Tag: self harm

Totally out of spoons

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

Totally out of spoons

I am so spent. I did too much today and now I am paying for it. I just had my meal, a bowl of cereal. Now I can hopefully relax as I am hurting.

I had to do some stuff for my father, surprised? Tomorrow I get to do the same things I did today, minus going to his house. He must have called me like 6 times today. He is in pain and the medication doesn’t seem to be working. I told him he can take two medication but he refused. Let him be in pain then. I am tired of dealing with him today. Tomorrow he will be seen by his doctor and hopefully they can give him stronger pain medication. I don’t care about that right now.

I have to conserve my energy (spoons). I have a long day tomorrow as I have to deal with my father and then I will be going out to dinner with some friends in the evening. At noon, I am supposed to have therapy but I am not sure I will be home for that. I haven’t quite decided what I am going to do after my father’s appointment. I know I probably will go home so I can rest, but it all depends on what time the appointment ends. I hope that we aren’t there all morning. That will just suck.

I was not in a private space to really talk to my therapist today. She kept going on about how many spoons I have lost even before I went to see my father today. I had a productive morning, all with no coffee on board. I was hoping to have a cup when I got to Starbucks. But for whatever reason, the coffee sucked today, even the blonde roast didn’t taste right. I wasted my money today for the first time. I am so disappointed. I hope tomorrow is better, I am going to need the coffee to get me through the day.

My therapist was funny today. She called me a geek and I think complimented me on being very “Bostonian”. LOL I guess I said “wicked” too much today and it just got to her. I was glad for the light conversation, as like I said, I wasn’t in a private space so talking about my suicidality or self harm urges were out. I actually haven’t had any urges to cut since Sunday. We however briefly, talked about it today. I some how developed a pimple on one of my scars and it was triggering me to cut. It was very itchy and course, when I popped it, made it really angry. I really thought about cutting for the first time in months. I kept thinking about how to make the scar “better”. I know this doesn’t make sense, but it really was how I was thinking that day. I almost had to call her Sunday to talk me out of it or to contract for safety.

I am looking forward to going out to dinner with my friends tomorrow. I am going to go even if it will kill me. I will just bring my cane and I should be fine. We are going to go to one of my favorite restaurants so I really don’t want to miss it. Plus, I haven’t seen my friends all year because of my stinking pain. I don’t see them often. The last two times we were supposed to meet, I couldn’t go because I was on bed rest. I really am looking forward to seeing them, we have a lot of laughs. So even though it will hurt me, I am going to see them anyways. I will take my pain medication with me just so that I can mingle. Luckily, there won’t be too much walking involved once we get there. My friends live south of Boston, almost near the Rhode Island border. I have to take the commuter rail to get there. I am going with my friend, who cordially invited me and will be treating us to dinner. He does this at least a few times a year, usually when it is my friends’ birthday. He is nice like that.

I think I am going to have to take a strong medication to kill this pain that I am in. I have been at an 8 on a scale of 1-10 for the past hour or so and obviously, my regular pain meds aren’t touching it. I didn’t think they would. I just did too much today. I was on my feet for more than 20 minutes, I walked long distances, and generally ran out of spoons by the time I even got to my father’s house. And there was one errand that I forgot to do, and that was mailing my therapist’s letters. Totally forgot to grab the envelope before leaving and didn’t remember until I got to Starbucks. I’ll have to remember tomorrow to do it because the rest of the week I will not be leaving the house. I need to recharge my spoon counts.

A Reunion Sunday

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

A Reunion Sunday

I went to a reunion today. It was of my former coworkers from a company that went bankrupt due to bad management in KC, MO. The company was owned by Payless Cashways, no longer in existence and neither is the company it bought out. But the people is what made going to work nice and pleasant, even if you dealt with cranky customers. Not all customers were cranky but it taught me how to deal with customer service. Unfortunately, it would be the last time I would ever work retail. And just as a reminder if I ever go back, I just have to listen to a customer complain about how their 3rd latte isn’t just right.

It was good seeing my old friends that I haven’t seen in years. It was good to catch up with people and sad to learn that people are no longer with us. It has been more than 15 years since the company closed, yet we all still like to get together. Even though we were once close, I felt out of place. There was only one friend that talked with me for more than 10 minutes. I am not that social so did not initiate conversations. I did a lot of standing and walking around the room. I would say hi to someone but it was nothing more than that. I guess I am an introvert.

I just had my dinner, a black bean burger. Now I can just sit up with my leg elevated and maybe try and take a nap. I really am tired as I didn’t sleep that well. My idiot father called me at 0230 saying his “liver hurts”. I told him to take some pain medicine and I will call him in the morning. He called me shortly after I got to the reunion. Probably because he couldn’t reach my sister. I called him back and he was doing better. I was thankful because I didn’t want to leave the place and spend the day in the ER. I bet he was probably just hungry as he hasn’t been eating lately.

A weird thing was on my wrist. A pimple had formed on one of my scars in the center of it. I was able to pop it but in the process, it triggered me. I so want to cut now. I am trying to distract myself but it is so hard. I am also trying not to look at my wrist as that only makes the urges more powerful. I might put a bandage on it if the urges become stronger. Sometimes if I cover the scars up, it makes me less likely to cut.

I just have one, well two, prescriptions to pick up for the rest of the month and then I think I am done with it. I think I am going to call the state health agency and see if I can get a better drug plan because dishing out $10 per medication is adding up to money I don’t have. I managed this month but next month, I might not be so lucky.

23 years

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression

As much as I tried to avoid getting sick yesterday, I think another culprit is to blame for me getting sick. There was a lady behind me on the bus that was sneezing and I think I caught her germs. I have been doing nothing but sneezing most of the day today, and I have been up since 0530. I am pissed because I am supposed to babysit tonight and tomorrow. I don’t feel really sick but my head feels like it is going to explode. Sinuses suck when they are clogged.

I finally loaded a profile on my speech to text software last night. I made my first FB post using it. I still like to type so I am typing this blog today. I am hoping to try it out tomorrow when I feel a little better. Right now I am all congested so I don’t think that will be good trying to talk with my voice not being clear.

I have use of my sister’s car today. I am excited but there is no place that I really want to go, except Starbucks but I feel so run down, I don’t want to go out again. I just came home from picking up my lunch: Pizza. I have been dying for a slice for a few days now. I don’t know why I get food cravings. It’s not like I am pregnant, far from it! Just weird I guess.

Last night I couldn’t sleep. I had a lot on my mind from my therapist appointment. She is hung up on the grief factor because of my aunt’s death. But I don’t feel sad. I don’t feel depressed about her death. We were close when I was younger but I don’t have that much new memories in my adult life. We just grew apart, though she would always ask me to come over for coffee whenever she saw me. I never saw her because we had a language barrier. She spoke 90% Italian, but the dialect kind. I always had trouble understanding her because I don’t know Italian much less the dialect kind. She was a good woman. And though she is gone, I am happy she is reunited with her husband, my favorite uncle. I know she was lonely though she didn’t show it often. He was a huge part of her life. And I am sure being without him for sixteen long years must have been tough.

But that is not why I have been having such a hard time lately. See this week marks an anniversary of when I started therapy and when I first wanted to end my life. It has been 23 years since this has happened. I was fifteen. But sometimes it still feels like yesterday. And dealing with my father who has been the chief contributor to my demise that year of the past, just means I was more vulnerable than I would be if I wasn’t dealing with my father. He just makes me want to drink which I guess is better than cutting. That night changed my life in a very profound way. I saw my father for who he truly was and it was an eye opening experience. The pedestal that I put him in came crashing down that night. And I wanted no part of him after that. Because if he could be so cruel that night, who is to say he wouldn’t flip out on us kids. He was very scary that night. I never seen him so mad before. Sure I seen him lose his temper but this was way different. He threatened my cousin and was intent on following that through. I have never seen him so livid. Course after all was said and done, I really needed to escape the craziness so I started cutting to deal with my pain. Not the best coping method but it was the only one available at the time.

NSSI and twitter chat

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, suicide attempt

Just read a blog about suicide ideation. The writer was able to distinguish that her thoughts were due to her illness rather and not have further thoughts about them. I wish I could do that in the moments I think about death but once I start going down that road, it is hard to do. It is hard to pull back. She wants to live, I still want to die. I don’t want to live this life anymore. It is just too painful.

Last night I was on a twitter chat about non-suicidal self injury (NSSI). It was interesting. I know I have been there many times in my cutting days. But the discussion focused on how to differentiate between NSSI and suicide attempt. For me, if I needed stitches, it was always viewed as an attempt and I was sent to the inpatient unit. The discussion focused more on law enforcement but they are not always first responders, unless a family member or someone close to the person who has cut has called for help in dealing with the issue. But that is a different scenario. Most NSSI people are just looking to release their pain and once they do, they get trapped into the cutting/burning because it becomes an addiction. It is very difficult to try and stop this type of addiction. I know because I once left a wound open for two months, repeatedly cutting until I felt no pain. But I was able to stop because it stopped giving me that high that I needed. Now I just have an ugly scar to remind me of that time period.

I like the fact that the President of the AAS (American Association of Suicidology) is a person that doesn’t like the “no harm” contracts that therapists often use to try to stop suicidal or self harm behavior. He knows they don’t work and would like to see more of a “life worth living” contract in this scenario. I wish I could meet him for the annual conference but it is in Los Angelas and that is way too far for me to travel and too expensive to boot. I hope I do get to meet him one of these days, just to say hello and have a person to person contact rather than an online one.

I was rather surprised to hear him talk about contracts. I wish I could remember his exact words, they were very cool. As I just came across David Rudd’s “no suicide contract” journal article, I thought about the wording that he used. It is similar but not quite so “life worth living”. In Rudd’s article he talks about a commitment to treatment contract for the use of suicidal persons. I suppose the same can be made for NSSI, with some modification but it would be really difficult as cutting is so difficult to treat. It just is a lot of pain and misery the person is feeling and also hate. Can’t forget that hate is a main factor in cutting, least it was for me. I hated myself so much I just wanted to destroy myself anyway that I could.