Tag: suicidality

Agitated, depression, and pain don’t mix

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

Agitated, depression, and pain don’t mix

I am feeling wicked agitated right now and I don’t know why. I just bought 10 books for $15 about the business of writing. Lawrence Block sent out the link and I wanted to get it before it disappeared forever. I could buy the book individually but it would cost me more than $15. I had a little trouble getting the last 5 books. It wouldn’t sync to my tablet. Then the whole 10 started so I had to delete the duplicates. I was getting really annoyed.

Then I kept thinking about my father. My sister had invited me to lunch on Saturday. She works in the same town my father lived, literally down the street from him. I was going to ask if she was going to swing by my father’s to check on him. I had to bite my tongue and it’s killing me that he isn’t around anymore. I can’t believe I am missing him. This is something I was not expecting.

Then my foot/ankle (left/bad) is killing me. I can’t seem to get the pain under control. I have taken two pills before 1800. So now that it’s 2200, I took two more. I know it’s because the doc had move my foot in ways that it doesn’t like to be moved. And he was pressing on the part of my ankle that is really sore. So the whole fucking thing is aggravated, which is annoying and pissing me off because I really want to get to sleep. I wish there was a baseball game playing that I could watch but I no longer have the MLB network.

Another thing that was pissing me off is that the Sox drafted a high schooler and people were comparing him to a pitcher that now sucks for the Sox. They are worried about how he is going to spend his money and things like that. UM, we didn’t get him for his financial spending. We got him for his pitching. I guess this kid was pretty excited because he really wanted to play for us. Hell, if I was drafted by my dream team, I’d be pretty excited, too. I just hope he pans out. Last year we had a problem with a young player that thought he was above the law because he was a baseball player. He went away. I forget his name.

I have been listening to my music the last few hours to try and distract me. Some songs are helpful. Others, I have to skip, which annoys me. Also, I had to put the do not disturb function on my phone because I kept getting text messages from the T with delays. I am just in a wicked agitated state. I might have to take some trilafon. I don’t think this agitation is good. I don’t know what brought it on. I know I am still annoyed I still have my menses. I thought it was going away this morning because things were clear. But as the day progress, that wasn’t the case. I am so pissed off I got to deal with this. I really want a hysterectomy. I am going to ask my NP if I can get one. I have no use for my uterus. It really is useless.

I still am depressed. I thought I was “recovered” from it but I guess it’s still sticking around. The gray clouds have shown up. I just feel so bogged down. I know it’s because I am still a fucking female. I hate my breasts and I hate myself for not doing something about it when I had the chance to. If I had a noodle in my brain, I could have used one of my credit cards to get the surgery to remove them. But it’s too late now. Now I got to see if my insurance will cover the cost of removing them and I have no idea what the copay, if any, it will be. Not that I wish cancer on anyone but if breast cancer ran in my family I could possibly get them removed as a proactive case to prevent the cancer from showing up. But nope. Cancer doesn’t really run in the family. God I hate myself. I just want to die. I could kill myself now and then worry about nothing. I am such a fucking idiot. A complete loser. I really loathe myself and there is nothing to contradict this. I am just a scumbag.

Review: Risk Management with Suicidal Patients

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

Review: Risk Management with Suicidal Patients

I found this book very easy to read in laymen terms. It was a short book but held important information for clinicians to protect themselves from liability and malpractice should a client/patient die by suicide.

The authors stressed that this was more an outpatient issue than an inpatient issue, least that is my interpretation. This holds true in the day an age where inpatient psych admission are short and not very helpful. In fact, there has been more suicides post discharge or during an admission than there has been outpatient deaths. I would quote where I got this but unfortunately, I don’t have it handy. It has been my nemesis to remember information but not the source.

The information about inpatient suicide care is a little outdated for the current time period even though the book was written in 1996. The important points are to have a standard of care that protects the client/patient from him/herself as well as the clinician taking care of the said client. The general rule is to seek supervision where appropriate or consultation with other clinicians that have more experience in the field of suicide and not to have more than at least 2 at high risk clients.

Suicide research and treatment has come a long way since 1996. More safety protocols have been created as well as safety planning that promote a life worth living. I highly recommend this book to any clinician in the field of mental health and dealing with the suicidal patient, even though there has been some things that need to be updated.

Bongar, B., Berman, A. L., Maris, R. W., Silverman, M. M., Harris, E. A., & Packman, W. L. (Eds.). (1996). Risk Management with Suicidal Patients. New York, New York: Guilford Press.

Purpose

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

Purpose

Everyone needs a purpose in life. It is what drives us. But sometimes when we are very depressed and feeling worthless, our purpose might not be so clear cut. We often think while depressed, that people will be better off without us, that we don’t matter. This may lead us to become suicidal. And then our true purpose is lost to us. All we think about is death because we have no purpose to go on living. It’s especially precarious after we lost the ones we love due to illness, divorce or if we lost our job. What does it mean to go on after so much loss?

In therapy, therapists often try to give us a life worth living. But what does that mean if we have no purpose for being? It often hurts too much to go on living. Sometimes there are protective factors that keep us here, like family, friends, or children we love and wouldn’t want to hurt with our death. It’s difficult to balance this when you feel so damn low and want to end the pain so badly. It tears at you night and day to go on living in this pain.

My sense of purpose is construed. Others can see that I have one but most times, I don’t see it in myself. It’s hard going on without something to keep me going. I often wonder why I am here. I should be dead three times over, yet I still exist. I am tired of just existing. There is so much I want to do yet I am hindered due to my disabilities. I am often frustrated and suicidal, not a good combo. My depressions are severe and debilitating. My chronic physical pain is as well. I can’t work anymore. I don’t have any friends that are close by that I talk to on a regular basis. I have my online friends, without whom, I think I would feel totally alone, trapped in my room. My therapist and psychiatrist think I am a writer. But since my father’s illness and subsequent death, I have not written much. I had this blog to keep me going, as a challenge to myself to write something every day. Sometimes, I would write two to three times a day. But it’s hard work. Some days it is easier to write than others.

My blog gives me a purpose you can say. I write and get feedback. Most times I don’t but I know the readership is there because I am a stats freak. I watch my numbers go up every day. Sometimes it’s the same blog that gets read several times, and that is ok. My purpose has been fulfilled if it helps someone to understand what it is like living with chronic depression, suicidality, and physical pain.

TG Issues 7: Name Change

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, depression, mood disorders, suicide, transgender

TG Issues 7: Name Change

I have been struggling with my identity for the past two months because I had to play “daughter” while my father was sick and dying. Now that he is gone, I am still struggling because I keep receiving mail addressed to my birth name as well as on Facebook. Despite me kindly telling my close friends that I no longer want to be called my birth name, people forget and so call me what they always call me. They don’t know that it is hurtful. Even today while I was at my psychiatrist’s office it was apparent she didn’t know what to call me. She thought I was still changing my name to Alex when I made the decision to be called GC or G two years ago. I have never signed an email to her with that name so I am not sure where she got it from. I did go by Alex for a while when I was playing around with names. In my memoir, I think I said my name is Mike. I thought about Mike for a long time because it’s something that I always liked to be called. But I am so used to people calling me G that I think Mike would be a bigger transition. I do go by Mike on this blog. I might use it as my middle name as I don’t have one.

A fellow blogger wrote about her identity issues and that got me thinking of my own. For some reason, today my breasts feel so heavy and disproportionate to my body it’s not funny. They just seem bigger than they normally are and it’s driving me crazy because I just want them removed. And that is where the self-loathing comes in. I hate who I am. I hate having to play a female and now that my father is gone, I know I don’t have to but yet I still do because I haven’t made steps to be a male. I am kind of scared of going that step. I know that if I don’t, I will just kill myself, eventually. It’s bad enough that I am dying every day pretending to be someone I am not. I am not an uncle to my kids or a brother to my sisters. I am not even a son to my mother. Course she doesn’t know and I don’t think I am going to tell her. I have thought about it a thousand times but she thinks one way and I know she will think that someone is “influencing” me to be male. Just like they were influencing me to be homosexual. I love women. I have no idea how I am to have a relationship with one once I transition but hopefully it will work out. And if it doesn’t, I am fine being single.

I just feel really out of sorts right now. While I was in the hospital, there was confusion over my sex because one institution had me as a female and the psych hospital had me as a male since my last admission. It was so stupid and then the admitting psychiatrist asked me if I could be a female just for one night. Why not, I have been acting it all my life. Just shrink my heart a little more than it already is shrunk. Eventually I will have nothing left and hopefully I will die a heartless human being that is a female. It kills me to play a female part because I am not “out”. Like tomorrow when I am out with friends and with my friend’s kids. I will be called “aunty” because that is what I have always been called. I will be called my birth name because that is what is what they know by. It’s like I have to hide myself every time I am with someone that doesn’t know I am a male.

I am really confused by my identity issues. I know I am a male. I feel male in every aspect of my life. I wear male clothing year round except for that time of year when I have break through bleeding due to my biological cycle. I no longer have control over that but it doesn’t make me pure suicidal when it happens like it used to. I know that I have to have menses at least once a year or there will be problems. I just wish the problem, the uterus, can be taken out as it’s useless to me. I hear there are now transplants of uteruses. They can take mine for free if they want it that bad. It’s hasn’t been used at all for female things so I am sure it is viable! And if it’s not, just toss it in the pathological fireplace. I do not need it. I never wanted kids and still do not want kids. Men do not have kids.

Then I think this is all in my head and that I need conversion therapy or something but my therapist always reassures me that what I feel is what I feel. She gets me and calls me a guy, her buddy. We don’t hang out or anything (that would be too weird and awkward), but she accepts me. I just have a hard time accepting me sometimes. I hate myself because I am not who my mind thinks I am. And it hurts something awful. It hurts so much that I want to kill myself at times. I never put two and two together until I realized my menses were a huge part of the suicidal urges. Yea, PMDD had nothing on my suicidality. I had come so close to killing myself just before I would start bleeding it’s really a miracle I am still alive. The intensity of being suicidal was immense. And it was because I felt and feel like a man yet I was bleeding like a woman. How fucking confusing is that? Even when I got my menses so many years ago, I felt hatred because everyone was calling me a woman and I was like I am still a boy. It hurt so much and I am not talking about the physical aspects of the menstrual cycle. I wanted to die since I was eight years old. By the time I got my menses, that intensity increase triple fold. I so wanted a penis like my friend Tony. He is the male friend that I grew up with. I had hid myself and played the part of female for so long. Now it’s time to be a male and I am not sure how to come out. I am disgusted with myself. I hate my breasts. I hate myself period. I hate that I have to take meds to stop my menses but if I don’t it just kills me or will kill me.

The first thing that I am going to do is change my name. after that, I think I will be more comfortable going to the LGBT center to get testosterone treatments to become a male. I need to or I might as well join my father in hell or where ever you go when you die.