Mystery Illness

I HAVEN'T POSTED because I was sick all last week with some mystery diarrhoea and flu type illness that had me sweating like a swine who hadn't had enough methadone. My methadone is down to 35mg. Unfortunately I got back into the habit of using heroin on top which I am trying hard to stop. Some days I only used the traces left from the day before. But any using is too much using. I want to be free of all drugs altogether, so this is what I'm trying to remind myself. The heroin took away the sweats and chills from the flu-type illness. And that made me feel that I was getting addicted to the heroin again, so it's all a mess. I'm taking my methadone as late in the day as possible so that each day I can move the time of dosing forward, and the methadone should hold me all the way through. Well that's the theory.

I am now on 200mg quetiapine (Seroquel). This is for schizophrenia, mania and bipolar depression and it makes me extremely drowsy. Every day this week I have had to get up early for some reason or other and today it caught up with me. I slept all afternoon through to five o'clock. The 50mg quetiapine I've been on for the past fortnight is an exceedingly low dose and I don't think it has insulated me well from the bells and whistles (or slings and arrows) of madness. Strange things happen. For example, yesterday lay down and tried to have a nap for an hour but I couldn't sleep because my body was shrinking into space. I clicked my thumbnail under my front teeth and my thumb was massive. The rest of my body was tiny though. Nothing could make this illusion go away, except for getting out of bed and losing the opportunity of sleep. I also keep getting manic flash-backs. That is the memory of specific symptoms comes back and hard. For instance I tried to post on my blog one night and could only write strings of rhymes. My mind was racing so hard. I don't think I am becoming manic. The mere thought of going mental like that scares me because I totally lost my mind in the peak of mania. The only good thing about it was the euphoric high. My self-esteem soared while my mind fell apart in a way it has never done during depression.

Because I was ill everything went to rack and ruin yet again. So today I cleaned the floor. It looks amazingly stark and light now that 75% of the dirt is gone. I have to quadruple the dose of these antipsychotics tonight but am not looking forward to fighting to stay awake all tomorrow.

Anna Grace asked why I have slowed down on my blogging. It is because I no longer have a working computer at home and because I have been ill and depressed. I am refocusing on the goal of getting off methadone all together. I really hate methadone. It's too much of a compromise for someone like me to accept. No lovely needle. No instant fix. And yet still the slavery of being totally beholden to a yucky artificial chemical and the corrupt clinic system that deals it out. I think methadone clinics are corrupt because they subtly bully clients into lying and saying they're doing well when nearly all of them are doing badly. The reason they are doing badly is that methadone is no real substitute for heroin. It's not until I got to the end of the line that I ever had motivation to steer clear of heroin for any length of time. I want to come off methadone so that I can visit my family without having to ask permission at the clinic for a week's take home medication, which you need to ask for at least a fortnight in advance. Sometimes they refuse to cover even one week, insisting you pick up half the methadone from a nominated chemist once you get there. My family live in a small community. I don't want gossip going around about who's on the Mean Green Methadone Machine.

Well it's past 7pm and I'm tired. Yet again my thoughts have turned to scoring. How am I ever going to get out of this vicious rut? I think I should remind myself that I'm practically the same on heroin as off it. And what nasty nasty stuff it is. I wish so much that I could be treated on anything else but methadone but the only thing else on offer where I live is Suboxone. I've been on Subutex and the switchover is very disruptive. My sleep shrivelled down to four hours per night and two weeks later I was still getting no more than six hours. I didn't realize at the time but my mood was on something of a high. With my history, if I let that happen again I could easily get manic. And as I said, I don't really want to lose my mind.

Well I have to go now. Outside, London is trundling past. I wonder where all those people are going? My finger is almost normal again. I can type almost normally ~ something that felt it was never going to happen again when I broke my fingers. Take care everyone... ;-)...