Tag: suicidality

Chronic pain and therapist suicide experience

by Midnight Demon, posted in chronic physical pain, depression, suicide

Chronic pain is a bitch

I woke up around seven this morning in pain. Instead of listening to it, I said fuck it, and went out today after my therapy appointment. I had to get out of the house to get a coffee and write. I am tired of looking at the walls in my room.

While I was up early, I checked my blog stats. Turns out my comparison of psychological pain scales was high at 3 views so I decided to send the link to the psyD I have been following on twitter. I really like this guy, not in a romantic way or anything of the sort, but as a person of interest in my interests. He talks a lot about GLBT issues and also of his dog. He has a basset hound. Though I am not really a dog person (I prefer cats), I do think basset hounds are pretty good. I could be wrong about the breed, as I only have seen one picture of her.

Anyways, I sent him my paper and he favorited it, which I hope in the twitter world, means like. I am so curious to see what he thinks of it. This is the second paper that I sent him. The first was my analysis of a song paper that talked about how to save a life. He blogs and today he sent out a blog about suicide. I read it later this morning after going back to sleep. I was sad to find out that he lost a patient to suicide a few years ago. He wrote about it in such a way that made me feel for him. He also wrote about how it was difficult to write because he didn’t want to violate his ethics of being a psychologist. There are several blogs about how he dealt with this loss. I haven’t had the chance to read them all, but I will because I think it is important to read. Not many therapists have the courage to acknowledge the loss of a patient, especially on the internet. It is such a sensitive topic for any therapist. I have read a lot about suicide and know that there is a 1 in 10 chance that a mental health professional will encounter a suicide in their practice at some point in their career. Out of the therapists that I have known where this guy works, I say he is the one. But I could be wrong. That percentage might be higher. Not all therapist deal with the loss. They may never want to treat a client again with suicidal tendencies. Or if they continue to see someone with suicidal thoughts, they may shift them to another therapist. Often, the therapist feels like a failure as my twitter friend wrote. But they are not failures. Suicide is a personal, private act. As suicidal as I have been over the years, I never wanted to share my thoughts because I was always afraid of being thrown in the hospital because of them. And after a dozen hospitalizations, I finally learned that if I wanted to keep out of the hospital, I had to stifle the urge to tell someone my thoughts. It became a lonely place. That is why in 2005, I shut down with my therapist and almost killed myself. That year was the closest I have ever been in my adult life, outside of the “chronic physical pain suicidal thoughts”. I say that is a distinction because I wasn’t in chronic physical pain then like I am today. I was deep in psychological pain. And I think that if my therapist hadn’t cried when I told her I was ending my life, I might have gone through with it, even though I told her what I was planning. I still had time to say “fuck you” and end it all, but her crying stopped me. It meant that I meant something to someone other than my dysfunctional family. I couldn’t kill myself knowing that I was going to cause her pain. Sure, she might have had a little post partum depression going on (she was finally back from maternity leave earlier that year) and my suicidal thoughts triggered a response I wasn’t expecting and also for her.

Feel stupid

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

Feel stupid

I had asked my therapist for another session today to continue what we were talking about yesterday about my self-image and dissociative state. Least that was the plan anyways. It didn’t work out. I was so out of it from taking pain meds last night and still feeling deeply worried about my ankle as it is numb. I thought with rest it would go away by morning but it hasn’t happened yet. The pain is not there, least as long as I don’t move it a certain way. We ended up talking about that, most of the session. And then I felt bad and stupid because there were periods where I wasn’t talkative or just gave one word answers. Yea I was an interesting person to talk to today. NOT.

I wrote her a letter last night and I partially read it to her, or at least gave her the gist of what it was about. Apparently, I threatened suicide at the end of the letter. But luckily, I didn’t follow through with it because I fell asleep shortly after signing off. I was in a bad state of mind last night because even though I had a “band” of numbness around my ankle, before and after this band was severe pain. I was just very uncomfortable and seriously considering going to the hospital to find out why I was numb. I am still numb but I don’t have the same amount of pain around the numbness. And I don’t think this is psychological. I think because it is so swollen, I can’t feel my ankle because the skin is being stretched so much. Icing it causes me pain so all I have left is elevation.

I almost had to laugh when my therapist asked what I was doing this weekend. UM, don’t you remember I am on bed rest?? The only thing I have to do is figure out how to get to the pharmacy to refill my pain medication. I figure I will do this on Saturday to make sure I don’t waste my time tomorrow. But other than that, I am not planning on going anywhere. I was supposed to go to a grad party Saturday and a birthday party on Sunday but I have cancelled those events as there is no way I can go. It will cause me too much pain.

This numbness that I am experiencing is really annoying me. Just imagine your foot going to sleep and never waking up is the best way I can describe it. I am not getting the pins and needles you get when it wakes up. I feel so stupid that this is happening. I can still stand on my foot, walk on it, etc. It just feels really weird. There is no color change, there is no bruise or redness around the area. It just is so frustrating. Even if I go to the hospital, I know the x-ray is going to show nothing wrong with it.

I am really tired today. I want to sleep but the fricken birds in my area are chirping really loud. It is annoying the crap out of me. And it’s hard to sleep when you are disturbed like this. I wish there was a way to scare the fuckers away but I don’t even know where they are hiding. I would throw rocks at them or something. Good thing I don’t own a fire arm.

suicidal self vs DID

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, mood disorders

I was reading an article tonight about DID, or Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as Multiple personality disorder). It got me thinking in a lot of ways that I will ask my therapist about. I am wondering if I went into an “alter” last week when I became really suicidal. My pdoc thinks that I am just not made to be menstruating, that anything to do with it, I just become suicidal. But it’s so strange that I become this suicidal maniac until I start bleeding. Then I am back to my status quo. I woke up differently on Thursday than I was feeling on Wednesday. I still feel like I should be dead but it’s like last Tuesday was eons ago rather than just last week. I don’t know if I am making any sense. I just know that I was different than I am now and I am trying to figure it out. Nothing triggering me into being someone else. I just figured that since no one was home, they would have a hard time finding me and then it would be too late to save me. I am not going to say what I was planning on doing.

This “different” state happens all the time and I should know by now that it is hormonal. But does hormones play a part in DID? No one really knows that much about it. They know that trauma plays a huge part in forming the alters or different personality states. But why should I have just a suicidal state? I mean I am suicidal most of the time but this was different. This was borderline hospitalize me now or I am going to end my life state. And then, just like that, I didn’t want to kill myself anymore. It was the furthest thing from my mind. I am not saying that I wanted to live, because I NEVER do but suicide was the last thing on my mind and has been that way the past few days. I actually have been feeling “happy” and not moody. I am finagling how to make a future for myself that includes going back to college and getting my degree. That I don’t have a car anymore, kills me. That I am not working anymore, kills me. And the big one, that I am disabled, absolutely destroys me. I have to be on bedrest for the next month. That absolutely sucks. I literally have to make the swelling in my leg go down before my next appointment. I don’t know what they will do. Probably start me on more pills or something to get the swelling down if rest and ice doesn’t work.

And all this is fueling my suicidal gauge again. It got empty for a while but now it’s back to being full. And I cannot tell my therapist I am on bed rest because she will fucking pull that card on me big time and I don’t want to hear it. It would soon be grounds for admission to hospital and I can’t do that. FUCK that. Problem is, I haven’t figured out how NOT to keep this from her because I have a big mouth and I tell her everything that is wrong with me. I don’t know how she stands me. I really don’t. I torture this lady week after week with my suicidality. I bore her to tears with my pain issues. She doesn’t let on about it, but I know I bore her. But I am getting off topic of the DID stuff…

I don’t know when the suicidal self began. It happened really quickly and that is what scared me. I started thinking about this on Monday (last Monday) and then poof, Tuesday I was in the running for a suicide attempt. It got spoiled only because my fucking idiot therapist wanted to keep my appointment with her. Damn bitch and her decorum. It was a beautiful day to kill myself. No one was home. I would take what I needed to do the deed and be done with it with no one to fucking stop me. So the plan was to proceed anyways. NOPE, didn’t happen. I had to text her that I was going to be dead by Wed and would not be keeping our appointment because of my death. Or something like that. I am the biggest idiot alive. One hand I was having keen suicidal thoughts and in the other hand, I am texting the one person that could stop me from going through with it. I am a fucker, as she has called me numerous times now. I am not kidding. But it is true. My ambivalence got in the way, maybe, and thus my beautiful plan was never executed in the fashion I wanted it to. So then I started thinking of other ways to end my life. Until Thursday came with a little gift of discharge and all was right with the world again. Doesn’t make sense. I didn’t lose track of time. I was in the moment, well, in a suicide moment. The constriction was deep and flowing. I couldn’t wrap my head around anything other than killing myself and then poof, it’s gone. Just like that. And I am left stunned. I am back to the land of the living though I certainly don’t want to be here. I am left feeling like “did that really happen”? “Was I really thinking of taking my life that way”? Why did I want to die so badly? It just doesn’t make any sense. And I don’t think my therapist or my psychiatrist can make sense of it either. Just a few drops of menstrual blood was all that was needed to break the insanity, to lose the suicidal self. My psych doesn’t see that side of me often. She doesn’t see what my therapist sees on a regular basis. I think it is harder for her to diagnose me as a DID because of this, if I do have DID. But I don’t think having a suicidal self “counts” as a “part of self” or an “alter”. And that is really frustrating me.

I am on birth control pills that are supposed to control my menses so this break should not be happening. Yet it happens and I have no control over it. I don’t think anyone can really have control over it. Even though the discharge was only a day or so, it was enough to break the suicidal self and bring me back to being miserable. And that is that sad part of this. I don’t die and I am forced to live when I don’t want to.