Tag: recurrent major depression with psychotic features

Melancholy II

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

Melancholy

I’ve been in a depressive slump all day. I remembered that there was a therapist discussion going about Twitter the other day or maybe last week about melancholy and how it should be in the DSM as it accurately displayed depression better than the other diagnoses. I looked up the criteria or symptoms and I fit all six. They are:
1. Loss of Joy
2. Worse in the morning
3. Increase in guilty feelings
4. Unfounded sadness
5. Lack of energy
6. Negative physical effects (+/- weight changes, eating, sleeping, etc)

I knew I had some think. Recurrent major depression is a close second to what I have but I don’t have energy at all. I can’t remember when I felt energetic or didn’t feel weighed down. Morning are so hard to function. I have sadness all the time, not explained by anything. Just waking up, I will feel sad. And forget about joy. That took a hike a long time ago and haven’t been able to find it since. This blog used to bring me so much joy and now it is work to keep it going. I don’t get paid by posting. This is my playground where I just write my thoughts of my illness and post it to see if anyone cares. Not many do. I still haven’t found the right time to post that gets the most readers to my blog. But that is another story.

I am bloody cold. I had to shut the window yesterday because it felt like my room was in the 30s. It is that cold out right now and I don’t have the window open. My room temp went down to 59 degrees, which made me shut the window. Now it is 66 degrees in my room. I will take it but I want to feel warm. I don’t think the heat has been turning on as much. I have no idea what it is on. I put my glasses on to read it when I went to the bathroom and then forgot to look before coming back to my room. Oh well. I just heard the radiator turn on so hopefully I will feel warm soon. I can only imagine what it is like to be homeless. Some times I think about it rather than live where I am. I probably won’t last more than a few hours out.

I am feeling low again. I wish this wasn’t happening. I am having surgery in less than two weeks and I am really scared about it but I trust the doctor to not fuck me up more than I already am. I just hope my bowel and bladder function don’t get worse after the surgery or I don’t think I am going to make it. I have a plan for suicide and it will just speed things up if I lose bowel/bladder function more than what I already have. My family doesn’t understand this. No one does really. They don’t think of their nerves in the back controlling things. I am just tired of everything. I have a therapy notebook going and in it I wrote to my therapist just how I would end my life and under what circumstances. I have an opportunity to finally end my life and I am not going to by-pass it this time. I will be stupid to.

I’ve been so suicidal the past year that I think it has just become a part of me like the depression has. You could say I have a depressive personality (if that exists in the clinical world, I am not sure). I just know every day I feel suicidal and every day I feel some level of depression. The past 24hrs I have been really depressed. It hurts in my soul so deep that no medication, not even morphine, can touch it. Hell even my pain meds don’t touch it and I am on some strong meds.

This blog was supposed to be about depression and melancholy. I don’t think it is about that anymore. You tell me if I am on track. I skip around because I run away from my emotions. It is hard to stay with feeling like the black cloud following you and is starting to weigh on your chest. Who wants to stick around for that?? I know this is a punishment for some wrong I have done. I just don’t know what that could be. I try to lead an honest and truthful life. I don’t hide shit from anyone. Well maybe my therapist but she eventually gets it out of me with her stubbornness. Man she drives me nuts. This is how I know she is a good therapist. She can be very blunt at times and sometimes I don’t know if she is joking or not. But she tries hard to get me to stay with whatever I am feeling. I hate that I had a breakdown in her office in our last session. It wasn’t for too long because I wouldn’t allow myself to get too ugly. I am a man who shouldn’t be breaking down like that. But she wouldn’t let this thing go and I was all jumbled up inside I didn’t find a thimble to hide in. That was how small I felt. I always feel small when I am feeling big emotions. I don’t know why that is. Could be trauma or just the neglect I endured.

Wowsers

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, cauda equina syndrome, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, mood disorders

Wowsers

Yesterday I was prescribe the bladder medication tolterodine. The pharmacist said to take it at supper time as that would be best so I took it when I got home as it was supper time. I have been feeling dizzy since. I am hoping with continued use the dizziness goes away. I just hope it doesn’t make my constipation worse. But wowsers, is the world spinning on me! I took my blood pressure early this morning and it was low. My pcp had said that after taking all my medications, my blood pressure could drop. Well it did. Whether the low blood pressure and dizziness are related I am not sure. I looked at side effects and apparently, nortriptyline and this med interact with some cardiac side effects. I got to watch that out. My psychopharm doesn’t want me using Zofran too often as it can lead to serotonin syndrome so fuck. All the side effects are similar so I am not sure when what is what. She gave me a list of side effects so if I get them all at once then I know it is the syndrome. I feel so taxed trying to remember everything plus keep track of my bladder and bowel movements. It is stressing me out. I plan on trying to clean my bowels up before surgery so I am not so constipated. My biggest fear though is pooping in the OR while I am under anesthesia.

My mother wanted me to go out today but I told her I wasn’t. I am not feeling up to it after my long day yesterday. I need to rest. I am still not feeling up to par from the side effects of this medication anyway. I feel so drowsy but then I was up almost 20 hours yesterday on 5 hours of sleep. I really didn’t sleep well as I kept waking up to pee. I had to set the med alarm at like 4 this morning because I didn’t want to sleep through with a full bladder. I have it set at five hours intervals, which is roughly the time it takes to cath five times a day. The uro NP wants it less than that but sometimes it is less than that because I could go every three hours or so, especially if I am drinking a lot. She wants me to increase my fluid intake by drinking 16 oz first thing when I wake up. That is half a bottle of Gatorade. I am going to go through a lot of Gatorade so I think I am going to order more next month. Just sucks that I can’t order a large quantity of the same flavor because lemon-lime is my favorite flavor. I get a warning when I am over 10 bottles. I usually order around 25 bottle and then 5-10 of a different flavor to break it up a bit.

Agony of Despair

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

Agony of Despair

I had therapy today. I gave her a letter I wrote the other night when I was in a suicidal frame of mind. She said that my treatment is basically in limbo as I am not sure what the recovery is for after my surgery. There may be a way for me to have a telehealth connection but my insurance doesn’t cover it and she has to fight to get it covered. So I maybe without therapy for a few weeks or more depending the outcome of the surgery. She will be able to see me while I am inpatient but I am not anticipating a long hospital stay. Most I will be in for is a week as they like to kick you out soon as you are stitched up. My recovery is going to be at least through the weekend but again, depends on a lot of factors. What I am thinking may not be accurate but I do know I will be there at least through Sunday, if not Monday. I will need home care and/or rehab services as there is no one to care for me at home so my stay may be longer than Monday.

While we were talking she was joking and then I was joking and then she jumped on me to make sure she was saying was understood by me and I just lost it after that. I broke down and I am still reeling from it. Talk about something stupid setting you off. I didn’t allow many tears to fall but I felt like an elephant had jumped on me after the tears stopped. My chest felt so damn heavy. I told her the psychopharm wanted me to think about ECT and she said no one should be bringing up anything to me right now with the surgery that I am facing. She was looking out for my well being and I appreciated that. She is a really good therapist and I am glad to have her in this point in time. I think I will be able to get some work done but it is going to take some time.

Today is the anniversary of when I first attempted suicide. No one knew and I did a bad job of it but I entered the world of self-harm in the process. The goal was to dig into my arm to sever a vein but I never realized how many layers there are to get to that level. The following night was as traumatic as that night and the following day I entered therapy. It took a lot to get me to open up because my father had instilled in me the “what goes on in the house, stays in the house.” I was too suicidal in the week after the attempt. I just started cutting and it was how I expressed my emotions as I didn’t have words for them. I still don’t. That is what went on today. I felt a jumble of shit and just broke down when I was being hammered by questions. My therapist didn’t allow me to jump ship and if I did she lead me back to where I was. I had an anxiety attack that kicked everything off. We were talking about surgery and the next thing I know I am crying. On the way home I wanted to drink so bad. I was thinking about gin and how drunk I would get but those feelings have passed.

I was telling my therapist about how my blog writing has dwindled and writing in general when she picked up the letter I wrote and said no sir. I guess I have to have some kind of person in mind while writing in order to get the words out because once they start flowing, I can go on. She did say that I started to get into something while I wrote but then I stopped midsentence. I had no idea what she was talking about. I kind of just went with it because I do that so often now that I don’t even notice. I just know I feel some strong emotion and I move onto something else. A friend who was reading my blog the other night commented on it. I had to laugh. He said at least I was aware of it. I am aware but after the fact not during. It is really hard for me to sit. Hell even while having severe anxiety in session I was talking about the Sox and anything else to get over the feelings. I know I compartmentalize a lot. It happens with trauma. I told her to expect a lot of talking about the Sox all season. She wasn’t phased only with me coming to see her to talk about the sox. HA. I talked a lot about baseball in my previous therapies and I will be damned not to talk about it in this one as well.

Thing that is bothering me is that she wants me to write out stuff, either blog, journal, letter writing, etc. but I don’t think she gets how damn difficult it is for me. There have been moments where I cannot write what I am feeling because I am too jumbled or I just cannot find my words. It is like they are there but I can’t “see” them. What is worse is that the Invega is taking away my voices so the inner conversations I always have are lost. Granted if I am feeling high emotions, they are there because they always are. They always have been. I don’t want to become psychotic when I am feeling high emotions because that will be bad and potentially dangerous to me. The voices tend to tell me to end my life when medication isn’t holding them back so if I am in a high state of despair, I may act on what they say.

I am glad the drinking urge has passed and I don’t feel like drinking. I have a quarter of a bottle left and I seriously thought I would finish it off. It wouldn’t take much for me to become drunk or buzzed from alcohol because I don’t drink normally. I might have a glass of wine occasionally but that is all I will have. I don’t usually drink to get drunk but tonight I wanted to. Glad there was a line at Walgreens to distract me from these thoughts/feelings.

heaviness continues

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

Heaviness continues

I reluctantly went to my psychopharm appointment today. My ankle/foot flared up just before I had to leave so I really didn’t want to leave the house. The pain sort of got better with me moving but soon as I got near my house, each step was agonizing. I could barely make it up the stairs. My legs feel heavy and the feeling of walking in mud has been going on for more than a week now. My psychopharm wants me to think about ECT as this could be depression. Could also be medication related but don’t know. I have been taking the medication late in the afternoon when I am home in case it makes me so drowsy I need to sleep. If it keeps me up at least I will have my night meds to bring me down. We talked about upcoming surgery and how nervous it was making me. She will be having some kind of surgery in the middle of April so I don’t know if I will see her. It all depends on how well I recover and if I am up to seeing her in person. We have been conversing via the patient website thing so we may have to do that until she returns. I am not sure if someone will be covering her while she is gone. I forgot to ask.

The voices have been quiet since the medication increase, though as I told my psychopharm, it is a little too quiet. I am having some difficulty functioning as I just feel so down and my cognition isn’t there. She isn’t sure if it is depression making it this way or not. That is why she either wants to change antipsychotics and have me start ECT. I probably wouldn’t be a candidate now as I am facing surgery in two weeks. She wanted to start the process and I told her no. I am not ready. I am going up on the antidepressant and antipsychotic so would like to see if that changes my mood. If the antidepressant makes me sick, then I will think more of ECT. I will be out of choices for meds if this fails, either on its own therapeutic level or me having side effects.

I am feeling depressed because right now I am in a lot of pain. I honestly don’t want to keep my appointments tomorrow but I already skipped my uro appointment two weeks ago. I don’t want to miss it again. It is with the nurse practitioner who does the catheter stuff not my urologist. I don’t have an appointment with my uro on the books. I need to make one probably after my surgery to see how things went. She said she wanted to redo the urodynamic testing two months after surgery to see if there is changes. Maybe when I call to make the appointment I will ask about the testing as well. I know they can be pretty booked. My urologist thinks I may have some function return after two months post op. I hope so. I hate thinking I am going to cath the rest of my life. It is too depressing to think about.