Tag: writing

New Blog Look and Therapy

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

New blog look and therapy

I had an unfortunately reaction today while at Starbucks. I bought their new Morning muffin and though, I can’t quite prove it, it has ginger it in. My throat started to get all scratchy about half way through eating it. I went to see the manager to see what the ingredients were. It just listed “spices”. I sent a message to Starbucks on Twitter to see if they could be more specific. The Benadryl I took earlier has worn off and now I am feeling my throat feel scratchy, sore, and I am all congested. This happened the last time I was exposed. Took two days of non-stop Benadryl to settle it. I hope it doesn’t get worse. I told my mother to check on me when she goes to bed and I asked my sister to hear out for a “thump”, in case my mother has a hypoglycemic episode because there will be nothing I can do. Benadryl makes me dopey.

Therapy was good. I told him of my writing and promoting problems. I told him I would like to talk to the independent bookstore that is down the street from him. I told him I can picture myself going in but not being able to speak or if I do speak, they look at me like I am crazy and kick me out of the store. I need a pitch of some sort and I don’t have one. I never done something like this. He said to put something on my blog so I changed the theme and a friend said it looks more professional. I didn’t want flashy pictures or anything. I wish I could link my books but I haven’t been able to figure that out. Plus with me editing my book right now, I don’t want to link the 2nd book yet. My book is published but a friend said there were errors and I had to find them, and found at least 10 in the first chapter. I am so disappointed in myself as I should have caught them. I found at least 2 in the second chapter. So I will have to reload the file once I am done. I am glad the stories are short, lol. Makes for easier reading and editing. I might change things as I go along or add something. I don’t know yet.

I spent most of my time in therapy talking about writing or reading or blogging. I still have the postcards I bought that are just sitting on my bureau. I had wanted to hand them out at train entrance ways but my biggest fear would be someone reading it and then trashing it. I spent a good amount of money on them and though they might end up in the trash, I rather not in front of me or on the ground. I would mail them but not sure where I can mail them to. It is not like I have a huge mailing list or anything. I just feel stuck. I am not a good self-promoter. That is what stinks when you are a self-publisher. I have been thinking of sending them to my DJs at the radio station I listen to. One of them have been looking for Christmas cards. I bought them today so I think I will slip in a postcard. Might not go anywhere but you never know, which only means I need to really work on the editing this book faster than I wanted to. UGH. It is one thing to have an error on my blog but a book? I just don’t think that is okay, especially as that is MY book! LOL I found the thumb drive that has the last edited copy of the book before I uploaded it to Amazon. Now just got to edit, edit, edit! LOL

I just called the pharmacist to make sure that Benadryl and my pain meds didn’t interact. Fucking stupid allergy! I was panicking. Only thing is that I will be more drowsy, which I am. I won’t be editing tonight as I am just too tired. I hope I can get some work in tomorrow. I am not doing anything. I got therapy again on Wed, off Thurs, and then seeing my psych Friday where I will be having my bloodwork checked again. I am not sure if I will have to go to the pedi blood draw place, which I hated, or the adult one. My psych is a child psychiatrist as I started seeing her when I was 17. If I can choose, I prefer the adult one. Much better phlebotomists! I am feeling better so I am sure the sodium is close to normal. I still get tired after I do things but it’s mostly when I go out then come home. Even a trip to the pharmacy up the street from me will tire me out. I am not sure if that is just my chronic pain fatigue or the low sodium tired or both.

I want to make cookies tomorrow but I am not sure I will be able to because I have the editing to be done. I might do it Wed. I bought the chips a while ago but haven’t had a chance to use them. I was going to make beet brownies but I suck at making brownies. I like cookies better! I am the cookie monstah!! Ha ha.

NP idiot

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

I had an appt with a nurse practitioner that apparently got her license from a cracker jack box or maybe the Boston Globe. She was insistent on me having plantar fasciitis even though my PT ruled it out but didn’t I read the newspaper, not a medical journal, saying that plantar fasciitis is the new back pain?? Are you fricken serious? I didn’t know reporters had their medical degree. Also pissed me off that she thought unilaterally and bilaterally were the same. Ugh!!!!! I had to literally fight for an MRI. She wanted an xray and didn’t even ordered that right as they xrays the outer part of my ankle not the inner where the damn lump is!!! I am so frustrated. I got to call radiology to see if I can have the MRI sooner than next week and during daylight hours. I might go to a different site. Ugh!! Oh and she was telling me the same damn things to do my PT has been telling me. Guess she was deaf on that part.

Oh and the kicker was that she walked in asking if I was having surgery. When I said no, she said you aren’t having gender reassignment surgery? And then she got all concerned and crap like she never had a transgender patient before. Omg I am not a specimen for your study!!! I got very upset by this behavior. I mean, shit. Seriously? I emailed my psychiatrist to ask her what to do. I want to file a report on her as I think what she did was inappropriate. I mean, hell, I was seeing her for foot pain, not a transgender issue! I am so pissed. I hate that she was so dismissive about what I was telling her about being in physical therapy and then dismissing what my PT said about me not having plantar fasciitis. She just wasn’t hearing me and I am glad she ordered the MRI. I already got a report on the X-Ray and surprise, nothing was revealed except for some spurs that have been there for a while.

I had a webinar when I came home on CAMS, the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality. OMG It was like having Dr. David Jobes in my room! It was awesome. I love him so much and have so much respect for him. He basically covered all that I know about CAMS. I love the new research he is doing. Sadly, one of the trials had two suicides. It is a risk but sadly not something you want to see. I wish I could share this with my current therapist but he is so anti-CAMS it isn’t funny. He just thinks talking about things is the answer. I know it is my fault in keeping him but fuck, there aren’t a lot of therapists taking new clients AND wanting to deal with chronic suicidality! I had one therapist not call me back in the Harvard area. I tried out of my comfort zone and that hit me in the ass with a don’t come back. I wish someone was dealing with suicidality in clients rather than just passing them off. If I could sprinkle some of Jobes’s kindness and humanity I would. It isn’t something I take lightly. I have been in the model of what he teaches and want to spread it around but hell, some therapists like the one I was seeing before my current one, was adamant about learning something new. In her words, she wasn’t a suicidologist so she didn’t have to learn it so what that said to me was if she had another client that was suicidal, she was NOT using CAMS/SSF with them. It makes me sad that there is this level of what you think a therapist should be and the reality is they just don’t exist. I don’t know why people become therapists if they aren’t willing to deal with the hard issue of suicide. I don’t know, maybe I have it backwards.

I saw a sign at my PCP’s office that they are moving location, and it is not even within their building. It is a building like 4 blocks over from the train station. I can’t walk there. Maybe on a good day, but those days have been so rare lately that I seriously doubt if I am sick, I will be able to make it. I think there is another way of going there. I just have to find out if the shuttle from another train station still goes by there, and where that stop is as the last time I was in that area, there was construction which had the sidewalk blocked off. This sucks because it adds to my commute and worse, no Starbucks, LOL

I just wrote a thread on Twitter and I am going to paste it here. I think it is important:

“I’ve been thinking about the @UniteSurvivors webinar with @lab_jobes and what he was saying about drivers (what drives ppl to suicide) and how those with lived experience can help. It took me to all the times the past 2 years I’ve been in horrible suicidal depressions/states, mostly due to my chronic pain. Dr. Jobes talked about a “life worth living”. Frankly I don’t even have a day worth living but somehow I am still here. I don’t want to be. I am in a chronic pain flare right now. My thoughts instantly go to suicide because it feels like my bones are being crushed and I am being stabbed in my ankle. How do you survive this while being suicidal? Frankly I don’t have a clue. It is probably because I don’t have lethal means near me when I flare (whether consciously or subconsciously I am not sure). I don’t have a large dose of meds by my bedside or knives. I don’t own a gun, though I sometimes wish I did. Guess these small measures have kept me here. My blog where I can write to Express myself. Have online connections to my support group which is invaluable. Different time zones are a life saver. B/c when it is 3 am, no one is up Boston time. I’ve learned to do this not through a therapist or hospitalization but mostly on my own. And having my psychiatrist email at 2 am is handy. Thank you Dr. Dave for CAMS and the SSF. It combines my thoughts of suicides to practical practice. I know I wouldn’t be here without it. I should add I am an autodidact suicidologist.”

I just read what I wrote and though some of it doesn’t make sense, I didn’t want to fix it because the essence of what I am saying is there. Anyways, that is all I have for today. There is a huge thunderstorm happening right now and I want to publish this before I lose power, if that should happen. Go SOX!!!!!

World Mental Health Day

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, depression, mood disorders, suicide

This is going to be negative but I don’t care as it is my lived experience: I’ve been in therapy since I was 15 because I self-harmed. Seen a wide range of therapists from social workers to psychologists to psychiatrists. Most have ended treatment with me for various reasons. I am now on therapist number 14. First 6 months I didn’t think I was going to stay with him. He is a psychologist with supposed experience with trauma and suicidal ideation. He took me on knowing this. Now since the MeToo, I’ve been having intrusive memories. I tell him about it and he shrugs. Seriously? Why am I seeing you if you don’t know how to deal with trauma when you said you had training? I feel like the system has let me down, yet again.

Before I even saw him, I must have talked to at least 5 different therapists. None would take me on because of my suicidal history. I thought I could shove it aside and just have this guy because he returned my call and wanted to work with me. Now it is a year later and I am finding it so difficult to deal with him. I am once again looking for therapists and I am wondering why. I live in a large city. There shouldn’t be just 1 therapist in my 5 mile radius that deals with suicidal histories. Suicide is its own can of worms. I understand from a suicidologist standpoint. Not everyone is cut out to deal, it isn’t taught in school yada yada. I get it. But where is the compassion in therapy? Are too many good therapists burned out? Am I ever going to find someone to help me through suicidal crisis and chronic pain and all the other shit I deal with? Or is that too much because I don’t follow god or help myself?

Sox are ALDS Champs!!!!

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

Sox are ALDS Champs!!!!

OMG last night was a nail biter of a game. The ninth inning, I was chatting with two friends about it and then it turned almost into a disaster. I didn’t want them text/messaging me. I just wanted to focus because I wasn’t watching, I was listening to the radio. Typing and listening can be difficult. Kimbrel was almost struck in the head as he came out of the bullpen by a fucking Yankee fan with a can of beer. I am sure that rattled his nerves some and it showed. He loaded the bases and couldn’t get an out. He got one out, then a run scored. Then he walked a run. The score was 4-3 at this point and he needed one more out. I was at the point where I wasn’t going to have nails anymore. Ready to get the clipper out and just hack away (I don’t bite my nails as that is gross). I do pick at my cuticles, which is probably worse, but hey, this is a playoff game. He finally got the final out with a ground ball, which was reviewed and the call standed. Game over! Red Sox win!! I went crazy! I was so damn happy. I changed my wallpaper to the Sox instead of just black.

I couldn’t sleep as the tension was too much. Pain was there but not so great as it was the other night. Between 12-1230 am I thought someone set off firecrackers. Found out today that it was gun shots. No one knows who did it or where or if someone was shot. It was at the end of my street. My sister told me the police was going to our yard to look for casings. Just wonderful!!

I didn’t go to sleep till around 0330, again! I didn’t put the do not disturb on as I didn’t have anything to do today. I canceled therapy. I was going to call some therapists but I haven’t brought myself up to actually do it. The alarm went off and I took my meds and then went back to sleep for a couple of hours. I hear my doorbell ring but I thought my mother was home, not that she could go down the stairs but if she needed me to, I was there. I didn’t hear her call me and she didn’t call my phone so I just lay there. Then my sister called me and told me what happened. She called again asking me to bring her packages inside. I opened the door and there were four boxes on the porch. WTF. Two were for her and two were for my mother. I didn’t carry my mother’s up. They were light but I was just lazy. I needed coffee and something to eat.

I ended up eating the last of the chocolate cake with my coffee. I showered afterwards. My mother must have gone to a doctor’s appointment because the showerhead was on top not in the holder on the side (we have the flexible showerhead). She doesn’t like it but tough shit. She said she got water everywhere. I asked if she had the curtain covering the sides of the shower and the curtain inside. She said no. Well, there you go. She had also turned it to the side so no wonder the water leaked out. I know the shower flex thing we have is not going to last. She is going to find another showerhead and use that. But it has to be $20 or less because that is what it should be (SMH). I just hope she doesn’t put the damn basket she has back in the shower seat because I like actually sitting down while I need to shower. She just doesn’t get it that I am disabled, too. Though she will never think of herself as disabled. Pisses me off. I will take the damn basket and throw it away. I don’t care some of it is my stuff. I don’t want it on the seat.

Today is day 4 that I have been off female hormones. I haven’t shown signs of bleeding and I hope that I don’t. I think it will be a few more days before I know I am out of the woods or maybe a week. I hope that with my shot next week will boost up the T and decrease my stupid female stuff. I really don’t want my menses. They suck.