The Depressing Red Bucket Affair

COUNSELLING: IS IT A GOOD THING? As regular readers might know, I'm currently undergoing group therapy towards an end known as "Mentalization". (Aka MBT.) But mentalization involves not just jumping to conclusions regarding the thoughts, feelings or motivations of others and "mentalizing" ~ ie thinking them over and, in many cases asking. Eg: "What is it you meant when you said that? Could you explain?"

Well I'm starting to think that if NOT FEELING is my coping mechanism, and if THINKING TOO MUCH is a personal fault in many people, not just me, then undergoing this group is going to achieve nothing except a persistent erosion of my mental health. I mean: are they actually TRYING to send me nuts? It's a question worth asking. I've been wondering just WHO I can trust in the world. Friend. Family. Anyone. It makes me really sad to think this way and maybe I am extraordinarily narcissistic and self-centred but I do feel certain people out there ~ namely doctorly-type people and employees of drug clinics are DELIBERATELY trying to do my head in. All saying different things that I cannot thrash my way out of.

Eg my druggieworker keeps saying she's worried about me and that if I'm not careful I'm going to have another mental breakdown. And she says I should see a psychiatrist again. I'm much more straight and open with her than I would ever be with a GP. But my (new) GP who has only seen me twice, says he thinks I'm totally OK. I didn't feel at all OK when I last saw him. I was very upset that day. Binky says I should "bring my feelings into the room". But how can I possibly do that? If you go around appearing as OK as possible (like any normal person who isn't a teenage girl with emotional problems would) then suddenly act out in a dr's room isn't that self-indulgence bordering on fakery? She also said that in answer to his question what could a psychiatrist do for me (which I took to mean I was beyond help. Because I don't actually believe he thinks there's "nothing wrong" I think he wants me to think that's what he thinks (mind games again) ~~ in answer to his question I was meant to say "to get a proper diagnosis and the right medication". Well I don't want yet ANOTHER diagnosis, which, knowing my luck would be added on top of and not replace the existing one. And as for even more pills. No I don't want MORE. I'd rather be off everything!. The absolute last thing I want is something that's going to completely block any "high" moods and "higher" states of consciousness. Obviously I want to be ("bipolar") high all the time. I just don't want to lose my mind as well. If I could break the light barrier again I'm hoping I will never ever ever come down. I'm talking about mind and body sublimating to a Higher Level. But I obviously DID come down. I just can't believe that I had to... Why does life have to be SO SHIT~~??

You see the great thing about blogs. Because nobody supposedly knows who I really am I can speak what I actually think and mean. No way in hell would I say something like the above to a friend, let alone any doctorly person.

I told Binky some weird ideas I had had when I did have a mad episode and she laughed until it looked like her sides were going to split. She said (hopefully jokingly, as nothing involved potential harm to self or others) that if I ever told a dr anything like that I'd get sectioned and never come out again. (To those on foreign shores: a "section" means involuntary commitment and it's REALLY HARD to overturn a British sectioning under the mental health act.)

I NEARLY had a "nervous breakdown" just now over picking a bucket to wash my clothes in. I'm still feeling ridiculously depressed. (Ridiculous, considering it's JUST A PLASTIC BUCKET~!!) I DID used to own a bucket, but it got filled with paint after I took dodgy heroin some time ago and kicked dregs of a can of paint over in my hallway. I need this new bucket to wash my clothes in, because it's cheaper than going to the launderette. But the launderette costs £4, whereas this bucket was £3. For £2 they had a round black bucket, but that one doesn't have mop-squeezy-out attachment. Then I looked at this bucket after purchase and it does look RIDICULOUSLY TINY. I don't know how many clothes I'm going to be able to wash at a time, but not many.

Well it's been raining most of today. It matches my mood. All weekend through Monday we had spectacular weather but I stayed in to avoid it. I really wasn't in the mood. Then one night, completely at random, I did start feeling "high" and couldn't sleep at all. But I made up for it by sleeping most of the day yesterday. Plus 2:30-6:30am. Then methadone (eventually) sent me off from 8:30 to about 11:30.

My life is so depressing. I know nobody wants to hear this. I just don't know how to get out of it all. Giving up drugs is very much JUST a first step and it never really helped that much in the past. It wasn't as if I stuck to methadone and was miraculously OK. Oh but the drugs clinic NOW say if you have other issues or health problems, methadone isn't even supposed to help with those (even though heroin does ~ it makes just about any affliction of mind or body feel better). This OF COURSE SUITS THEIR AGENDA. Which is all about deception and lies. They can't handle it when I tell the truth unvarnished. Now they don't just WANT to, they NEED to believe I'm nutty because otherwise time has shown them out to be LIARS. Ie "if you stop crack you won't be paranoid any more" (I've been way more paranoid months and years after stopping it than I was on it). And "alcohol is a depressant so that's what is making you depressed. If you stop drinking you'll feel better". Well lots of ANTI-depressants are also CNS depressants (eg dosulepin (Prothiadine), mirtazapine (Remeron)) and I certainly did NOT feel better after kicking alcohol. I've felt just as bad, if not worse off it than on it. I could go on but this is the gist of their lies. Of course they want to conveniently forget the times eg that a floating duty worker snapped at me that if I stopped heroin I would "feel much better". (In what time-frame? I was certainly NOT OK before I got addicted to heroin age 28. And I don't think I'm that unusual. There are LOTS of people using methadone clinics who feel permanently run-down (as a symptom of hep C as much as anything else, suffer from constant or recurrent depression. And have terrible presents eg involving imprisonment or the threat of it, and children in care (often both). Plus horrendous pasts (very often involving sexual abuse) they still want to escape from. I think, compared to people like that, and there are a LOT of them out there, I've got it easy.

I don't think I had any period of adult life, and probably not teenage years either when I was "OK". Growing up I had almost zero self-esteem or self-confidence. And almost no "social skills" either. And I do mean almost NONE. Everybody, friends included, thought I was a "weirdo". I was prone to depression but wouldn't characterize myself as depressed all the time. I managed to catch what was then called CFS or ME and is now known as CFIDS. I was not "on drugs" when I came down with that particular condition in late 1995. In fact I became intolerant to alcohol and wasn't well enough to dance all night at raves (only types of drugtaking I was interested in back then). I never knowingly tried heroin until 1997, although I may have taken it once in 1993 ~ I don't know for a fact that actually was heroin (not knowing what to do I snorted and ate the greyish powder that looked like it had bits of demerara sugar in it). Whereas the 1997 stuff looked like heroin, melted on to silver foil just like it, smelt like it and had the effects generally ascribed to heroin so I'm pretty sure that stuff WAS it.

O am I ranting again..? I don't know. I have to go. 

I've given up on Spanish and am now learning Italian. Very very very very VERY slowly!!

(Molto molto molto molto MOLTO lentamente.)

BTW: I've just found out MBT (the therapy I'm doing) is for BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER. I keep wondering whether I've got that and now they've somehow got me into therapy for it without even telling me!!!  (They just told me they thought it might be good that I did it.) 

Yesterday Naomi, the Dual Diagnosis lady, called offering me a place in a drama therapy group she's doing. So hopefully I shall be doing both. Surely you can't have "too much therapy"...? CAN YOU~??!?

 

WISHING YOU A PLEASANT DAY!!

What it's Like to Go Crazy: Dr Kraepelin Writes...

IF YOU'RE WONDERING why I say I think I need counselling for the trauma of having lost my senses some 18 months ago, here are some lovely quotes from one of the classic psychiatric texts of all time, Emil Kraepelin's Manic-Depressive Insanity and Paranoia that put it all in a nutshell...

The very last paragraph quoted here describes me with unfortunate accuracy in the throes of hyperacute manic psychosis.

Their linguistic utterances alternate between inarticulate sounds, praying, abusing, entreating, stammering, disconnected talk, in which clang-associations, senseless rhyming, diversion by external impressions, persistence of individual phrases, are recognised.

That's exactly what happened to me!

HERE'S DR KRAEPELIN:~~~~~~~

From the slighter forms of mania here described, imperceptible transitions gradually lead to the morbid state of actual acute mania. The beginning of the illness is always fairly sudden; at most headaches, weariness, lack of pleasure in work or a great busyness, irritabihty, sleeplessness, precede by some days or weeks the outbreak of the more violent manifestations, when a definite state of depression has not, as is very frequent, formed the prelude. The patients rapidly become restless, disconnected in their talk, and perpetrate all sorts of curious actions. They run out of the house in a shirt, go to church in a petticoat, spend the night in a field of corn, give away their property, disturb the service in church by screaming and singing, kneel and pray on the street, fire a pistol in a waiting-room, put soap and soda in the food, try to force their way into the palace, throw objects out at the window. A female patient jumped into the carriage of a prince for a joke.


Mood is unrestrained, merry, exultant, occasionally vision- ary or pompous, but always subject to frequent variation, easily changing to irritability and irascibiltiy or even to lamentation and weeping. Such, fluctuations of mood are very clearly seen in the following letter of a manic patient : —

" When I think of my rude behaviour towards you at the last visit, I do not know how I am to atone for it. I ask you for pardon from my heart ; as far as it hes in my power, such a thing will never occur again. As I now understand, I should have given you an answer and I did not do so. O God, how discourteous !"

Mood is mostly exalted in mania, and in lively excite- ment it lias the peculiar colouring of unrestrained merriment. The patients are pleased, " over merry " or " quietly happy," visionary, " more than satisfied," " cheerful in this beautiful world"; they feel well, ready for all possible sport and banter, "penetrated with great merriment," they laugh, sing and jest. They are "enraptured with everything," " the happiest woman " ; happiness has come upon them ; " now the days of roses are coming." The group of patients in manic excitement (Fig. 3) reproduces the expression of this mood in varied colouring from quiet cheerfulness and proud self-consciousness to unrestrained cheerfulness. Sexual excitability is increased and leads to hasty engage- ments, marriages by the newspaper, improper love-adven- tures, conspicuous behaviour, fondness for dress, on the other hand to jealousy and matrimonial discord. Several of my patients displayed in excitement homosexual tendencies.

Extraordinary Distractibility of Attention certainly plays an essential part in defective perception. The patients gradually lose the capacity for the choice and arrangement of impressions ; each striking sense-stimulus obtrudes itself on them with a certain force, so that they usually attend to it at once. Accordingly, if their attention can for the most part be quickly attracted by the exhibition of objects or by the calling out of words, yet it digresses again with uncommon case to any fresh stimulus. The picture of their surroundings and of events remains, therefore, for them more disconnected and more incomplete than it would be, if it suffered merely from encroachment on the process of perception.

The Flight of Ideas often becomes very distinctly noticeable to the patient's own perceptions. They complain that they cannot concentrate or gather their thoughts to- gether. The thoughts come of themselves, obtrude them- selves, impose upon the patients. "I can't grasp all the thoughts which obtrude themselves," said a patient. "It it is so stormy in my head," declared another, "everything goes pell-mell." " My thoughts are all tattered," "I am not master over my thoughts," " One thought chases the other ; they .just vanish like that," — these are further utter- ances, which give us a glimpse into these processes.

In depressed patients also flight of ideas occurs not alto- gether infrequently, though certainly without being very recognizable in the scanty speech of the taciturn patients ; sometimes it appears distinctly in copious written utterances.


He hears the voice of Jesus, speaks with God and the poor souls, is called by God dear son. There are voices in his ears ; the creaking of the floor, the sound of the bells take on the form of words. The patient has telepathic connection with an aristocratic fiancée, feels the electric current in the walls, feels himself hypnotized ; transference of thought takes place.


They have already died a thousand times, always come again, can practise magic, can help people by prayer, can make themselves invisible. A patient had " the feeling as if he would get money from somewhere " ; another declared that

he was the most distinguished private detective ; a third called himself the " sanitary physician of all the natural sciences and natural medical science " ; a fourth said that he would be the most famous man in Europe ; a fifth stated that he had found a female 193 cm [6 feet 363⁄64 inches] in height and would get for her 40,000 marks. Female patients boast that they are related to the royal house, are fourfold queens, earthly somnambulists, have a beautiful voice, are going to place the imperial crown on their husband. A female patient declared that she was the Sleeping Beauty, had pricked her- self with the spindle, and was now waiting for the Prince. The patients often narrate all sorts of journeys and adven- tures, secret experiences ; they have encountered men who made assaults ; they were received in the capital with honour. Many patients complain of persecutions, they have been ill- used having been struck with the fist 130 to 150 times ; they are fired at, whipped with rods.

Occasionally the delusions of the patients call to mind those of the paralytic. They possess millions, diamond cups, get a golden crown, have created mountains, built whole cities. A patient wrote that he would offer his fiancee a life such as no princess in the world had. " In Munich I shall build for myself Castle Miramare, in Feldafing the Castle of King Max formerly planned, make Munich the most beautiful city in the world ; I have already designed three hundred magnificent buildings, the most beautiful in the world. I shall construct railways and gain millions by that."


Delirious Mania.

A Delirious State fills up the picture in a further group of cases, whicli is not very large. This state is accompanied by a dreamy and profound clouding of consciousness, and extraordinary and confused hallucinations and delusions. The attack usually begins very suddenly ; only sleeplessness, restlessness or anxious moodiness may already be con- spicuous one or two days, more rarely a few weeks, before- hand. Consciousness rapidly becomes clouded ; the patients become stupefied, confused, bewildered, and completely lose orientation for time and place. Everything appears to them changed ; they think that they are in heaven, in Herod's palace, in the " Christchild Hospital." Mistakes are made about the people in their surroundings ; their fellow-patients are near relatives ; the physician is a Royal Highness, an ecclesiastic, a black devil, A female patient, who in numer-. ous similar attacks always fancied that she was surrounded by historical celebrities, Louis XIV, Caesar, Elizabeth, called that her " historical delusion ".

At the same time numerous hallucinations appear. Some- thing is burning ; birds are flying about in the air ; angels appear ; spirits throw snakes in the face of the patient ; shadows come and go on the walls. The patient sees heaven open, full of camels and elephants, the King, his guardian- angel, the Holy Ghost ; the devil has assumed the form of the Virgin Mary. The ringing of bells is heard, shooting, the rushing of water, a confused noise ; Lucifer is speaking ; the voice of God announces to him the day of judgment, re- demption from all sins. The patient carries on dialogues with absent people, receives revelations ; his thoughts are borne from one voice to another. The coffee smells of dead bodies, his hands as if rotten ; in the house there is a smell of burning ; the food tastes of goat-flesh or of human flesh, the water of sulphur. His head is very giddy, full of fever-heat. The patients think that they are lifted and thrown into an abyss ; they swim with the king in the ocean ; everything is falling to pieces round them.


The patients do not trouble themselves at -all about their surroundings ; they do not listen, they give no information, obey no requests, are resistive, strike out. Their linguistic utterances alternate between inarticulate sounds, praying, abusing, entreating, stammering, disconnected talk, in which clang-associations, senseless rhyming, diversion by external impressions, persistence of individual phrases, are recognised. Other patients only display a slight restlessness, whisper flights of ideas to themselves, when addressed look up astonished and without comprehension, obey simple requests, give irrelevant answers, smile, weep, cling to people, suddenly begin to sing a song or scream. A female patient called out abruptly, " I am justice ; do not touch me ; I am omniscient ; away from me ! " Waxy flexibility, echolalia, or echopraxis can be demonstrated frequently.


All in all, a decidedly inconvenient affliction...




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If you want to see what mania really looks like, only real film of an actual episode will do and this is the only genuine-looking clip I have ever found... I think in doctorly terms, if she stayed that excited all day, she would be termed "moderately manic". BTW just because she knows the camera's there doesn't mean she must be putting on an act. Watch closely her eyes, her emotional lability, distractability and disinhibition... it's not easy to fake any of that and I don't think I've EVER seen bipolar mania convincingly portrayed on television or film. Most actors get the elevated mood and grandiosity right but display nowhere near the correct degree of hyperkinesis, pressured speech, cognitive disorganization or generalized excitement... THEY'RE NEVER MANIC ENOUGH!...

MANIC EPISODE #1: TRISCH GOES NUTS
Only one clip was ever posted up; some years ago now the brilliant Trisch Li was found dead in her garage having gassed herself to death... terribly sad... but bipolar disorder has the highest suicide rate of any psychiatric illness with one patient in five eventually succeeding in taking their own life...




ANYWAY, HERE'S SOME MUSIC... Lovely trance!

This is not bad:



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Crispy when Wet

I DON'T QUITE know what the title means, but it is indeed what they like to call a "crisp" day here in London. In other words it's BLOODY FREEZING COLD with SUB-SIBERIAN TEMPERATURES. At least it feels that way. My electric fan heater has been belting it out 20 to the dozen. I don't care how much I'm wasting by using one of those things. At least I pay for electricity as I go (mostly on emergency) instead of getting stung by great overestimated British Gas bills every quarter!

I'm just going to have to drop the tiresome bipolar language. I'm not "hypomanic" I'm deliriously happy and isn't it great. I mean yes I'm a bit loud and disinhibited at times but no "racing throughts" or confusion or hallucinations. And I'm only as "grandiose" as I'm Meant To Be. O yeah and I'm losing a single hour of sleep, on average, under my usual minimum (ie I'm on 7 hours: usually I sleep 8-10) and yet that, annoyingly enough, scores me one point on some Mania Rating Scale I once googled up ~ when I scored a good 42 out of 50 (ish ~ I can't remember the bloody numbers now) you know when I went cuckoo last year.

I'm so shocked, offended and ashamed at bearing that nuttly label "schizophrenic" ~ even my GP talks about my "schizophrenia" and I cannot be bothered to tell her I actually suffer from what Emil Kraepelin called Manic-Depressive Insanity (well I do according to his book of the same name). Anyway: I'm so traumatized at having gone stark raving bonkers last year I'm starting to feel I need a brief spate of counselling sessions to get over it! How dreadful is that? The memory of the "disease" is worse than the actual thing!

I am reading the Andy Warhol Diaries. What a blast! He and I are cut from the same cloth: I'm obsessed by all that is fabulous and shallow too. Well I am 85% of the time. The other 15 I'm transcendently profound. Well I like to think so.

Ho hum I have to go. Not much else to say except if I don't get out of here soon I'll miss Downton Abbey!

This is how I know I have "manic-depressive insanity" because here's Andy Warhol in the terrifying grip of delirious psychotic mania just like mine ~ except his is far more florid. Watch closely:~~~~~~~~




Ey! I just did the Mania Scale again and I score 11! O! or maybe a 12. I love this kind of crap: reminds me of the type of nonsense you find in the women's magazines in dental surgeries etc...

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