Assessed!

THE LADY from the Mental Health Support Needs Assessment Crew called in. She thinks my house is a mess. I call that unpacking!

She said the purpose of everything, which seems to include my living where I presently am, is to establish whether I am capable of independent living at all!!

She asked loads of questions, then said she sees no reason why I shouldn't get their service. (Again.) I'm not sure she knows the again part. That I had a Support Worker named Deshane for a year. Until he just gave up on me. The way all professionals always have done.

Personally I don't see how being very messy equates to extreme mental unbalance, but the Housing and Support Services seem to think so. The Drug Service, on the other hand, were enquiring accusingly as to why I was not in full-time employment already. In fact the methadone clinic's 90 minute interview yesterday was far too probing and I went away feeling stripped bare. Paranoid that they will use the details they have against me.

I have always felt this is nothing more than a plot to leave me hopeless and destitute, back on the street. I don't care how irrational that sounds. time will tell that I'm right.

I met my new drug keyworker yesterday and already I'm uninspired. He chairs one of those groups where junkies come in, talk about drugs for 90 minutes, then go out to score. What else are you going to do after so much drug-talk? Already he's trying to push me into going ~ to be mentally raped in front of a room full of strangers. I had a worker who tried that on before. Tried to integrate our Confidential keywork sessions into meetings with a room full of surly junkies. Just because she happened to be Group Co-ordinator and wanted to save time and effort, because seemingly I was worth none. I'm not letting that happen again.

The Nutter Club (the dual diagnosis group) has been shut down. So there's nowhere I can actually share my point of view. The general groups with names like "Relapse Prevention" are places where platitudes prevail, not truth.

I so cannot wait to get away from this crooked and deceitful system that has me on methadone, a drug three to four times MORE ADDICTIVE THAN HEROIN ever was!

The good news is that I've found a top tune; the piano theme is sublime. This is the theme to the film The Other Boleyn Girl ~ about Anne Boleyn, the second of six wives to King Henry VIII. I saw it today and it's very good, if you're in the mood for historical melodrama.

Wishing a charming weekend to you all ...



Illustrated: Anne Boleyn...