This is my first post on this website. I am nervous. After growing up with emotionally abusive parents, I have been scared of human contact ever since. But I have to make contact with others or I may very well wind up dead.
I have had chronic pain for four years. Suicide is now an obsession with me. It's got to be because of the chronic pain. For many years, I loved life, in spite of what it has thrown at me. And now. I see and hear gunshots blazing in my mind countless times a day, the gunshots meant to end my life. I am sorely tempted to sing songs about suicide OPENLY. I now see death as a friend.
No disabled rights activist with cerebral palsy would dare admit to such things, not in a society that sees just my wheelchair as a "good enough reason" for suicide. (This mentioned by a woman from my church who pointed out that my reasons for suicide were better than those of otherwise healthy people who, she felt, had no reason for depression at all. I took that as a slap in the face to myself, and felt indignant for the many, many people who can walk and yet have depression.)
Yet here I am. My depression is getting worse by the day. I've tried stuffing my darker feelings down. I've tried to keep it quiet. I sure can't make these thoughts go away! Been there, done that.
Then I saw this website and I had to respond. The death of Carla, regardless of the cause, enabled a courageous few to open a Pandora's Box to discuss a part of chronic pain that NEEDS to be discussed. And in so doing, they opened a window into a part of my own life, a part that has caused me four years of anguish and shame. And I carry that shame KNOWING that I would probably end up getting physically and emotionally shredded by my chronic pain.
I thought that I would be able to handle it at first. I thought my life with a disability would give me what I needed to cope with chronic pain. Then I did a little reading on the subject. Easy enough for a bookworm, but I had to stop reading, because the more I read about chronic pain, the worse it got. 50% depression rate. Suicide rate for chronic pain patients double to triple that of normal depression. People in pain being told by their doctors to take their pain prescriptions and go score their drugs on the street. People being left bedridden and left totally isolated.
These were all people who had their legs and their emotional well-being before their pain diagnosis! One look at my own situation made me realize that I was in for the fight of my life, one that could make or break me.
In time, it became a fight for my own survival. My own brain is screaming for my life. That has been the biggest shock in all this and my greatest shame. If you had told me ten years ago that I would one day see death as a friend, because of severe pain, I would have told you to take a hike.
I was a disabled rights activist who joined the Catholic Church because they value lives like mine. I never dreamed I would be one day longing for the end of my life, longing for death day after day, week after week. When I first told my sponsor about these feelings, the man who stood by my side when I was welcomed into the Catholic fold, he wrote me "You're a traitor to your pro-life beliefs." This was the same man who, upon learning my remaining hip was causing me problems, asked me to send him an e-mail every day. This was when I had no other human contact besides the people who helped me get dressed and showered and my doctors. (The emotional abuse I suffered at the hands of my parents left me a hermit).
Painkillers are a misnomer. Painkillers help bring pain to a manageable level they do not eliminate the pain. Also I have found painkillers can cause depression especially if you are taking them for any length of time.
Before I became disabled I was a caregiver-28 years. I made it a point to learn everything I could about what conditions my patients had and the meds they were taking. The internet is great, most libraries have reference books, the Pill Book can be found at any Walmart. It helps to educate yourself so you know what questions to ask your doctor and what things he needs to know. Also it helps you talk to him in terms that he understands.
I have been disabled for almost nine years. I live with pain 24/7. I have learned I have different kinds of pain for different conditions and reasons. Also I have learned of ways to deal with pain other than just pills and I need all of them to get from day to day. I have learned the ebb and flow of my pain. I have learned to deal with my pain BEFORE it snowballs to an unmanageable level-a lesson I had to learn the hard way and still need reminders every so often. There are times I know my pain is unmanageable and I become a hermit because I will be a royal bitch until the pain subsides. But my greatest remedy is my friends who remind me "this too will pass". Pain makes us feel helpless, the more tools we have the less helpless we are.
Suicide too crosses my mind. One does not have to be depressed to think of suicide. My Dad died of Lou Gehrig's disease, all but one of the assisted suicide patients have had Lou Gehrig's disease. They say those in healthcare make the worst patients, I'm a living example. We know what's down the road. When handed a solution, we've already been there, done that! When someone hands us hope, we hand them reality. We are terrible at being out of control or turning control over to someone else. The hardest lesson I had to learn was accepting help. Today my friends are my best medicine for so very many reasons.