Interminable Undulations...

I DON'T know what to say. I don't feel as crap as this time last week... but that doesn't necessarily "mean" anything. I long ago noticed that my mood (whether high or low, or both) inevitably follows a

wavy line; that is, if you imagine a piece of paper with a line through the middle, denoting "normal" mood, as well as fluctuating each side of normal ("high and low") it has been known to stay high, above the line of normality, and to still follow the wobbly line, or, more commonly, to remain low, always below "normal" but still endlessly wobbling on and on. Does that "mean" anything...? Probably not. But does that happen to anyone else? If so, please tell me.

I told one of my doctors about this donkeys years ago... then the shrink at the drugs clinic, who I used to see every week, some years ago, noticed it herself and proposed LITHIUM..!! The last thing I wanna take! All it's good for (so I hear) is for breaking open and sprinkling on your chips (and British chips are like really fat French fries)... with vinegar. As for other mood stabilizers, my GP prescribed carbamazepine (Tegretol) about 18 years ago... I never did know why. I took it, then gave up on it. Then took it again, as a one-off, when I couldn't sleep and it brought me out in a terrible rash. My skin looked like wax. Never again.

I'm only popping the quetiapine (Seroquel) 300mgs out of desperation. If I ever feel like I want "out", I need only pop 150mg during the day, and daytime slumber is assured. And in case you're viewing that as borderline drug-abuse, it's actually prescribed as 150mg twice a day. I only take 300mg at night for convenience. Because ordinarily I don't like being knocked out during the day. I don't know what else I wanted to say. Nothing really. I'm OK. I'm OK. OK. Don't worry about me...


THIS TUNE HAS BEEN GOING ROUND IN MY HEAD...

DON MCLEAN: THE GRAVE





WANT SOMETHING LESS MORBID?

 MADONNA:~~

"...I'M GONNA RELAX
IN THE ARMS OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS..."

MADONNA: BEDTIME STORY




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Old Mother Hubbard Came Out Of The Cupboard

YESTERDAY, quite by chance, I bumped into an old friend of mine ~ in fact, I considered her an ex-friend; now I'm not so sure. On my old blog I always clled her Mother Hubbard because she is a generation older than me and used to wash my clothes and feed me. At one point I was barely eating anything. So she did me a lot of favours, which I wasn't quite as grateful for at the time as I probably should have been.

I didn't even recognize her! I myself had calculated that she was drinking so much in alcohol back in the day that Calorie-wise at least, she didn't need to eat. She's lost FIVE STONE ~ that's 70lbs, 32kg. She came off all the heroin. Reduced the methadone to zero "in the community" ~ so at least I now know somebody who has achieved that feat. Most people seem to need a detox unit to come off it. What I have against detox units is that you usually have to clean up entirely in 10 days. That's far too quick for me. The quicker the detox, the bigger the jolt. Jolts and me do not mix. If they don't make me manic, they're almost guaranteed to make me depressed.

Mother Hubbs said she had bipolar problems earlier in life and for years used heroin knowingly as an alternative to lithium ~ and it worked for her! Just like it worked for me. Flattened the mood very noticably. (Of course it made both of us raving addicts, but...) That's why I'm not surprised that the end of my years of using heroin on a near-daily basis coincided with a manic-depressive (I was both) schizoaffective psychotic episode. I don't know whether she's on psyche meds now because I avoided that topic. In fact I said as little about my self as possible.

So she lost five stone, came off heroin, methadone, alcohol and cigarettes, looks unrecognizable with her dead straight white hair that looks professionally done. She is the only person I know who looks truly happy.

Our mutual friend Rebsie, who had a 30 year plus heroin-methadone-drink habit is still in rehab miles away. Rebsie's teenage daughter is living with Hubbs on a permanent basis...

I know someone who is happy ~ wow!













PS Syd brought up this issue in a comment on my methadone, heroin and mood swings post... for anyone who really is interested re psychosis and drugs, here's a digest of the available information. I long ago stopped trying to blame my problems on drugs. Partly because I went ON them because I already was depressed and because when I looked into drug psychosis after I became psychotic, it became apparent I didn't fit the clinical criteria for substance-induced psychotic disorders or substance-induced mood disorders. Anyway the link is here...