Tag: transition

tough painful week

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

Tough painful week

I’ve had a rough week both physically and emotionally. Monday I semi said goodbye to my psych of 26 years. She still wants to care for me so when she finds another home, she will call me. She is not sure where she will be as she has not thought that far. I totally understand that. I figure it might be a few months but in the meantime I will still be in contact with her either through phone or email. I started having side effects of my mood stabilizer, which is really bad timing as I am not currently under direct care of a psychiatrist. My psych is trying to push seeing someone faster. My pcp’s social worker is also trying to get me to see a gender affirming psych that is joining the clinic. I just had bloods drawn for a level as last time I was barely therapeutic. I am having double vision and just to make sure there isn’t something wrong with my eyes, I am seeing my eye doc next week.

I had PT which was sort of good. On Saturday, I did some stuff around my room. Sunday I did a little more even though my back didn’t like it. Monday I was okay until I was coming home from my psych’s appointment. Back flared up terribly. I was still hurting when I saw my PT on Tuesday. She gave me some decompressing exercises to do. I was really hurting past few days as I have been having pain go down my leg and the pain was near my spine yesterday when I was coming home from the therapist appointment.

The therapist appointment went well. I found out what kind of therapist she is and I think it is going to work out. She loves the Sox and we both have the same favorite player, though she is a lot more obsessive than I am about him!! At one point, I thought she was going to jump down my throat when I was criticizing him and she stopped me before I could say anything. Yikes! I have my next appointment with her the week after next. She is a CBT therapist but also has some DBT stuff. I am going to bring her my copy of Craig Bryan’s CBT for suicide attempters and see if she is receptive to it. If she isn’t, then I guess that will be okay and we can go from there. I will have a hard time with it though as I feel like I have all these things that could possibly help me with my suicidality but I don’t have a therapist to go along with it and it frustrates the hell out of me! I did ask her if she would turn me away and she said no. I was relieved to hear this. Maybe she will work out after all.

My sister had sent me texts Wed saying she wanted to take my stuff upstairs today. I told her no as I knew I would be hurting as I have all week. Fortunately, she decided to go to the beach so I didn’t have to deal with her. We haven’t really spoken kind words to each other since she moved in. I really don’t care as she really hasn’t been there and doesn’t understand anything I have been going through since I have been on disability. I really don’t see this changing. Maybe when the work on the house is done with but certainly not right now.

A couple of hours ago, I used the bathroom. I normally don’t really look in the mirror as I hate my face. Today I did and much to my surprise, I have darker hair around my jawline! The fuzz is becoming darker. I was so excited. I knew I had to post transition pics, which I did on Instagram and facebook. I kind of did on Twitter, too, though didn’t give as big a description. Kind of hard to do when you only have 240 characters. I just sent it out to a couple of people that want to keep track of my transition. I hope when my T gets increased next week, the facial hair will come in faster and darker. I would love to come downstairs one morning and shock the hell out of my mother with a beard. I am not sure she knows I am on T. I sure as hell didn’t tell her. I am not sure if she asked my sisters or if my sisters told her. She hasn’t said a word to me about anything. I have mentioned that I will be having my breasts removed. She didn’t seem to like that at all. Yet she wants me to be “happy.” I don’t think I can ever be happy as I don’t know what the hell it is. I rather be content but the way things are going, I doubt that will ever happen. I forced myself to shower because some icky water fell on me. I have this thing that turns musty smells to water and the container fell on me. I had to shower. I was hurting afterwards. My back wanted to kill me. I started getting suicidal thoughts again. I have been having them on and off since being discharged from the hospital. They haven’t been really bad like they were. I have thought on a few occasions to end it and started to plan it but once the pain backed off, so did the planning. I just wish something helped with the flares. Since changing my meds to something else, nothing has worked for the flares. The 24/7 pain has been lowered. I wake up with a 2 or 3 but sometimes if I have more than a few days activity, I will have ankle/foot pain that is more than I can bear. I haven’t been able to find something to help ease that pain. Distraction works but only to a point. I could watch a movie but soon as that movie is over, the pain returns, sometimes worse than what it was before I started watching the movie. Last night I did five cryptograms. It was really cool as I really miss doing them. I started to remember the hacks. Some were really too difficult for me so had to go to a new puzzle. One quote was perfect for my psych so I sent it to her. I also sent her the transition pics and the excitement about growing in a beard. I half want to shave the stuff off just to see if it would grow back thicker but my friends told me to leave it alone. Hair under my chin is growing more together. Just wish it was in the middle of my chin. There is still a bare spot.

Guess that is all for today. Not sure if I will post over the weekend. It has been difficult finding my words lately, hence the spotty posts. Thanks for reading and understanding.

transition day 140

by Midnight Demon, posted in transgender

So today is day 140 of my transition. I posted yesterday my update but thought I would do here as it has been a while. I might make this a short post for those that are following so be ready for a duplicate, lol. Things are still the same. The only thing I have to report is that the hair on my chin is growing in more finely than before. Also, I shave my head. It used to be that I would have to keep up with it daily or up to three days. Now it is daily or every other. My hair is growing really fast and pretty soon I am going to need to seriously budget barber expenses to put my barber’s kids through college, lol. I keep a military cut and even though I got it cut last week, it is the length I had it before seeing him. So I will have to work out something with my barber to get haircuts on months I can’t afford to see him. I tried cutting my own hair and it was a disaster so not doing that again! I need to shave before I lose the lines where I am supposed to shave. It is tricky in the back because I can’t see but I can feel where I need to and if I goof up, a few days time is all I need for it to regrow.

There have been no other changes. My voice is still in and out at times. My family hasn’t noticed a change but that might be because I am around them all the time. Hoping with increase in dose, that won’t be the case. I really look forward to the day I come downstairs with stubble on my face and my voice like a man’s. HAHA shock my mother day!

New slippers and more pain

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

New slippers and more pain

I had to buy new slippers because the ones I have been wearing for almost three years now are worn out. They were my father’s. I put them in the box the slippers came in. These have more support than the old ones and are much softer, which is why my CRPS foot hated them. I am not sure it will get used to them. Some times the allodynia isn’t this bad. I am still in a sort of flare so hoping when the weather is back to above freezing, I won’t hurt so much with the top of my foot. It has been doing the sweating but staying dry and cold thing all day. It is driving me nuts. I would put a sock on but because it feels like it is sweating and is sensitive to materials right now, I don’t think it is a good idea. If it becomes a block of ice, I will have no choice.

I put through a couple prescriptions today and one of them was more than it was last month. I had to call my insurance to find out why and they said because the cost of the drug was low so it had to be charged a dispensary fee. Crooks. It is only a dollar more but if any of my other meds are more than that, I am screwed as I made sure to have enough money for meds this month. I have five meds I need a month that I cannot get through mail order. I am all set with my mail order meds at least through maybe April, I think because I had refilled them all the end of December. Last year they didn’t cost me much for a 90 day supply and I hoping for the same this year. But the 5 I get at the pharmacy all have different fill dates so I have to remember to have the cash for them. I am hoping my T dose will increase when I see the doc on Friday, which means getting a new script for it. I budgeted for it but if she say gives me two vials, I am screwed because I just budgeted for one. All tricky trying to remember this shit only because I am an impulsive buyer and will spend when I think I have enough when in reality I really don’t. Thanks Bipolar Disorder! I wish one of my checks took into account the cost of living like SSD but it doesn’t so I just have a fixed amount every month. I buy little things when I know I can afford them. I really need to stop it but I can’t help it. I see something, I want it.

I bought an OTG (on the go) thing and didn’t realize my phone wasn’t compatible with it. And because my brother in law took down the recycle, I no longer have the packaging it came with so can’t return it. I am not going dumpster diving for it either. Too fucking cold out. I thought it was a neat thing. Maybe when I eventually upgrade my phone it will have this feature. I might end up selling it for whatever. I don’t know. I am too tired to think about that right now. It was like 8 bucks so not a huge loss.

I hope I can sleep tonight as I slept late today. My med alarm went off and then I went back to sleep, which hasn’t happened in a long while. I took Benadryl before I went to sleep last night so I was kind of still hung over. I need to read Harry today. I haven’t been able to read since Sunday I think. I hate when pain ruins my reading rhythm. Harry is the only book I can read on a daily basis or close to it. But once I stop, seems I just forget about the book and it will be a while till I pick it up again. If I can get another book in this month, that would be good. I am doing another reading challenge. I know I shouldn’t but otherwise, I don’t think I will read the books I buy.

A couple of months ago, I had a problem with my music where, after Amazon told me to uninstall/reinstall their app, I thought I lost music. Turns out, I didn’t. And in downloading all the songs that Amazon app had lost, I created duplicates of the songs. It turned out that the app I was using just wasn’t showing the music on my phone! So I junked it, which I hated doing because I had paid for the no ads thing. I went through different apps and found one that was kind of good. Only thing that sucks is that I needed to remake my playlists. One playlist, rock, had a lot of songs on it as I just downloaded whole albums or artist in. I couldn’t remember who it was and then there are songs I didn’t want. The nice thing about this new app that I have been using is that once you delete a song from the playlist, it is gone unlike the app I paid for. So I just created my Mary Chapin Carpenter playlist. I got distracted and put one of her albums in the wrong list. UGH. I had to redo it. There are two albums of hers that I do not want in my playlist because they are the same songs as her previous albums so I didn’t want duplicates. In her latest album, Sometimes just the Sky, it has some of her previous songs but recorded differently. The album is okay and I do like it but there is one song that I do not like, even though she does, LOL.

So today is day 140 of my transition. I posted yesterday my update but thought I would do here as it has been a while. I might make this a short post for those that are following so be ready for a duplicate, lol. Things are still the same. The only thing I have to report is that the hair on my chin is growing in more finely than before. Also, I shave my head. It used to be that I would have to keep up with it daily or up to three days. Now it is daily or every other. My hair is growing really fast and pretty soon I am going to need to seriously budget barber expenses to put my barber’s kids through college, lol. I keep a military cut and even though I got it cut last week, it is the length I had it before seeing him. So I will have to work out something with my barber to get haircuts on months I can’t afford to see him. I tried cutting my own hair and it was a disaster so not doing that again! I need to shave before I lose the lines where I am supposed to shave. It is tricky in the back because I can’t see but I can feel where I need to and if I goof up, a few days time is all I need for it to regrow.

There have been no other changes. My voice is still in and out at times. My family hasn’t noticed a change but that might be because I am around them all the time. Hoping with increase in dose, that won’t be the case. I really look forward to the day I come downstairs with stubble on my face and my voice like a man’s. HAHA shock my mother day!

Long week of pain and no sleep

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

Long week of pain and no sleep

To my daily readers, I apologize for not writing. I have been hit with depression, pain, and insomnia all week so didn’t feel much energy to post, not even a picture. Usually I snag a pic during the night time hours as that is when the Twitter account I follow posts the cute pics. But I haven’t even looked at Twitter that much because I just couldn’t even read the tweets. If something caught my eye, I did but the majority of the accounts I follow didn’t get read. I just didn’t have the energy.

Tuesday, I had emailed my psychiatrist to ask if I didn’t sleep could I page her to talk. She responded and asked would I go along with a “brief” admission to see my sleep/wake cycle. Well that shut down all communication with her. I responded with no as I know what that entails and I wasn’t up. I wasn’t suicidal and the reason I couldn’t sleep was because of fucking pain! Yesterday I did an experiment with the Lamictal to see if it was the culprit in the insomnia now that my dose has increased. I think it sort of was because I finally was able to sleep last night until 2 PM today. Granted I had taken some Benadryl to help, but still, that is the most sleep I have had in like two weeks.

Yesterday I had my groceries delivered and wanted to make this low carb chicken dish that was sort of like a Florentine chicken. I thought it came out delicious. My mother said it sucked. I also didn’t make any side dishes with it (I was really hurting and just wanted to get off my fucking feet so didn’t think to make one). So she had whatever she had and then reheated her chicken cacciatore that she made the other day. I wanted to bring the leftover to my barber today but it is too late now to do it. I don’t like reheated chicken. If there are left over chicken dishes, I will eat the chicken cold, including Chinese food.

Tuesday, I was up at 530 after getting maybe 2 hours of sleep. I didn’t want to go back to sleep because there was stuff I wanted to do. So I got my haircut and then I baked chocolate chip cookies with the new recipe I had. OMG these cookies are so friggen good! I love them. I bought more chocolate chips in my grocery order just so I had enough to make more cookies if I felt up to it. My friend who gave me the recipe asked if I halved the recipe and I said no. She said I was going to have a shit load of cookies and I did. I had like 4 trays of cookies. But they are yummy so I don’t care. The batter is thick and took some time to mix in the oats and chips in it. I thought I mixed it well but there was just plain oats at the bottom of the batter. I just scooped it on the tray. I didn’t care. I was getting tired as it took me 3 hours to make these as our oven sucks. Each tray took around a half hour to make (give or take 5-10 minutes). The bottom baked better than the top, which meant shuffling the tray. My niece liked the cookies and she doesn’t like oatmeal! I am glad I have cookies to eat because, well, I am a cookie monster. I also bought sugar cookies with my grocery order. LOL told ya, I am a monster. I also bought the roast beef that I love. My hope is to make sandwiches on days I have therapy as the day is long. The bus schedule sucks and if I miss a bus it could be up to two hours before I can go home.

I thought I was a financial wizard this month as I had 30 bucks left in my account but, alas, nope. I forgot to pay one bill, which will be on Monday as I don’t yet have a credit on the grocery order. I was supposed to get a pound of American cheese and only got half. They over charge you anyway and it takes like 5 days to get the money back into the account. I got the email this morning saying the credit has been issued so I hope by Tuesday I can pay this one last bill. I withdrew cash so I can pay for my meds this month. I did sort of buy stuff at Amazon but it was much needed. I shaved my head last night with a new blade and got razor burn so bad. I used the oil, too, so I don’t know why it hurt so much. So I bought an after shaving balm. I also bought cooling racks for the cookies because the trays we have SUCK!! You can only fit like 4-5 cookies on the rack. That is only not even ½ a tray of cookies! So I bought bigger ones. They weren’t that expensive, $16 for 4, which I thought was a deal. I don’t go to stores and I know Walgreens doesn’t sell them. I know they probably sell the after shave but I wanted a balm not a liquid. Hope it works because it took a while for it to calm down and I was in so much pain with my feet I just had to endure the burn on my head.

I found some exercises for my foot to do until I go to PT next week. I am getting so stressed out with going again. It is just that it is a long bus ride and then I have the appointment, then a bus to the station for the long bus ride home. I might cancel the appointment because I have two doctor appointments the following day and if I am sore (which I could be), walking is going to be difficult and I got to go to two different buildings, which means walking around the hospital. But I want to see how the beginning of the week goes with regards to my sleep. If I am not sleeping well or get into a flare, it will be a no go. I did the exercises last night and today I am not hurting too much with my right foot, though the side where the tendon tear is, is hurting. I probably did too much yesterday because after the cooking dinner, I numbed my foot to take a shave and shower.

I bought chicken patties and had one today. I forgot how good they were. I might have another one after my mother watches her LOUD shows and is out of the kitchen. I spent nearly $200 on groceries because I was tired of not having food by the end of the month except whatever my mother made. I wanted to get fish sticks or filets but it was really expensive. Even the chicken patties were expensive but you are paying for the price of having it delivered. My iced coffee which I bought 5 of was $28. I wanted to have it last for a month. I love the iced coffee better than hot. I might mix and match as I still have the K-cups to make coffee.

My transition is going okay. I think my mother is noticing my voice changes because she said something earlier this week. She doesn’t know I am on T. I have had some throat irritation and she thought it was because of the cold. HAHA nope. I asked around and apparently it is due to voice changes. I am happy. I also accidently sent a friend a video that was suppose to go to someone else. Her husband saw the video and was immediately like who is that guy. That made me smile. I haven’t seen him since before my transition and he isn’t on Facebook. I felt bad on the error. I got to pay more attention to who I am sending stuff too! Geez! My sideburns are still thicker. I did notice some fuzz while I was making the said video last night. So maybe the hair will come in soon. My mustache is still taking forever to grow since I last shaved it. I see the TG doc next week so I hope she increases the dose. It will be my off week so if she wants bloods done, I can possibly have it. It will just depend on how I am feeling that day. Fridays can be either busy or crazy in the blood drawing lab. If it is crazy, I will wait. As long as she doesn’t need a urine sample because I hate giving one. Well, I don’t. My bladder does. Damn nerve injury caused retention so bad I need at least three hours before I can go after drinking a lot of fluid. Used to be an hour. Now, nope. I think the meds also don’t help. But it is what it is. Until next time my friends. And thank you for reading!