Tag: suicide attempt

Ramblings 37: intent to die

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

Been an early morning for me. I woke up at eight and my grocery delivery isn’t until eleven or so. I am hoping it is at eleven but they gave me a time frame of eleven to one. I saved a dollar by choosing this time.

I have been feeling pretty low the past few days. I don’t know why. I just have had a low mood of not wanting to do anything but have been forcing myself to do things. Today because I didn’t wake up with the horrible ankle pain, I am going to try and take a shower after the delivery and go out and get more coffee. I just had a cup but I know it’s not enough to keep me going. Besides I like to sit outside and read for a bit to make some headway on my book. The book is called “Team of Rivals” and it is about Lincoln’s political life and cabinet while in office. Right now I am reading the stuff that happened before he was chosen as the republican candidate for the 1860 election. I find it interesting that the author is talking in detail about the three other candidates, Seward, Bates, and Chase, men who later became members of his cabinet.

Other than reading, I plan on working on my book. I am hoping that if I read it through I can edit it and add stuff to it. Right now it just sounds like an essay of my life. I have not talked about the beginnings of my life. Just started at when I took my first serious overdose that landed me in the hospital. That is my starting point for me because it changed me profoundly. It didn’t help my suicidal feelings and I wanted to kill myself more than ever while I was in the hospital but it also changed my thinking so that I could deal with my suicidality and sort of live with it. There have been attempts after this, but they were not as serious as this one was. And there were plenty of hospitalizations after too. I was averaging at least two per year. Though there was a period where I did not go in the hospital, I have been hospitalized twice this past year and may need to go in again. I have been dreading it because they always mess up my meds. I like to take my meds in the evening, right before bed. But the stupid docs think that I take them in the morning and so they haul my ass out of bed while I am still asleep just for me to tell the Med Nurse to stuff it. It all gets sorted out the day I get discharged or the day before. Not much help there.

I am doing a back up recovery on my computer so I hope that I don’t lose this paper. I have not done this since I bought my laptop. And like I thought, when it finished it restarted the laptop. Glad I saved when I did. I get really mad when I lose a document.

My groceries have just been delivered and I should shower and get dressed but I just don’t feel like it right now. I feel like writing some more but not really sure where this rambling is leading to. Been thinking about what I said earlier about my serious suicide attempt versus my not so serious ones. What defines a serious one versus not? If you need medical attention and end up on a medical ward or the ICU, that is a serious attempt. If you just take a few pills and feel woozy, that is less serious or if you slice your wrist and need stitches but did not intend to die. The key word is intent to die. There are a lot of people who try to take their life without the intention of ending their life. They just wanted to end the pain and if it meant they died than so be it. But then there are people who do the same dangerous things with the intent to die. It’s a slippery slope.

There have been a few times I have been put in the hospital because I cut my wrist. I didn’t intend to die, I just cut a little deeper than I wanted and needed some stitches. Sometimes I have been able to talk my way out of getting hospitalized because when I cut, I do not intend to die. I just want to relieve the pressure of my feelings. Then there are times when I want to overdose on something and that will lead me to a hospitalization. A couple of times I have told the hospital staff that I wanted to jump in front of a train. But that seems to scary for me. I don’t know if I will be able to do it. I once rehearsed it, not really jumping in the tracks but jumping from a height that was similar to the tracks. I also timed where would be the train coming in the fastest. I rode the trains a long time to sort out things but I never tried jumping.

I hope that this is making sense. I know these are just thoughts that are just coming off the top of my head. But isn’t that how all writers write?

May is National Mental Health Awareness Month

by Midnight Demon, posted in suicide attempt

May is National Mental Health Month by Presidential Proclamation. I know I should feel happy that steps are being made to make mental health issues more aware to people but at the same time, I can help but feel resentful that I cannot find a therapist within a five mile radius of my house because of the severity of my illness. When my therapist and I knew that I couldn’t see her anymore because distance was a factor, I tried finding another therapist. I didn’t try once or twice. I tried ten fricken times. The last therapist that I saw locally was at a mental health clinic I used to go to as a teen but he was too scared of me. He was too afraid I might kill myself so that made it difficult for me to trust him. How could I work with some one that was scared of me? I am sure my current therapist gets scared when I tell her I am suicidal. Her anxiety goes up because she like to talk stupid things. I get that me being suicidal is not easy for mental health clinicians. It’s a clinician’s worse nightmare to hear that their client is suicidal or thinking about ending their life. But I know there are going to be a lot of people who have had past attempted suicides that are going to be in the same boat I am. No one wants to deal with this population. It is a crying shame. And no wonder Suicide is a leading killer of the United States.

In addition to me having mental health issues, I also have physical issues that prevent me from walking long distances. It makes me crazy that I have this problem and my mental health team does so much to help me deal with it. I was once working two jobs, but that proved to be too much for me and now I am collecting social security benefits and wondering if I will ever be able to hold down a job again. I don’t know. I really want to go back to school but I cannot afford it financially. I have defaulted on my student loans so there is no hope of me ever going back to school on my income. I know it is my fault and it pains me so severely that I want to kill myself because I know I have wrecked whatever credit I ever had. It physically and emotionally hurts knowing that my credit is fucked. I can never own another credit card for as a long as I live and I cannot begin to think of what lies ahead. I always hear that some jobs require a credit history check. If that is the case for me, I know I will not be able to get back to work.
I hate the idea of not being able to support myself. I know that I have made mistakes in my life and if I could do it over again, I would not make the same one. I would be further along in my degree and I would be on my way of being the kind of therapist I want to be. I know that there will always be risks with working with suicidal clients. I know because I am one of them. But mental health awareness campaigns do help screen for depression. But it doesn’t help those that want to kill themselves. Very rarely do you see the question on questionnaires, do you or have you thought of killing yourself in the past week.

So I wonder now that May is mental health awareness month, will I be able to find a therapist within a five mile radius from my house?

melancholy

by Midnight Demon, posted in suicide

Today I didn’t do too much but I did a lot. As I was walking home my ankle decided it had enough and I was limping on the way home. The last block and a half was really long!

I still am in a melancholy of spirits. I just can’t believe my city was under attack and then a Federal courthouse today had to be evacuated because of a bomb threat. And the President of the US is coming to tomorrow. I think that is a BIG mistake as we still have not capture the individual(s) responsible for the Marathon explosions. That is what they are calling it, explosions, not bombs. I guess explosions are less scary to think about but not really. It still is terrifying.

Ankle is still killing me and I am going to bed early, not going to watch the Sox game tonight. I don’t think it is on NESN anyways because the Bruins are playing. I don’t think I have NESN+. Shame too because last I heard, the Sox were winning 3-0. But then they don’t have a good match-up. The Indians stink. There were hardly any fans in the stadium last night. Pretty sad. I hope Fenway never gets that way.

I printed off my story that I am writing about my past suicide attempts and also my write up for my next blog post in the AAS. I am confident it will be a good paper. I just need to go over it somewhat to make sure I have the facts straight. It gives me something to do tomorrow that hopefully doesn’t have me going out. I am pretty tired today from my excursions yesterday and today. I only went out because my stupid printer wouldn’t recognize the color cartridge as being full. I have not used my printer for a couple of months now. Even though I just wanted to print black, it would not let me override the stupid color sensor thingy. I was so frustrated. I think paying for printing my stuff at UPS is cheaper than buying ink for this ridiculous printer that uses ink while not in use! Either that, or the ink got dried up because of the heat in the room. It is a small office I have and my mother keeps the door closed most of the time. I have to bring the printer to my room but I am too lazy. Maybe tomorrow I will do that, if my ankle isn’t hurting like it is now.

So I have printed off my writing to edit it. I have my red pen ready. But one thing I know while I edit my paper, I always want to add to it or take something away. I hate editing. I’m good with other people’s paper’s but not my own!

I woke up this morning and wondered what it would be like not to be anymore. I haven’t woken up like that in a long time. I guess the melancholy I am feeling is having suicidal effect on me, not to say that I wasn’t suicidal before. I just had a decrease in thoughts the past couple of weeks and thought I was getting better. Now I think I am heading back towards being a suicidal maniac who thinks of suicide all the time. I don’t know why I do other than I don’t want to feel pain, physical or mental anymore. I am tired of always being in a state of despair, of feeling nothing is going right for me. I just calculated my financial picture for the month and found that if I pay everything, I will have 7 dollars (USD) to my name to last me until my next check. I hate feeling like I am in destitution again. I really do. It’s like why bother getting paid when I don’t see my money. It just goes out the window to pay my bills and to help my mother keep up with the household bills, like gas and electricity, not to mention the mortgage. I just hate not being able to work. It is so frustrating. And yet, if I was working, I’d lose my LTD and have to work out something to pay back the $10K that I supposedly owe them. All these bills that I have make me want to kill myself. I can’t stand the thought of owing people money. I still owe like $5k to my therapist, who without her services I would definitely be dead by now. I seriously doubt that anyone can keep me alive that much longer. I just want to die. Why is that so hard to understand? I am a nobody. No one will miss me. They will just miss my money…

suicide ramblings

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

Today was not a good day. I got hit with pain early this morning and I couldn’t go anywhere. While I was watching the baseball games I started knuckling my calf muscle to take the knots out of it. It helped the pain along with pain meds. I tried stretching my calf but it still would not get loose. But the pain is gone now so I am glad it is. Now I just got to remember what I did so that the next time pain hits that part of my leg I know what to do.

I wrote a paper today, again on the Aeschi model. You will hear me talk about this because it is essential to get the word out for people who are suicidal. I believe in this model because it is so straight forward and humane. I also talk about CAMS but even though I know more about the assessment of CAMs than I do about the actual CAMS model. CAMS is Collaborating And Managing Suicidality.

Yesterday was a big day for me. The blog that I write for, What Happens Now, http://attemptsurvivors.com/ , was put into print for the Associate Press on suicide attempt survivors. It made the news and the sad part is that I cannot share it with my family. I am somewhat saddened by this. I can share this with my friends and the internet world but I can’t share it with those I live with. It is sad. But I chose to not share it because I am afraid it will lead to questions about my own suicidality and I cannot bare the thought of sharing this information with my family. It’s bad enough when my Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior journal comes in, I get the glances of disgust. Suicide is not a topic of interest in my house like it is an interest of mine, if only because I think about it nearly every day.

Suicide has been an interest of mine since I was young. Now at nearly thirty years later and I don’t know how many attempts, I still think it is the only way out of my suffering. I have made a date this year that if things aren’t improved, I will go through with it. I can’t help but think that being dead is the answer to my problems. I know that people say that suicide is the permanent solution to temporary problem, but my leg pain and depression are not temporary. I have to live with this the rest of my life and if I choose not to, isn’t it my choice? Don’t I have the right to die if I so choose? I am not saying that I will commit suicide tomorrow but it is in the distant future that I will die. I am not promised tomorrow, no one is. I just think that I don’t have a purpose with my life. And a lifetime of being in chronic physical pain is not appealing to me. I just can’t go on knowing that every day I will be in some kind of pain that has no end. Or the fact that I have to be on pain medication for the rest of my life. I just can’t fathom that. I worry that one day I will be denied the medication because I have been on them for so long. I just can’t risk that happening. I am scared of that happening. I’m also afraid of people not believing that I am depressed because I joke around so much. I’m sorry that I have a sense of humor. It has helped me with my depression more than anything. If I didn’t have it, I told my psychiatrist, she had permission to commit me somewhere. My heart is so dark at times I can’t stand it. I feel like it should stop beating because I feel so dead inside. And this goes on day after day. There is no relief. I never feel alive and joyful. Just sad and despairing.