Tag: therapy

It’s hot

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, depression

It has been hot and muggy the past week. I’ve been tolerating it but I am starting to lose my patience with it. I need to clear the area where my AC is so my bro in law can put it in. I sort of made a mess of it when I was cleaning my hamper out. I got to decide what I am going to do with the clothes. They aren’t particularly my favorite. And the sweatpants elastic is basically gone. Doesn’t fit me anymore.

I had therapy yesterday reluctantly as I needed to get a letter from her. She was being a bitch the whole session. I hate it when she doesn’t allow me to change subjects or just shut down on something. We talked about my mother and school and transitioning. I told her she could write the letter saying how I was depressed because I was transgender and wasn’t transitioned but now that I am transitioned I feel better. She then asked how do I explain the major depressive episode last fall. Ugh. I really can’t. Late Aug/early Sept I always suffer from depression. Been that way for nearly 30 years. Sometimes I get really suicidal. I didn’t tell her this. I felt like if I did, I wouldn’t have the letter.

After therapy, I went to get some lunch and my haircut. Talking to my barber made me depressed. I was feeling so low afterwards. I went home after and then I went to PT. My foot was hurting because I had been on my feet all day. We decided not to do the machine and just worked with a ball. She then worked on my foot tendons. My foot was hurting still today but less so.

Today is my nephew’s birthday so we went out to eat. I ate too much. I slept nearly all day. I didn’t do anything I wanted to do. I just couldn’t get out of bed. I had a hard time sleeping because my foot and ankle flared up. I hurt so bad. I was up until like 130 and then woke up every couple of hours during the night. Didn’t help that it was so fricken hot in my room. I really need to clear the space so my bro in law can put the AC in.

bad night of pain

by Midnight Demon, posted in baseball, blogging, depression, FTM, gender dysphoria, grief

Bad night of pain

I was listening to the game and it was tied so I decided to shower as I smelled. After the shower, as usual, I was exhausted and then my foot/ankle flared up on me. It is still hurting. The Sox lost and I am upset about it because they had so many chances to win. It was an up and down game so really hurt to lose.

I had therapy yesterday and my therapist really upset me. She said that I don’t need to be in the hospital and said I could go to the ED but they won’t do anything for me. I know this isn’t true. She didn’t evaluate me on my suicidal risk so she really doesn’t know how bad I just don’t want to be here. I think if she knew that, she might change her mind. She thinks I need partial but I don’t want to go to skill groups. I think they are a waste of time for me because I can’t really grasp things like I used to and besides, these things take practice. I can learn it from a book more than a group setting. The book I am reading now on CBT and suicidal thinking is helping more than anything else that I have read on the subject. Book is called choosing to live. It is an excellent book. I was in a mood yesterday so didn’t bring it up like I wanted to. There was a section I read that I wanted to share with her. She makes me so angry. I don’t know why she doesn’t trust me that I know better of what can help me when I need help. I think being in the hospital will help me because it has in the past. It kind of resets me. Right now I am not doing good. I am not eating or sleeping right. I am tired all the time. I wish I were dead. I also know that maybe spending a few nights away from home will help me with my PTSD of listening out for my mother so that maybe my sleep will get back on track. I know my mother is gone but I still listen out for her every time I am awake during the middle of the night. I’ve tried to calm myself by saying it is ok and that she is gone so no more looking out for her but that just makes me sad and I miss her even more. Grief is a hard thing.

I am so tired and wish I could sleep. My sister left her room so I am waiting for her to go back to it. It is so stupid that I am listening to this shit.

I made a bacon sandwich when I got up but it didn’t taste good. My taste buds are off. Even my coffee didn’t taste good. I had a pop tart, too. It was okay. That was the only thing that tasted right today. I haven’t eaten anything else today. I really want pasta but I don’t feel like cooking. I had an Ensure that I take with my meds as I need 350 calories to take for it.

Tomorrow I have three appointments. I have PT, then my pcp appointment, then the bereavement group. My therapist thinks I should have some time with the group before I go in the hospital as I said I would give it another two weeks time. She thinks grief is going to take longer. She might be right. I don’t know I just feel so damn lost.

I have been having nerve pain in my chest on the left side and it is freaking me out. I know it isn’t cardiac because I am not having any other symptoms but damn, the pain is so intense. It is like a stabbing pain. The swelling on my right hasn’t gone down and now I am wondering if maybe I should be massaging it or something. I sent a message to the NP to see if that will help. It just looks like I have breast tissue again and it is bothering me. I hope that what I feel isn’t fat as that will take more than massage to get rid of.

I haven’t had the time to think more about my personal statement for UMB. I got the letter from my psychiatrist which doesn’t say much other than that he cleared me for attending classes. I wish my psych was still my psych so she could write something for me that would help me other than just clearing me for classes. I guess they need detailed information. Just lovely. Ugh. I can do this. I wrote a damn memoir for crying out loud. Why is this so hard? I am currently working on another memoir. I have gotten so good at being concise in my writing, I find it hard to expand on things. Some story teller I am.

One of the groups I am in on Facebook posted about a trans book. I plan on getting it next week when I get paid. I am also planning on getting a t-shirt that says Baseball Isn’t Boring. I think that will be cool to get. I am a hard lover of baseball.

Just don’t want to adult today and just sleep

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

I was up again during the night. I read some. It got me thinking stuff I should talk about with my therapist but when I woke up, I didn’t feel like going to therapy. I should have canceled but kept the appt. I got up to pee and took my meds. Then rested a little too long. I got up to make a cup of coffee a half hour before therapy started.

She was in one of her moods. I was in mine and it ended with me not talking for most of it. I told her I’ve been alternating between depression and sadness. My appetite has been low or not existent. She wanted me to do something about my grief and I told her I didn’t know what to do with it. She wanted me.to work on something so I said I’d straighten out my room. Then she scheduled our next appt. Was useless. I have such a headache from being tired. I need to get at least some of the boxes in my room out so I can move stuff. Except I just want to lay down. My iron pills came yesterday so I am taking them at night. I sent a message to the doc asking if the slow release was ok. My insurance isn’t covering what she called in.

I feel so depressed and aggravated. I wish she would just let me talk about whatever I wanted to but no. She wasn’t having that today. She can be such a bitch at times. Will be 4 years we have been seeing each other. Can’t believe it has been that long.

I had a second cup of coffee with some cookies. I bought the new Oreo cakesters which are really good but I lost interest in eating them. Just hope no one eats them. My niece has been eating my Mac and cheese. I don’t have an appetite today. I’ll just have an Ensure. I still need to brush my teeth.

Sox play at 4pm today. They lost last night, again. It hasn’t been fun seeing them lose. The Rays pitcher is a Sox killer so I don’t even know if it will be worth watching. Could be another painful game. I’m not really in the mood. I just want to sleep. My niece is graduating tonight. It’s raining so I hope it is indoors.

thirty years of therapy and what I have learned

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

Thirty years of therapy and what I learned

I’ve been in therapy since I was 15. After 30 years and 15 therapists, I’ve called it quits. Not because I was cured because I couldn’t get the care I needed. Not all therapists are the same. And even if someone has the credentials I am looking for, doesn’t mean it will work out. I have seen social workers, psychologists (PhDs and PsyD), psychiatrists, and psych RN. The first 10 I saw within the first 10 years of starting therapy. Each therapist I saw didn’t last more than a year. One resident I saw lasted three years, till the end of her residency, but she moved on and I didn’t see her again. I tried DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy), CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), and the various psychodynamic therapies out there.

My suicidal career took up talk for the last 10 years of therapy, maybe more as it got more serious and I didn’t want to live anymore. I started researching into the different treatment options and found very little to help myself. The therapist I was seeing at the time was stuck in her ways didn’t want to adapt to what I wanted her to do in therapy to help me. It was frustrating. Then I saw a PsyD with the credentials and I thought yes! This is going to work out finally. But it didn’t because she didn’t have empathy and couldn’t give me validation when I needed it the most.

What I learned from my research into suicidology is that the person needs to tell their story of why they are suicidal. It needs to be heard by an empathic person who validates why they are suicidal. They also should appear eager to listen and to know more about the person, their pain and suffering. To find out where it hurts and to try and heal it the best they can. I can go on about things like perturbation, lethality, constriction, and psychache but those are just words no one uses anymore.

Living with pain— physical or emotional— for years is a traumatic stressor. The experience of living with pain evokes many of the same responses that being subjected to abuse or neglect does. — Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle

I came across this quote while scrolling through Twitter. Dammit this guy always posts something when I am in the feels. He is correct. Pain does have the same responses as being abused or neglected. I have suffered physical pain consistently 24/7/365 for the past twelve years. Each time my foot or ankle flared up, I had flashbacks of when my back gave out ten years prior. I had to go through a series of checklists to make sure it wasn’t happening again, each time, nearly every single day. Once I had a diagnosis for the pain the checklist checking stopped but the feelings of the trauma didn’t.

My therapist who I just stopped seeing, asked me what I was looking for in therapy. But I didn’t have the words. As I am reading the book Building a Therapeutic Alliance with the suicidal Patient, I am figuring out what I need in therapy. I knew she wasn’t able to give me what I need. I am not really sure what I need. I know I want someone to talk to tell my story to. For them to listen, empathically and compassionately to what I have to say about why I am suicidal and why it has become my only option left to me.