Diary of a Life with Chronic Pain v2.01

As u know, Im not a religious person, but lately I have been wondering about the whole mortatlity and religion thing. This has been a very hard year so far, by far the worse as far as the pain goes, and suicide has been something I’ve contemplated a number of times. Ive written lists of pros and cons, planned it to the infinite detail so that I know how to do it when I make the decision to do it. When, or if, that is. That doesn’t mean Im convinced Im going to kill myself over the pain, even if my parents are, but im a bugger for pre-planning anything and everything. I have been a non believer of God and not at all religious for the majority of my life, if not all of it (I had it forced down my throat at school initially as I went to Church schools), but knowing my luck I’d kill myself, and find out I was totally wrong, that God does exist and end up in big big big trouble.

I was reading some stuff on chronic pain and suicide, and its actually scared me at how accurately it has described my current circumstances. One piece in particular has stuck in my mind. It said:

“Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain.”

As you’ve seen from my recent posts on here, Ive pretty much exhausted my resources for coping with pain, with the pain doctor admitting defeat, not being able to contact them, or get my meds reviewed etc, and so on. Does this make my suicidal though? Well, I certainly am at a crossroads. I hate my life. I am so lonely, so fed up, have never felt so isolated or so convinced that I will never beat the pain, and never ever be happy and find love etc.

This Chronic Pain & Suicide site also said:

“You can survive suicidal feelings if you do either of two things: (1) find a way to reduce
your pain, or (2) find a way to increase your coping resources. Both are possible.”

To a degree I would agree with that. The non-agreement degree’s being the fact that that is all past-tense and history to me now. I have no new ways to reduce my pain. And I have no ways of increasing my coping resources.

The fact of the matter is this. If it weren’t for my parents, and probably two close friends that I have, I would not be here. If I lost my parents and the pain continued to get worse I don’t know if I would be able to carry on. Especially if I was as alone in my heart as I am now.

Speaking of alone in the heart – this is just a little diversion for a moment. Fucking Yahoo personals have signed up with Match.com, and are no longer doing their free service from Sept 06. Wanna know how much it will cost to use that site in Sept? Brace yourself…. £25UK a MONTH!!! Nearly a quid a day! To be ignored. I can get that at home for free, so why the hell pay for the priviledge? I think that that stinks. Talk about taking financial advantage of people who are lonely and sad and just wanting to improve their lives. Jesus.

Anyways, I digressed. So yes, if I found myself livin alone and still in pain then I would have absolutely no hesitation in killing myself. I think. I don’t know. Its hard to tell isn’t it. Maybe I’d feel differently then. Maybe my closest friends would become replacements for my Parents in a way, and then I’d feel the exact same way all over again. Or maybe the grief of losing them would be so much, that it would finally push the see-saw completely over. I expect that that would indeed be most likely the case, and that rational thought would no longer become the deciding factor, being replaces instead by grief-ridden reactionary impulses.

For some reason this past week I have felt especially alone. I don’t mind telling you that on a night I have gone to bed and cried with the pain and sadness and emptiness inside me, and then afterwards fallen asleep cuddling my pillow just to try n get some fucking comfort and feeling of….. I dunno what the word is.

No, stop laughing. Its true.

This week has seen a first for me. I wrote a letter to the Samaritans. Well, an email. I dint send it though. But in it I just completely vented. I started at the beginning and just waffled. It was a huge piece of text. It was more detailed than the journal entries, which I purposely keep vague as they are public. I really gave it my all. When I finished writing it, I just sobbed and sobbed on the bed. It was a release like none other I’ve had before from crying. But it was all too short. Im back to where I was that night. Would I get the same feeling of release if I mailed it? I don’t know. But even if I did, what would I do then for the next time I got that low?

There are no long term answers to my problems anymore now that the pain clinic has given up on the case. The pain fuels the depression which fuels an emotional pain which makes the physical pain seem ten times worse. It’s a complete catch 22, neverending circle of depression and pain that I cannot seem to break. I occasionally get a wee break from it, but the fact of the matter is that it never lasts long enough.

I do believe in mind over matter though. And I do know for a fact that if I woke up tomorrow morning and realised that I did in fact have a wife/partner/gf that the joy that would bring would likely obliterate the pain for months. So, if I could do that, why cannot I not achieve that same result by simple mind over matter. I don’t know the answer to that, but I do occasionally manage to ease the pain by using mind games and tricks, but the truth is that the pain is so severe now when it does break through that those just don’t work anymore, I cannot focus on anything but the sheer agony in my arse.

But Im a failure and a coward, so I don’t deserve to be free of the pain anyways, if you believe some of the mails this journal generates from one-off readers. There is only one thing that is guaranteed to break the pain cycle and ease the pain for good. And its governed by another catch 22. I’m scared of living with pain and emptiness for the rest of my life, but Im scared to kill myself and destroy my family. I can do neither. So I wont kill myself, but I cant live with my life. And therein lies the problem.

J.
Pain: 8/10
Depression: 10/10