Tag: suicidality

Foot Pain, Ankle Pain, Psychache, when will it end?

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, mental illness, mood disorders, physical pain, suicidality, transgender

I feel asleep around 2100 only yo wake up 3.5 hours later. I had to use the bathroom. While I was there, I figured I might as well brush my teeth. My foot started hurting so I rushed.

I went back to my room and couldn’t settle down. It’s starting to be a never ending story of pain. Now my heart is breaking and I don’t know why. I should feel better now that I know my mother knows I am a man. I thought that would take away some of the depression but it hasn’t. I still feel hopeless.

I wrote a tweet and someone flagged it on FB. I got a message asking if I needed help or someone to talk to. The report is anonymous so I have no idea who reported me. I’m just glad no cops showed up at my door. 

I’m so tired of this crap. I’m sick of being in pain all the time. I wanted to make cookies and instead, I slept all day. I might do it later today. I love the cookies.  My niece wants me to frost them so I might so that. I think they taste better without the frosting. But, I can only make the cookies if my pain is down and it shows no sign of that happening. 

I never bought the zucchini. Maybe I will Monday when I am out. I really want to make the zucchini bread. I really like it and it is easy to make. One of my friends posted a recipe for dark chocolate molasses cookies but you need brown rice flour. I’m not sure where I can find that. I also need to buy molasses. Maybe the next time I am in the Square, I’ll look in the grocery store there. They have some organic stuff and might carry the rice flour.

I don’t know why I feel so much psychache. I guess it may be due to my friend not really loving me like she says she does. I’ve known this for a while now. I’ll go for days without hearing from her and then she will be in some crisis or another, needing to talk to me, usually late at night when I want to sleep. It just annoys me that the only time I hear from her is when she is feeling bad, like I don’t exist until she feels she needs me. I just learned to distance myself from her.

I had texted my therapist about the news about telling my mother that I am transgender. He responded. He is glad I did so. I also texted my former therapist and she never did. I don’t think she will. I emailed my psych and she didn’t respond either. I see her this coming Friday so I’m sure we will talk then. I should be feeling elated that my mother knows but I still feel like shit. I think the pain of my ankle/Foot is just bringing me down so much that I can’t feel anything else but misery. 

Not sure if I mentioned it but I have decided that Oct 10th I’ll be changing my name, legally. It will cost me around $200. I’m going to make sure I get enough extra paperwork so I don’t have to go back to the courthouse. I’m not sure how many I will need to change my name on various things. I’m excited and scared about taking this step in my transition. But none of that will matter if my pain causes me to end my life. 

It is a constant battle trying to keep myself here. It is a roller coaster of emotion all the time, from feeling deep despair and suicidal one minute to feeling ok the next. I know one day I will end my life. I just don’t know when that will be, sooner or later.

trans issues and other things on a Friday

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

Trans Issues and other things on a Friday

I was having lunch with my mother this afternoon. She had made tuna and I was having some with crackers. As I had made my decision to change my name soon, I thought I would tell her that. She seemed okay with me changing my name so I went a little further and told her I was trans. She asked what I meant and I said that I am a man in a female body. I also said that I plan on going forward with getting hormones so I could be a man. She seemed okay with it. I was overjoyed. I went up to her and said, are you okay with me being a man? She said, you dress like one anyway.

I felt such relief, my head was spinning. I texted everyone and then wrote on Twitter. I got a lot of responses that were supportive. I still can’t believe my mother, who I was convinced hated me, said the words, “I just want you to be happy”. My sister sent me the most supportive message, which is what I needed to hear because my mood has been so dark lately.

After lunch, I went to my room and tried to write a blog solely on the transgender issue but pain interrupted that. I tried napping to ease it and my foot/ankle cramped up. I didn’t want to take an Ativan because I really didn’t want to sleep so heavy or feel out of it, like the Neurontin is making me. I took some magnesium supplements and waited a few hours. I went down to the basement to fetch my dirty gravy and some frozen dinners. Tomorrow I will heat up the gravy and make some pasta for lunch.

I don’t know why my pain is so damn high. All I did was shower and make breakfast. I made oatmeal pancakes, which I have had in a while. They were good, even though I forgot to put sugar in the batter. But that is why you use syrup. I also made coffee, which was good as I used spring water rather than tap and boiled it in a pan rather than the tea kettle. I wanted to see if there would be a different taste and there was. The downside was that because I used the amount of water for the cup, it wasn’t enough for the coffee so the coffee was a bit strong, good though. I needed it to get me through the fog I was in.

A friend of mine is reading my Darkness Always Wins book. I guess I didn’t edit it too well as she found some typos. She is going to read the book and then edit it for me. I can always upload changes to the book. I sent her the word doc for the book so she will get back to me when she is done reading it. She said she is advertising my book to anyone that might be interested in it. I thought that was sweet of her. The sales haven’t been so great on this book so any advertising would be awesome.

espresso, exhaustion, and pain

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

Espresso, exhaustion, and pain

I woke up several times during the night and early morning. I kept having weird dreams. I finally got up around 11. I wanted espresso, though I really didn’t feel like going out to get it. I had to return the thing I bought from Amazon so I figure I might as well get something to eat and my favorite drink.

Allergies were bad today. I keep sniffling and my nose keeps running. Didn’t help that they were cutting the grass. I love the smell of fresh cut grass but sometimes it makes my allergies worse. The bus was late and I was contemplating going back home. But I stuck it out and did my errand.

I think the soy milk was bad because there was residue at the bottom of the cup and the drink didn’t taste right. I drank some of it and wanted a nap. I didn’t feel like writing. I just wanted to go home. The next bus wasn’t for another hour so I played with my phone. A friend that I had met in the hospital sent me a pic of my book. She was reading it and liked it a lot. That made me feel good. I was feeling pretty depressed most of the day, suicidal at times. I am having a hard time because pain is making me crazy.

The bus came and I wasn’t even half way done with my espresso. I tried to drink more of it while on the ride home but it was so bitter it was hard to do. I dumped it when I got off the bus. I went to Walgreens to get a Dew Kickstarter. It’s like an energy drink. Maybe that will keep me from going to sleep. I don’t know. I got to my street and my ankle exploded. FUCK. Going up the stairs was torture. Then my bladder told me it needed to be relieved so I had to go back down the stairs. It was really muggy in the house so I was sweating. I hate the heat so bad. I am glad I brought the cane with me when I went downstairs. My ankle didn’t want to work at all.

I am really tired but I don’t want to sleep for fear of screwing up my sleep cycle, whatever the hell that is at the moment. I have a lot of things going on in Oct. I talked to my friend last night and we coordinated a dinner date south of Boston with my friend’s family. They wanted to do it on a Monday but because I have therapy, I can’t go. I also have the meeting with the pain group coordinator the following day. Then every Thursday there is an appt. I meet with the new neuro and then I have my physical. I hope somewhere in between to get my name changed. I was hoping the 1st week in Oct but I don’t think that will happen. I still need to call the courthouse to find out what kind of payment they accept for name changes. I’ll call after I finish this blog as it will be before closing time.

My Sox lost last night. It was a crappy night. They had a rain delay around 9 or 10 and I took that time to go to sleep. I wasn’t sure if the game was going to be postponed or continued and I wasn’t staying up to find out.

This weekend, I am going to try and buy some more zucchini so I can make the zucchini bread I made a few weeks ago. I want to bring it in to my psychiatrist. She loved the cookies I made. I somehow got to figure out a day and time to get my fasting blood work done. I’d say morning but I am never up in the morning anymore. Very rare that I am up before 9 these days because I have such an erratic sleep pattern.

I think my not sleeping is really fucking with my mood. Since I have been sleeping more and have no energy, my depression has deepened and I’m thinking a lot about suicide. I keep imagining my death and how I would do it. I got no plans to act on my thoughts but keep wondering if I could act. I just feel so miserable. Being in pain all the time is not fun and you can’t get used to it because it changes all the time. I tried to push through today and it exhausted me more than if I stayed home. I haven’t showered all week and I don’t care. Just feel really hopeless that things are never going to get better, that I am stuck with my ankle and foot acting up whenever they feel like it, regardless of whether or not I have done anything. I just want to crawl under a rock and stay there.

Chronic Pain Patients and Suicide

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

Chronic Pain Patients and Suicide

I was reading my tweets on Twitter. One of the chronic pain people that I follow retweeted something from a pain doctor. It was about suicides and the CDC guidelines that want to cut opioid prescriptions or limited them to only certain doctors. The article was badly editing as there were plenty of typos and I did not like the use of the word “committed” for every suicide he listed. It is sad and I know that more suicides are going to happen as the government tries to control doctors due to basically peer pressure. They have no idea what kind of havoc they are doing to those suffering from chronic pain and lead good lives because their pain is controlled.

Most of you all know I suffer from chronic pain and suicidal thoughts. My only saving grace at times is that I know after taking my meds, even though it takes a while to work, my pain will go away and be better in the morning. My suicidal thoughts will also be better when I wake up. If I no longer have my meds, I am as good as dead. There will be no point in living. I can see what all those people mentioned in the article go through. They died within weeks of being either taken off their meds or having them reduced. Some docs just stopped prescribing out of fear of losing their medical license. Some pain clinics closed their doors, leaving the patients to find other docs to just turn them down and having no where to go. This isn’t right. Taking away pain meds from patients who are not addicted and have adequate control is doing harm and causing deaths by suicide. Here is the article if you want to read it: https://medium.com/@ThomasKlineMD/here-is-a-list-of-suicides-as-of-9-9-17-caused-by-governmental-recommendations-to-educe-opioid-903c460abbc

Sometimes I think I need to end my life before my meds are taken away from me. I don’t know if my state will pressure docs to reduce their opioid prescribing privileges or number of scripts they write a year. I’m not on a lot of pain meds and I don’t abuse what I take. I take my meds in the manner they are prescribed to the letter. The sad thing is, even though my pain is somewhat managed, I still am disabled because I can’t walk that far or stand for any length of time. Just waiting for the bus or standing on the train is enough to cause me wicked bad pain at night. I remember what my pain was like when I was working. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night and then would only have a few hours to start my next shift. It would be a really long day and then half way through my shift, I would start feeling excruciating pain that would sometimes land me in the ED. It was terrible. I know now that I will never be able to work again because my pain is just becoming unpredictable and too severe. There are some nights where all I can think about is ending my life because the pain is so severe I don’t think it’s ever going to go away or lessen. I am lucky, in a sense, that I can’t walk to where I want to die in these moments. Hell, sometimes I can’t even go to the bathroom.

Living with chronic pain is terrible and if people without a medical degree continue to dictate what a person with a medical degree does with their patients, the suicide rate is going to go up. There is no way it can go down, even with the best suicide prevention out there. There will be no stopping someone from taking their life because of untreated chronic pain. I am not talking about psychache, but I know those with chronic pain also have that too and can contribute to their suicidal thinking. I also know that if a chronic pain patient starts thinking about suicide, they should be referred to a mental health counselor or treatment center. Their pain meds should not be reduced or played with because of suicide risk. I know in my situation I was fortunate to have doctors that knew me well enough and knew that I would get help should my depression or suicidal thoughts got worse. Some patients don’t have that luxury. Always take suicidal thinking seriously. If that person owns a firearm, ask to hold it for them until their suicidal crisis is over. Make sure they get the mental health help they need. Also makes sure their pain is being properly treated or it’s not going to matter if they get that mental health help or not.

If you or someone you know is thinking of suicide please call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or text START to 741741, if in the US. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to other countries hotlines but they are available. I know Austrailia has a bunch and the UK has Samaritans 116 123 is their number off the top of my head. You matter and are important and enough, always!