Tag: suicide attempt

Foot and ankle hurting

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, chronic physical pain

Foot and ankle hurting

I really wanted to get out of the house today, but my ankle and foot were really hurting me today. I woke up in pain, took some meds and fell back to sleep. My back was also hurting, which it never does so I hope I didn’t over do it on Monday going for that long walk. So I just decided after therapy I was going to stay in and go back to sleep. Trouble was, I couldn’t friggin sleep. Brain was on high power and I couldn’t shut it down. Didn’t help that voices were ramped up. They were curious on what I was talking about with my therapist.

I talked to my therapist about my diagnosis. She said that I could be either Bipolar II or III. Great. More confusion of what my diagnosis is. But she doesn’t have the latest DSM and neither do I. I usually buy one just to keep abreast of the diagnostic criteria for certain disorders but this time I am not going to buy one because, I can’t afford it. It’s like 80 bucks or more. I haven’t even looked at the price on amazon. Nor do I want to.

I am glad I didn’t go out today as it is hot out. I didn’t have coffee today. I just didn’t feel like making it. Besides, I thought I would be going to Starbucks later in the afternoon. I suppose I could have left the house and gone to the post office. That wouldn’t have been too strenuous. I need to send my book to my editor as a thank you. I will try and do it tomorrow when I go out and meet my friend for coffee. I haven’t seen my friend in a couple of years now, though we usually just keep in touch via email. I am really looking forward to meeting her.

I have been feeling frustrated lately. I can’t seem to get it out of my head just how suicidal I was a month ago. I was reading my journal and there was no indication in what I was writing that I was suicidal until the 21st of July. Then things went from bad to worse. I still feel out of it at times. And the fact that I stayed so long in the hospital was a bit frustrating because nothing got done while I was there. I still felt like my needs weren’t attended to. No wonder people often attempt after a hospitalization. They feel hopeless when they get admitted and still continue to feel that way after they get discharged. My therapist has a packet of letters of my admission. She is going through them slowly but surely. It documents my stay and the treatment or lack there of, that I received. Even when I told them I was experiencing PTSD symptoms, all they told me to do was to take deep breaths. Not helpful.

I still don’t know how I am alive today. I am beyond amazed. But yet most people don’t realize just how suicidal I can be. And it doesn’t take much to get pushed in that direction. I don’t know if I am suicidal now but I know that it wouldn’t take much for me to do something. Today my niece called me a woman and I wanted to say something but I held back. No need to confuse her. I don’t ever think I will be called a man.

I slept pretty good last night, even though I still had some weird dreams. But I feel so tired right now I could fall right asleep. My brain is shutting down for some reason. Maybe the pain meds are finally hitting me. I am in a lot of pain and I have noticed that when I am, I can’t think straight. It’s like I go into another dimension or something. Maybe I just dissociate because I am hurting too much. I have done that more than a few times. Sometimes, when the pain is this bad, I will think my ankle is someone else’s, that it doesn’t belong to me. Pain changes you and no one knows it because they don’t see it. Sure, expensive tests will reveal the damage (fMRI’s can detect these changes) but not everyone can afford them. Doctors won’t order the tests because these changes that are seen, are seen through research only and don’t really have clinical value, meaning even if revealed, won’t change a clinical course for the patient. It is just so frustrating to live in chronic pain all the time. But I just take what works for me and hope that tomorrow I can go out to meet my friend. It is going to be an early day for me but that is ok. I have no plans for the afternoon, aside from writing my blog.

Perfectly made coffee, AHHHH

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, mood disorders

Perfectly made coffee

Today I am at Starbucks again. I am only out of the house because I have an appt with my pdoc. Tomorrow I get to rest, if I am able to. I just plan on staying in and playing my game, to try and catch up on the missions. This is the third day in a row that I have been out of the house. And I am glad because the new guy at Starbucks made my coffee perfectly. I am in coffee heaven. Today’s coffee is from Hawaii called Ka’u. It’s delicious. And reading the cup, I realized why I didn’t get a half cup of it. I goofed and ordered a tall instead of a grande. OOPS. I still was able to make it a venti by putting cream in it. And a lot of ice.

I have been taking my blood pressure since I am on a new medication for that. And I still have high blood pressure. I am not sure what my PCP is going to do other than tell me to restrict salt and lose weight. The weight part is a given and unfortunately, while I was in the hospital, I gained a few pounds. Boredom will do that to anyone, especially when there is food around. My favorite thing to make was graham cracker cereal. I just broke up some graham crackers and poured milk on them. It was good. I plan on buying some crackers next week and making it at home.

I am nervous about meeting him though. I know I will have to tell him I just got discharged from the hospital, hence why I was on the BP med. I am just afraid that he will be giving me a two week supply of my pain meds to “test” me. That is, making sure that I am not going to overdose on them. He still doesn’t get that I don’t want to go out that way. I have more creative ways to die. I doubt I will be able to lose the pounds I gained in a week, unless I starve myself, which I don’t think is a good idea. I can cut down on my eating but then I get really hungry and if I go to sleep, I dream about food. Trouble is my mother hasn’t gone shopping because one of the main chains we go to is on strike. It’s so stupid. Two brothers are battling over the store chain. One brother fired the other, the good one, and thus, the strike ensued. The other grocery stores are too expensive for my mother (me too, but I shop there for convenience).

I finally solved the mystery of how people have been getting my blog email. I have it in one of my blog comments. Doh. It was curious because I have not given out my blog email to ANYONE so when I started getting a few emails, I was suspicious. But I totally forgot I had left my email in one of my blog comments for attempt survivors to contact me if they needed to talk. Now I got to figure out which blog it is so I can edit it so I don’t get spam.

I haven’t told my writing partner that I am planning on writing a coping book for attempt survivors. I think it will be a good use of my time. Though I have no idea how to write this thing. I am going to have to ask her for some help. I will have to bullet point some of it and I am not sure how the format is going to be once I do. I had problems with this with italics for my book.

I also have begun the process of editing a few of my blogs for my next book. It is a laborious task. I just edited one blog and though I was expecting it to be longer, it only took me a few minutes. 700 words are not that difficult to edit. I don’t have my list with me to edit the others. But I know I have to make this blog longer. I might add the pink pill part 2 blog to it so that it is one blog, or at least one story. If I had a brain today, I would have brought with me the legal pad that has the “Brick Wall” that I wrote while I was in the hospital. I could have typed that up while I am waiting for time to pass. I am such a shithead. Oh well, something to do when I get home today. I am including that story in the new book.

I just finished reading another CES (cauda equina syndrome) story in my CESSG mail. It is so sad that doctors don’t recognize the symptoms of CES right away. This poor guy waited a month before being seen by a neuro surgeon. Now he has permanent nerve damage. I feel horrified every time I hear a story like this.

Meeting with my pdoc went well. I was also nervous about it, which I am sure didn’t help my blood pressure. We talked about all that went on in the hospital. Told her about the anxiety attack that lead to a new bp med. I just took my bp and it is still high. I am worrying about this and I know I shouldn’t because it doesn’t help but I am. I told her how the case manager wanted me to stop my suicide research and stuff and my psychiatrist just shook her head. She knows how much the research means to me. It doesn’t trigger me like the CM thinks. I just want to die to end my pain and suffering, something that no one seems to understand other than my therapist and psychiatrist. I was asked point blank why I wanted to kill myself by this moron (CM). She just couldn’t understand why I wanted to end my life and I just shook my head like really? The past few weeks you have no clue? Everything that could possibly happen to me, happened to me while I was in the hospital. If I wasn’t in the hospital when it happened, I know I would have tried to kill myself. It’s just stupid and the hardest part was that I couldn’t educate these people in treating suicidal patients. They had their own ideas on how best to go about it (all wrong in my opinion as the re-admits will show). I really hope that I don’t get admitted again there. I really hated it because nothing was done to address my issues. They just were put aside every day and nothing was really done to actually help me deal or cope. That was left to the group leader or to the staff. It’s just mind boggling to me. The one place that you are supposed to get help, you don’t get it. Or you just get spurts of it. Just ridiculous!

Runaway Train

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

“Can you help me remember how to smile
make it somehow all seem worthwhile
how on earth did I get so jaded
life’s mysteries seem so faded”

These are the lyrics to Soul Asylum’s Runaway Train. These lyrics have been resonating with me over the past few days. The meaning is quite clear. I feel I don’t remember how to smile. Life seems jaded, far away from me. Another line is “somehow I’m neither here nor there” I ave been struggling with my alter Mr. Hyde the past few days. Last night he really wanted to come out and play. So I let him write yesterday’s blog and the lyrics to this song for my therapist. He seemed satisfied.

Runaway Train has been my favorite song since it came out in the early 90’s. The lyrics touch me very deeply. It’s a song about abuse, neglect, and the need to escape these things. Yet not matter where we go, they always follow us. Like the lyrics state “Runaway train never going back, wrong way on a one way track, seems like I should be getting somewhere, somehow I’m neither here nor there”

Every time hear the song my heart aches because I can never escape the pain. One of the tracks is “bought a ticket for a runaway train, like a madman laughing at the rain, a little out of touch, little insane, Just easier than dealing with the pain.

I interpret the ticket with suicide and how pain is dealt with. Suicide, for me, has always been my ticket out of this world. I read about it to understand it better. I write about it to feel better. Yet I know one day I will lose the battle, like Robin Williams, and take my own life. There is no way I can educate my family for my loss. For they refuse to acknowledge that I have mental illness. According to my sister “there is no mental illness on her side of the family”. This was said three weeks after my last hospitalization for depression. It’s tough to deal with. Yet I have no strength to educate them after all these years. I am surprised my brother in law hasn’t called me. But then, he, too, is in denial about things.

The last line of the song always gets me. It says “I runaway but it always seems the same” And it’s true. No matter how many times I have a depressive episode, it’s like my first and aways feels like it’s never going to end. Then I remember, usually by the scars on my wrist, that things were worst. Things always seem the same with depression but they never really are. Each episode takes a piece of you that cannot be replaced or taken back. Each episode tears you apart ad brings you to the edge of suicide nearly every time. And it hurts in ways you cannot describe. So I am on the one way track, trying never to go back, but I’m neither here nor there.

Voluntary admission

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

Voluntary admission

I had a meeting with my therapist and a few phone calls to my pdoc today. They were not amused with my blog from yesterday. I was kind of hoping my pdoc didn’t read it but she did, and now I am fucked. Tomorrow morning I have to leave the house early to go in the hospital because that is when a bed will be available. I would have gone in today but there are no beds. So I get to spend another night staring at all my bottles, wondering which will do me in and which will only knock me out. I just texted my therapist to call me as it’s urgent. I really don’t know if I can keep myself safe one more night. Then I will be babysat for I don’t know how many days until I get released. Fun! I packed my backpack and it is very full. It doesn’t have my journal in it so I will need to pack that before going to bed tonight. I could have packed another bag but I want something that will be not so noticeable. I plan on leaving the house before my mother gets up so I don’t have to deal with her. I have not told anyone except two friends (and no blog world) that I am going to the hospital. I keep waiting for myself to “snap out of it” but it hasn’t happened yet.

Therapy today was fun. We went over my crisis response and I am supposed to write down alternatives to my thoughts of suicide. I don’t see anything because the damn constriction is making it so I only see one option, and that is death. I would page my psychiatrist right now and be like I don’t need to go in but I think it is a lost cause. She might send me to the ER if I don’t and I don’t want to spend a night in the ER.

I took a test run today to see what bus I have to take to get to the hospital tomorrow morning. I hope the shuttle bus isn’t crowded. I hate crowded public transportation. It gives me anxiety. I just realized that I didn’t pack any socks that I washed yesterday. I am an idiot!

I am hoping to go to the same unit I was on before. I don’t be able to blog like I do as it will be on phone. If I do blog from my phone, please excuse typos and grammatical errors. I might not catch them. Last time, I wrote a really long blog that I typed up after I got discharged to talk about my experience. I might not do it this time because it was an ordeal. I had several pages to type up and handwriting to decipher. So if I go a day or two without blogging, know that I am in the hospital and can’t right now. I would love to take my laptop but I am too afraid of it getting stolen or worse, dropped. I still haven’t decided which pants to wear tomorrow. I hate deciding what clothes to wear and what is deemed safe.

I severely chopped my eyebrows off today. Yesterday there was one hair that was out of whack and instead of plucking it with tweezers, I decided to use my hair clipper. Bye-bye eyebrow. Today I decided to do the same to my other one. I don’t know which looks worse on me. But I kind of like them being this short. I have bushy hairbrows so the trim, although not even, is ideal.

I really hope that I can be safe tonight. My therapist hasn’t called me yet. I just want to say fuck it and do something. But I don’t think that will go over too well with anybody, including myself. I still am wondering how to play it out in the hospital. If I make myself too unsafe, I probably won’t get my cords to charge my phone and I NEED my phone. I will be there a minimum of 7 days. But I am really freaking out on my therapist being on vacation the following week and be being out in the world. It scares me. They could discharge me anyways, they don’t care if you are suicidal and have plans to end your life. I just am so tired of fighting all the time. I really don’t think me threatening to kill myself when I get discharged will be a good idea. That might keep me there longer, which I kind of am hoping for. I just hope that the fire alarms don’t go off while I’m there. It’s an old building and last time, just steam would set them off. It was horrible! Everything is just so sensitive when you are on a psych unit.