Tag: therapist

Exhausting, painful, and depressing day

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

Exhausting, painful, and depressing day

I did not want to get out of bed today but I knew that if I didn’t, I’d get slapped with a $190 charge from my therapist for not canceling within 24 hours. It was an incentive to get up, but not enough of one to shower. I did brush my teeth.

I felt like I was walking in mud most of the day, soon as I left my house. I was just really tired. My legs felt heavy, like I couldn’t move them. My ankle was fine until I got to my therapist’s office building. Then it felt like it was being torn apart. I can’t stand when my depression is like this. I am going to ask my psych if I can increase the Zoloft to 200 mg/day. It might break some of this stuff.

The weather is awful. It was muggy when I came home and then the temp dropped so it is freezing now. I had to shut off the AC. Only thing I had to eat today was a pumpkin scone, a bite of a brownie, and some microwavable mac and cheese. I am not too hungry. I just want to sleep. I am in a lot of pain and the night is still young. I’m not sure I am going to sleep.

While I was at Starbucks, it started raining. I was trying to write in my journal but it was difficult. I couldn’t really concentrate on writing so mostly just listened to my music and twittled with my phone. I think I am going to avoid Twitter over the next few days because the Senate is proposing a bill to cut Medicaid and that is all people are talking about. Call your senators. I’m so tired of seeing this every few months. And if I am, I am sure that other people are as well. It sucks that the public has to tell their elected senators to do the right thing. Dispicable.

As I couldn’t write in my journal, I decided to get some zucchini so I could make my zucchini bread. I know it won’t be tomorrow as I am in too much pain and I doubt I will sleep. I’ll probably make it either Wed or Thursday. After I got the zucchini, I just went to the train station where it was warmer than Starbucks.

Therapy went ok. Guy is still picking his nails as he talks to me. We talked about how my depression can be so heavy at times that it’s overwhelming. I also told him I wanted to give up. He didn’t say anything. I’m starting to think this therapy is just whatever I want it to be about without any therapy happening. I just talk with no structure at all. I get more from talking to my psychiatrist for 20 minutes.

I got to get my blood drawn this week. I think I will get it done on Friday when I have to be at the hospital anyway to see my psych. Results won’t be done until later that day but as long as I have them in, that is all that matters. The hard part will be fasting because I tend to drink PowerAde with my meds, especially at night. Guess I will have to drink water if I need my meds.

The top of my foot is screaming. I already took a strong pain pill and can’t take my regular meds for another hour. Maybe I’ll use some lidocaine. I know I am going to be hurting at least the next three days because a hurricane is coming up this way. It’s mostly going to be on the coast where it will be worst, but we’ll have rain. My back is already aching. I honestly don’t know how I am going to make the zucchini bread when I know I am going to be in a lot of pain. Even if I am having a low pain day, I could still flare up from baking. Least I will have something chocolate when I want it.

Am I weak?

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, grief, mental illness, mood disorders, physical pain, psychache, suicidality

I called UNCLE. I was slowly drifting off to la la land and then the unknown entity in the form of a knife started stabbing the middle of my foot. I am filled with such despair right now, I’m beside myself.

I just want to die but I can’t leave my room because I can’t bear weight on my damn foot. I’ve been trying to distract most of the night but I am angry. Angry the meds work on certain pains I get in my foot and ankle, angry my PCP doesn’t meet with me frequently enough to see what I am going through, angry that I am forced to use mobility aids around the house to try and lessen my pain. Angry that my friends in real life don’t get what I am going through. My sister came up to visit and she wanted me to go downstairs to see her. I told her I was in too much pain. There was silence. I felt like I could hear her thoughts saying yeah right, like I would stay in my room to avoid her. 

The past few days have been awful pain wise. I’ve been trying my best to stay on top of it but it’s hard when the pain keeps changing and now it is affecting my bones. I get severe bone pain in my foot and ankle, specifically, the malleolus and metatarsals. But only half of my foot and ankle hurt. The last three toes going up to my ankle and outer foot/ankle hurt really bad. It is draining me. I can’t tolerate the pain. I want to die.

I’ve been thinking about my therapist that I’ve been seeing the last few months. I’m going to be straight with him and see if he is willing to help me or just play with his nails. I need encouragement if I’m to continue living. I haven’t gotten that from him at all. I miss my ex-therapist. She always provided encouragement and support. 

I see my psychiatrist Friday. She has been on vacation the past few weeks, but I’ve been emailing her about what has been happening in her absence. I’ve come up with a suicidal plan. I think I emailed it to her, I’m not sure. If I did, She didn’t respond. Im sure we’ll talk about it when i see her. If my therapist doesn’t want to help me with my problems, I’m going to stop seeing him. I mean, what would be the point? Ramble for 45 minutes every week with no feedback or analysis of what I am talking about? I’ll have better luck talking to a wall.

Chronic pain has got to settle down. It is killing me and will kill me. Even though I’m on pain meds, and they do work, however my pain is so intense and unpredictable that I never know when I need to take a pill to control it. I can’t say, ok at 7 pm the pain is going to be this so I’ll take this pill at 6 pm so I’m not hurting. It doesn’t work that way. Maybe in a perfect world.

I’ve been fighting sleep since 2130. Every time I get relaxed enough to drift off, my pain increases or I feel like my foot is on fire. Then I need to take another med to calm the flames. Trouble is, this med takes hours to work so in the meantime, I’m hurting and going berserk with pain.

Why is it when I talk about killing myself, people just don’t want me to die? I understand but if I was an animal, I would have been euthanized by now. Why can’t humans be euthanized? I know in certain countries you can be via assisted suicide. But I don’t have the money needed to fly there and pay for services just to die in a foreign land. I am so sad I no longer can work or walk anymore. Being in pain sucks. I do have the suicide disease. My dream come true. Now I just need a concrete plan to go ahead with it.

my blogging adventures for the month

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

My blogging adventures for the month

In addition to my daily blah blah blogs, I will be writing about suicide prevention and about things related to it. A friend of mine gave me a few ideas on the subject as well as writing stories about what it is like being a patient in the hospital. I can go one for days with that one as I have had many hospitalizations spanning many years. I will also write some stuff on what I think works best to prevent suicide and why therapists NEED to be trained and use what they learn in their practice. Otherwise, what is the purpose of spending money or attending a seminar in suicide prevention and not use it?? That just irritates me.

I slept in three hour increments last night, giving up around 1000 or so. I washed up and shaved the back of my head to make it bald. I need to put in a new razor because it’s not as close as it should be. I’ll do that later. I then had a bowl of cereal before getting dressed and leaving to catch the bus. I brought my Bluetooth headset with me but I couldn’t get it to turn on. I think the battery died. I tried charging it while at the bus stop but couldn’t get it to work right. I put it away and pulled out my wired headset.

I dropped off the cookies I made to my barber. He loved the cookies. Then I went to Starbucks for my breakfast sandwich, espresso, and some cookies. I was able to charge my Bluetooth while there. I still have it charging on my laptop. I got kind of antsy after writing in my journal for a bit so went to CVS to look at shavers. I found one that I liked but it was $50. I made note of it on my phone and then went to catch the bus. Luckily it was late as they changed the time to 1220 not 1230 for the fall schedule. I got to the bus waiting area around 1222.

It was muggy by the time I came home. I went to Walgreens as I had a prescription to pick up and I wanted some Reese’s peanut butter cups. They had them on sale so I grabbed 2 packages. My ankle was hurting by the time I got home. I was sweating and needed to clean my sneaker off on my “good” foot as I stepped in some gum. I couldn’t wait to get to my room to cool off.

I was talking more with my friend about suicide prevention and how it’s gone to hell. She was telling me how she lost friends on Facebook because of her new adventures that are away from suicide related stuff. She had made that decision a few years ago as she felt it was time to move on to what she wanted and not live in her sister’s death by suicide. Sibling suicide survivor is hard because it really doesn’t get talked about. She was a strong voice for a while. Now it’s mostly parents that have a voice. A few brothers or sisters have come forward but it’s rare. The stigma is so great that it’s not helping the situation, even though studies have shown that sibling survivors have also thought or attempted suicide. They need care too, not just the parents.

My friend had sent me her blog that she is posting tomorrow and wanted my feedback. I was struck that she included my mentor, Dr. Shneidman’s questions, where do you hurt and how can I help? The Zero Suicide squad has gone away from that concept and really have no substance in helping preventing suicide because they really have no clue other than asking about it and how to go about asking about it, least that is my perception of it. Something about that concept was bugging me and it wasn’t until she brought about those questions that I figured out why it was bothering me so much. The sense of asking where it hurts or what is the one thing that won’t make you suicidal, or how can we make this a life worth living despite the pain of living has been lost. Some are still advocating for it but I worry that for every say 20 therapists that go through a training on suicide prevention, only 1 or 2 will actually take it to heart and use it in their practice. I will write more about this for those that care.

Shneidman was an important man in the evolution of suicidology. I think about him more during this month than any other because he advocated for suicide prevention. Stay tuned to learn more about this great man.

Productive Sunday

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

Productive Sunday

I woke up around 10. I took my BP meds and antibiotic. I should have taken my pain meds but I wasn’t in too much pain. I wanted coffee so I got dressed to go to the store to get some half and half. While I was drinking my coffee, I read some Tom Sawyer. Around noon, I was getting hungry so made something to eat. My foot and mouth were hurting so I took some pain meds as well.

I found out my favorite announcer, Jerry Remy, was going to be on the radio today as NESN, the sports channel for the Sox, were honoring him for his 30 years of service. He isn’t in the booth right now because he had a recurrence of lung cancer. This is his 4th time getting it. He is confident that he will beat it and be back to the booth next year. I listened to the game. They won 5-1 over the Yanks and currently hold a five game lead over them in the AL East standings. I am proud of my boys.

After the game, my foot was hurting me and I was getting drowsy. My mother told me that they would be working on the water pipes this week so the water might be rusty. I decided to take a shower to see if that would wake me up. It made me tired. I didn’t want to nap because I think I am back to my sleep schedule. I took some strong pain meds to try and quiet my foot down but it didn’t make a difference.

I read some more of Tom Sawyer until I finished the book. I feel accomplished as that was one of my goals for the weekend was to finish a book and I did it. I had started a new one last night by Lawrence Block called Sins of the Father. I read it before but forgot what it was about. I read the first chapter and I still don’t remember too much about it. Guess I’ll find out when I read more. I also started Rumble Fish by SE Hinton. I should fly with that book. It is an easy read. When I finish that book, I will read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It’s the only Harry Potter book I haven’t read. It’s all dialogue as it’s a play. Kind of like reading Shakespeare. I hope it is easy reading.

I need to sleep tonight so I hope this pain goes away soon. I might have to take some more strong pain pills. I’ll be taking my night meds soon. I forgot to take my antibiotic at dinner so I will again be late in taking it. Last night I fell asleep before I took it. I was hoping to wake up before midnight but I didn’t. I woke up around 0330 because my bladder needed to be emptied. Then the pain started. I am getting really despondent about this pain business. I really don’t know how to live like this anymore. I don’t want to live anymore. I want to go back to work or get my degree. But chances of either of those happening is like winning the lottery.

My laptop screen is getting worse. I keep on getting glitches. I need to get it repaired. Luckily I know someone that does computer work so he is going to help me fix it. I really don’t want to send my laptop back to Dell for $300. I need to save some money from now on so I can change my name by my birthday.

I got a busy week this week. I see my therapist tomorrow. I don’t have an agenda of things to talk about. I’ll probably just ramble for 45 minutes and then he’ll say “see you next week”. I honestly don’t know why I bother. If I had any brains, I should have cancelled last week when I had the chance.

I have a hefty grocery bill this month because my mother wanted some things. My stuff alone was around $200 as I had to order ingredients for the things I wish to bake. Plus her things and it’s like $230, the most I have ever spent on groceries. Guess I won’t be eating out this month. I’m going to try and order Chinese food because I haven’t had it in a while. It all depends on what is left over once all my bills are paid. I won’t know until Friday as that is when everything clears. I just hope I have at least $20 so I can get another haircut. I messed it up again when I was shaving the sides and back. It’s all grown back as my hair grows fast but I like it down to the skin.

I took some Neurontin as my foot is going berserk. The whole thing is burning something awful. I hope I sleep late tomorrow so I don’t spend unnecessary hours at Starbucks like I have in the past. I want to leave my house at 2 so I can have my espresso and a sandwich and write a little bit in my journal before catching the train to see my therapist. It’s supposed to be hot tomorrow, yuck. But I guess it is to be expected. There is also an eclipse sometime tomorrow. That will be interesting. I hope I am indoors when it happens. Luckily, Boston is not in the projected path.