Tag: therapist

I fired my therapist today, several times

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

It is really hot today and the humidity is killing me, making me really irritable. I only left my room for the usual items: coffee, food, and bathroom. I did manage to go to the bank to make a withdrawal. I am going to ask my Brother in law for some cash because I need my meds. And this month I am short. It’s my own fault because I thought I wouldn’t need groceries. I can never keep it to the minimum of what I need.

Sallie Mae keeps calling me every three hours now. I am going to answer the next time they call and make them look like a fool. If they ask what can I pay them, I will say $10/month. Screw them. I can barely buy groceries and they want $132+ dollars a month? Fuck them.

I talked to my therapist even though I fired her. I wasn’t in a talking mood. She did the SSF to see where I was. I was so out of it I don’t remembered what I answered. Doesn’t matter now. My sister is home so I can’t kill myself even if I really wanted to. There is no way I am killing myself with the potential of my little niece finding me. So I am stuck here, again. And I am not happy about it.

The only good news to report is that my pain levels have shifted downward. I am not in as much pain as I was. I hope this stays this way for the next week because I am out of my pain meds, again. I don’t know what possessed me to have my doc reduce my number of pills. Course, there was a time when I was hardly taking them. I would have pain flares at least twice a month. Now it’s like almost every week. I know it is just to adjust to the temperature. I get that but why does it have to be so painful?

I started a letter, in a word doc, that I thought I would post as a blog. It was for my therapist and her foolish ways about me wanting to live. Anyways, it got a little more personal than I would like and never published it. I might read it to her tomorrow or might password it so she can open it but she isn’t too tech savvy so I am not sure it is worth doing. I might get more aggravated than helped.

Issues around my body came about today. I told her I was ugly and there is no fixing that. She was trying to tell me otherwise but it was falling on deaf ears. I can tell I really want to talk about this because I keep checking the internet and twitter for the past 1/2 hour. So I will just leave it as I am ugly and my therapist is fired because she thinks otherwise.

Weird dreams again and the SSF

by Midnight Demon, posted in chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders, psychache, suicidality

I am having a horrible day. My day literally started at 0100. I slept for a few hours, from 2200 to 0100 and I was up for the night. I went back to sleep around dawn. Was up for a few hours and then tried to get back to sleep around 0800 or 0900. Fail. I finally gave up around 1130. In the times that I did sleep, I had another weird dream about children and elevators. It was winter time and we were going to take the children sledding but the elevator malfunctioned and we ended up at a hospital that was at an airport. I don’t know what that is about. Absolutely makes no sense. Other than me possibly wanting to get away either through an airport or a hospital admission. I don’t know.

I had therapy and we talked about the weird dream and me not sleeping. I told her I am getting to my wits end. The heat is not helping. I still have to clear a path for my bro in law to install the AC. Maybe I will do that after I write this blog. We also talked about my suicidality and the need to attempt suicide. I don’t know why I feel like this. I just feel like everybody will be better off without me. I just feel so low and useless. I know my sister needs me because I have to pick up my niece next week. She doesn’t have the after school program anymore. But I just hope my ankle doesn’t flare up other wise I will be in pain and I am not looking forward to that. I just wish I wasn’t in pain every single day. I have not had a “day off” from pain in weeks.

So because I am thinking of an attempt, my therapist is taking out the old SSF to assess where I am at. She will do this assessment tomorrow. The SSF (Suicide Status Form) is an assessment used to assess and evaluate suicidality. In addition to this assessment, it also lists goals of treatment that both the clinician and client agree upon. The beauty of this assessment is that it allows collaboration in the treatment of suicidality rather than have the clinician be the expert. And the assessment is easier for the clinician as it also lists all the necessary documentation you would need for a session such as Axis diagnosis, progress notes, and date of next appointment.

The SSF was developed by a suicidologist, my idol, Dr. David Jobes. He developed this assessment so that clients that were suicidal did not get “lost” in the system and were treated as equals in their treatment, rather than have treatment as usual. To learn more about this, check out his book on the subject, Managing Suicidal Risk. It is a great book and also teaches you how to score the assessment at the end of the book. There are also classes you can take. His assessment tool follows under his framework, CAMS, Collaborating and Assessing Management of Suicidality. I write a lot about his work on my blog because I can’t stress the importance of suicide prevention. And this is one tool to do that.

So my therapist is pulling out this assessment tool on me tomorrow. I am not happy about it. I know how to “cheat” on it as I am the one to bring it to her attention. She is not proficient in promoting it despite my several attempts for her to go to Jobes’s workshops. She feels, like many therapists, that her training is adequate (it’s not) and she does not want to be a suicidologist. I am not asking her to change her ways, just add to her skill set. Every time she brings it out, I cringe because I know she doesn’t use it all the way through and that pisses me off. I feel like it is a waste of time because it is not used properly.

boat scenario

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression

I had a sleepy day today. I took my mood stabilizer to try and get me out of this pit I am in. Needless to say, I didn’t leave the house today. I wanted to get a coffee and work on my next book but it doesn’t look like that is happening.

I got rudely awakened a little after 8 this morning. It was a collector and I was not happy. I should have yelled at them but I was half way between awake and dream land so it would not have been good to talk to anyone in that state. I still am having bad dreams. My therapist can’t figure it out. I have decided not to take abilify this week. And now she is freaking out because she knows what that does to me. But I can’t afford it this month. I will take it like every few days and see if that helps. I am not psychotic right now so that is good. Probably because I am so sleepy. I am going to try and stay up to watch the Sox game but no guarantees on that.

I canceled my PCP appointment for tomorrow. I just can’t see him right now. I know I should but there is no point as my symptoms are better. I just have my pdoc appointment this week, which I will keep. I still don’t know what the point of keeping the appointment is but whatever.

I had therapy today and we talked about a therapist’s letter to a suicidal person. It started off open and caring yet toward the end it felt like it was demanding and off. It was really weird. I have highlighted it for you to see. My therapist thinks I should write a response blog to it. HA yea right. What am I going to say? You want to know my suicidality yet I know you will panic if I don’t go along with what you say? Or are we in this boat together? One of my therapist used a boat scenario with me. She had me swimming around the boat and her trying to pull me in but I just never could get in because I couldn’t trust her. She never jumped in after me. So we were always separated by things like trust. I would rather drown than trust her and she would just watch. Not a good feeling when you are in crisis. And of course with that therapist, I always ended up in the ER with my suicidal thoughts. So much for not panicking.

I have had a lot of therapists over the years, before I saw my current one. There were lots of reasons why the relationship didn’t work out. None of them had to do with suicide. Most of them had to do with life choices. A marriage, life change, budget cuts, residency ending and the like. Some therapists I fired because they were too stupid to understand that I was suicidal. I had this one therapist, a psych resident. I told him I wanted to get a bottle of pills to kill myself. He then asked if I was suicidal. Nope, just want the pills for a joy ride, WTF, seriously??? What part of I am going to kill myself does not translate into being suicidal???? I dumped him and then found another jackass. I thought she would be the “one” as she has been in the business for years. That all ended the time I was upset about a fight my sister and I had. Instead of dealing with me, she wanted to know about the social status of my sister. Yup, here is your sign, you are fired! The weird thing was is that she said I would never be able to find another therapist, that she wouldn’t refer me to anyone because we still had “work to do”. Well you ain’t doing it with me lady. I don’t remember if we ever talked about being suicidal. I don’t know that I ever left my guard down enough to let her in. She was already therapist number 8 or 9. I have had seen 12 therapists since 1991, thirteen if you count the really freaking guy that kept sweating whenever I brought up being suicidal.

As much as my current therapist bugs me, we are a good fit. I taught her some stuff and she taught me some stuff. It’s always been an open relationship, though it was tough in the beginning. She never hospitalized me though, all throughout my treatment with her. We mutually agreed on going in the hospital. And we have been together for 13 years now. Ultimately, the decision for the hospital was mine. I knew what to say to get me out and I knew what to say to get in. I know the rules have changed some since the first time I went in. It’s a lot tougher to stay in than to get out. Hospitals don’t like to keep you now a days, even if you have good insurance. But I think if you make an attempt, you stay longer than if you didn’t.

Rant continues from last night, but no suicidality

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

Rant continues from last night, but no suicidality

I didn’t fall asleep until around 0300, woke up around 0630, and then finally at 0930 I gave up. It was a really bad night with side effects and pain. My arms and legs felt like they were being stretched. The spasticity was incredible. But luckily the Ativan did its magic and I got some relief. Too bad it also didn’t knock me out. The ball game ended around 0230. I figured I might as well listen to the game as I was up and they were playing extra innings in an already delayed game. We lost because an ineffective relief pitcher likes to give up homeruns. Every single time this guy is up, he gives up a homerun. Soon as he was called in with two men on you knew the game was over. I got pissed off but what can you do really. I sent some obnoxious tweets about the game, least I think I did. I was tweeting most of the night, either on my phone or on my computer.

Had therapy today and my therapist was in more of a talking mood than I was. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. That really pissed me off. I wanted to talk about stuff, like my suicidality going on hiatus, but never really got the chance. Last night is usually a night where the demons come out and I become really suicidal but I never did. I don’t know why that is. It is strange to me. I am not saying I would have ended my life last night, but I am just wondering where the suicidality went. It was like the furthest thing from my mind. Maybe my coping strategies have improved around my physical pain. I certainly wasn’t feeling psychache, or psychological pain, last night, not even in the wee hours of the morning. I wasn’t hopeless about my situation and I think that is a key component. If I felt like the spasticity was going to go on forever or that the physical pain was unbearable, I think I might have become suicidal.

I told my therapist it is weird not being suicidal. She went off with her psychobabble about why that is. I don’t even remember half of what she said. I wasn’t really paying attention to her. But the gist is she thinks that the Cymbalta gave me a lift that neither one of us was expecting. She thinks I might be a little hypomanic as I texted her more frequently than I have in the past but that was because I was hurting and wanted her to know. I wanted someone to know that I was in bad shape. Who else you gonna tell at 0200?? I don’t think that I am hypomanic. I am eating. I am not euphoric or in a real good mood. I still feel run down but that is probably because my allergies are killing me. I feel okay. I am not terribly depressed and I am not terribly feeling up. I am just somewhere in the middle. I feel content, I guess you can say. I just hope it lasts. I know it won’t though. Something always happens to bring me down. Or maybe the effects of the Cymbalta will wear off and I will just feel down again. But I will deal with it when it comes. It is rare that I feel this way. I am not hopeful that things will stay this way but I am not going to knock it.

Feeling suicidal has been a such a big part of my life that when I am not feeling it, it feels weird. I wonder if this is how “normal” people feel. I just don’t feel so dragged down by stuff. I don’t know, maybe I just feel free but free from what, I don’t know. I am realizing that my parents don’t know me and never will. And being suicidal because I didn’t have their approval hurt really bad. But I will never have their approval. A friend of mine sent me a link saying that Medicare is banning transgender reassignment surgery. I feel really down about this, not saying that I was going to have it, but I would have liked the option now that I am on Medicare. Seems like I have to put my transgender stuff on hold, again. I can never move forward with it like I want to. I should be in a suicidal crisis because of this but I am not. I think I am just waiting for my chance to die. The other day as I was crossing the street, a semi was coming down the road. I quickly thought, “this is my chance”. But he wasn’t going fast enough. I knew that if I did jump in front I would have survived. And I might be in worst condition than I am now. So some suicidal elements are present. It just isn’t 24/7 like it used to be.