I wish I was a cowboy

There is a song by Toby Keith saying he wishes he was a cowboy.  I just wish I was a boy. The other night I got drunk and told my nephew I was gay. His response was that was ok. Just that it was “morally wrong for two guys to be together”.  I so want to escape this life. Some people will say that the afterlife may be worse than the one you are living. I think I will take my chances. This pain that I feel nearly every day has to be relieved some how some way. I cannot go on living this way knowing that each day is the same as the one before. Sure different things happen. But nothing new ever comes of it.  I so dread going in to work on the weekends but I do it out of responsibility.

Part of me is still thinking in my juvenile way that I will turn into a boy the next day. I have known for a year now that it is not going to happen.  My therapist truly accepts me or maybe she is just saying she is so I am not as much a psycho as I think I am. I hate everything about me.

I was talking to a friend of mine, and I’m not exactly sure how we got on the topic but she suggested that I have a HGH (human growth hormone) deficiency. It’s kind of late to find this out as I am shrinking because my discs are shriveling due to degeneration. I had always suspecting something with my hormone being messed up but I could not really go to a doc and say check my hormones. If anything I just want to be on testosterone to have the facial hair I dream of. To maybe decrease my breast mass. But I doubt that will ever happen.  No one will accept me for me.

Tonight as it got closer to the end of my shift, I wondered if I could/would end this pain.  I just need a stairwell, some rope or maybe even my belt.  I need lethal methods because pills might not work.  There is no way I can have a gun in this state and nor do I want one.  I started reading Suicide the forever decision, and was again reminded that it is tough to kill a human being.  The fight or flight instinct can be very strong despite the intense wish to die. The weird part is that as much as I think about ending my life, which is on a daily basis, I have no energy to actually go through with my plans. I might prep as much as I can, pick a date and all that stuff, but I have yet to actually attempt to take my life in the past 3 years of all this planning. I must really be a chicken. Which is why I need to be a cowboy.

feeling like a complete failure

Just realized it’s been a few days since my last post. I figure if I try to write something every day or every other day, it will be good for me as I can’t seem to write in my journals anymore. I stare at the blank pages and nothing comes or a bunch of thoughts come strolling by but just don’t jot it down like I used to.  It takes me a long while to get into the mood to write lately.  I guess it’s mostly because during the day I am rushing to do my job and those days that I am not and can actually sit longer than a few minutes at Starbucks, I just end up staring out the window looking at traffic going by.  Most of it is a “why bother”. I write pretty much the same thing in the same tone, unless I’m pissed off about something.  Like most of my journals, I write the same thing year after year, just a different date about how sucky my pain and depression is.

I know that there are quite a lot of people in my life that would be devastated if I ended my life, not to mention my family. I can’t even begin to think about what it would do to my teenaged nieces and nephew and my little five year old.  I just shut it out because I know if I don’t, I just go on. I’m angry about this, so bloody angry.  All these people want me to live FOR THEM, not me.  They care about my suffering yet they think of their own if I was not a part of their life anymore.  They don’t have to live my life, walk in my shoes, and be in pain every day.  It’s like when I had back surgery and still didn’t have full use of my legs, walking around in my walker. I couldn’t shower because I had a staph infection and stitches. The doc felt that if I showered with the stitches still in, it would make the infection worse. So I hadn’t showered in two weeks. I didn’t know if I was ever going to walk normal again so I bitched about it to my psycho aunt and her response was “yea, you think that is bad, try not having a shower for 2 months when you have a broken leg.” Seriously??? You are comparing a broken limb with nerve damage and back surgery so bad that I had to relearn how to walk and had no clue if a cane was going to be a part for the rest of my life when I was 25???? Give me a friggen break!  No one fucking understands that I am DEAD, just my brain and my heart don’t know it because they keep on functioning my lungs and beating my heart. 

I was supposed to meet with my psychiatrist today to have a “talk” but because I had no sleep, I woke up later than I wanted to and thus left the house later to go to a dialysis site 70 miles away.  I didn’t know if I was going to be back to work on time or not, depending on traffic, so I emailed her saying it might not be possible.  She said it would be “ok if I was ‘ok’” and the ER was busy. Well, hello, it’s January, depression time of the year for depressives.  We agreed to meet Wednesday. I only bring this up because I knew I’d be wasting my time with her. She has nothing new up her sleeve. No drug company has invented another anti-depressant in the past month so I am screwed. I’m just supposed to “tough” it out until this passes. Hello, it doesn’t pass or if it does, it is only for a little while. 

It’s now Wednesday. I just came from my meeting with my pdoc and I am utterly exhausted.  She was telling me how Winston Churchill had a “black dog” and compared it very nicely to my episodes of depression.  Wow, one fricken famous person with depression who DIDN’T kill himself. I kind of feel honored. I know Stryon didn’t, though came pretty close. But dealing with this stuff everyday is draining.  I feel like a failure because I can’t make it in to work. I don’t have the energy or motivation or focus to do what I need to do. Even as I am writing this, tears are welling up because it just hurts so bad and there is nothing I can take for this kind of hurt. I don’t even want to go out again later today to see my therapist.

One thing that continues to piss me off is how people compare my depression to everyone elses.  Sorry it’s not the same. Not to say I suffer more with it, but hell, most of these people WILL NEVER have another episode again or if they do, it won’t be as bad or as long as it was. Yes, the more episodes decreases the length of time between episodes, but these episodes last a long time, are frequent, and one of these times I know I’m just going to end my life. No goodbyes, no notes (except for maybe this blog), just up and gone. It’s just like with back pain. Everyone has it, but when I hurt, I REALLY hurt. And you cannot tell me it’s the same thing, because last I checked, your back pain didn’t require surgery or cause nerve damage.  I remember reading a paper about spoons to get people to understand what it is like dealing with chronic pain.  I don’t mean to come off as unempathetic. I have two friends who have lupus so I know they suffer, maybe not the same as I do, but it still takes them a while to get going when they get up, to get their kids ready for school, do housework, make breakfast, dinner, etc just like it takes me (minus the kid part).  It usually takes me an hour to get ready most days where as before it only took about as long to brush my teeth, put on clothes and shoes, and out the door.  I sometimes have to remember to shower every couple of days because it isn’t on my list of priorities.  Usually a shower can be refreshing but lately I find it more exhausting, especially when I take it when I first wake up.   The point is that I am sick of people denying that I hurt because my pain is just not visible to them. My surgery was more than 4 years ago so why should I still be in pain? Or my surgery was on my back not my leg so why don’t you get your leg checked out.  I’d like to hand out stupid signs but they still wouldn’t get it.

I often wonder if I can just shove an ice pick in my brain stem just to stop breathing.

midnight demons

I had an annoying day today. Day started off with me having problems writing my “review” for the book about therapeutic alliance and suicidal patients. I couldn’t get Endnote to work with word 2007 and then when I thought I had it all worked out, it didn’t so I had to uninstall-reinstall everything for it to work.  Then when I typed up the damn paper, it sounded stupid so I left it with the 2 paragraphs. I was going to work on it when I got home from work, but the more I thought about it being stupid, the more I figured why bother finishing it.

After I left a dialysis site, I got hit with psychache really bad and started crying. Last night’s episode of CSI NY really got to me. So much so, I really didn’t see the ending, though I am sure they had some public announcement about seeking help for suicide and depression. I just really want to die. I just can’t face living anymore.  I leaked again today and I can’t figure out why seeing as I take CNS depressants that would cause retention.  I got a lot of reasons for dying, not too many for living, though today I was talking with a good friend and she wanted me to live with her for a while because she felt so bad and wanted to help.  I don’t think I can because I hate imposing on someone or them “watching” me because I am a suicidal risk. And I know my friend, she WILL watch me, not like I will do anything in her home, but she will look out for me.  Maybe it will be better than being in the hospital, I don’t know.  All I do know is that my heart is so heavy it’s at my feet.  My doc wants to meet with me on Monday in the ER where I work. I told her I will see her only if she promises not to commit me. But I know it’s going to be the same story. I go in, maybe cry because I don’t know what else to do, and I leave, no scripts just a pat on the back maybe and see you in a week, call me if you want to go in the hospital.  We both know that there isn’t a new or old medication that can help. I have been on them all. TCA’s, SSRi’s, NSRI, NRI’s, mood stabilizers, you name it, I have been on it. Only exception is effexor and that is only because my stomach cannot handle it with the GERD.  I feel completely hopeless because I know I am hopeless. But I do what everyone else wants me to do…appear to be happy and work. I just go to work because it takes my mind of things and I work to keep my mind off things, putting in long hours.  I don’t have a social life, never really wanted one.  I don’t really want to be in a relationship because it would be too much of a burden on them.

I am forced to live when I don’t want to. Ok, technically no one is really forcing me by holding a gun to my head but the “guilt” is what sometimes prevents me from going ahead with the half dozen plans that I have in my head.  I realized in the last few weeks that I need my therapist in my life if only to keep me alive. I don’t want to see her, I want things to end between us yet I know that if I don’t have her in my life, I am as good as dead. It’s like the Zac Brown Band’s song, whatever it is: she got whatever it is that somehow keeps the demons at bay.

midas fiasco

Before heading back to Midas to fix what they broke, I decided to write here for a little bit as I didn’t have a chance last night.  Midas has three strikes. They can’t even get an oil change right. I am going to file a complaint with the main office. I had taken my car over a year ago because of a rattling in my exhaust. They found other problems but never fixed the rattling. Now it’s so damn loud it’s not funny and last I checked, the exhaust was not part of your front tires, where I had my tie rod fixed.

I know my car is old but it’s all I got until I can try and afford a new one.

I had to have a phone session last night because my back was not feeling great.  I guess the aggravation of dealing with Midas didn’t help and what was worse that my brother in law was defending them. That really pissed me off.  I don’t know why I keep going to therapy, though at this point, there is no way my therapist allows a cancellation. Only time it happens is when it’s not convenient for her (e.g., her being on vacation, a holiday, or her daughter is sick).  If I’m sick, it’s a phone session, I don’t feel like going, phone session. It pisses me off. I know she is worried and that is why she doesn’t allow to many in between time between sessions.

Like the Linkin Park lyrics, nobody is listening. Pain is something that has created this blog, though I don’t know if it’s worth it. Posting these things so the world will know. I still need to finish the paper that I am writing on Building a therapeutic alliance with suicidal patients.  My therapist wants me to write a “response” paper or a review. So far, no one has reviewed this brilliant book.  I realized that Dr. David Jobes, is making my job easier. If I’m ever able to, I can just use his work in my practice and work with suicidal clients. But those dreams are just that, dreams. I doubt they will ever come true.  I just turned 35 years, and I still have not completed any of my career goals. I work in a lab that takes me for granted. I work for an egotistical doc that is sometimes nuts and doesn’t have a clue about labs or the time it takes to get things done.  I know that like most docs, he wanted things done yesterday but this week has been rough with me being in severe back pain, being so depressed I can’t move, and then the region getting hit with a severe snow storm.

That’s all for now.

what DIVINE stands for

DIVINE stands for Dialysis Infection and Vitamin D In New England.

I have been in pain most of the day but I did get some stuff done. I changed my sheets and vacuumed my room a little bit.  The snow storm hit pretty bad so I didn’t venture out at all.  Besides, after about 30 mins in any position my back starts to act up. I hope that tomorrow it will be better.

I finished Mount Misery last night. Interesting book about psychiatry. I got a lot of questions for my therapist when I see her.  She still wants me to see a noted Boston psychiatrist to deal with my suicidal tendencies but I’m not sure it will be helpful. The guys is purely analytical and doesn’t talk much during session. Sure he will respond to a question without a question usually, but for the most part he waits for you to speak whatever and then waits for a thoughtful response. Every time I meet with him things go well, but then I start thinking about things and my mind just won’t shut off.  Besides, it’s not like he is going to give me an “ah ha” experience and my depression and suicidality is going to go away. I am tired of being me. Period. I never expected to live into adulthood but because of one reason or another, I am here and I so wish I wasn’t.  I realized last year, around this time, that I can never be who I want to be, and that is a male. Sure, my therapist and adult best friend are supposedly cool with it. My therapist isn’t trying to say I am crazy and make me think that I am delusional because I truly believe I am in the wrong body. She goes with it and that is fine but still uses the wrong pronouns. Same with my best friend. I know he probably didn’t mean it. But when he compared me to a sister he never had, it hurt.  I should just die in this body as I am because even if I could ever afford a change, I doubt people will accept me. I mean, shit. People were going ape shit just for my name change alone.  How are they to get used to seeing me as him instead of her?  I loathe myself every day and even though my stinking therapist thinks she is ok with it, she only thinks about it if I mention it AND the question that usually follows is, am I having my menses. No dumb ass. I am looking at my chest and want to perform my own mastectomy. Sure, now that my menses have been stopped by taking actual female hormones, I don’t feel as suicidal every month around that time of the month. But I can’t look down anymore. With stupid weight gain, I got bigger and I HATE it so much so I want to end my life.  What I think is actually ironic is that my state, Massachusetts (or taxachusetts as some people call it) actually have promoted a program to prevent transgender suicides.  I don’t get it.

Jan 12, 2011

It’s 1 am and I can’t sleep. I spent the day driving on around Massachusetts for my DIVINE study (I can never remember the acryonym, so  I will look it up later). My first stop was Stoughton, I was hesitant to go as Sunday night my back crapped out on me. Tomorrow is going to be a huge snowstorm so I think the “switch” is in the on position until it starts or stops snowing. Anyway the pain is so bad I can hardly move. Today was a little better as I could get dressed without too much torture. I got to Stoughton ok. I went to Mcdonalds for something to eat and then went to Mashpee. I figure I get it done today as tomorrow there was no way I was driving in a blizzard and I can possibly have the day off.  I got half way down route 3 when my leg is screaming at me. But I was half way down the cape and if I stopped now, I knew I wouldn’t be able to go further. I got to Mashpee about an hour later. No real traffic which was good.  I had some trouble getting out of the car. My leg wanted to divorce me at this point but it still allowed me to stand on it. I dropped off the tubes to a nice fella and slowly made my way out. I went to the Stop and Shop to use the bathroom and get something to drink and take some vicodin to ease my pain. I honestly have no idea what I was thinking. I could barely walk straight, doing the “thorazine” shuffle. I took a little walk around the store just to stretch my legs as I knew it would be at least another 2 hours before I got home. I bought some powerade, sprite, and scratch tickets.  Then I went home. Luckily no traffic the whole way home, least until I hit Quincy.  My boss called me halfway on the way back on route 3 wondering when the rest of the alk phos’s for another study would be done. They would have been done Sunday but the computer went down and then my back and after driving for 6 hours today, it wasn’t going to get done today. Tomorrow the city is going to be hit with a nice snowstorm so if it really materializes, I probably won’t go in, but if it isn’t bad, I will. I know I really need to rest my back. Even as I am typing this my back is yelling at me to lie down. I can’t because the demons have gotten hold of my head again.

To most people I seem like an ok person, who isn’t literally dying in pain of some sort. Physical pain is one thing, mental pain or psychache is quite another.  Psychache is a word created by the world’s greatest suicidilogist, Edwin Shneidman. It means a pain that is characterized by despair, grief, sadness, hurt, shame, etc. This pain, this psychache is what causes 98% of all suicides. I have read an overwhelming number of researches on the subject and I can tell you first hand, this guy knows his stuff. No one else knows. There is a Canadian guy that developed a psychache scale. But I guess it’s only used in research because it has not moved beyond that point.  Even in my own therapy, the numbers mean something but it doesn’t mean anything when you deal with it every day. I know someday I will die by my own hand. Everything I have read proves that. I just haven’t had the “guts” to go through any of my dozen plans.  Every single time I get a flair up of my pain, I think of ending it. Right now I am cursing my therapist for wanting to keep me alive as I did not want to live to see the new year.

Maybe I will write more about that later…

depressing week

It’s been a depressing week. Since Tuesday I have been in a funk and can’t seem to get out of it.  My agitation level has been through the roof and that coupled with my psychache (emotional pain), is making me really down.  I suppose I did not want to face the end of the year. Past few months I have just been planning on ending my life and every night as I am leaving work I seriously think about just hanging myself in the garage. The black clouds seem to always loom.  I know I have been working a lot the past few weeks but when you are the only person in your department that can do your job, it’s kind of hard to take time off.  

just hope that I can have Tuesday off so i don't end up in the nut house again.

killer bees

The past three days I have been thinking about what to write on here.  My topic was going to be about the killer bees and how they always seem to come out when I want to go to sleep.  The bees aren’t real. It is just this buzzing sensation I get because of the nerve damaged caused by a disc fragment in my spinal nerves.  I have been living with this condition, called Cauda Equina Syndrome (CES for short), for the past 9 ½ years. I actually got it twice. The second time was in 2006. I had it easier the second time around because I knew what to look for and how to get the proper care as well as what I knew to expect.  That helps big time as the first go round didn’t go well.  I was only 25 yrs old when I got it. My leg gave way one night, 12 hrs after seeing my chiropractor and got worse in the next 72+ hrs since then.  I had seen a doc the Monday as I could barely put any weight on my left leg and all the doc did was give me pain meds and a pain shot. He didn’t tell me about warning signs or nothing.  A couple days later I was to have an appointment with my psychiatrist, but by then the damage had spread to my right leg and I could feel my toes on either foot. I had foot drop in both, but the worse was my left where most of the damage was. I couldn’t walk at all.  She wanted me to call an ambulance right away but because of the current detours, I couldn’t be 100% sure I would end up at MGH so I decided to wait for my friend to come home and take me.  I was at her house anyway and didn’t have the key to lock up, plus she had 2 dogs so I didn’t want to leave the house open to them or have an incident where they attacked the EMT’s.  I know I added more time to the clock, but I didn’t want to go to some rinky dink hospital and then be forced to go to MGH in worse condition.  All this time, I just thought I needed some good PT and pain meds and I would be good as new. I couldn’t be more wrong.  Soon after I had my MRI (after being in the ER 12+ hrs and being up for 24), the radiology tech’s face was ghastly.  He said that I shouldn’t move.  I wanted to tell him, “buddy, if I could walk, do you really think I would be in this wheelchair???”  3 hrs later I was in the OR. My L4-L5 disc had ruptured. It was the size of an almond compressing my cauda equina nerves.   It took me a week just to wiggle my toes a little bit.  I had to learn how to walk again, which is probably fine if you are a kid. You can fall easily and not worry about doing damage. If I fell, I was afraid I was u going to end up back in the OR.  I had to wear orthotics called AFO’s to keep my feet where they were supposed to be while walking.  I had a long recovery.  In 3 months I was using just a cane to get around. I still have the walker.  I hope it continues to collect dust but you never know.  I was still having back pain all throughout this.  It wasn’t until my doc put me on oxycontin that I really got better.  I am off it now for reasons I won’t go into, but it really saved my life. I doubt I would be able to work 40+ hrs a week now if I hadn’t been on it. It helped me heal and push through the pain so I could get well. 

Six months into recovery, the nerve pain started.  My foot and left side of my leg from the outside burned something fierce. This lead to another wonderful med, Neurontin or gabapentin as its generic name is known.  Some people cannot tolerate this med and have had bad side effects. My system loved it and it has worked wonderfully.  With a high dose at night, I was almost pain free most of the day. Now, not so much.  I never thought much about the difference between brand name and generic, but with this med, there is a huge difference.  Once dose is usually all I need (on brand name). Generic I need a slightly higher dose to get me the same relief.  But the one thing it doesn’t change is my sleep.  This nerve pain is not something to mess with.  I have some nights where not even the bed sheets can touch me. Other nights, just before drifting off, the deep pins and stabbing begins, jolting me upright.  It drives me crazy because unless I take the gaba, I will be in pain. The side effect is that it takes me a long time to wake up after dosing. Sometimes I need at least 10-12 hrs of sleep to sleep it off or my brain is just foggy.  With my job, I need to be able to be places early in the morning so I can’t take it every night like I need to. Plus with me taking it with my other meds, it really knocks me out.

I have been having a lot of suicidal thoughts over the past few years. I have written so many wills and good bye letters that I know one day I will just end my life. Most of it is because of this pain I deal with every day and I’m not really talking about the physical pain. Mental pain is with me every day, every second. There is no escaping from it and there is no drug I can take to relieve it. I have a high pain tolerance. I just realized over the past few days that because I take ativan, I don’t seem to get the recurrent thoughts of suicide in my head as much. I think most of it is because of my physical pain caused by CES and the downfalls of having to keep track of things that no other “normal” person would think of, stressing me more than I realize.  How many people do think when the last time they urinated or had a bowel movement. If I don’t keep track it could be a week before I had a BM or significant long hrs since my last void that I am going to have an accident or a leak, well mostly a leak. I only had one accident and it was my fault as I should have gone to the bathroom before going home but I thought I would make it and I didn’t. Now I know that I can’t ignore those signals anymore and it stresses me out. 

Working long hours and days does help with the depression. It keeps the thoughts out that lead to planning and contemplating when I will and how I will kill myself. I know that I will someday and have already begun to do so. Maybe this will be my last writing before I die to tell you what really goes through the suicidal mind up until death.