Tag: sleep deprivation

Tired of Being Tired

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, depression

Tired of Being Tired

I had no energy today. I thought I would take my sister’s car to Starbucks and have a mocha or some other caffeinated drink, and just journal for a few hours. But I didn’t sleep well. I fell asleep during the 10th inning of the baseball game (around 0200) and woke up around three to turn the radio off. They won in the 11th inning. I fell back to sleep for a couple of hours before my bladder said “it’s time to go”. I have been up since about six. I tried to go back to sleep but it was impossible. My bowels decided it was its turn to go and again and again and again. I had to take some Imodium to shut things down. I really didn’t want to as that sometimes bangs me up worse over the next day or two. I was exhausted from crapping all morning, literally. By the time my therapy appointment came around, I didn’t think I would stay awake during it. She was running late and I almost nodded off, missing the phone call.

She read my letter that I wrote the other night. She said that it was devastating to her. I guess it could be taken that way. I am glad I was not in the same room when she read it. I guess it upset her pretty good. That was not my intention. I wasn’t malicious in the letter. I just became really suicidal and expressed myself that way. I told her she was pretty much better off without me. Course she didn’t hear it. She still called me and then said that I have to keep all my appointments after that letter. I am stuck. She is holding the cards now. I deleted the blog that had the letter. No point in anyone reading that except her. I don’t think I should have sent it to her. I had a feeling it would worry her. Hyde writes well. I am just glad I didn’t write the same kind of letter to my psychiatrist. I think I would be in the hospital if I did.

I asked my psychiatrist to refill one of my medications to a specific pharmacy and she sent it to the wrong one. Now this pharmacy is having trouble stocking the medication. Unbelievable. I told her and she said she would send it to the right pharmacy tonight. I hope so because I am going to run out by the end of the week. And I can’t miss a dose of this medication because the delusions and psychosis will come back. She told me not to worry. I think that is easier said than done.

My sister is back home after a few days in Utah. I am glad she is back. I missed her. She sent me beautiful photos of where she was. They were absolutely gorgeous. I always wanted to go to Utah for grad school. I might have to look into it now.

And after all that I done today, which was nothing, I am tired. So very dog tired. I think that if I didn’t have my bowel issues this morning, I might have made it out today. I just couldn’t trust that it would stop. I just am sick of being tired all the time. I am sick of having my bowels dictate when I go out. I am sick of being depressed. I had no appetite today. I had a bowl of cereal, an ice cream sandwich, 2 breakfast sausages, and a cookie. That is all I could stomach. And I forced the sausages down because I didn’t feel like eating. This is the second day in a row that my stomach has been feeling full with barely any food in it. I have been drinking Gatorade and water so I don’t get dehydrated. But even that, I have to carefully sip. I am not thirsty either. I just want to sleep. I was going to ask my sister for the car tomorrow so I could see my therapist but I am just too tired. I hate feeling this fatigue all the time. I am not eating so I know that is part of the problem. And the humidity and heat are only going to get worse as the summer months come. I know we are going to have a scorching summer because we had a really cold winter. I really need to get out of the house and get my routine back. But I am so tired I can’t do that. I hope that tomorrow I feel better. Because at the rate that this is going, it isn’t going to be good. I know my mood is going to plummet more during the summer months than any other time of year. I can’t tolerate the heat. It just makes me more miserable. But this fatigue and no appetite are really bringing me down. I wish I could say that sleeping helps me, but I haven’t been able to nap or fall asleep while napping. I just lay there and my thoughts go wild. I think my not sleeping for more than a few hours at a time is really messing with me. I wake up and I don’t feel restful at all. I just am more tired as if I didn’t sleep at all.

question of interest

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

Interest

I wondered today why I keep telling my therapist I am suicidal when I really want to kill myself. I know that she can stop me with a phone call for the white coats but it is more than that. Maybe I am afraid that if I am no longer suicidal to her, she will lose interest in me and find me a bore. I doubt this is true but I can’t help but feel this way. I also wonder why I am suicidal. I know I am depressed but you don’t have to be depressed to be suicidal. I hate myself. I hate my life. But I mostly just hate myself because I am not who I am.

Then I think maybe I am just suicidal to keep my readers interested. I know that sounds silly. I am not an attention seeker. I really feel like killing myself at times but something always holds me back, from going through with my plan. Lately it has been trying to see if taking the different pills I am on in large doses will be effective in doing damage. I don’t know why I think these things. It just comes to me so automatic that I really have gotten out of touch with what I truly feel and can think about something other than killing myself. The coping strategies I know about I have not put into use, though distraction is my biggest coping skill I use. If I distract myself from killing myself, that is good. Usually music will do it or sometimes writing/journaling/blogging. I write my therapist letters about how I feel and send them to her. I don’t know if she reads them as I usually save them up and when a bunch accumulates, I then mail them. They can be the most depressing things she ever reads. But it helps distract from acting on killing myself. I feel that the interest I have in suicide is also a factor in why I want to kill myself.

Today my therapist and I were talking about lethality. I don’t think I am lethal in my suicidality where she thinks I am because it’s not like I am saying I am taking one aspirin and calling it an OD. I am saying I am thinking about taking the bottle. But then the feeling passes but the thoughts don’t. I don’t know if this is making sense. I have been up since 0600, with weird dreams a few hours before that waking me up every 90 mins, which is the standard dream cycle. I am waking up because the dreams are disturbing but I can’t recall them when I wake up. Even now I don’t remember what the dreams were about. I know one of them had me in my old house I grew up in. But that is all. Frustrating as hell because this has gone on the past three nights and I have been waking up early despite going to bed around midnight. It just sucks because being sleep deprived always gives me a migraine, like I have right now. I want to take a nap but I think that will just make my sleep even more disturbed. And the more my sleep is disturbed, the more suicidal and pain I get.

lack of sleep is a costly thing

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

I can’t sleep but then it’s early for me. I have been thinking about all the nights I have not been able to sleep because of pain, because of worries, because of things that keep running through my head.

Tonight I feel suicidal but I am not going to act on it. I just don’t feel the lethality of my thoughts anymore though if given a chance to actually act on them I might do it. I just don’t care anymore. If I live, if I die. What difference does it make. I still will be doing the same thing tomorrow that I am doing today, nothing. I realized that because I don’t sit down, say in a chair, it has helped my leg get better. I don’t know how better as the pain is less but when I walk or have a long day, it will flair. Even on days when I don’t have long days or walk it will flair up. There is no rhyme or reason as to why this happens. But it bugs me. I need something to do because I am going out of my mind. I have MASH DVDs that I can watch but I don’t watch them. I have other programs I can watch but I don’t. I can clean my room but that just overwhelms me. I try to go out at least once a day but even that seems to be too much of a hassle for me. I am becoming a hermit and I don’t like it. I know tomorrow I will have to go out to pick up my prescription. I probably will get a soda as I have not had one in a few days. I might get a tonic water to avoid the calories of a soda as I am watching my weight. I also might mix this tonic water with some gin and have a drink. I love gin. It tastes so good but I can’t have too much or I will get sick.

I just tried stretching my legs. It felt good. I wish I could remember to do it every day. Maybe then they won’t be so tight. Right now it’s nine thirty in the evening and I am thinking of going to bed but it hold no good dreams for me. I dream about work or killing myself. And this saddens me. I hate trying to go to sleep. Unless I am severely exhausted, I will fight it till the end. No matter how many pills, I take to get to sleep it seems my body always fights it no matter what. It is so frustrating. My lovely Neurontin that I love to take to zone out no longer works for me, even at high doses. I used to be able to sleep a good twelve hours, now I’m lucky to sleep five. That is my interval, four hours maximum. Where I used to sleep till 10 am or later, I am now waking up between six and eight in the morning. I hate this. I need something that makes me sleep longer but I don’t know what to take to let me sleep. Maybe some benedryl. I don’t know…

And this is all if I don’t have pain keeping me up. If I have pain then I am not sleeping at all. I writher in agony until the pain meds bring me some relief. Then soon as they wear off I am in pain again it starts the cycle all over again. The doctors don’t get it. They see me at 2-3 in the afternoon when I am not at my worst pain and think I am doing ok or better than I was the month before and give me my pills and say have a nice month before coming back to tell them the same story of losing sleep because of pain. Pain that wakes me up. Pain that keeps me awake. They don’t care. I am the one paying the price and they don’t care. They think that 2-3 pills a day is an adequate dose to keep me from withering in agony but they don’t see the price it is costing me. Lack of sleep. Lack of ambition, lack of motivation to do things I normally do. I tell them all this and still all I get is lose weight and be more active. I’ll be more active when I am dead…

Dreaming about pain

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

Dreaming about being in pain

Today I woke up at 05:30 after having a dream that my foot exploded into pain. I woke up to find that I was indeed in pain. I had somehow rolled onto my back (I am usually a side sleeper) and crossed my feet, which my bad foot didn’t like. I took a couple of pain pills and then tried to go back to sleep but I couldn’t. The pain just wouldn’t ease up until the meds kicked. By then I became fully awake and have been up the past several hours. I am starting to get cranky to the point of yelling at my deaf mother for having the TV too loud. I just took some more pain meds and some Ativan to try and take a nap.

I had therapy again today. This time I just bitched about my horrible day yesterday and we talked a little about yesterday being the anniversary of why I got into therapy to begin with: my father. I don’t like him anymore today than I did 22 years ago. He is the source of my problems and last night even though I was struggling, I really wanted to cut like I did when this whole thing started. I won’t go into detail about it because I am just too tired to stir up memories of that night. Actually today is the day I first started therapy 22 yrs ago. But it was the events on the 5th and 6th that lead up to it and me wanting to kill myself. Funny how chronic pain changes you. 22 years ago I wanted to die because my father was and still is an asshole and today I want to die because I am in chronic pain, physically and mentally. I know that I never will have a dad though I still call him that. To me he is just a sperm donor. The love I once had for him has been long gone and it isn’t coming back.

The weather certainly has got me still in pain. My spine is still aching and my thigh is just in nerve pain hell for some reason. I don’t know why. I haven’t had this type of nerve pain for at least a year or two. I hope that it doesn’t indicate that my scar tissue has grown more on my nerve root. I am always fearful of that but then the docs will just chock it up to me being overweight and the weight is compressing my nerves. I had a conversation with a doc that said that even if I was normal weight or sub-normal weight I still would have the same back problems. Being normal weight or less than what I am now is not going to really change the fact that I have had four surgeries at two different levels and that I have a deteriorating spine.

Despite being up early, I was not so productive today. I had to cancel my eye appointment because there was no way I was walking on icy sidewalks and risk spraining an ankle in this weather. I had breakfast and lunch and my coffee. I just got my tribute blend coffee from Starbucks in the K-cups for the Keurig. I love this coffee. It is such a very full bodied coffee that just tastes so good. I just wish it would keep me from being foggy brained but I think the meds are kicking in…

On another note before I take a nap, I finally found my missing journal. When I changed the sheets the other night I placed it somewhere and forgot where I put it. I knew it was somewhere in my room because why would I take it out. But it got buried in a hamper so I didn’t see it right away. I haven’t written in three days. That is a long stretch for me as I usually write every night before going to bed. It helps to relax me. Which is probably why I have been so worked up the past few days. I started writing this morning and probably will write another entry before bed. I am so glad I found it because I really like writing on paper more than on the computer. Just an FYI, there was an article I read a few days ago that said that people read slower on electronic devices than a hard copy paper. I found that interesting that the brain has to slow down to catch up with electronics than it does with say a book. But then, that is how most of us grew up with, a book and paper. I find that I have to print out PDF’s because 1) I can’t highlight the information I am reading on a computer screen and 2) I like to keep the hard copy just in case the computer malfunctions or key drive gets lost.