Tag: suicidality

depression and mobility

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

This morning started out ok until my grumpy sister started yelling at everything. I ducked out of there before things started flying. Hehehe

I know I should be writing in my “book” but I think I will take a break today. I spent almost four hours on it yesterday and it is now up to eighteen pages. I figure I will add to it a little bit every day but it stirs up emotions and I think that is why I am frustrated right now. It is difficult writing about your struggles with suicide without feeling it when you are still struggling with it. Last night I was in bad shape. I started thinking that I would be better off dead and just wanted to die. I just don’t think I have a purpose and feel like I am just a burden on my family because I am no longer working. I am collecting a social security check and it bothers me that this how my life is right now. I can barely deal with any stress anymore without getting psychotic. I can barely walk around the block without pain. The depression is so crippling me that some days I don’t leave the house. It’s very isolating. I try to go out and even just riding the buses takes so much energy.

Today I just realized I have not left the house since Thursday. I might go out today and go to the store just to take a walk. Maybe I will just buy something that will make me feel better. A little retail therapy never hurt anyone before. Or maybe I will take the bus to Clarendon Hill and head towards Arlington. I have not ridden the buses in a long time. As long as I have my music, I should be ok.

As I’m writing this, I am listening to Linkin Park. I love this group. It always is the right music to listen to when I am in an irritable, frustrated mood. That is the type of mood I am in right now. I am also worried about my foot. I had put a sock on my foot last night because it got wicked cold and this morning the sock was still on, which is unusual as I don’t usually keep the socks on while sleeping. My foot is still some what cold as I can feel it through the sock but the sock is also irritating me. I know that if I take it off I risk angering my foot and it retaliating by causing me pain. Nerve damage sucks. I really hate this type of pain than any other because there is nothing I can do about it. The other night I had zingers, electric type of shock pains in my big toe. It was so annoying. I couldn’t sleep because as soon as I started to relax, the zingers would start, jolting my foot and waking me up. Why do I have this nerve damage? Because of something called Cauda Equina Syndrome (CES). A disc crushed my nerves in my back and left me with nerve damage in my left leg, foot, ankle, and bowels/bladder. But the damage is better than it once was. It take a long time to recover. I have had my last surgery almost seven years ago. This was the second time that I got CES. The first time was the real damage with the drop foot that I still have and also foot weakness. Because of this weakness, I get fatigued in my foot very easily and this causes me to walk improperly. Walking improperly results in the pain that I have been experiencing. And it is different every time it flairs up. I can have a barbed wire type of feeling, a pounding in my foot like someone is using a hammer to crush my toes, to feeling like my toes are in a vise.

This pain also contributes to the depression and not wanting to walk because it brings me pain. But I try to do what I can to get out of the house without too much difficulty. I try not to stand too long while waiting for the bus. I also always try and get a seat whenever possible rather than standing because the pressure and worry of the bus stopping short is always there. When I take the train, I do the same thing.

I didn’t go out again today. I decided to cook and watch the baseball game. I made a spicy tomato sauce, which I didn’t intend to make. While I was pouring a little bit of crushed red pepper, the top came off and I dumped half the container in the pot. I now have a spicy sauce. If I had some beans I could make a chili out of it.

And the closing pitcher for the Sox decides to blow the no hitter. FUCK! I so wanted this no hitter, even though it is still Spring training. Today was media day and the last media speaker SUCKS. Remdawg and Don are not even reporting the game, just letting this soft-spoken speaker speak while the game is playing. I am falling asleep.

ramblings 33

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

Been thinking back on the past to write my book. I don’t know if it is a good thing or bad thing that I can’t remember the last few years at all. I remember some stuff but I don’t remember what classes I was taking at the time all this stuff was happening. What was going on at work. How I truly felt about things. My therapist has my journals at that time frame I am writing about now but there is no way I can go out and get them. I suppose I could go out Tuesday if I wake up early enough. It would be good to take the long drive. I miss being on the road but I just can’t afford a vehicle right now.

Today has been productive as I wrote a few pages about my past. It was difficult because as I said I don’t remember what I was feeling and I was trying to capture it again. I tried my best to write what I do remember and how quirky my therapist was.

I’m bored because the baseball game is not on until tonight. I was hoping for a 1 pm game. Just something to pass the time but all I can do is play my games. I could try cleaning my room but it is too overwhelming for me. Yesterday I slept all day. I had coffee today so I am pretty wired. I guess I could rearrange my bookcase and see where that gets me. I want to go out but it’s cold out. And I just don’t feel like getting dressed. Plus my stomach isn’t feeling too good so to avoid an accident, I think I will stay home.

I want to try and avoid a nap. That was my downfall yesterday. I should have gotten up and had coffee. Maybe then I wouldn’t have felt so tired. I really did need the rest though because of Wed and Thursday being days I really had to go into town. I had appointments both those days. My eye exam Thursday took forever. I swear I had the slowest intern in the world. I have to have visual therapy but I don’t think I can afford it. My insurance doesn’t cover it. It barely covered my eye exam. I had a $40 co-pay so that meant this place was out of network. Sucks. I can’t say that I liked the doctor or not. I barely saw him for more than a few minutes. If I can manage a few sessions with him for the visual therapy I think that I can manage that. But we will see…

Wednesday I had group therapy. It went well, I guess. I still felt really suicidal afterwards which I still have no idea why I do. But I managed to handle it without calling my therapist. I don’t know if it is because of the transgender that I feel suicidal or the fact that I am still being referred to as a female that is bothering me but I talked a little about where I am at with the transgender. I had little feedback but I was respected. I had a member tell me about breast binding and did a Google search. Those things are not cheap!! I don’t know if I can afford things anymore as my benefits are getting slashed. I don’t know what I am going to do. Even going to group next week is going to be tough because I am running out of cash for co-pays. I can probably get the money from my sister as I paid for dinner last night.

Now that the group knows I am transgender, I wonder if I can move forward and get the services for me, like getting the hormones but I have heard other transgendered folk having trouble because of their psychiatric illness. I hope that they don’t take my psych history into account but seeing as I am suicidal nearly every day, I don’t know how they can deny me. 85% of the reason why I am suicidal is because I am not a male.

I know I should probably take a shower but I don’t feel like it. I just don’t really feel like doing anything. I just want to be on the computer and maybe go out later for my walk around the block but that is questionable as it is supposed to snow. And it is bitter cold out. I hate walking in cold weather because it gives me bad back spasms.

why do I bother

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

Why do I bother

Things seemed to go ok today but now I am feeling the rut of my depression and want to end things. Nothing specific has happened, I just don’t want to exist. I feel worthless and that what I am doing is nothing but wasting people’s time.

I have a messed up right eye. The muscles are weak and I have to do therapy to correct it but my insurance doesn’t cover therapy so I have to pay out of pocket. I am already on a budget and I am not sure I can swing this extra money for this therapy. It has me stressed out because without this, my eyes won’t be corrected and it will be hard for me to read continuously. I would have to take breaks like every ten minutes and who can read something every ten minutes. It has me feeling frustrated that yet my body is failing me and it has nothing to do with age.

Feeling suicidal and acting on it are two different things. But right now I would act if I had a plan to go to. I just don’t want to exist anymore.

notebook from the past

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

I am wretched and know not why. I am healthy yet I am ill. There is no diagnostic test to tell where the pain is from yet I want to die from it. I fear that it will kill me. A hundred years ago I’d be locked away in an asylum. This day and age I’m forced to be a functional person with no symptoms of a psychic malady.

Pain that is so bad that nothing can relieve it. Almost as if a pericardial centesis is the only way to drain the pain out but as there is no effusion it will be dry.

This is something that I wrote twelve years ago. I can remember what that pain felt like and wanting to die. It was terrible thing to live through. I talk about the effusion because my heart was aching so much it killed me and I couldn’t breathe.
Quote from Noonday Demon: “if everyone has the capacity for some measure of depression under some circumstances everyone also has the capacity to fight depression to some degree under some circumstances. Often the fight takes the form of seeking out the treatments that will be most effective in battle. It involves making the most of the life you have between your most severe episodes. Some horrendously symptom ridden people are able to achieve real success in life; and some people are utterly destroyed by the mildest forms of the illness”—Andrew Solomon
Merchant of Venice: It wearies me, you say it wearies you but how I caught it. Found it, or came by it, what stuff tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn. And such a want-wit sadness makes of me that I have much ado to know myself—Shakespeare

I found these quotes in a journal from 2001. It’s an old notebook of my excerpts from books and other things. I had carried it around with me all this time. Today I was going to write excerpts from Night Falls Fast by Kay Redfield Jamison but I was too tired after I had my lunch. The notebook is worn thin by use. It is probably the only notebook that I still refer to every day. I have my favorite Edgar Allen Poe letter that I copy into every journal that I own. The “I am wretched and know not why” is from there. If you ever read touched with fire, you will understand what it is like living with bipolar disorder and depression and how it relates to creativity. It really is a great book.

Today I am sidelined with pain in my ankle and a migraine that started out this morning. I have been trying to take a nap for the past few hours but I have this restlessness to do something, to write that I can’t quite quell. I chock it up to having coffee today at an early hour. I have been up since about 9 which is my normal time for waking up but I still wanted to sleep more. If you count daylight savings it really was 8 that I woke up at. I have this energy but I don’t know what to do so I went out and now my ankle is thanking me kindly in return by hurting me. I had groceries delivered today, some stuff I forgot from my previous order. I got my steaks that I have been dreaming about for weeks but never bought. I usually don’t crave meat but I haven’t had any other than chicken and fish in quite some time, possibly as far back as the summer!

So to say that I am a little tired is on the money. I also had therapy today that made me think about what I am doing or going to do with my writing for the next few days. I also talked about my writing with my co-conspirator. We have decided to write five days a week so we can have two days off. I am not sure I can do that with my blog as I like writing on it every day but I can take off a day here and there. My next writing assignment that I am contemplating has to do with CES, Cauda Equina Syndrome. I have been meaning to write about it for some time but have backed off due to the embarrassing nature of the content. I still haven’t written much beyond the title of the article. Maybe tomorrow I can write more.