Tag: suicidality

writing and cooking

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

I didn’t have a good sleep. I kept on having bad dreams and waking up every couple of hours. I woke up feeling hungover from lack of sleep. I needed coffee so I set out to Starbucks soon as I got up as the bus would be coming soon. I had my Carmel Macchiato with four shots. I didn’t drink it all because the espresso settled and it was really bitter. I drank as much as I could while working on the nomenclature paper. I think I have bit off more than I can chew with this one. It is hard to describe the terms without actually quoting from the paper I am getting it from so I had to quote a lot. I tried to use my language as much as possible but the terms were difficult to describe as they were so outlandish. I have four pages to type up. I just hope I can read my handwriting or it’s going to be difficult.

I sent my therapist the rant I made about this part 2 paper. I think she read it because it has a couple of hits on my blog today. I might include some of that rant into this paper because it might stress the aggravation of dealing with terms that are useless. I kind of feel bad that for about ten years, these authors have been mulling around these terms and their concluding terms just didn’t hold water to a lit candle. The terms were so confusing, it really is no surprise they didn’t take hold. All in an effort to “simplify” things.

I got a thing for my former work place about my pension. I don’t know what it means. It was just another policy revision update thingy they send every year. I threw it in the recycle bin. I am keeping the pension as “cash” so that the stock market doesn’t lose my savings. I worked hard for this pension, fourteen years of labor went into it and I will be damned to lose it because of a bad investment on the part of people I don’t know. If I had the money, I would buy stocks in Starbucks and a couple of pharmaceutical companies. Then I would just put the money in a CD or something and call it a day. But I am on disability and don’t think I can do these things. I would love to roll it over to my personal IRA account but I don’t know how to do that. So I am just letting the money accrue interest where it is sitting.

After I finished writing this terminology paper, I decided to leave Starbucks. I just missed the bus so decided to walk down the street to catch the one going away from the Square. I thought I could handle it as I was feeling okay but halfway down, my calves started to flare up and so did my ankle. There was a bench that was about 500 feet from me so I walked slowly towards it and then sat down for a few minutes to walk another 300 feet to the bus stop. I am hurting big time now. I am glad I am not going anywhere tomorrow. I am going to need a day of rest. I think part of the reason I got so tired was because I didn’t eat anything. I had a cheese Danish while I was at Starbucks but I didn’t have breakfast or lunch. I just wasn’t hungry. It’s almost 1600 and I still am not feeling really hungry. I plan on making a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner. I have been craving one for the past few days but haven’t made it. I want my mother to make it because I usually end up burning it. I suck at cooking things that have no specific directions. If it has a recipe, I am usually good with it. I used to make a good chicken dish that was from Campbells. All you needed was the stuff that came in the box, fresh chicken breast and boom, you had dinner in a half hour. I used to make it for my coworkers as my mother didn’t like it and it was way too much for one person. Those were the days when I had time to cook and could do so without pain. Now I am lucky to take a 10 minute shower or make scrambled eggs when I want. I don’t wash the dishes, only because my mother has her own ritual as to how they are to be done and put in the dishwasher. I have my way, she has hers. I will only wash my pans and dishes if she isn’t around.

Preview of the nomenclature of suicide

by Midnight Demon, posted in suicide, suicide attempt

Preview of Tower of Babel, Part 2 article

I just finished reading this ridiculous article that is supposed to clarify terms but instead complicates them more than anything. I know I am not a clinician, but if I were, I doubt I would use their terms that state and I quote “self-harm type I, II, III, suicide attempt type I, II, III” etc. I have read research articles that have been written after this article and NO WHERE do they define their terms as such. I am appalled. I just had to write about this. It will be in my paper when I write it this weekend, once I calm down a bit.

What was interested was they omitted the term suicidality altogether. Instead they called it “suicide-related communications”. I am glad I have short hair, otherwise I would be pulling mine out right now. Obviously, this article is not meant to be reviewed by someone with lived experience. It was blatantly obvious this was for a clinician, researcher, or other type of professional in the suicide field (e.g., medical examiner, coroner, or public health person). I probably shouldn’t stick my nose in it but I am going to anyways because, like I said, no one has yet to use these terms in the literature so I am going to go to town on this. I am just glad they didn’t have subtypes to the self-harm or suicide attempt. And by the way, suicide attempt type III is suicide! I will have the definitions in the paper this weekend. I just wanted to blow off some steam about this now so I could be a little bit more clear headed while writing.

In the conclusion, the authors wrote that there should be studies, international and multi-centered nationally, to try and see if these terms fit. That would take some doing, though how to classify a death by suicide after it was indeed a suicide, I am clueless. And the authors did write that it would be difficult to ascertain intent with individuals who were intoxicated by drugs/alcohol or who were psychotic, delusional, or dissociated. They did mention the word “demented” but I am not sure I have ever heard that term in a clinical setting. The authors didn’t speculate on that term, which I guess means it is implied that what it is meant by.

Also in the closing paragraph, Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison was quoted about nomenclature being essentially rubbish when it concerns suicide classification. I fricken was laughing at that. I remember the line because I read the book so many times. The whole article is rubbish. More to follow…

An Oxymoron

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

I had an interesting conversation with my psychiatrist tonight. She confirmed I am on the right meds and that comforted me. I told her I was a little hypo and she said to let her know how things go. She wasn’t going to make any changes and I wasn’t asking for one. These things need to ride themselves out, as I have learned over the years. Medication isn’t always the answer to every problem that you face.

My mood was all over the place today. I got really irritable and angry over someone’s comment that they left on my blog today. I don’t know why it bothered me so. I had a long conversation with the voices over this. It helped to air it out and once I did, I wasn’t as agitated. Then I got a stupid migraine and that made me scared. My face went numb within minutes and my eye felt like it was going to pop. I took my migraine pill and waited anxiously for the pain to subside. I had just started to read a research article when my eyes went blurry and the migraine started. I guess I will read that article tomorrow. I am not in the same mood I was in before the migraine hit. After the migraine subsided and I was feeling better, I read some more of Harry Potter. Hogwarts got me the escape I was looking for. Reading has been suggested by a doctor who does man therapy. If you look it up, it is pretty dumb. But men need something stupid to be able to laugh at themselves and break up their manliness. I know I do at times. I don’t know if his particular therapy has helped men but I took his suggestion of reading a book to escape to relax.

I also told my pdoc about my sleeping habits as of late. Three to four hours a night I have been getting, which doesn’t help someone with Bipolar illness. I am lucky I can sleep during the day to try and catch up but I don’t always. Sometimes napping causes more trouble. I never feel rested unless I have a six hour nap. I usually am able to get one over the weekends usually. I don’t know why that is. I tend to sleep better during day time hours than at night anyways. I am a night owl. The funny thing is, I was never really able to work a night shift. By 4 or 5, I was so tired that I needed sleep. And if I got it on my break, I usually slept for an hour, which was against the rules. One time I think I slept for two hours and my supervisor wasn’t happy. But I no longer work so I can stay up till whatever time and sleep all day if I want to.

Today is my therapist’s birthday so I will be texting her a lot. I will stop once she texts back a “thank you”. I can be a pain in the ass, too! She always makes a big deal out of my birthday so it’s payback.

My ankle is really hurting me for all the walking I did today. I have a bum ankle due to nerve damage that I got when a disc exploded in my back. The disc compressed the nerve that controls the muscles in my ankle and foot. I never was able to regain the strength in my foot after surgery. That was 14 years ago. If I didn’t get strength back in the first two years, I am certainly not going to now. What I am left with is pain due to a pain syndrome no one can identify. Some have called it complex regional pain syndrome, others have just called it tendonitis. But if it was tendonitis, rest and ice should have cured it by now and I have been resting it for three years. The pain has gotten a little better but on days like today where I was walking too much, it flares up and is hard to settle down without pain medication. I don’t know why they call it pain medication when the meds are supposed to relieve your pain, not cause it. Just an oxymoron, I suppose.

The article I was going to read before my migraine made it impossible was on the language of suicide. I am a suicidologist from the inside out. I love studying about suicide and read everything I can about the subject. I have the experience to go with it as I have attempted more than a few times. That is why I write this blog. It helps to write out my suicidal thoughts and feelings I am having in the moment. I know that if I don’t write about them, I am as good as dead. After I write my morose feelings, I usually send them to my pdoc and therapist, well sometimes just my therapist as I am afraid of sending them to my psychiatrist. I sent her a goodbye email once and that ended poorly. She sectioned me and I spent the next three weeks in the hospital. It wasn’t fun. The police came and when they couldn’t find me because the ambulance had already taken me to the hospital, they broke into my house by smashing a window. I was very upset. So I am hesitant to send my pdoc my suicidal writings.

It has been at least a month since my last writings. I haven’t really felt suicidal since I gave up the day I was going to kill myself. My therapist and psychiatrist were against the idea of me dying. Go figure. I still am angry with them for keeping me here. I had everything planned out, sort of. I knew how I was going to die, but I just didn’t know where. I didn’t want a family member to find me so that sort of kept me here. But the writing that I was doing before I gave up my date were my one outlet. Now they are gone and I don’t know if I will be that productive ever again.

Lost

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

Lost

Had therapy today. I am glad I don’t have therapy tomorrow. I am glad my therapist is back, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that since coming off my suicidal plan, I feel disconnected with her and I am angry with her because she is keeping me here, if only for her own needs. Least that is what it feels like. I feel lost and trapped in this world and I don’t know what to do in it anymore. I have been trying to write but nothing comes of it so I just blog. It gives me some sense of purpose because maybe it will help someone who is going through the same thing.

I have been following the chat on Twitter for the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network conference (TSPN15). They had a doctor on that has been dealing with suicidal thoughts for 60 years. He had his first breakdown in medical school and had to drop out. He started Suicide Anonymous and then was surprised by his own relapse. I know the struggle he is facing. I may not have 60 years of it, but I battle through each day as if it was my last, because it could be. I don’t live for tomorrow because tomorrow doesn’t exist. Neither does next week or next month or even next year. To take from my favorite poem, I just have this moment and that is all that matters to me. What I do with it cannot be undone. Sure, I am typing these words and in one keystroke, I can lose them forever, but I choose not to do that. Not today anyways. This is why I always use a word doc to write my blogs because I am afraid of losing what I write on the web app. I have lost too many precious words that way and I refuse to lose my future insights.

My therapist was on a roll. She was talking for at least thirty minutes. I was getting tired of listening to her so I asked if time was up. I usually do this when I get antsy and want the session to end. But no, we still had twenty long minutes to talk. I told her I don’t know if this is effective anymore, that maybe we are just wasting time talking as I just seem to be deeper in a pit than out of it. I always seem to bring in new ideas but they never seem to get anywhere. We will have a “transference” session and I think things will change but next session is always the same. It’s like she forgets what we talk about. I get exasperated and just go with it. I don’t think it’s worth arguing over. I wish I could pinpoint what exactly pisses me off but I can’t. I just feel so awful that I think I am just expecting her to feel awful, too, but she isn’t and I feel more alone. I know she can’t share my feelings because I don’t think she gets depressed. But if she did, I don’t think I would want to know because then I would be her helper and she wouldn’t be mine. She does notice when I discount myself. It drives her crazy as she said so today. I wrote her a huge pile of letters, which I called bullshit. But she hasn’t read them yet so is thinking they are wonderful. I just wish I felt something other than feeling low sometimes. I had a feeling of happiness a little bit today when I found out my “little” cousin had a baby boy yesterday. He came into the world a few weeks early! My “little” cousin is in his 30s. I remember when he was little, he always called the house for us to come down to his Nonna’s to play with him. He is a sweet kid. He has a good wife and I couldn’t be more proud.

The happiness has left just as quickly as it came. It is such a fleeting emotion. It never lasts long with me. I try to hold on to it as long as possible but it takes too much energy. It’s tiring to be something you’re not. So I am back to being my depressed self. Last night, my academic self was in heaven. I finally got access to past journal articles of Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior. I got quite a few articles to read. Reading this stuff makes me a little happy because it could be the key to my own happiness and might just help me understand my moods a little better. I know that if I never found this journal or the works of Jobes, Shneidman, and Holden, I really don’t think I would be alive today. The works of Jobes allowed my therapist and I to explore the inner workings of my suicidality. Shneidman and Holden dealt with the pain and how to recognize the severity of it that could lead to a suicide attempt. I wish that was the case when I was thinking of taking my life on the 17th of July. The date is not significant to me. It is just a day I pulled out of a hat. I wanted to kill myself because I just couldn’t take living anymore. I had enough. I had the date picked at least two months before. This was to give me time to think things over and if I really wanted to kill myself on that day. Like previous times, I sometimes am hopeful on the day I wake up. But if I woke up in a rotten mood, I would have ended it. This time I did wake up in a rotten mood, but only because I was thwarted by going through with my thoughts. I had let my therapist and psychiatrist know of my plans. A dumb thing to do when you are suicidal. I don’t know why I tell them. Maybe it is because I am looking for hope that I just don’t have. There has been times when I have been suicidal outside of my “planned” dates. Those nights have been the hardest to get through. That doctor I was talking about earlier wrote a book about suicide addiction. And that is what it is. And addiction to suicide. You just can’t help but think about it. Though, I really think it has more to do with rumination than being addicted to suicidal thoughts. Because you are always thinking about your plan and ending your life, it leaves no room for thinking about anything else. You want it badly, yet you know there are people in your life that would be crushed if you died. It is always a guilt game that is played. The would be survivors that haul you in for another day of living a life you don’t want to live. And maybe that tomorrow won’t be so painful and depressing. You are always looking for that “high” of being relieved of the pressure on your chest. But it never comes and you just feel lost and alone.