run for the hills and decided not to tell me when they are moving. Usually if I have gas, I know I will soon have a movement. But lately, the stools have been soft and when I fart, the stool comes with them. I have shit myself twice in the last two weeks, both times in bed. The first I was lucky that it didn’t leak onto my bed sheets as I was in bed at the laptop like I am now. The second time, I didn’t even feel myself shit. I just farted and thought that was that. Wrong. I got up and there was a yellow stain on my bed. Fuck. I was wearing black underwear so it didn’t show anything but my pajamas did. I feel like the biggest asshole on the planet. And if it happens again, I want to kill myself. I have stayed away from taking laxatives and fiber pills. Now I will have hard stools that will cause me to bleed but I don’t care. It might also flare up my nerve pain in my ass but I don’t care. That will be the least of my worries. I don’t want to shit the bed again, literally or have another accident. I am lucky I have my menses now so I am wearing a pad. But pads irritate my skin after a while. When I had my menses that lasted for more than six weeks, I thought I was going to go insane. And I was wicked irritated by my clothing (female underwear) and the pads. The elastic in the female underwear was digging into me after a while. I don’t know why. But even my boxer will irritate me after a while too, especially if I don’t shower on a regular basis. And I have been too depressed to keep up with hygiene. I just am a mess. But with my menses, I have been forced to shower nearly every day. But now they are showing signs of stopping so I might be back to my every two days routine.

I have been safe so far tonight with passing gas and not having friends with it but that could change at any moment. It scares me to think that I might shit myself again and not realize it. I bought diapers for when I go out. I refuse to wear them when I am in the house for fear of just wasting them. Thing is, I don’t trust myself anymore and that has been a hard thing to endure. I have gotten used to peeing myself more than crapping myself. No one understands this. No one really knows this, aside from my therapist. I haven’t seen my psychiatrist in more than a month because of my own mobility issues and now she is out of the office because she broke her hip. I miss her really bad. I also feel bad going through what she is going through. She said she needed surgery so that must have been a real bad break. We have been together for twenty years and this is the first time, other than her maternity leave, that we have been apart for an extended period of time. So I this weighing on me as well. I am set with my medications for at least a month. I hope she is back soon but I know that it takes at least 6-8 weeks for a bone to heal. She didn’t say how long she would be out for but my guess is that she will be back after the holidays. This so sucks. My demons are coming back and I don’t have her around to corral them back into outer space. My therapist can only do so much. And lately, we have been on the wrong page of things. I am getting frustrated with the whole talking on the phone all the time. She is ok with it, course she would love to see me in person but I don’t have transportation to go out to where her office is, which is 30 miles away. I am still trying to finagle getting my sister’s car one week and going out to see her but my sister has been so stressed lately that I don’t want to bother her with my needing her car.

Closing thoughts: I feel a little bit better since writing this out. I love having a blog that I can write my nonsensical thoughts out. I still feel ashamed about myself but I know it will go away in time. I hope it will anyways.

900th Blog Post

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

900th post

I thought of reviewing the book “Managing Suicidal Risk” by David Jobes, but I never got around to it. It will make its way to this blog one day just not today. Maybe my 1000th blog.

I had therapy this morning. I was really sleepy so didn’t really want to talk. She called me a new name and now I forgot it. It was really funny at the time. Maybe if I can get back to that sleepy state of mind I can remember it.

She asked me about my suicidality a few times. I basically told her I had no means to kill myself with. And because I don’t, I don’t want to try. Sure I can go down to the basement and see if I can kill myself there but I really don’t think I can pull it off. I have too much going on with me. I asked her if she still needs me to be around. And she almost got choked up. Answer was yes. I felt like I had to ask because we haven’t seen each other in so long. I was wondering if talking with her was still worth it.

I don’t know if I am suicidal enough to warrant being in the hospital. Sure, I rather be dead because I hate living in pain all the time. I cooked dinner tonight and then went to pick up my niece. My ankle had a heart attack by the time I came back home. It was really hurting and upset with me.

It’s 0530 am. I just realized that I didn’t send this out so I might as well keep writing. I finally got my ankle to calm down some. I had broken sleep but any sleep at this point and I will take it. I just took a muscle relaxer because I forgot to take it with my night time meds. I have to call the doc today and let him know how I am doing with it. I don’t think there has been much change in the pain department like he was hoping. I might be on a too low a dose or maybe I need to take it more during the day. I don’t know. I have been taking it at least twice a day since I got started on it. I was desperate for pain relief because I was running low on my pain meds. If the muscle relaxer just helped me to sleep, I would be ok but it doesn’t even slow me down. Very disappointing. I hope he doesn’t change to another med because I just can’t afford it. My last 10 bucks has to go toward getting Powerade so I can take my meds at night. I can’t take it with water because I hate the taste of meds with it. I got to have something else to take the taste away. I just hope the drink is on sale this week.

Because I messed up on getting my refill on my BCP, I now have my menses. With all the drama of last week with my father, I just plain forgot to call my doc and refill the pills. This sucks because I don’t know how long I will have it for. It has been two months since my last period so I am hoping it will end soon. I am going to restart the pill again on Sunday anyway, even if I am still continuing to bleed. It is so frustrating for me because it still proves I am in the wrong body and that makes me sad. I had a dream that I told my mother off. Maybe I am getting closer to telling her my true feelings. I don’t know. Funny how two people can live together yet not really know one another, even if we are related. I hope one day that dream comes true and then I can live my life the way its meant to be lived. I don’t have to be in the closet anymore about my true self. Not like I am hiding now, but I just don’t talk about it. And if I go ahead with the transition, that would be awesome. But I think that will be a dream. My therapist brought up gender dysphoria while we were talking and I guess that is where the source of my dream came from. I just really want to grow a beard and have a mastectomy. That is all I want. If I could donate my breasts for transplants, I would in a heart beat. But alas, that is one tissue that can never be transplanted. Such a shame. Breast cancer doesn’t run in my family so I can’t even go for a medical reason. And they are not too large enough for a reduction. But then, I don’t want a reduction. I want them GONE!!

baseball and other things

by Midnight Demon, posted in bipolar, cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

Baseball and other things

Two pitchers that are on opposing teams have made the post season. Jake Peavy (SF Giants) and John Lackey (St. Louis Cards) used to be pitchers for the Red Sox organization and then were traded so the team could be worse. I am happy that one of them will make it to the World Series again this year. I am just having trouble rooting for one of the teams. I like both pitchers, though I am partial to Lackey because of all that he overcame with his Tommy John surgery. I am undecided for now and will wish them well until they reach the final playoffs. Then I will root for the NL team because I don’t think the Royals have what it takes to be WS champs. I could be wrong but I know with rest, team doesn’t do well when they get back into the game. I have seen it time and time again.

My ankle is absolutely being a brat today. I woke up around 6 with it hurting and it hasn’t stopped since. I don’t know what I am going to do anymore, or not do. I wanted to get some cream for coffee today but it was pouring cats and dogs out so I stayed in. It’s been a miserable, muggy day. And today I hate CES more than usual because I had a BM that caused me to have nerve pain in my bottom for the last few hours. That is driving me crazy but it seems to be dwindling now that I have taken my pain meds. I was going to take some gabapentin for it and I might tonight to help me sleep better. I am trying not to drink. I forgot to take my heartburn medicine last night and now I have heartburn up the wazzoo. I know if I drink gin, it will flare up worse than it is now.

In other news, I heard that one of my favorite pitchers wife was hacked. She had nude pics on her phone and hackers hacked the phone. Why in the world would you take nude pics of yourself?? I don’t understand it. Stop being a dumbass and things like that won’t happen!

I feel really rotten. My ankle is still being a bitch. Pain meds have lowered the pain but not by much. I am going to have a nervous breakdown if I don’t get pain relief soon. I am already on the verge of crying. It won’t take much to let myself go, especially after what happened this week. I just hope that when I buy the diapers next week, I don’t get funny glances. I would purchase them in Amazon but I would pay too much for shipping and they are more expensive. Plus they don’t have the size I want. Sucks man.

I still have to write something for this book that I am co-authoring. The ideas have been percolating in my brain but no clear thoughts have run through it. I was going to do it today but I can’t seem to write when I take pain medication. I either get hungry or I need to sleep. I will try to do it tomorrow, if I don’t get interrupted by anyone. I am expecting just one phone call tomorrow from my father’s surgeon’s secretary. He finally agreed to have surgery. I am thankful for that. Now he won’t be such a grump and be hopefully more comfortable.

I had therapy today and like all days toward the end of the week, she is quiet. She was animated yesterday but today she was quiet. I really didn’t want to talk to her. By half way through session, I was thinking about hanging up on her. But I knew she would call back and I would hate that. I don’t remember much of what we talked about, only that we talked about my blog and the last blog I sent her about being mad at her. I think we are going to be seeing less of each other next week as next week I got a few days where I am taking my father for doctors appointments. I just hope that I can squeeze her in on Thursday. Otherwise, we are not talking that week. And that will suck.