HEROIN IS A DRUG TO MAKE THE WORLD GO AWAY

THIS IS A BLOG ABOUT A LIFE WITHOUT HEROIN



Tuesday 21 August 2012

The Sparkling Shower, Burton-Taylor and Sweeping Statement Bipolar Reprimand

I AM VERY GRADUALLY cleaning my house to professional standard. I bleach the toilet bowl every day so it smells like a swimming pool down there. My sinks sparkle with a surreal gleam. I cleaned the shower cubicle inside and out and it's ~ mmmm! ~ so zesty lemon-fresh.

I have a new neighbour down the hall. I've yet to set eyes on him but already I have him pegged as a dodgy bastard as there are constant comings and goings till past 6am. Intuition tells me "crackhead" ~ just like the last inhabitant of that room, who had BO so bad the left-behind clothes thta filled the dustbins weren't just hummin' they were honkin' with human odour...

I just met a half-Chinese crackhead by the payphones, who hit me for money (as per always). If I'd have said, "isn't Chinese a poetic language as 天氣 (simplified: 天气; Japanese 天気) ("the weather") literally means "the mood of heaven" ~ he'd have gone: "DUHHH?!"

Well I've just come back from a meeting with my Support Worker Donny, who is way more professional than Deshane, the old one (who diagnosed me with OCD and had the cheek to tell my psychiatrist he thought I had "COD" ~ not realizing, presumably that those initials stand for "Cash On Delivery" ~~ ukk, ridiculous.

Donny photocopied some exceedingly verbiose sheets I had to fill in about my medical conditions. I was hypomanic when I wrote my descriptions, so they got it with both barrels, straight between the eyes.

Like just about every mental health/drug/support worker before him, he asked whether I was hypomanic when I am plainly NORMAL. What I said was "last time I took antidepressants they made me really hyper and high" and he tried to sneak the question past me by enquiring "are you on antidepressants now?"

If I ever did take antidepressants again without a bulletproof mood stabilizer I reckon I'd be on a one-way trip to the psyche unit in Cloud Cuckoo land.

I'm glad some people liked my last post on Bipolar Misconceptions because to me, writing about Bugerlugs and Anna Grace felt creepy and weird. But only, of course, after I'd invested two hours in penning the piece and hitting publish and walking away after the internet café had closed... Anyway, I have a "no embarrassment" policy with my blog, which is why nothing ever gets taken down, no matter how lurid or sad.

By the Way: CLICK HERE for Bugerlugs' Camping In Wales photographs... aren't they amazing..!

I never detailed most of the misconceptions re Bipolar in my swiftly-written thesis. They range from brain-dead sweeping statements like "if you don't have problems with sex and shopping you're not bipolar" ~ which doesn't take into account the 43% of patients who do NOT experience "signature hypersexuality" and that in extreme mania a person might just be too ill to go out, remember they're bound for the shops and generally get it together to go on a massive spending spree. The statement also takes for granted that all patients have access to credit cards, which might be true for the New York urban élite the "mild bipolar" article was written about (and to have enhanced powers of concentration during hypomania your condition must be very mild).

The most ridiculous statement I have ever read is that Bipolar 2 and Generalized Anxiety Disorder are indistinguishable. Considering that I had what was then known as "free-floating anxiety" with depression years before I ever showed definite signs of bipolarity, I have to disagree. Anxiety usually paralyses you with fear; mania animates you. Anxiety makes it hard to sleep but mania can make sleep impossible for days on end. Also most manic people feel "high" even if irritable or dysphoric at the same time. Depression with anxiety is probably the commonest condition in all psychiatry; bipolar disorder, despite its current trendiness, is relatively rare (affecting about one person in a hundred).

Well it's such a sweaty day, the mood of heaven is switching from sultry heat to random rain. The kind of rain you get when humidity is so high the saturated air just lets go... The world is buzzing loudly around me as we speak; I cannot believe it's Tuesday already. I picked up Pinky a pair of UK size  eight trainers (that means sneakers in size 10.5 to you Americans) or deck shoes size 42 in continental Europe). They were discarded by a bin ~ presumably by the sort of chav who think's it's classy to wear everything boxfresh new and unblemished.

I'm about to go home and watch the Burton-Taylor epic Cleopatra on "Director's Commentary" (didn't even know there was a director's commentary until I chanced upon the fact on the side of the casing).

By the way, I'd often wondered how Richard Burton, on a "mere" half million dollars a movie ever managed to buy Elizabeth Taylor a 69.42 carat diamond costing over $1 million, plus the most spectacular Bulgari necklace - bracelet - earrings - ring emerald-and-diamond suite, which begged the question: ~ Unless he had no living expenses, never paid taxes and saved up for years, how on earth could he afford it all?

That's because the multimillionairess divorcée widow Elizabeth Taylor picked out and paid for the poshest pieces herself!

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Illustrated: my shower looks just like this, except there's payphone inside it; Elizabeth Taylor sporting a decent set of emeralds...


THE DAY AFTER: NUCLEAR ATTACK
Don't know why I chose this but...
This ABC made-for-TV movie was one of the highest-rated broadcasts of all time, attaracting 38.55 million viewers...
I like the bit with the skeletons... there is just something about nuclear explosions... exhilarating and horrifying at the same time...



ELTON JOHN: SORRY SEEMS TO BE THE HARDEST WORD
Official video
The tune came on Pick TV (the only channel Pinky seems ever to watch)... reminding me how much I love this tune...



MADONNA: NEW YORK FRAGRANCE LAUNCH
Don't know why I'm posting this, except Youtube offered it, so here it is...



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5 comments:

bugerlugs63 said...

Hi Gledwood, I'm trying to distract myself while I wait for the phone to ring . . .
Well done on the cleaning, that's usually a good sign with me . . . unless it's a sign of mania, then it's not so good, or maybe it is. What do I know? Sweet FA at the minute. I don't mind you writing about my mental state ;-)
I really did have something specific to say about something but it's gone . . .
Thanks for the camping photos link.
I love the "mood of heaven" how poetic, and I loved Richard Burton for a while . . . Or I thought I did.
O well, I'll go and try and distract myself elsewhere . . . Love as always x

Bev said...

I loved Richard Burton not to much Elizabeth.I felt sorry for Burton having to be the husband of such a greedy lady.She seemed demanding and bossy.I dont know if Heaven or Hell give her aaaaallll the things she wants and needs.
I liked her in Place in the Sun with Monty Clift and Big Country with my fav James Dean.I cant finish the book about her because I can not relate to her wealth and demands.Do you like her?

Gledwood said...

BUGERLUGS: I wouldn't worry about being "bipolar" ~ as someone said to me, the label makes no difference. It either describes something you are or are not. I don't think I put it all that clearly in my posts, but I would be careful if I were you, reading about the subject because you'll find a lot of sweeping generalizations that can be very misleading. You're better off getting information from a psychiatrist, if you feel you really need one. Bear in mind it can take ages to get an appointment, so you're better off getting one now and deciding later whether you actually want it. I was lucky, I got to see a shrink via the methadone clinic, but not all areas have this service. (Meaning they're employing specialist doctors for the total waste-of-time job of titrating people's methadone and judging their progress... stuff all addicts are far more expert in than any doctor, unless that doctor is also a smackhead.) Ukk well I won't go on.

I'm glad you're not offended by my talking about you. I wanted to write about other people instead of myself, but afterwards was weirded out by it...

BEV: Do I like Elizabeth Taylor? Well I used to walk past this book in the library with the most beautiful face on the cover. The face belonged to Elizabeth Taylor and because it was so beautiful I eventually got the book out. It painted her as quite a kind person, albeit very starry and egotistical. She admitted the three loves of her life were Mike Todd, Richard Burton and jewellery. Least she was honest!

PS I put up a whole load of new mystical symbols for you (today, Wednesday 22 August).

Bev said...

There was a lot of competition on the arts of Liz Taylor and Marilyn Monroe.Liz was pist that some one described her as a legend and Marilyn as a myth.Liz preferred to be the myth and Marilyn the legend.And Marilyn was needing publicity she posed nude for free but one stipulation was that Liz could not be in the same magazine as her nudies where in.
Some cat fight!Reeeeeeyow!

Syd said...

Bugerlugs photos were great. Nice job on cleaning your place. Show us some real photos of it. Do you have art work on the walls?