Dark Heart (Jan 30, 2011)

Been up the last few hours. I have such a heavy heart that it is ready to kill me.  I am haunted by everything that is wrong with my life. Been thinking about my cousin who is now a marine and yet I hardly know him because my family drifted apart. It saddens me that I don't know my "little" cousins anymore. The oldest is engaged and will be married later this year. I feel less a part of their lives with each passing year.

I do not know who I am anymore.  Last night in a fit of torment I threw down the gauntlet and told my ptx that I will die this weekend. I so wish I could act on these feelings.  The brokenness inside kills me every night. The sorrow that is deep within my chest shall never be revealed nor relieved in any such way.  I am just a freak who is suffering silently with only these words to fall on silent blogs.  I only wish to end this daily torture. Animals are treated more humanly than human beings.  It has been said that you control your own life and happiness. Well my happiness lies beneath the earth or as a pile of ash. I do not care what remains of my bodily essence. My consciousness is what is the death of me.  I am not truly dying a slow death but am only being tortured every minute I dare to breath. This can't be what life is about. To go on suffering just so others do not feel your loss.   I have snapped and I don't know if there is any coming back.  I want to put a plastic bag over my head and die of asphyxia. Yes it may be painful but once that last breath is gone, I shall be free

Sent from my Palm Pre on the Now Network from Sprint

ramblings of being nothing

Today was a somewhat useful day. I wish it was more productive but things just didn’t end up going the way I planned. I don’t know why I bother with making a plan or have some idea of how I want the day to go because it never really ends up going the way I want it to. Like today, I got all the way down to my work just to realized I left my keys at home. I had taken the T because I left my car in the garage at work because my brother in law has become a snow driveway nazi. Car needs to be out so he can snowblowing/shovel and then has to know if I am going out or not so as to not move vehicles after all the snowblowing.  No keys means I can’t have access to my office, nor could I move my car to the front garages at work, nor get into my house after work so I go home. I so wanted to STAY home but I had samples to do.

I get to doing my research job and then work in the clinical lab because I agreed to cover someone. That’s all well and good except today most of Boston and surrounding areas were covered in fricken snow so no one went to the doctors, which means no samples. Today felt like a holiday as there was no work but I couldn’t leave cause I had already called out on Monday and needed to make up those hours.

I’ve come to realize that the worse time for me is right when I wake up, because I am still alive and the time it is right before going to my room for the night. I hate my room. I know it’s a huge mess but I don’t have time to clean it. Course, half of the mess is clothing which I have no place for so it just sits any place I can find it. One area of my room has paper stuff, old research articles and the like. I wish I could get another bureau and bookcase for it or some shelves, but I don’t have the time to shop. Even if I did, there is no way I can take it in my little car and carry it anywhere.  My alcoves will be blocked and I wouldn’t have access to them.  I keep saying one day I will do something but I never do.  Even in my midnight madness, I hardly touch. I think in my head where they will go or what to do with them but then I fall asleep or think of something else and poof, idea gone.  I dread coming home because mostly I know the psychache will return like it always does and I will once again be thinking of how to end my life.  The past few years I have become really creative in the lethal methods of ending my life.  I have not thought of a way to get a gun only because I would have to cross state lines and I am not sure I can do that. But knowing about chemicals have helped me.   My only regret is that I have not been able to find a place that sells hemlock juice. I found a place that makes the tablets but the amount is so small I doubt it would be lethal enough.

So I was supposed to have session with my idiotic therapist tonight but because of the snow storm she had to cancel. Still pisses me off that SHE can cancel but I can’t. I felt like calling her at home but not sure if she would answer or her daughter. I could have fun if her daughter answered or maybe not. I always toy with these ideas but never fall through on any of them. Guess I am not aggressive enough.  She reads these blogs because I no longer write in my journals anymore, which is a shame because I spent quite a bit of money getting these fancy journals that now are just collecting dust in my room.  My latest journal that I bought was one of Edgar Allan Poe. It’s purple and leather bound.  I had an idea to start a new one with the new year but it hasn’t happened yet. Just this blog.  Guess writing is writing whether it is electronic or with pen and paper,huh?

I really want to die. I just hate my life so much and there really isn’t much reason for it. I have a job, a family that somewhat cares, nieces and nephew that I mean the world to, friends that supposedly care about me, co-workers that like me at. My health is ok despite the chronic pain that I deal with, whether it’s physical like tonight or mental.  My foot is throbbing like there is no tomorrow and my toes are completely straight, which is weird cause they usually are curled up.  CES entered my life almost ten years ago. My anniversary date is Feb 8^th. Yet despite all this, I just have no desire, whatsoever to live. I just go about the act of living because I don’t want to cause anyone any pain.  So I suffer so everyone else doesn’t have to. Yet I wonder how they would feel if I were suffering from cancer or some other terminal illness. Would they still want me to go on, knowing full well that with each breath causes me pain?  Nothing I do causes me to think differently. All my life I never had some drive to live. I’m just not worth it. I am nothing and will always be nothing.

And today I finally called South Africa (warning may be offensive to some readers)

I woke up this morning and my mood was absolutely rock bottom. It took forever for me to wake up. I felt like I was walking in mud and by the time I actually made it out the door for therapy, I was exhausted.  So I had this session with a crazy therapist that wants me to live despite feeling like an asswipe.  I don’t know really what happened today. We were sitting there talking and I was overwhelmed with all that I have to do for my research job and then go into my clinical job and I just felt the intense urge to die and told her so. She says no which pissed me off more and I told her I wasn’t going to see her again. The exhaustion I have been feeling the past three weeks, overwhelmed as I was sitting there pondering what to do.  Should I call out knowing that my supervisors are going to say something as this is the 3^rd time I have called out on a Monday or go in and tread the mud and anguish of a 4 hour shift.  I chose to call out and went home.   Didn’t do a thing but couldn’t really sleep as I felt guilty about not working. Then to make matters worse, my boss called me around 5:30pm for something I do not know about.  I totally forgot about the lab meeting this morning but getting up early is always hard for me, especially when I work till midnight and stay up till about 2 am to get to sleep, if I can.

I also tried to call my friend in South Africa as he is having a difficult time right now with his nerve injury. He is the bravest man I know who has a good heart.  He is from Scotland and grew up in England. I love his accent though sometimes it is difficult to understand when he talks fast (sorry Guy). I was finally able to reach him and text him to let him know I am there for him.  For some reason whenever I am in this hell of psychache, reaching out to someone helps ease the pain. I know my friend is worried sick about his future. I had helped him years ago through a crisis and he is grateful that I was able to help him. He calls me his therapist, which I get freaked out about because I am not licensed or trained. I just have enough experience with this bullshit to get to the heart of the matter without talking a lot of jargon.  I have always like the word jargon…it makes things sound more complicated than it is yet that is the true meaning of the word.

Anyways, it’s 1:30 am now and my meds still have not knocked me out. I hope I am not going through cycling, where I am hypomanic and then depressed and then hypomanic and then crash deeper into depression. That will fricken kill me.

Tomorrow I really don’t know what I am going to do. I might take another off day but I don’t really know that I can.I just want to get these projects done yet I am so fricken overwhelmed by them it freaks me out and I can’t prioritized, focus, or get the motivation to do what I have to do. I am stuck in limbo with my feet in cement trying to walk and talk and appear all happy to others because if anyone knew just how suicidal I truly am, they most likely would laugh or not take me seriously.  All the more reason why I should make an attempt. I just want to get it out of my system. If it works then fine, my worries are over but if not, then I am truly a failure.

One of the members of the support group that I have talk today about how suicide wrecks families. But would the feelings be the same if the sufferer were dying of cancer? Would you want that person to continue suffering just so YOU don’t have to because they are going to die?  People with serious painful depressions don’t have the luxury of their own bodies to say ok heart muscles, I have had enough stop working. Or to tell the brain stem to stop the lungs working because they have had enough pain, anguish, and despair to keep forcing air into their lungs when all they want is to stop it.  You want to know why a person kills themselves, I’ll tell you, it is because they are in so much friggen mental pain, anguish, shame, guilt, despair, and agony that they just cannot go on anymore. Maybe someone left them, maybe they lost their job and so they are losing their house. Or maybe things appear to be going well in their lives but it is all built around the façade that if they truly knew what was going on in their heads, they would be locked up.  President Lincoln was a good example of this. Most of his closest friends, which were few, knew that he had a darkness that he couldn’t control. In one of the books I read, it said that he often thought of hanging himself on a tree outside the white house because the war was going to badly, his Union was dissipating into nothing and people were dying because of the separation.  Yet he didn’t go through with it. But, unfortunately or maybe fortunately, John Wilkes Booth was able to end his life.  That was tragic, but would it have been more tragic to see a man suffer all his life with this illness and see no possible end to it. To be forced to live against one’s will just so other people not feel sad at their death??  Death is a part of life. It might come natural, tragic, or self inflicted.  Every time I hear about a suicide, I feel a little but happy for that person because I KNOW they are no longer in pain. They are free.

Life of the Midnight Demon

 something I wrote a year or two ago:

Every morning is a struggle.  I wake up and the first that goes through my mind is damn, I am alive.  The urge to cut is ever present at these moments and I have to fight the urge not to do it.  I then hear the voices argue that I might as well get up as I am awake and what is taking me so long.  Thankfully for today, it is not 3 am but instead noon time.  It has to be the first time in a long time, that I slept this late. 

So the routine starts. I get up and the first thing that I do is check facebook to see what my friends are doing for the day.  Then the ordeal of what to wear today starts.  Half the time it is the same pants I wore yesterday because I don’t have the inclination to change pants.  It takes too much effort to decide of the 10 pairs of jeans, in various colors and styles, which one to choose.  Some times I have decided I want to wear a particular style, but not today.  I don’t need the voices commenting on why I am choosing the blue jeans with the side pockets over the gray pants with cargo pockets.  I already don’t want to get up but have to because it is expected of me.  By whom, I am not sure.  But I know that if I don’t get up now, I will be late for work by the time I finish with facebook gaming and maybe getting a few hands of poker in.  I am really surprised I have been able to sustain my $200k chips for the past several weeks.  I must be getting better or just caring whether I win or lose.

After taking care of something called personal hygiene, I am back to my room to get dressed, when sure enough the fights begin in my head over what I am doing and how I am doing it.  Then the fight of what kind of socks to wear begins.  Short or crew, ankle or the shorter kind.  Man, life is full of decisions and you haven’t even stepped out the door yet!  And of course there is the argument of why this one over that one.  You would think that I could decide on my own which socks to wear but these voices have taken over and I don’t think any pill can stop them.

 I then take my meds, a tiny rectangular pill that is supposed to bring me sanity.  It might bring me sanity but it does not bring me joy. More like cause me to be impotent in regards to my writing and reading processes.  Luckily just the reading is affected as I have been able to journal write for the past several weeks.  That too has become a ritual.  After I get dressed and maybe squeeze in another hand of poker while doing so, the real reason why I get up in the morning, Starbucks.  Their mocha is the real reason why I am here and go through these battles just to face the day.  It is the perfect blend of chocolate and espresso that gets me through the day.  Sometimes I need two (especially if I have to be up before 9 am and work till 10pm).  This is where my journaling gets done, the only “me” time that I have during the days of when the noonday demon bears its ugly head and my mood becomes a roller coaster of sorts. 

The fun part of going there is that I am a frequent flyer there so know most of the staff.  This location is the friendliest one that I have been to in the Boston area.  I get my mocha and find a table to sit and enjoy my mocha while writing about the events of the previous day or how I am feeling, though I never seem to go into much detail about that.  Mostly the dialog is what to let my therapist know about what is transpiring.  Right now I am still stumped on my “analysis of a song” paper.  It started off as a fun paper but now it kind of grew serious.  I still have thoughts of getting it published somewhere but not sure if it is publishable.  I am still waiting for my psychiatrist to have her in put on if it is or isn’t.  But none of that matters if I can’t get it finished.  The conclusion of any paper is the hardest (in my opinion) but this one I just can’t seem to get going.  It’s all there in my head but the damn meds won’t let it flow freely.  I could stop the meds for a while and see where that takes me but the voices already cause havoc when the rectangular pill wears off late at night.  I am walking a fine line of sanity each day; do I really want to risk that for a paper that probably won’t go anywhere?

Day 2

The morning struggles of the day before are again facing me today.  Doesn’t matter if it is a beautiful sunny day or a dark, rainy day, my mood is always in the gloomy pit of despair.  I have become so jaded that I hardly even notice that I am in it; I just know that I don’t want to be here to face the day.  The start of the new day is always a strange feeling.  I think I have become immune to my meds as they no longer allow me to sleep as late as I would like.  I wake up before 6 am and damn the day with all my might. I will sometimes take something to allow myself to go back to sleep if I cannot do so on my own.  It’s always a balancing act to juggle.

Today I wake up not as pain free as I would like.  Since 2001, I suffered a nerve injury that causes my left leg to be in spasm and have horrific nerve pain that is best described as electric shocks or a hot poker being stuck in my lower leg.  Or my favorite, a knife in my upper leg where I had the same nerve injury in 2006.  This injury is a supposed rarity called Cauda Equina Syndrome (CES for short).  It is caused by nerves in the back called the cauda equina (literally, the horse’s tail) that become injured due to disc material from the spine or from the vertebrae. Usually the main culprit is some time of trauma or just a bad movement in an already injured back.  When I first joined my support group, there were only 80 members. Now almost ten years later there are over 500 members from around the world.  Each person is affected differently and although our symptoms are the same, it varies in the severity.  Some people do not walk again, some do but have something called foot drop.  Others have bowel and bladder problems that go one for years.  The most common emotional complaint is the loss of dignity and the loss in the use of the lower part of the body.

I have managed to live through this nerve injury but the pain on top of psychological pain sometimes gets to be too much.  Sustained physical pain does lead to depression which then leads to a possible suicide and thanks to drug users who abuse our narcotics; we often have to fight to get our pain under control. Most docs think that this is all in our head which only helps to fuel the depression.  Most of us can’t work full-time any more and can barely function.  Luckily I can function; it’s because of my mental illness that I cannot.  Often times I ignore the pain only to deal with it right before I go to sleep.  I don’t know why people just can’t let me be and allow me to end this existence.  I just want total cessation, a loss of consciousness forever, to cease to be.  It’s my life and I think I can do what I want but people tell me I have some good to do in this world so I must go on, despite this pain I must live with.

So I put one baby step in front of another baby step to get through the day.  Sometimes it gets better when I get out of the house and get my mocha, other times I really just want to go back and hide under the covers.  But I don’t have time for that.

Day 3:

Another day has come that I don’t want to face. I wake up at 7 and have to force myself to go back to sleep.  I wake up a few hours later and now have to rush to get to work.  I don’t have the time to sit at my Starbucks table and write in my journal for a bit while drinking my mocha.  I don’t have the time to sit and write about today and that stresses me out.  I have found and research supports this, that writing is a cathartic way of expressing oneself when in the gloom of despair.  I also find that if I don’t write, I get into the suicidal thinking all too quickly and it is very difficult to get out of that thinking once you are in it.

I have made it to work today but don’t have the mindset to really focus like I do when I have my “me” time.  I have been out of the house since noon and just noticed it is a sunny day.  How funny is that?

The voices have been quiet the last few days, which is both good and bad.  I don’t have them harping on what clothes to wear, what socks to wear, what shirt.  It is still a struggle to find that shirt that I need to wear other than my t-shirt.  Today I pick a gray scrub top.

Nerve pain was not so bad last night.  But then the temperature in Boston has not been fluctuating between hot and cold the last few days.  It has stayed within 40-60 degrees, with no drastic drops or highs.  It has been a steady temp that my back likes.

I still don’t know why I am still around.  To think that yesterday was supposed to be the day I was to end my life and I didn’t, makes me kind of sad.  I am getting closer to the end.  This time I gave myself the end of the week.  Next time I might give myself till tomorrow.  But one thing I found was that it is not easy to plan your death.  There are too many variables to account for.  One is obviously the when and where and how, but then the aftermath of after you are dead still strikes me.  Should I leave a note of how to dispose of this body, why I did this, how I felt that no one could help me get through this?  No, that is not true, there are plenty of people I can call to talk to but I chose not to because I know they do not want me to die, to end this existence, to end my life.  Most likely, they will try and stop me from ending my pain and I don’t want that.  But then I think of the little people in my life and realize I have to be there for them no matter what.  Why I don’t know.  I still would like to believe that they will be better off without me.  They don’t need this depressed, psychotic being to be in their lives.  The littlest one told me the other day that I have cooties.  I’m glad the voices didn’t get wind of that or I might have gone through with my plan.

What is my plan, exactly?  I don’t think I really know.  It is as temperamental as my moods.  Thoughts of hanging fly by and also of overdosing.  It is a toss up of these two, a flip of a coin.  I would love to entertain these thoughts but the hold it has over me when I go into this kind of thinking is none that can be described.  It is like a hypnotic drug that takes possession of your soul and because you feel like crap, takes you to a place you know you are not going to get out of anytime soon.  It gives you a high because you cannot go lower than what you are right now and it relieves your pain because you so want to escape this pain of living.  That is all that the noonday demon really lives for, to find an escape for the emotions that hold it in great despair and anguish.

A day of pain:

I wake up one morning and I can’t move.  I am in pain, a ten on a scale of 1-10.  I didn’t do anything, just got out of bed and my back decides it is going to hurt.  The worse part is that I am out of my pain meds.  I have to grin and bare this type of pain for the next several days until my doctor’s office and the pharmacy duke it out over who has the prescription.

It’s awful being in this amount of pain.  Forget about the indecision of what to wear.  It’s painful to put on your socks, painful to put one pant leg on and then the other. Then try to finagle how to get your shoes on, all while grinning and sweating.  During these bouts of pain, you can’t think of anything else but death.  Unfortunately, it won’t be showing up any time soon.

I haven’t been to work all week because I just can’t move without serious pain.  I did manage at least three hours the latter part of the week but only to torture myself.  Luckily I was able to get my pain meds before the start of the weekend or things would have been horrible. It’s almost a week later and I still have sciatica, which in layman’s terms is irritation of the butt nerves.  In the medical world, it’s the irritation of the sciatic nerve, which is potentially, my L5 nerve root.  Sciatica was the beginning of my CES journey.  It started out like that only to get much worse about a year later.  Funny how before that time, I would have been afraid to take a narcotic medication.  Now I don’t give it a second thought.  I don’t abuse my medication; I only take them when I need them and as prescribed.  We all think of how bad it is to be on narcotic medication but when you have pain that makes you think of killing yourself, you need to find relief.  It just makes your quality of life that much better.  To be a little less in pain is all that I am asking for.  I’m not an addict; I don’t sell my drugs for money.  I’m just a person in chronic pain that needs relief.

Since this new pain has arrived, I have noticed that my left leg will become numb if I sit too long without shifting my weight.  It doesn’t fall asleep or have the pins and needles sensation; I just lose feeling from my knee down to my toes.  Luckily, I have not had any bowel or bladder issues that would cause me to go running to the emergency room ASAP.  I know that if I do, my L5-S1 disc has finally snapped and I will have CES for the third time.  It is weird knowing your back is a time bomb waiting to go off at the slightest movement it doesn’t like.  I am hoping that with all the vitamin D that I have been taking, it has slowed the progression of degeneration I have.  I am only thirty-three yet have the spine of a ninety year old.

The Zone:

The consciousness is a curious thing. You may seem to act in a normal manner yet your friends and family may see and what you actually feel can be very different.  Recently, I became aware of the “zone” this suicidal mind set that all I think about is suicide and the means to get there.  It is caused by a hormone imbalance of the menses but it doesn’t feel hormonal while you are going through it.  All you feel is dead inside.  Your world is dark and gray, no color touches you. You feel you have no future. Every thing is bleak and hopelessness is prevalent.  Psychological pain is ever present and all you can think about is taking it away, permanently.

Today I started the day meeting my psychiatrist as a check in as I am quite afraid of the reality that my next cycle might end up taking my life with my own hand.  I have put into place that I should be hospitalized against my will if my mood gets to be that bad again.  The thought of taking my life does make me happy because I no longer have to deal with the struggle of juggling bills, juggling meds, juggling my pain and what to take for it, and the struggle of my sanity with the voices harping on me on my every move.  I catch myself talking to myself more, though right now I have a migraine and it is difficult to think at the moment.  Migraines so suck. Having one for a few days really does you in.

Through all of this, I have been dealing with tremendous grief. Having lost three people in the last three weeks has been difficult.  One was a co-worker who died of pancreatic cancer.  The second was my mentor in the field of suicidology, Dr. Edwin Shneidman.  I had the pleasure of talking with him one day after I wrote him a letter about how much his work means to me.  He also liked my paper that I presented at the annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology last spring.  The third person was my ex-landlord who was an amazing lady who worked up until the age of 90.  I feel their loss every day, but most especially, of Dr. Shneidman because I know that I will never have that unexpected phone call again.  He was 91.  He believed in something he called the postself, which is what you have when you are gone. Like me, he did not believe in life after death, it was through the postself that one lives on.  It is what is in the works of a person (books, letters) and also the memory of oneself that lives on after someone has passed away.

Constriction and moods of death

Another plan has been set into motion.  Around the 21^st of August I decided that I would give myself a month of living to sort things out and see if I was going to end my life.  The month has come and gone and I am still thinking of ending this existence.  It is not because I am depressed or hopeless. It is because I just don’t see the point in living when I just feel so dead inside.  I talked with a dear friend who kind of got through to me and was very afraid of losing me.  My therapist felt the same way last week.  She had said that she wants me “back”. We have been having phone sessions all week because I just don’t want to see her.  Actually the plan was to see her on Monday and Tuesday and then not see her for a while.  She was not ok with this plan while I was “suicidal”.  I do not feel suicidal.  I just want to die and am making plans on making that happen.  Monday I did not see her and was forced to have a phone session because of pain and spasms in my foot and ankle.  The increase in physical pain and loss of sleep this week has forced my hand to think more of my plan.  I had thought of gassing with a mixture of household chemicals with a sedative of benedryl.  But seeing that my therapist might get the “Mounties” after me if I do not see her today I am thinking of a less lethal plan, one that will put me in a coma for a day or so. As the lyrics of away from the sun go, it’s down to this, I’ve got to make this life make sense.  Tonight after my chem Shift, I will make a decision about what I am going to do to end this existence.  I really don’t have a reason. I do have pressures but they are nothing compared to the pain that I deal with everyday. Nothing seems to help that. The strongest pain killers cannot help psychache.  I have given therapy ten years to work for me and it hasn’t. I keep coming back to this place of constriction where all I see is plans to die. I have yet to act but the time for that is now even though I feel like why bother.  I don’t even know if it will work.  My friend thinks that I might not wake up. I don’t really think that will happen. I know I will, just don’t know when.

11-5-10

Lots have happened since this last post.  This year has been a whirlwind of sorts. Depression hasn’t gotten any better and I have convinced myself that I will die by the end of the month.  I have had it with pain, physical and mental, debt issues, knowing that it’s hopeless to think that my life could possibly get better when every night I have pain of some sort.  Nothing seems to help. Therapy has become a joke.  A few months ago I have tried to quit therapy and still try but my therapist knows that if I do not continue, suicide is all but inevitable.  But lately I feel that I am more of a burden to her and my psychiatrist. Both want to help but it’s fruitless as their efforts do not help and I plunge deeper into the abyss every day.  Work keeps me going but as Shneidman once posted about a case, this guy did work and go through everyday business right up till the end of when he ended his life.  It’s pretty much what I am doing.  My therapist knows that I am in that state of mind that I can end my life at moment but there is not much she can actually do to stop me, no one can. Even if I were to be in the hospital, unless I am committed for the rest of my life, there is no chance that once I get out I will not try.

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.