Tag: PTSD

about my hiatus

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, depression, mood disorders, suicide, suicide attempt

About my hiatus

I have been in the hospital the past three months. I was not in a state where I could write a blog. I was doped up most of the time and barely knew what was going on around me. I was sick with renal failure, covid, and infection called C diff. I was barely eating so they had place an nasogastric tube down in my stomach for a bit. I don’t know how long this tube was place. I had taken a pic of it sometime in Sept. I missed how the season ended for my Sox. When I came home for a bit, I thought it was the end of Aug but it was the beginning of Oct. I was home for a week or so before going back to the hospital for psych. I spent four weeks in the hospital on the psych unit. I got really good care there. I learned my top surgery was postponed and I was very, very devastated. It was good that I was in the hospital because if I wasn’t, I probably would have ended my life right then. I was so angry and frustrated as I didn’t have answers and had to wait for them. I had no access to my phone so I didn’t have the usual supports I have when I am home. It was extremely frustrating. The staff tried to help me but all they could do was sympathize with me. There was only one LGBTIQQ staff person on the unit and even she couldn’t really understand my predicament.

I have an appointment next week with my pcp to get medically cleared for top surgery. I really hope this conversation goes well. It will be the first time meeting my new pcp as a fully conscious being. The first two times I met her, I was still in the confused, delusional state. All I could do when I met her was blink my eyes and nod yes or no.

I am having difficulty writing in a constant stream of consciousness. It has taken me two days to write three hundred words for this blog. My thoughts are still hard to write with everything that I have been through. It was really difficult in the hospital as I really lost the ability to write. Writing has always been a coping mechanism for me and when I couldn’t think to write, it hurt, literally. I would get these headaches that felt like my brain was being crushed. It literally hurt to think. I got several migraines while in the hospital. I would wake up around 0330-430 every morning with severe migraines. It was terrible. The trauma of everything I went through was very difficult to process. I had become catatonic at one point.

I am still feeling wicked depressed and anxious at times. I am off all pain meds and off my Ativan. It is weird not taking meds around the clock like I once did for years. Now I just take it a few times a day as I am taking my blood pressure med three times a day and take the Latuda at dinner time. It makes me tired and I often find that by 1900 I am sleepy. But that could be because I have been waking up before 0500 most mornings. I find it hard to get back to sleep with these early morning awakenings. I am so much clear headed now than I was in the middle of October. My memory is still not there on what transpired the six weeks I was on the medical floor of the hospital. I just have these weird dreams/delusions that sometimes intrude in my head. One day while in the psych ward, I was flooded with memories and couldn’t make sense of things at all. The anxiety it produced was terrifying. I was convinced I killed my mother and a bunch of weird shit around my house. Taylor Swift music got me through a lot of the anxiety but while in the psych ward, I didn’t have my music to calm me so it was very difficult to cope. Now that I am home and have music again and my laptop, I am coping so much better. I am reunited with my online friends again and it feels so good because I was missed so much. I have missed blogging so much. I regret that I didn’t write before now but it has been hard finding my writing voice again. It has been a real struggle.

In closing, I am going to try and write a blog a day like before, even if it is less than 500 words.

feeling depressed and another shitty night sleeping

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

Feeling depressed and another shitty night sleeping

I had a shitty night sleeping. I woke up around 0130 and had to pee. I stayed up for about a half hour then went back to sleep after drinking a half a bottle of Gatorade. I shouldn’t have done it, I know, but I did and then I woke up two hours later to empty my bladder again. This time I was awake. I had a bad dream just before waking me up and I was still pissed off at the doc appointment yesterday. He asked why I was on Latuda because I don’t have a diagnosis of psychosis in my file. I said it is because I have depression with psychosis. I am trying to shake this guy off but he is in my headspace for the time being. I told my mother about the appointment and she said I was on too many meds. Fucking a. I really felt crummy after that.

I’m still waiting for my catheter company to tell me that my insurance will cover the new prescription order. I received an email from them this morning so I don’t know if it was one of the automatic ones or if the insurance has gone through and they need information from me. I then cringed and called the dentist to see what the next step is for my tooth. She said it was a two part procedure and it is expensive. I asked if we could do a partial or a bridge or something. She said she would ask the dentist and get back to me. So I am waiting.

I need to take a shower today. It has been more than a week since I last showered. I have been feeling some gender dysphoria lately so kind of why. I am not happy with my body at all, especially the hair growth on my upper body. I sent a message to my doc asking if she knew why the pattern was inconsistent. I seem to have more hair on my left side than I do my right. I also hate the hairy boobs I have. Just makes me depressed. I can’t believe July is almost here. I see the top surgery surgeon in a few weeks. I have been aware of how nipples are on men’s bodies and been taking screen shots of the ones I like that I want for myself. I don’t know if it will be a graft or just a resize of my current nipples that they will do. I really hope that my weight doesn’t get in the way of this. It will just crush me if it does.

I am waiting for the pharmacy to text me saying my meds are ready. They have been “in progress” for several hours now and it still isn’t done. Last time it wasn’t ready till after 1400. My ankle has been throbbing since early this morning when I was up. I last took my pain meds around 0400. I have one pill left. I don’t want to take it until I know the pharmacy is going to have my meds ready. I got to fucking call them. Every fucking month it is something and always with the same meds. Always. Such a pain in the fucking ass.

thirty years of therapy and what I have learned

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, Chronic pain, CRPS, depression, mood disorders, suicide

Thirty years of therapy and what I learned

I’ve been in therapy since I was 15. After 30 years and 15 therapists, I’ve called it quits. Not because I was cured because I couldn’t get the care I needed. Not all therapists are the same. And even if someone has the credentials I am looking for, doesn’t mean it will work out. I have seen social workers, psychologists (PhDs and PsyD), psychiatrists, and psych RN. The first 10 I saw within the first 10 years of starting therapy. Each therapist I saw didn’t last more than a year. One resident I saw lasted three years, till the end of her residency, but she moved on and I didn’t see her again. I tried DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy), CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), and the various psychodynamic therapies out there.

My suicidal career took up talk for the last 10 years of therapy, maybe more as it got more serious and I didn’t want to live anymore. I started researching into the different treatment options and found very little to help myself. The therapist I was seeing at the time was stuck in her ways didn’t want to adapt to what I wanted her to do in therapy to help me. It was frustrating. Then I saw a PsyD with the credentials and I thought yes! This is going to work out finally. But it didn’t because she didn’t have empathy and couldn’t give me validation when I needed it the most.

What I learned from my research into suicidology is that the person needs to tell their story of why they are suicidal. It needs to be heard by an empathic person who validates why they are suicidal. They also should appear eager to listen and to know more about the person, their pain and suffering. To find out where it hurts and to try and heal it the best they can. I can go on about things like perturbation, lethality, constriction, and psychache but those are just words no one uses anymore.

Living with pain— physical or emotional— for years is a traumatic stressor. The experience of living with pain evokes many of the same responses that being subjected to abuse or neglect does. — Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle

I came across this quote while scrolling through Twitter. Dammit this guy always posts something when I am in the feels. He is correct. Pain does have the same responses as being abused or neglected. I have suffered physical pain consistently 24/7/365 for the past twelve years. Each time my foot or ankle flared up, I had flashbacks of when my back gave out ten years prior. I had to go through a series of checklists to make sure it wasn’t happening again, each time, nearly every single day. Once I had a diagnosis for the pain the checklist checking stopped but the feelings of the trauma didn’t.

My therapist who I just stopped seeing, asked me what I was looking for in therapy. But I didn’t have the words. As I am reading the book Building a Therapeutic Alliance with the suicidal Patient, I am figuring out what I need in therapy. I knew she wasn’t able to give me what I need. I am not really sure what I need. I know I want someone to talk to tell my story to. For them to listen, empathically and compassionately to what I have to say about why I am suicidal and why it has become my only option left to me.

therapy and pain and shoulder and and

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

Therapy and pain and shoulder and and

So my third pair of glasses were delivered this morning around 0830. I have been up since 6 when I had to get up to pee. I didn’t want to go back to sleep because then I would feel shitty for the rest of the day. I didn’t want coffee just yet so just charged my phone and read Twitter. There were three packages when the mail was delivered, all for me. My cousin gave me THE OSU sweatshirt! It was the best present. He said it was from my godmother. I was close to tears but they wouldn’t fall. I thought we would discuss this in therapy but other stuff got discussed.

I wanted to go to the grocery store for coffee and half and half so I left. I took a bus there and then took a cab home as I knew I wouldn’t be able to carry the stuff home. My mother wanted eggs as she was making cookies so I got four dozen. I also completed the last of my Christmas shopping by picking up Ferraro candy for my niece.

I just chilled a bit when I came home from the grocery store. I still had to figure out a way to wrap my mother’s present, which didn’t come in a box like I thought it would. So I had one of my prescription boxes that was small enough and put it in there then put it in a larger box then put it in another box that I intended to wrap the gift in. I gave the box to my mother to wrap telling her not to open it.

I was in a lot of pain with my shoulder so I contemplated going to therapy. I asked the therapist and she said it was up to me. I knew if I didn’t show up, I wasn’t going to see her till the new year as she is on vacation next week. She said with patients like me she needs a month off, and I laughed because I knew she was right and not kidding. She told me I was messaging her too much and that I needed to journal more. She wants me to be more independent and less dependent on her. I have a problem with this. I’ve always depended on my therapist to be there and if she isn’t going to be there for me, wtf. She seems to think that she is only available during the 45 mins we are in session and no time in between. I have a problem with this. I have always been able to reach my therapists outside of session when I needed to. Granted the times I have been in touch with her are not urgent but still I like to convey things to her during the week. It is hard not to think about her when I am processing my recovery.

The thing that gets me is that this therapist never asks questions about me. Like she isn’t interested in me. I only have to speak my mind for the session to continue. My previous therapist of 16 years was all about me. She wanted to know what I was doing 24/7. We kept in touch even though we ended. It still hurts that we ended. I never processed her leaving me. And I never will with this therapist. She makes me feel like she is uninterested in me, just another slot in her calendar. Like I am unimportant. I know I should probably find someone else but it is so hard to find someone that is willing to take me on and that takes my insurance and is within T range.

I got a hold of the shoulder surgeon’s secretary today. I am scheduled for the arthrogram tomorrow. I am scared shitless. I looked up how it is done and I am feeling a little bit better about it but I know it is going to be painful as fuck. I plan on taking 2 mg of Ativan before the procedure and 2 BT meds afterwards. I just hope I can carry my water bottle. I also need to make sure I do have my water bottle because my uro wants another urine sample to make sure I don’t have an infection. I had planned on starting the vaginal estrogen tomorrow as I want to shower but it will have to be postponed. Seeing as I need to put this on twice a week and after I bathe, I think showering Tues and Thurs is a good idea and easy to remember. I just don’t know if it will mess up the test results so best not to put it on tomorrow.

I am fucking tired as fuck right now. I just took my night meds. I was late again in taking them. I like to take them between 7 and 730p because for some reason, that is when they work best and I am usually in bed by 10 the latest, if not before. I didn’t brush my teeth this morning so I am going to do so before bed when I empty my bladder before attempting to sleep.