Tag: suicide attempt

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.

what is it like living post suicidal thoughts

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

I finally had therapy today as my therapist is back from her two week vacation. She had an ok time, despite being in Hawaii. I told her I won’t be book writing anymore. She wanted to talk about this as she really wants a second book out of me. I told her my muse was gone (meaning “Hyde”). I just haven’t been able to do any good writing since my mood has shifted and the muse is gone. I have to be in a dark place to write, or at least have the writing itch. Neither has occurred in the last few weeks. Since I didn’t go through with my suicide plan two weeks ago, I have been in this weird place of where do I belong. I feel absolutely nothing most days and the days that I do feel something, I am extremely sad. I have no physical symptoms of depression, like I usually do. My appetite is not affected as I have gained five pounds. My PCP is going to flip if I don’t lose it in the next few weeks. I do have loss of energy and just the feeling of hibernation, even though it’s summer. I slept most of the weekend. I would have slept today but I really wanted a caramel macchiato. I wrote at Starbucks for a little while. Nothing pertinent, just my thoughts of the moment. I feel so useless. I have no hope for the future but I don’t feel hopeless. I feel a little helplessness, like no one can help me out of this pit that I am in. It just stinks that I can’t write, only for this blog. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have this blog. I probably be out of journals in no time. That happened before I started buying thicker volumes of journals, like 200 page counts. The 100 counts only got me within a half a year, at most. I don’t understand how I can write so much stuff on my blog and just nothing for the book writing. It is so annoying.

While perusing through my blog the other night, I came across a fictional story. It was a story I wrote about how someone was going to kill himself in a hotel bathroom. I remember writing it and sending it to my therapist, who knew it was not a fictional story. But that is all I remember. I don’t remember feeling the way I did when I wrote this story. I thought about including it in my book but then I would feel horrible if someone actually ended their life the way that I wrote it. I didn’t write specifics, I just said chemicals as a means of death, which could be anything. Everything is made up of chemicals. It’s just finding the ones that are lethal, which is not an easy thing to do, even with the internet. I must be so dumb not to find a quick poison, like hemlock in the days of old. But even if I did, there is no way I could get a hotel room. I don’t have credit cards anymore and I don’t think they accept debit cards. I refuse to kill myself in public, say the train station, and I certainly won’t do it in my room for my mother to find me. That will give her a heart attack on the spot. As you can see, I have put a lot of thought into this. If I had a vehicle, things might be different. I would be able to get to some cheap motel and do the deed there, where they accept cash as payment. Or who knows, maybe I will just leave town and travel to California to see my blogger friend and start a new life there. I doubt I would be able to stand the heat for too long, but they have beaches and she has a pool we can cool off in. I’d feel bad for leaving my mother, but I have always wanted to leave this state, if only for a little while. My heart will always be in Boston but it’s too constricting. I hate the city I live in because the subway is so far and I can no long walk there. It used to be my exercise to walk to and from the train station. But since my injury, I can’t walk that far anymore (approximately 1 mile). It makes me sad that I can’t walk to where I want to go. Even getting to local places, like the pizza shop on the main strip can be difficult and exhausting. And it’s only a few blocks from my house! No wonder I have gained weight. I wish my doc would have pity on me and just place me on a diet pill. I can lose the weight and not have to worry about gaining it back. I know that if I lost it, I wouldn’t be able to gain it back because I am so inactive. My weight has been stable the past year. I still have no idea how I gained those 5 pounds. I haven’t changed my eating habits, but I have been eating a lot more meat than I usually do, so maybe that is why. I am a carnivore!

My therapist was glad to see that I have the Harry Potter book collection. She knows how much I love to read. Years ago, I bought a Harry Potter journal set. I still have them somewhere in my room or in a bookcase. They are filled with my thoughts. They were filled quickly because they were only around 90 pages, not a big book but I enjoyed writing in them. Yesterday I started reading “Chamber of Secrets”. It has been so long since I last read it that I forgot some parts of the book that the movie left out.

update and other things

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

We had a death in the extended family a couple of days ago and today is the wake. I wasn’t planning on going to the wake because I don’t like them. I knew my mother wouldn’t be watching TV so I took the opportunity to binge watch Bones. I had, or thought I had, the last 6 episodes of the season’s finale. The 2 hour show turned out to be about Tom Brady and Deflategate. I go to the episode where Cam is in the Middle East, and it’s a partial recording. UGH!!!! I did watch the episode where Brennan lets Booth stay for the night. I am glad they are working things out and he is doing his best to not be a gambler anymore. It still sucks not having them together but at least it hasn’t affected their work. I really love the show. The next episode was going to be about a serial killer that haunts Brennan and I couldn’t watch it so I am done with the TV for now. I might watch Rizzoli and Isles next. Thing that sucks about Rizzoli is that they live tweet the episode. I try not to be around that time but then they go all west coast and I am like AAAGGHHHHH. I don’t want to hear it because I haven’t watch it yet!! I like to watch it in my own time and binge watch the episodes.

After I had my breakfast and coffee, I didn’t go back to sleep like I planned on doing. I was able to borrow my sister’s car and get my prescription as well as do some shopping. I got my burgers and buns so I can have them to eat. I like them better than ordinary hamburger. My mother was asking whether it was cheaper just to buy the hamburger and I said it’s about the same. I like getting the pre-made burgers whereas she gets the ground beef. It’s the same just already made for cooking burgers, if that is what you are using it for. Like if I am making manwich, I will buy the ground beef. But if I want burgers, I will get the pre-made stuff. It costs about the same so it’s not like it’s costing me a fortune. But if I go to the meat market, I get more burgers than at Stop and Shop for the same price.

I am feeling a little bit better than I was this morning. I still feel down, but not like a ton of bricks down. I hope this morning was a one time thing. I can’t remember a morning where I ever woke up so depressed in the last three years since I have been on disability. Sure, I would when I had to go to work. I remember waking up and wanting to call out because I just couldn’t face the day. Or my therapist made me call out because I was too depressed to work. One time I refused to call out, so she called out for me. It’s funny now but it wasn’t back then. She was giving the line of if I call out now it will benefit my future or some shit like that. My therapist is whacked. I miss her though. I will be seeing her in a few days. I am sure she can’t wait to get back to her office tomorrow.

***Trigger warning***

I have been bitten by a mosquito in my room. The sucker bit me four times in one night so it was hungry. I didn’t wake with new bites this morning so I think it left my room. But the bites are so damn itchy it’s making me want to cut them off. Like if I cut them open, it will go away. The center of the bite looks pussy like so I am thinking if I cut that out, it will stop the itch. I did that with one of the bites and it helped. But now I have another bite that is just so damn itchy. I have been putting hydrocortisone cream on to calm it down. Unfortunately, the cream is not near me at the moment, but the razors are. I am trying my best to distract myself from the itch and the urges to cut. It is so difficult. I don’t want to cut to self-harm, per se, I just want the itch to stop. I hate bug bites. One of the bites are on top of old scars that I have (all the bites are on my cutting arm). So scratching the old scars is triggering me more than anything.

I got productive after I posted my last blog post. I printed off some suicide research articles. It made for interesting reading. But I stupidly got O’Connor confused with O’Carroll in my thoughts. I am glad I didn’t write to O’Connor telling him how great I thought his article was when he didn’t publish it. It would have been such a blunder. I was checking his citations last night (O’Connor’s) and I couldn’t find the “Babel” one. It really shaped the way suicidology should be moving forward to get rid of the ambiguity of what is meant by a suicide attempter. But it was really O’Carroll that wrote the article. I felt so stupid. But at least I didn’t write something publicly stupid! I did read what O’Connor has written over the last 10 years. He has a couple of paper about suicide and rumination. Maybe it can help me understand why I ruminate so much about suicide so much and also help me try and stop it. I think that if I try that, maybe I won’t get so suicidal anymore? It is just a theory that I have about it. I have read somewhere about how rumination can be damaging. I don’t know if it was his articles or someone else’s. The analysis that he did in one of the articles was about how the studies of rumination scales different with each study he found. No two studies used the same scale items because of various reasons, which stinks because if they did, it would have given “power” to the analysis. You always want a little of that to validate a study. I am not familiar with the scale they were talking about so I can’t really comment on it, but I do know a little about statistical analyses. I took Stats three times so I should know something!

Left to my Own Devices

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

I am having a late coffee that I hope will keep me up the next few hours. I have been so tired all day that I have been sleeping it away, without medication of any sort! My pain has been minimal but it’s so hot in the house that I rarely leave my room except to eat and use the facilities. Even though I have had coffee, I feel like I can go back to sleep. I haven’t had dinner yet. The coffee is killing whatever hunger pains I may have. So it might be a late dinner tonight. I now have my undivided attention to this blog because I am not expecting my mother to call me. Unless Twitter distracts me…

I decided to type a letter to my therapist today rather than write it. I told her of my day, similar to the first paragraph and also about other things. I had a page written before I knew it. I wish I could write something for my book as fast. I have been going back and forth with editing for my book. I have to enter the edits into the word doc. It’s always a pain because I usually have to use the search button to find the place I am looking for. I have decided the last three blogs are not going into the book. It doesn’t fit with what I am writing, not unless I copy and paste things. I might do that. Then I can go back to writing, least that is what I am hoping. But it doesn’t happen on demand. I think I am better off writing at night because my mood is darker then than during the day. I have three nights before baseball returns. Sox will be on the west coast so the games won’t be until after 2200 east coast time. I hate the west coast games because it just further disrupts my sleeping. I usually can’t sleep right away after the game ends around 0100. And I am up till at least 0300. This is the first time that I am having coffee at like four in the afternoon so I might be up till three anyways.

I miss my therapist, even though it’s only been a week since we last talked. Another week and a half before I talk with her again. I don’t know if she will be in Hawaii the whole time or not. I do hope she has fun, even though she is dreading the trip. I am dreading seeing my pdoc on Friday. I don’t know what kind of mood I will be in. I know I won’t be catching the 10 o’clock bus again. That was too early. I was supposed to catch the 1053 bus but my brain was foggy when I woke up and thought it was the 953 bus I needed to get. There is no 953 bus! I really don’t want to see her. But I am afraid that if I don’t, she will be worried. Hardest thing about being suicidal is trusting a psychiatrist with your thoughts. You always have the fear of being hospitalized against your will once it has been done to you. I have had it happen more than once in my lifetime. I have had more hospitalizations than I can count. In fact, I have lost track of how many I have had. More than 30 by now, at least. It doesn’t make talking about suicide any easier. But my psychiatrist is and has been open to talking about it. She knows me better than anyone. We have worked together for more than twenty years. We have built up a trust that is hard to shake. Most people go through psychiatrists like they were going out of style. I just have had one my whole therapeutic life. Therapists are a different story. I have had more than I care to share. I never thought I would find someone stable in the therapy business. I was seeing on every year for the first 11 years. Now here it is 14 years later and I have the same one. Both of my treaters trust me more than anyone that deals with suicide. I don’t know if it is because they know I won’t go through with my plans or they seem to intervene before it gets too late. I still feel dejected and depressed that I didn’t go through with my plans. If you can’t keep a promise to yourself, what good is making promises? Yet I have also promised these people that if I were in dire straits, I would reach out to them. They also know that I bring myself in when I need to. That has changed because the hospital, for various reasons, is no longer my safe haven it once was. Don’t get me wrong, people need these places for safety. But I used to go there for care that I needed and I no longer get it. It’s just talk for a few minutes and then a few days later, you are out whether you like it or not. I had to fight to stay in last time and it was a real struggle. I also knew that if I was out when I heard about Robin Williams, I would not be talking to you right now. His loss was so devastating to me, as it was to millions of people. But I was in a dark place, darker than I had ever been and if I wasn’t in the hospital, I dread to think what might have happened. Both of my treaters were on vacation at the time so I would be left to my own devices.

I haven’t heard from my writing partner and I have a feeling that those emails are going to be far and in between. She has been posting on various social media so I know she is writing. She has a new book that she just finished before her wedding and is promoting it. I need ways to promote my book because I don’t think it is going to sell very well unless I come up with some good marketing strategies. Problem is, I am not a marketing person! I don’t have the first clue how to sell something. I just hope that Facebook and Twitter works their magic and my book sells. I do belong to some author groups on FB but they mostly advertise romance/erotic novels, which is not my genre. I actually have no idea what my genre is, other than fiction, maybe. But it’s based on my delusions, which is in real life so not sure what category to put my book in.