Tag: psychosis

paranoia and other fun things, not

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

Paranoia and other fun things, not

I met with my therapist today and told him that I have been increasingly paranoid the last few days. I am not sure if it started with my email being hacked or not. I just can’t shake the feeling I am being watched by someone/thing. It’s making me feel really uncomfortable. I also have been feeling like my psychiatrist and PCP have been conspiring against me and putting things in my medical record as well as watching me. When I told him, he thought my meds should be tweaked and I should call my psychiatrist. I was scared of calling her, because she is out to get me. I said I would when I got home.

I came home and got a dizzy attack. I think it is probably because I am dehydrated because despite it being cold, I have been sweating. I wore a heavy sweatshirt and when I walk, I just sweat. I was expecting it to snow or rain so wore my winter jacket. I was also roasting in my therapist’s office. It was way too warm. I broke down and called my psychiatrist. I didn’t want to email her because I knew that would feed into my delusion of her feeding my medical records. She called back and we talked. She told me she wasn’t watching me or adding stuff to my medical record. I felt a little better but wasn’t 100% convinced. She didn’t want to do anything med wise but wants me to call her in a few days. I am tempted to take some trilafon but that hasn’t helped with paranoia at all. Helps with my delusion and voices but not the paranoia. I really don’t want to increase the Invega anyways because that will just mean weight gain. I still haven’t been able to lose the weight I gained since starting it. Course I haven’t really tried either. But that is another story.

I haven’t had dinner yet. My mother called me when I got to the station just as a train was pulling in asking when I would be home. I told her I was on my way home and she said dinner was ready. That’s nice. Least I will have food when I am hungry later. I think once the dizzy spell subsides, I might be hungry.

I’m feeling really scared because of this feeling of being watched, even when I am alone in my room. I am tempted to close the window and drapes but then it will get hot in my room. I really hate this feeling and I can’t shake it. Music has been helping as a sort of background noise for me. I don’t know why, but it helps. I guess it just takes my mind off the feeling and I feel something else through the music. I think it’s kind of weird that since this has started, the music stuff that normally plays in my head has stopped or isn’t as loud as it was. My voices have stayed the same, no new ones. I hope that doesn’t change. It’s awful feeling like you are being monitored, even when you are alone. I might close the window and just turn on the ceiling fan. There has been a weird light that shines in my room and then goes off which hasn’t helped my suspicions.

I need to go to the LGBT website to see if there are papers I need filled out before my appointment with their doctor. I can’t believe in less than two weeks, I see him. It felt so far away before but now is becoming a reality. I just hope there isn’t some medical or psych reason to prevent me getting testosterone. I can’t live in the body like it is. It is driving me crazy because I feel like a man and stuff and then I look at my chest and it just crushes me. It hurts so bad inside and makes me just want to crawl under a rock and die. I know I won’t be able to handle any rejection about this. It will kill me. But I am trying not to think about it or it may feed into my paranoia. Last thing I need is to reschedule the appt because of a hospitalization so I hope this passes soon or at least doesn’t get worse.

hurting Saturday

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

Hurting Saturday

I woke up at 6 in pain. The ankle brace I was wearing was digging into me. I took some meds and then went back to sleep, not caring if I never woke up again. Unfortunately, I did, around 1300. It hurt to move my ankle. I took some pain meds and went downstairs. I thought about brushing my teeth but I was going to eat so what would be the point. My mother had made some fried eggplant so I had some of that and then a bowl of cocoa pebbles. Then I made Hawaiian coffee. It was perfect, even if I was in pain.

I thought about reading a book when I went back upstairs to my room, but read Twitter instead. Someone on Facebook posted a pic of a response to Cheeto’s “Merry Christmas” campaign. I tweeted the pic to the jerk. I really detest him and hate Congress more for keeping him where he is instead of getting rid of him before he causes a war.

The music in my head got really loud. I emailed my psych again, saying I think it is dependent on my pain levels because I have noticed that when I am in a lot of pain, the music is louder than it normally is. I played my new favorite album by Eric Church, Mr. Misunderstood. I had his new single, Round Here Buzz, on repeat. I love this song. I was so happy to hear it on the radio the other day. Now I just hope they release “Mixed drinks about feelings”. Love that song too. There really isn’t a song on this album that I don’t like. I have listened to it for days when I first bought it. The music is so good.

I am really tired. I don’t think I am going to make it to keep track of the OSU/NEB game tonight. It’s going to be hard to watch because I love both teams. But I have a feeling NEB is going to get crushed. OSU is just a really good team.

Going to lie down and hope this pain goes away. If this is a nerve injury, then I think my nerve is shocking my bones really bad right now. It’s so painful. I put lidocaine on and it didn’t do anything. I am so upset over this. The last few days I have been in such a bad mood. Feeling hopeless is the worst of it. I just want to die. I don’t see a reason to go on. What is the point? More pain?

Monday I have therapy. I really don’t want to go. I just don’t see the point. Course, I don’t see the point in anything right now. I just keep on going and not quite sure where I am going.

another month of existing

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

Another month of existing

Despite being suicidal for almost 16 days straight, I lived to tell the tale. I honestly don’t know what gets me through the hardest of moments when I am in so much pain and all I can think about is death. I think fantasizing my death has gotten me through, only because I was so immobilized by pain, I couldn’t act on my thoughts. Then the next day, the pain was down and I didn’t feel so terrible. I didn’t feel like ending my life.

Sometime in the beginning of September or the end of August, I thought that if I had 41 consecutive days of suicidal thoughts, that on day 42 I would end my life. If by some chance, I had a day that I didn’t think those thoughts, I would have to start all over. I kept a spreadsheet of the days. Some nights when I was in pure agony, I would bargain with myself saying just x many days more and then I would end it. I kept these thoughts pretty much to myself. I had texted my therapist this plan but we never talked about it. I don’t remember if I let my psych know either.

I don’t know what really changed that stopped the suicidal feelings from occurring. I still had pain every day and night. But after my PT evaluation, I felt like things could be better. I was sad that the days of me working were truly over because too much time had past for me to recover. I was diagnosed too late with CRPS, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. Now I just want to be able to make pancakes without having to take breaks in between the prep, the mixing, and the cooking. Small stuff but it would be a goal. I left the PT office feeling a little hopeful that things might change for the better. It didn’t take away my suicidal feelings completely. I still thought about ending my life, but there was no urgency to it. I just put it in the back of my head.

Suicidal thoughts have become so much apart of my life that I can’t imagine my life without it. Will I my life end one day at my own hands? I don’t know. I think so and have felt that way for quite some time. Little things stop me. My nieces or nephew’s love and care. A friend online that needs me. Having a low pain day so I could get out of the house to have my espresso at Starbucks. Being able to shower, make breakfast, and then go out to do what I have to do. It doesn’t happen every day as some days I can barely get out of bed, either because of pain or my mood. Sometimes both. Sometimes a good word from my therapist or psychiatrist is enough to lift the heavy coat to make it through the day. I honestly didn’t think I was going to make it through September without making a suicide attempt. But I did.

Tomorrow starts a new month, with the same challenges. Hell, I have appts all this week with no rest days at all. It’s going to be hard. I hope it doesn’t set me off in a flare for days on end. The weather is also going to be cooler. If it remains stable, I should be okay. If it fluctuates more than 10 or more degrees, I am going to hurt more than any activity that I do. I have a lot of appts this month. I don’t know how that is going to make me feel, physically and mentally. Dealing with chronic pain every day is difficult to say the least. I have mixed feelings about this month. I hope that I survive and I hope that I die. We’ll see if I make it to Oct 31st.

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.