Tag: suicide

sixteen years

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, depression

Sixteen Years

Today is my niece’s birthday and I thought it would be a cool thing to review those years. A lot has happened during that time.
1998: I brought my niece into this world as I was part of the delivery team. She came into this world at 21:47. It was the happiest day of my life watching her birth. It made me happy, if only for a little while as I was still battling depression of sorts. I was working for thoracic surgery at the time at a big hospital in town. It was a busy place. Then my supervisor found out I was gay on Valentine’s day and that was the last week I worked for that surgical group. I then went to work, through a friend, at the next big hospital in town. I spent 14 years there, giving it my all only to be tossed aside when I could no longer perform my duties due to my physical disabilities. I learned a lot of things at this job. Mostly how important lab results are in the care of the patient. It might not be the sole key to diagnosis but it does help with patient care.
My favorite uncle died this year, losing to his battle with kidney disease. I was so messed up by his death that I didn’t go to the wake or the funeral but visited his grave when I was able to. Things really were never the same after this. My father’s side of the family were dwindling. And it was very sad.
1999: nothing note worthy
2000: the year of the computer collapse. No major computer issues happened until later that year when the lab went from one computer system to another. It took forever to get things done. It was the busiest time for OT in the history of the lab because the new computer system was so slow. Later this year I started having back pain. Little did I know that I was doing too much as I was working as a temp in medical assisting on my days off and also working as a cashier at a hardware store. It was the only time that I worked three jobs consecutively.

2001: My almost fatal work year. In February I had emergency surgery that would forever change my life. I couldn’t walk and it would take me weeks to learn to walk again. I also started with a new therapist yet again but this one I hope would stick around. Even though it has been almost fifteen years that we have been together, I still hope this to be true. I had to relearn quite a bit. I went back to work earlier than anticipated because I had no more earned time and basically didn’t have a paycheck. It was a hard time but I had to go to work. But I didn’t realize that going to work for forty hours would be so tortuous. I had to cut my hours first to twenty and then slowly increase to thirty-two. It took me a few years to make it back to forty and then some.

2002: I start on a very potent pain medication and it helps with my pain so that I can work pain free. But my moods were shifting up and down, really bad. I again thought that this would be it, that I would kill myself the next month if things weren’t put to a halt. I was put in the hospital, on a detox unit unbeknownst to me. There I was fed lies and had a nitwit for a psychiatrist. We argued the whole time I was there and by the end of my stay I had the staff and patients call her Dr. Dittlewhack, because she was so whacky. She thought one of the antidepressants that I was on was an antibiotic. I knew more about medication that she ever did. She took me off my pain medication and my muscle relaxant and told me lies that my doctors wouldn’t treat me for my pain or for my mental illness if I went back on my pain medication. I was furious. But when I got out, I learned that my doctors had no knowledge of what this idiot had said and they certainly weren’t going to stop treating me because I had pain issues. It was all lies. I so wanted to place a complaint against Dittlewhack for her mistreatment of me but never did. It was my one regret in life. I did, however, file a complaint with the human rights officer as staff and other doctors would interview patients out in common areas rather than private interview rooms. I hated that hospital stay and vowed never to return to that hospital.
2003: only thing noteworthy in this year was the Sox blowing the ALCS to the Evil Empire. It would end up being the last time the Yankees would make post season for a while

2004: my therapist goes on maternity leave. I am going back to college. I have an interim therapist because to be without one for four months would kill me. I was never more afraid of losing my therapist than I was this year. My biggest fear was that something would be wrong with her kid and force her to change her schedule or not come back. This would be the last year that my therapist would be at the same location as the interim therapist. Later this year, a friend would give me a car and I would be a car owner for the very first time. I sunk money into this baby to get her up and running but in the end it would be for waste. I couldn’t keep up with her demands. I also left the lab for a research job at this time. Life in the lab had become intolerable with the new supervisor and I felt like my job was going to be in jeopardy because we clashed so much. When I was called in the chief supervisor’s office because I deleted stupid emails, it was the last straw for me. I had to transfer out. And I did, partially. I still kept my Saturday hours and worked thirty-two in the research job. It was the first time in three years that I worked so much. I was pain free and almost recovered from CES.
The Sox win the world series for the first time in 86 years!
2005: Lots of major things happen. Starts with me working my ass off at two jobs. Research had to cut my hours so I was now working twenty hours in two positions. Things become intolerable. My psychache was getting worse and worse with each passing day. I knew that I was on the verge of another hospitalization and then a group leader told me I wasn’t cut out for another psych hospitalization anymore. I lose my mind. I really planned on ending my life this year. I had everything down to a T. I tried to play it off with my therapist that things were going good. And then she asked me a question that saved my life and forever changed my course of therapy with her, “what was really going on”? I end up going to a partial hospitalization program so I could continue to work my research job as there would be no one to cover me.
2006: the year I wish I was dead. I got CES again in the fall. It is still unclear to me how I got it again or how in five months my back went from bad to worse, needing emergency surgery yet again. I would lose function yet again in my left leg and had to learn to walk again for the third time in my life. I had wicked bad muscle spasms in this leg that made me wish I went through with my plans from a year before. I hate my therapist. I knew what to do this time around and stuck with physical therapy for almost six months. All through it, I still worked two jobs.

2007: my beloved Sox win the World Series Championship for the second time in three years. I am still recovering from post CES. I learn about the American Association of Suicidology and become a member. I start writing a paper on how the medical profession always has a scale for physical pain but not psychological pain. I submit the paper for the AAS as the conference will be held in Boston the following year.

2008: I go to Barcelona on a business trip. All expenses paid through my job. My paper gets accepted for the AAS and I work on the poster for it. I am really excited about this. This year was probably the year I realized that my career is in psychology and not the lab. I try and work harder for my degree. I end up with a psychotic breakdown in the fall. I am heart broken as I have to put college again on hold. The voices become very demanding and medication doesn’t seem to work like it once did. I am hospitalized again as the voices want me to kill myself. I am put on high doses of trilafon and then am evaluated for clozapine as it has been more than two months and the hallucinations just won’t quit. This has been the longest I have ever been psychotic for.

2009: I start the year with an involuntary hospitalization and am placed on abilify to help my mood and psychosis. I do ok on this new medication and have minimal side effects. Soon as a month or so passes I stop the medication. I am without antipsychotics for a good year or so.

2010: I am still working two jobs and now my research job has kicked up a notch as I now have to go to dialysis centers to pick up blood. I am driving all over the city, getting stuck in traffic and basically spending my life on 93N/93S, mostly 93S. We get more help to coordinate pick ups and drop offs and the like. Worse of all I suffer a sprained ankle that has me in a boot for a few months due to severe spasms.

2011: My health starts failing. My depression worsens. My leg/ankle/foot keeps giving me pain and no one can understand why as physical therapy and scans/x-rays are normal. It is discovered that I am not walking correctly when I see a special physical therapist that deals with AFOs. I am evaluated and my life is forever changed again due to the nerve damage in my ankle/foot. My foot turns and pulls on the muscles and tendons it shouldn’t when I walk. I am placed in an AFO and by year’s end I make the decision that I need to work just one job. Little did I know that this one job would be the last job I would ever have.

2012: the world doesn’t come to end. My career as a lab assistant is over. I go to the AAS annual conference in Baltimore and become convinced that I am a hopeless case. When I return from the conference, the occupational health and my department decide that I am too disabled to work. I have to file for long term disability and social security. I am beyond devastated. I am truly hurt that despite my slaving at this job, an exception cannot be made to keep my job. So I leave in tears. The worse thing that happened was that my student loans are garnishing my SSD. I also have two hospitalizations as I cannot deal with the stress. I am back on abilify and need to stay on it if I want to keep the voices at bay. I also start a blog and it is successful.

2013: A new Year. This year I work on my book and by year end, have it all ready for an editor to pick through and red ink the shit out of it. I work closely with a writing partner and by October, my suicidality lifts enough that I am no longer thinking about suicide as much. Though it has been a brutal year for my depression. I write blog posts and dissociate. My therapist and I come to terms with suicidality on her side of things. Hearing her spell out how difficult it is helps me understand better what she goes through when I am suicidal. Just as in 2005 when she helped me through my November attempt, so she did again help me through. It wasn’t easy. There was a lot of arguing and a lot of frustration but we made it through.

2014: I don’t know what will happen this year. I hope that my book gets published. And I hope it sells a million copies so that I don’t have to be on disability anymore but that remains to be seen. The baby that I brought into this world turns 16. Amazing what happened in those years…

another day in the life of the midnightdemon

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, chronic physical pain, depression

I can’t say that I am having a good day today. I woke up wicked early today, again, after only sleeping a few hours. I was able to get in a little nap after my therapy appointment.

I still am not looking forward to tomorrow. Just the thought of spending all day at the doctor’s office is driving me nuts. And what is worse is I know my father will make it worse. You can read because he has to aggravate you so no use bringing a book. Sometimes I can get away with doing stuff on my phone but that entertainment only lasts for so long before I get bored. And the thing is I get to deal with him not only tomorrow but three days next week, My birthday, Christmas eve, and Christmas Day. I really hate next week.

Sadly, my menses have returned. It’s partially my fault as I forgot to refill the prescription until Monday. Next time I won’t throw away the package like I did last time and it will serve as a reminder for me. I usually am able to remember but I am human and forget. I just hope this stuff doesn’t last long as I hate wearing female underwear. It is totally irritating me. I so wish you can wear feminine products in boxers but you can’t. This isn’t going to go well with my psychiatrist Friday. But there is nothing I can do. I missed a pill. Got to pay the consequences. It still sucks.

I don’t remember what I talked about with my therapist, just that the session seemed to go on forever. I was medicated with pain meds so my brain was foggy. My ankle bone has been hurting me all day. I know we talked about the blog I wrote yesterday. She laughed at the part where I called her fungus. I think she might have taken a little offense to it but didn’t want to show it. I volunteered to edit it but she said that it was my creativeness and to let it be. She also received my packet of letters I sent her last week but hasn’t read them yet. Those are some dire letters she has. It was during my wicked down week. I think we also talked about commitment to living statement but I am not sure. I know I sent her a copy of the example but I didn’t mean for it to be taken as I am putting it in effect. We have to discuss the parameters before I can do that. She wanted my signature on the paper. She is nuts. I am not going to sign something that I didn’t agree to. That is just dumb.

We also talked about my suicidality in the blog. She is surprised I was able to write such a thing after I sent her a wicked nasty text saying I had enough, that I was going to kill myself the next day. I wonder what my psychiatrist thinks of my blog I wrote yesterday. I haven’t heard from her. That either means she read it and didn’t respond or she hasn’t gotten to it yet. Sometimes I can email her and she will respond right away and other times it takes her a while. I also sent the blog to a friend of mine but haven’t heard back from him either. It is so frustrating to send out something so personal and yet get no response.

I seem to be having one week up and then one week down. I don’t like this. Soon it will be a daily event where I cycle. I am not terribly up, like manic up, but when I am down, I am down for the count. I don’t want to do anything. I haven’t left my house all week. I can’t even tell you what day I did leave the house. I think it was Saturday before the snow storm to get some chicken patties so I could make a sandwich. That was it. To the grocery store and back. I did make a short trip to Walgreens to get my prescription on Monday. But other than that, I haven’t really left the house for anything. It’s been too cold and icy out. I can’t risk spraining my ankle. And we got more snow last night so I didn’t venture out today. I will have to go out tomorrow. I set my alarm for 7 as I need to leave the house by 8:30. I hope I don’t have a late night like I did last night. I didn’t go to bed till after 2 am and still woke up at fricken 7. I hate that.

Reflections on the Year

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, psychache, suicide, suicide attempt

Reflections on the year

This time last year I was deeply in physical pain and psychological pain and in the throws of a yet another nasty depression. I was asked to do a writing project for a friend and I didn’t think I would make it. I was sure by this time, on this date, I would be dead. And if I happened to be alive on Dec 17th, I would surely die by my own hand. I promised myself that if things were still the same, that this heaviness that I felt in my chest were not gone, that the pain in my ankle/leg/foot were not decreased, I was going to end things, permanently.

This year, things are still not a hundred percent better but things are less. My depressions are bearable when they hit. I have Wil Wheaton to thank for giving me the tidbit that my brain is not working right and that things will pass and be better tomorrow. My suicidality, though still a deep part of my soul, has decreased to the point where it is just thoughts I ruminate over and then give up. I figured out with the help of some books that this is always going to be a struggle for me, that my depression and pain are always going to be there. But like a former therapist said to me, you don’t always have to act on what you are feeling. These days, I am a little bit more hopeful about the future, though I don’t always see it. I still get hopeless every once in a while but it doesn’t last forever like it once did. I find that writing my blog has been a life saver for me. Mr. Hyde hasn’t come around in almost two months now and for that I am grateful. I have people in my life that have helped me see that I can succeed, even though I am disabled. It took a long time for me to accept my disability. Took longer to grieve it. But eventually, when I realized that part of the depression and suicidality was the grief I was not mourning, I took it apart piece by piece and wrote about it. There was nothing I could do about the pain except wait for the pain meds to work and for that I grateful that I have it. Also emailing my psychiatrist about the depth I was in helped as well. I don’t know if I am still going to have the same doc in 2014 and that scares me. I know that getting pain medication is going to be harder to get with new doctors and even harder as government rules will dictate the rules for prescribing rather than relying on clinical judgments. I don’t know what I will do then. But that is not my worry for today.

I don’t know what brought about the change. Maybe it was having a daily contact with someone miles away from me, urging me to continue my writing and work on a book. Maybe it was a little of owning the depression and taking charge of it, that it doesn’t have to rule my life like it would love to. I just know that I feel differently than I did a year ago. And though the impulses to kill myself are still a threat, I have a therapist that is behind me like a fungus that won’t go away. I really doubt without her countless sessions I would still be here. She really has been the one person that I can always rely on to be there when my mood is dark and gray. We might have our arguments about treatment but I know that she believes in me that things aren’t always going to be so bleak. I guess I have more people in my life now that believe that I can do things where last year I didn’t think I was going to survive my own lethality. I have been tested a few times this year to end my life. I have made several plans before today to end my life this year. My therapist can account for that. Though I have only had one psychotic break this year that required hospitalization. My hospitalizations have been fewer in recent years than they were in the past. I think that is more because I don’t think they help as they once did and that is a shame. You don’t get the care I once relied on.

Lastly, I have to thank country music for without listening to the same songs over and over for hours of despair, I doubt I would be able to make it though the horrible nights when I couldn’t sleep, either because of pain or despair or both. It is the one genre that I can relate to every song and let my brain do the escaping when I was writhing in agony. From songs like “water tower” by Jason Aldean to “Crash my party” by Luke Bryan, to Taylor’s endless songs and lastly to the other artists that I have followed but are not so popular, Casey James and Cassadee Pope. Without music, the heart just doesn’t heal from pain.

having a bad day

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression, suicide

Having a bad day

I woke up in pain, again. This is the third or fourth morning where my foot has woken me up from a sound sleep. I took some pills to get some relief but unfortunately, I was not going back to sleep. Every noise in the house kept me up. Then my mother’s phone rang. Then the damn smoke detectors went off for some reason I still haven’t figured out yet. Because this noise is far louder than the phone, it scared me and forced me out of bed. When I knew the house wasn’t truly on fire or my mother had left the gas burner on again, I had something to eat and then played on my laptop. I have been playing the same annoying game. I don’t know why I can’t quit it. No one will know but I want to complete the damn missions and it gives me something to do.

I am in a depressed state, a deeply depressed state. I really want to end my life. I find no use for living anymore. I hate being in pain all the time. And then we have Tuesday coming up. A day that I planned a year ago to end my life by if things weren’t better. Things are some what better than they were a year ago. I am not as suicidal or depressed (except for my current state) as I was a year ago. I find that I don’t write depressing messages on Facebook anymore. I will, however, tweet them. I have a book that is done and is ready to be published. I just need an editor to look over anything that I have missed. I am actually looking forward to things, though right now, I can’t say what I am looking forward to. Things just look dreary and dark. I am not looking forward to Christmas or my birthday, both are next week. But Tuesday I am planning on having a day with Crown Royal and drink my sorrows away. I have a ¼ of a bottle left. I doubt I will get very drunk.

I am tired of feeling this way. Maybe I should be dead. My sister said to me the other day that there is no “mental illness on my mother’s side of the family”. It took all that I had in me not to laugh in her face. HELLO, I wanted to scream at her. What about me?? What about your cousins that suffer from anxiety, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia? Aren’t they on your mother’s side??? Talk about complete blindness and denial.

I really want to commit suicide. I have dreamed about it for so long. Why can’t I go ahead with it? Why am I such a coward? I do nothing day in and day out. I have nothing but this blog to keep me going. I feel like I have to write every day or I will lose my mind. I stopped writing in my journal. I don’t seem to have very much to say after I blog. It’s all the same isn’t it except what I journal doesn’t get posted on the internet.

I know that I have another book to write. I don’t know exactly what that will be yet as it is supposed to be co-authored. But I don’t care. One book will be enough for me. I can’t write anything else. Once you write about your memoirs, you can’t write another. Unless at least thirty years go by or something and I know I am not going to be around for the next thirty years. I will be lucky if I make it past this week. I am so tired of fighting myself every day. I am more tired of dealing with pain every day. Today was bad. Still is as the day isn’t over yet. I know part of it is because of the snow storm that hit. I haven’t gone outside nor do I want to. I just realized I have to deal with my father yet again for another stinking doctor’s appointment, all because the asshole lies all the time and won’t give a straight answer. So if his doctor tells him something he is not going to a) remember it or B) deny it and just say that he is “fine”. I don’t know how I got to be the one to go to these appointments. All the more reason I should kill myself. Just so I don’t have to deal with an ornery bastard.

I still have to hear back from my therapist about my sessions or lack thereof this week. I really don’t want sessions this week. I rather deal with this on my own. I do anyways.