Random Drunk Found In Cellar/Not Looking Forward to Tomorrow

I FELT LIKE I WAS GOING MAD yesterday. 5AM and the house resonating to the rumblings of somebody's coughing, wheezing, snorting, gurgling and so on ~ which seemed to be emanating from somewhere just outside my door.

So when, at 8AM, I eventually dared to open the said door to investigate ~ the hallway was empty. So I crept down to the "wine" cellar (never seen a bottle down there, except my own methadone which once dropped out of my pocket when I was trying to top up the electricity) ~ where I was confronted by the sight of a homeless looking bearded giant in a grey anorak, sprawled unconscious across the concrete floor, snoring for England.

Then I was idiot enough to lean slightly on the door. There was an ear-splitting squeak and I ran and hid behind my own door, which slammed loudly. I stood cowering like a panic-stricken roborovski as terrifying shuffling and shambling sounds stumbled up the cellar steps, into the hallway and up the main stairs where they seemed to disappear into somebody's room. I barely dared breathe, in case we had a homeless psychotic killer on the loose. (Well he seemed to vanish into Potishell's room, so he could well have been a psychotic burglar, if not a part-time murderer too.)

I had a much better day on Sunday than Saturday, when I only got up to collect methadone, then scurried back to bed, where I remained all day and all night until the Psychotic Intruder Snoring Scandal at 5AM. I get waves of depression and waves of excitement; nothing connected with nothing. All this crap from cognitive Therapy, implying that depressive mood is caused by negative cognition. Well my first sign of depression is nearly always massively increased sleep. At first the dysphoria comes in waves, seemingly unconnected to anything going on. For example: last night I was spooning coleslaw into a hot baguette when a heavy sinking feeling came over me. It happens like that a lot. I'm not thinking depressive thoughts at the time. Usually I'm not thinking anything. The negative thought process seems to arise in reaction to an already depressed mood ~ definitely not the other way round.

My hypomania improves my self-confidence massively, which remains high afterwards until depression eventually takes it down. So I think those CBT smart arses want to drastically rethink their theory. I'm sure that negative thought process ~ habitually telling yourself you're no good and that all you do will fail will perpetuate a depressive mood; but they most certainly do not cause it.

Surely I'm not the only person to experience things in this way. Please, some depressives get in touch and describe how it is for you.

I couldn't face the idea of xmas ~ not xmas dinner at Binky's house in mixed company where everyone except me and the duty care manager will have schizophrenia ~ without heroin. So I blew £35 on two miniscule bags, one for today, one for tomorrow. After that, I've promised myself NEVER AGAIN. O promises, promises...

{The bags truly are microscopic: less than you used to get for £10 in each and about a sixth of the potency. And this is the best stuff going!}
O and by the way it's not schizophrenia, or anyone from Binky's house that I cannot face:~~ IT'S BLOODY XMAS!

I do truly resent having to give money to Disorganized Crime (if drug dealers are gangsters then most are truly amateur ones) ~ wasting all that cash just to feel NORMAL. If methadone does give "normality" then it's a very unpleasant state to be in. I've told myself no matter how bad I feel for the rest of my life on methadone, that I'm just going to have to fight through it and make the best of the state of sickness methadone seems to induce in me.

The only time methadone has ever made me feel truly wonderful was when it brought out in me symptoms of full-blown psychotic mania (well I was taking no other drugs at the time so those of you who want to believe my mental problems are entirely drug-induced, even though they began in childhoood, will have to recognize that methadoen has turned me from a depressive into a full-blown manic-depressive.)

I am truly sick to death of relying on an illegal substance just to be able to cope with my day. I have lived without heroin before. Trouble is: before and after heroin I was mentally sick. But if I'm going to have to live my life clean, yet mentally deranged, then so be it. There are worse things in life than manic-depression ~  I can't think of all that many, but being on hard drugs is probably one of them.

I do apologize for all this self-pitying whingeing. At least self-pity is a sign of self-esteem. Far healthier than self-loathing (self-pity's opposite). I just want to be off heroin. Surely "I'm worth it", as the shampoo ads say..? Fair dos: xmas is the single worst day of the year, but I shouldn't need heroin to survive even that.

My New Year's Resolution is to STOP HEROIN FOR EVER and within the next 12 months to STOP METHADONE TOO. You see why I'm so put out at "having to buy heroin" just to cope with a day I'd rather was just expunged from the calendar? There will be no blow-outs. No last hits on New Year's Eve. I've already got the gear for tomorrow, so that's a fate accompli. But after xmas day, there's no excuse left for drug-taking. Not even in my drug-skewed mind, which is supposed to invent justifications for everything. That's part of the "illness" of addiction. (I do get a bit wearied by NA members' parrotings about their "mental illness" (of addiction). They wouldn't know a mental illness if it slapped 'em round the face. And quite a lot DO deserve a slap with a wet fish: eg for constantly mistaking my manic states for crack cocaine intoxication. The drug clinic seem to be able to distinguish even mild mania from drug intoxication and yet NA can't? Maybe that's because NA have one-track minds, even more so than methadone clinics. Well whatever...

As you can probably see, the only xmas spirits I ever believed in came in bottles. Because I don't believe in drinking any more, I don't believe in xmas either. Nonetheless:

I WISH YOU ALL A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND IF IT CAN'T BE MERRY THEN MAY IT AT LEAST BE TOLERABLE !

See you afterwards

G XxXxXxX




Aren't xmas songs horrible? Except for this one:

BAND AID: DO THEY KNOW IT'S XMAS


 
O and this. At least this one captures the true spirit of xmas
POGUES & KIRSTY McCOLL: FAIRY TALE IN NEW YORK


BTW if anyone's wondering why I insist on spelling the holiday with an X, that's because THERE IS NO CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS  ... But there IS a DOWNTON ABBEY SPECIAL on ITV at 20:45 so DON'T MSIS IT!

♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫

Down. Out. Whatever.

THE "HYPOMANIA" I so thoroughly enjoyed disclaiming experiencing, which was most certainly REAL has almost entirely withered and died. Yesterday I was so tired I couldn't even watch Helen Mirren in The Queen (again) without falling asleep. So I went to bed in the mid-afternoon and awoke around ten or eleven PM not feeling good. Then I took a tiny bit of quetiapine (my antipsychotic, which I'm meant to be on at 300mg every day) and finally drifted off again after one AM. I had a dream about going on holiday to India with a geat group of friends. Only our hotel room was over a river and the vivd blue sea was fenced off for five miles with huge, bizarre plants growing along the beaches. The swimming pools all along the length of the road on which we were staying were all for guests of other hotels. I kept thinking of Louise and Tilly Bagshawe, the chick-lit writers and how terrifying it must be to depend for one's livelihood on something as capricious as the sales of paperback novels.

I woke up experiencing pervasive mental discomfort, induced by the dream, that carried on all morning. I only got up at 11AM. I felt too depressed to do anything. So I didn't bother showering. I was fully clothed anyhow and utterly freezing cold. So I went down the post office where the enormous queue was moving so torturously slowly I could barely handle being there. Then I phoned an idiot foreign drug dealer. I said "I'm just checking you're around," and he said "why you checking I'm around". He is so stupid. So I had to actually spell it out: "BECAUSE I WANT TO COME AND SEE YOU. I'LL BE ABOUT TEN MINUTES". I got on the bus feeling horrible. I saw this dealer. These days I get no pleasure or excitement from the process of scoring; if I feel anything I feel stressed and just wish I could be at home. So I got two "bees" for £20. Then I had to go to the needle-exchanging pharmacy where another drug addict was getting his and he looked at me weird, presumably because of my weird speaking voice. Then I went into McDonalds and that was almost unbearable. I had to wait for them to make my £1.49 double cheeseburger from scratch as I stood there, tired and sweaty and just wanting to be somewhere else.

Almost all the symptoms of hypomania have vanished, except for an occasional indistinct generalized feeling of excitement, which I thoroughly doubt another person could notice or pick up on. Music which only a couple of days ago induced in me sensations of highest exaltation is still going around my head but I only feel irritated by it. My own thoughts, if they are "racing", feel oppressive. They weigh on my brain. The bus-ride home took a hopelessly long time with sunlight not blocked by tall enough buildings, shining straight to the back of my brain and it felt like it was poisoning me. I drudged all the way up my own neverending street, tired and utterly freezing cold, not feeling at all good. Binky rang me twice today and I can barely bear speaking to her. So I got home and took two thirds of the heroin and ~ WOW! ~ I feel a lot better. The indistinct but torturous sensations of physical discomfort that I've experienced all week ~ even when feeling manic ~ have evaporated. And the horrible mental discomfort that I've only felt since crashing down is markedly reduced since banging up this gear. (Otherwise I wouldn't want to be typing any of this now.)

If you're wondering why all the indulgent details, this is for my own purposes. I want to remember exactly how mood swings really feel, in detail. My memories of the past two weeks are so fragmented, they're like a pack of playing cards thoroughly shuffled then scattered all over the floor. For all my complaints at the time that I didn't feel that high, I felt normal, I now remember last week as a period of massively elevated moods. My emotional reaction to music, lights and colours became so extreme it actually outdid Ecstasy. I might have compared my emotional upswings to MDMA or other drugs but they're never exactly the same. While the "hedonic activation" of MDMA is there, the "lovey-dovey-ness" is almost entirely absent. I'm thinking of writing a book about Mood Disorders ~ for sufferers and their families and for medical professionals looking for a more personal viewpoint. One thing I want to do is explain how to differentiate the symptoms and behaviour a person high on speed or coke might display in contrast to the far more expressive, expanisve and excitable highs of mania. One person we know was actually diagnosed with suspected LSD intoxication because one thing she said, among a great many others, implied that this was the case. This person, when she is ill, will speak aloud many of the ideas racing through her mind as if they are statements of fact. When I last saw her she also said she was having Jesus' baby and Sting's baby and that we couldn't go outside because of the snipers on the roof. The staff should really have known better.

Well I must go and extract £60 from Binky. She owes me money and if I don't get it now she'll only go and spend it on earrings. Or something.

Ukh! I've just remembered why I felt so dreadful this morning. It's only four days till Xmas, which I'm doing at Binky's mental health hostel; and I was wondering how on earth I'm going to cope...

*******************************************************************************



FIND YOUR WAY MIX BY TEKIU TEKIU  ~~ "EMOTIONAL TRANCE"
BEVERLYBABE AND BUGERLUGS THIS IS FOR YOU...



NIRVANA: LITHIUM  ~~  THIS IS FOR YOU, ANNA GRACE ...





********************************************************************************

The Help That I Need... And Do I Really Need It ... (And What Is It Anyhow?)...?

AT THE WEEKEND, after I'd got a bit over-exuberant and what she likes to call "really manic" but I would categorize as "a bit hypomanic" (no way was I "really manic" in doctorly terms; I was just a bit elevated in mood; a little hyper) my friend Binky told me I really need more help from the mental health services than I'm currently getting. It's true the first thing she did on my arrival was to insist on laundering my clothes, which I thought were clean but she definitely didn't. Then I had a shower in her heated bathroom, which meant that I spent longer than a couple of seconds in there. And on coming out and changing into grey jogging bottoms and a fuschia pink teeshirt that she insisted was red but it wasn't ~ it was most definitely pink ~ I have to admit, I felt a whole lot cleaner. That is, cleaner as in less dirty. Not altogether clean. I never am and never feel "clean". But maybe that's my inner drug-addict being honest, hey.

One of the Support Workers who works at the Supported Housing where Binks lives listened as I told the story of how I ever came to the attention of the mental health system at all. That was to do with a drought in the UK's heroin supply and a sudden attack of mixed mania and psychosis coinciding with the "first day of the rest of my life"... that is, my first day clean of the terrible weak and adulterated heroin that was going around in those days. And how I never really recovered over the following weeks. Because I was keeping a diary with a four-point mood-scale going upwards and down and was scoring +1.5 and -1.5 on the same day. +1.5 means a very noticably elevated mood and hyperkinesis similar to the effects of speed. -1.5 is a very sour, depressive mood. +2 on this scale means full-blown mania, +3 is psychotic mania, +4 is a quasi-delirious state with disorientation and confusion ~ as bad as mania gets. The very maximum on each end would be a plus or minus five.

In the first flush of psychotic mood disorder I went up to about +3.5 and down below -4. I remember the aerial falling off the top of my TV and it staying that way, with barely any picture, for two days because the television was merely an object upon which to fix as I stared into space. After about six weeks of rolling moods I suddenly went sky high and this is where I hit a +4.99, about as high as you can go.

But these days I'm still scoring plus and minus 1.5s. I was +1.5 on Saturday afternoon. My self and my house are getting ever further into disarray. [I never stay high; it's the change of direction that throws me every time. I never know where I am, where I'm going.] Binky somehow knows that my living space is in dire need of clearing and cleaning, even though she's never set eye on it. She needs a knee replacement and so rarely walks further than the nearest busstop, and when we meet at home it's always her place.

In a moment of empassioned despair I went and telephoned Naomi, the lady who used to run the Dual Diagnosis "Nutter Club" (as I called it). I'm not her patient and she knows I'm only phoning for advice. I would never expect practical help from her: she's far too snowed under by all her other cases... She returned my call this morning saying the best thing I can do, to get more help, is say to my GP that I need a psychiatric referral ~ or more to the point, to enquire as to where the current one has got to. When I turned up feeling depressed about two months ago, she said she was referring me to a psychiatrist. The other option is to ask for help via the methadone clinic; but Naomi underlined for me how prejudiced psychiatrists can be against drug users (that must mean they're prejudiced against most of their patients as most people with ongoing mental health issues these days are drug-takers, if not full-blown drug-addicts like me...)

She reminded me of stuff I suppose I already knew in my heart: that if you want help for depression, for example, you shouldn't downplay the "suicidal ideation" nearly all depressives get. I just don't like talking about stuff like that; unless I really feel bad in the moment I mention it, I nearly always feel separated from my own feelings and myself when I do so, so there's a good chance I'd have to hold myself back from laughing. I can't take myself seriously the way I'm "supposed to". I just can't. Well I'll try... but I wonder what I think this doctor can do..? I don't want any more meds or drugs. The one thing I think might help is counselling... I mean, I hate to admit this, as counselling has always been the knee-jerk response of health professionals of all persuasions... but who knows; maybe it would help...? It's true I still feel traumatized by the mere fact that I went totally fruitloops barking bonkers in early 2011. I certainly do not feel I've had any closure on this issue.

Binky says that what I need is the same manner of Supported Housing she lives in. And that I need a social worker and a thing called a CPA which means a Care Plan Approach ~ a written contract-type billing of what treatment I can expect and call upon when and from whom, especially in emergency. Because as far as I'm aware I have nothing like this. No community nurse I can get in touch with. All I know about handling emergency situations is that I'm meant to present myself to the nearest mental hospital's emergency department. Where they seem deliberately to keep everyone waiting for hours, as if the long waiting time is going to put anybody off when actually all it does is severely annoy some already annoyed people and help further to unravel others who have already passed their wits' ends.

So really, No. No true help is available anywhere. Maybe I would do better in a Dual Diagnosis Service (geared towards mentally deranged drug addicts) rather than the one I go to, which seems to be geared to the needs of people whose main issue is the drugs. Giving up the drugs never seemed to help my mental states in the past, which is why I'm somewhat doubtful that just giving up heroin is really going to do much good to my mind. It'll probably do my body far more favours. The two street drugs most associated with mental ill health and addiction are cocaine and speed in all their forms, neither of which I've touched in I don't remember how long. In many cases, cannabis is probably worse for a person's mental health than anything else, including crack. Which is a big reason why I loathe the stuff with such passion.

All that spliff-toking has ever done to me over the past few times, scattered as they were over many years, was to bring on paranoid psychotic symptoms without any redeeming features (such as elevated mood). The last time I smoked cannabis was a complete accident that happened because I'd been collecting cigarette butts from a nearby bus-stop and found what I'd taken for a nice fat rollie and not really noticed the herbal flavour until my mind was already enrobed by amnesiac paranoia. Then there's alcohol and "alcohol is a depressant so that's what's probably making you depressed" as many people told me... So how come I've felt equally bad, and sometimes more so without the drink..?  I don't think heroin helps me... Naomi did say this morning that she thought I'd probably been self-medicating bipolar disorder for years with heroin; and yes it did used to seem to stabilize my moods. Which it doesn't do any more. So apart from its inefficacy, I want rid of that stuff because as a member of my family once pointed out, it has killed my creativity. And it certainly has. In the early days of addiction, heroin might make a person feel more creative. But I don't think they usually are any more creative, in terms of the number of things created and their quality...

Naomi asked what my exact label was and when I told her "schizoaffective" she said she feels I'm far more towards the bipolar side of that diagnosis than the schizo one. Which puts her in accord with everyone else I know. Neither I nor any of my friends think of me as "schizophrenic". In fact the only person ever to use that expression has been my GP, who doesn't seem to perceive any meaningful difference between schizophrenic and schizoaffective. Well from what I've seen in others there's a wide gulf separating the two. Schizophrenia is an ongoing psychosis characterized by disorders of thought. Schizoaffective bipolar disorder, which I'm supposed to have, is an extreme disorder of moods with some schizophrenic features. There's a second type of schizoaffective disorder, which Binky's supposed to suffer from, which involves severe depression on top of schizophrenia. The doctors seem to have successfully medicated most of her depression away but schizophrenic features persist. If you get her talking on the right subjects, she can sound completely delusional...

Binky also says some weird things that are basically her shit. Eg that if I read too much about my own alleged condition the doctors will alledge that what I'm telling them is the result of my researches, not my experience. Well this cannot be true as I wasn't well enough to pick up any knowledge about what schizoaffective disorder actually was until I'd recovered enough from last year's episode to be clear-headed enough to actually take any information in. And between that time and this I haven't seen any psychiatrists at all. Also some of my most extreme experiences are barely touched upon by any modern texts ~ I only saw them described in Victorian textbooks I was able to access online. Plus the way I'd describe my experience and the way it tends to be expressed by others are very different. Example: I have experienced my thoughts exploding into starbursts. I've never heard anyone describe it that way. Other people talk of "racing thoughts", but that symptom never happens to me until the mania is so severe I'd be having difficulty communicating. Binky talks of racing thoughts she says she experiences in the night but I cannot relate to whatever it is she means. A person who comes home in the early hours of the morning only to find they've lost their keys might characterize their thoughts as "racing" ~ but that's nothing at all like the racing thoughts of mania, which are literally in such extreme fast-forward you can barely catch hold of a single one without it exploding into scores of others skedaddling in all directions with the utmost rapidity. So it's almost impossible to say what you're thinking about at all ~ the subject has changed so many times, the original point totally lost. You can't even remember where you've been, let alone how you got there...

Ho-hummm you see I have got on this subject YET AGAIN. And WHY? Because there is no closure. All I want is some validation and maybe some explanation... of what on earth it is that has been happening to me.

As for this "help" that I supposedly need... what help? When? How? And WHY??    


Illustrated: (1) digging one's own grave (which is what you do when you tell anything to a psychiatrist...) (2) fuschia pink (3) hyperactivity (4) Vanilla Ice with Madonna

HERE'S SOME MADONNA
Watch the very beginning... why do you think she wants to start her concerts with readings from Revelation..?



 ♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫

The Evil Boiler Man and Back To University

WE got a letter last week warning that some person was going to intrude on our homes to do something or other with the boiler. I put a gigantic sign on mine saying Dear Boiler Man, please do not alter settings: hot water ON; central heating OFF. And what did the bastard do? About an hour after he'd left I noticed an unseemly rumbling from the corner, checked and found the radiators on. And when I looked more closely, I saw the hot water setting had been changed from minimum to maximum. I don't know how stupid he thought I was, but I'd obviously troubled, before he came, to draw a diagram of the all dials and settings. So I knew exactly how to undo his sabotage. Complaining to the landlord would do no good at all. If I only knew what company he worked for, I would have complained to his boss. Fucking bastard. If you don't want to deal with junkie nutters you shouldn't do jobs in rented accommodation! I don't even look like a junkie any more. Everyone says how well I seem ~ having put on weight and colour in my cheeks. They say I look especially well when my mood is "elevated". Which is one reason I don't consider hypomania [mild mania] an "illness". Even though it can prevent me sleeping for days on end...

Speaking of which, my depression appears to be evaporating. I still get bad moods lasting hours on end. But then again I get good ones, too. And that's about as "well" as I ever get. The only time me and my mood feel truly "normal" (no dragging tiredness; no lingering melancholy and I'm not angry all the time at nothing) is when I've just come down from a hypomanic "blip". In the aftermath of a psychotic episode I don't feel well at all. About ten years ago I got hit on the head by a truck and that made me concussed enough to spend the next week forgetting where I was, what I was doing etc etc. Well psychosis made me more confused even than concussion. And I'm talking here of the after-effects when the episode had worn off. I remember routinely typing short words precisely BACKWARDS. And the letters on the keyboard changing into snakes. I wrote a frank letter to my Mum that seems to have been a bit too frank. It's caused a permanent rift with my step-Dad... All this stuff when, as far as I was concerned, I was completely "sane".

I haven't managed to give up heroin, but I have seemingly learnt quite a lot of German. For some reason, a simple news report can leave me baffled, with barely a clue what happened. And yet documentaries on dinosaurs and outer space I can follow with ease. Partly because dinosaur names are the same. And astronomy vocabulary is mostly very simple: schwarzes Loch (black hole) roter Zwerg (red dwarf) die Erdumlaufbahn (orbit). The last of these is four simple words together: Erd means earth, um is around or about, laufen to run and Bahn just means a path or way, as in Autobahn. So it's simpler than you'd think. I have hardback notebook that, when I'm in the mood, I use to write down every word I hear yet cannot recall the meaning of. A lot of these words are very familiar. I've heard them scores of times but keep forgetting what they mean. So I write them all down, whenever I'm in the mood to do so, complete with translations. I've been in the mood quite a lot lately.

Contrary to the oft-stated "fact" that the English language has more words than any other, German actually  seems to have more. Off the top of my head, I can think of only two ways of describing a man's wife in English ~ wife and partner (can you think of any others?) Whereas German has Frau, Ehefrau, Weib, Weibchen, Partnerin and Gattin.

One of my satellite boxes has developed a fault, so instead of being able to switch between the two using just a remote control, I actually have to cross the room and switch scart leads. Meaning except when Dallas comes on at 9pm Wednesday I cannot be bothered and have been stuck with television in foreign languages. I shouldn't complain: I wanted foreign TV to expand my mind... and finally I seem to be reaping some reward. My comprehension of German seems to be improving already. (I was going to say my "command" of the language was verbessert, but this isn't true. I'm not even trying to "speak" German better, just to understand it. Partly this is because, if I ever do end up studying German literature again, there is no way in hell I'm reading the books in translation, the way most students actually do. Partly because the standard of language-teaching in this country is abysmal. At school we went from GCSE, where you are required to do nothing more complicated than write postcards and simple letters detailing your home, family and interests, to an A Level course where we were supposed to read Kafka in the original!

On Thursday my support worker made a sudden visit. He is supposed to be helping me through the Verwirrung of my council tax situation and other loads of crap. He has a BA in PPE (politics philosophy and economics) from a very prestigious British university and spent most of the time talking about the political situation in West Africa. He seems to think I have a lot of potential in me and offered to look into ways I could get into university (again!) and fund it. But British universities are unreasonably expensive these days. You have to pay thousands of pounds a year in tuition fees and it's all too much. Plus the fact that I've been a student before and dropped out midway through (yes ~ depression AGAIN) probably scuppers me even more. I looked into studying in Germany and it's a lot cheaper.

If I won the lottery, there's no question: I would want to do Japanese. If I it were practical to devote the best part of a decade to picking up and perfecting language skills and I wanted to do a course with more practical value then I'd pick Chinese, hopefully with Japanese as at least a subsidiary. (In Europe you don't do a liberal arts course with a "major" ~ you apply to do one or two subjects to honours level right from the start. Which saves a lot of time if you know you want to do something like languages, psychology or law.) I looked into how far oriental language courses take you from scratch and they seemed to be implying that after four years' study I wouldn't have much better command of Japanese, at least in terms of vocabulary, than I do now in German!

If I were able, I would want to study to be a translator. It's the one profession, except "creative writing" that I feel I'd be any good at that I could do from home. But to be a translator, you need a higher degree in the languages you want to work in. (And it usually is languages plural.) So it would be far more practical to choose German as the main language than some exotic tongue I barely know at all.

A few Americans have commented in the past seemingly unaware as to why my fascination with German. German has more mother-tongue speakers in the EU than any other ~ 92 million, as opposed to 72 million for French. English has only about 65 million native speakers in Europe. Of all EU countries, Germany probably the strongest economy. And German seems to be a less popular subject of study nowadays than French or Spanish, putting you at an advantage in the jobs market.

I seem to be the only person I know who is not happy stuck on benefits. If I'm going to be forced to live (and, to be honest, I would still rather die) then I want to DO SOMETHING.

OK; this is all I can say on the subject now. I have to go. Hope y'all have a charming weekend. I've got to run before my Iceland cottage pies melt and the Black Forest Trifles goo all over Sainsburys' own brand aspartame-free lemonade... XX


MR SAM FT KIRSTY HAWSHAWE: SPLIT
She looks and sounds a lot better in this vid (than she did in Opus III) ...




VIVALDI TECHNOED UP
I've no idea of the name of this tune, but it sounds OK...



Ƹ̴Ӂ̴ƷƸ̴Ӂ̴ƷƸ̴Ӂ̴ƷƸ̴Ӂ̴ƷƸ̴Ӂ̴ƷƸ̴Ӂ̴ƷƸ̴Ӂ̴ƷƸ̴Ӂ̴ƷƸ̴Ӂ̴ƷƸ̴Ӂ̴ƷƸ̴Ӂ̴ƷƸ̴Ӂ̴ƷƸ̴Ӂ̴ƷƸ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ

(Bipolar) Mood Swings and Misinformation

TO SKIP to the main part, ignore the first three paragraphs...

I KEEP having recurring dreams about me on the first day of university and instead of signing up for lectures, checking out the library, shopping for books, I am down town, armed with the name of a contact I don't really know, and I'm on a quest to score gear. The entire dream consists of the never-ending rigmarole you go through in a strange town to get drugs off someone you don't know. Sometimes, when the dream gets completely ridiculous, I end up in a succession of increasingly lilliputian shops until I'm eventually curling into a ball to fit into a wendy-house-sized haberdashers. The dream ends and I've wasted day one of a supposed new life without ever getting my hands on any gear.

I woke up feeling panicky with thoughts of death. I'm not clinically "depressed" (well I don't think so). I've just been in a strange mood for days.

After a week with exceedingly poor sleep and barely any appetite at all ~ when it took all afternoon to polish off a plate of pasta ~ and me getting repeated bursts of manic or hypomanic excitement, my sleep and appetite have come back with avengeance.

Bugerlugs has come back from a mystical break in North Wales to constant depression. Like me she gets a lot of mood "issues". She sounds like she's bipolar, or at least cyclothymic. (Cyclothymia entails constant shifts between hypomania (that is: mild mania ~ no psychosis) and depression that doesn't meet the full criteria for a "depressive episode". I'm not a doctor, but if a person feels truly dreadful for days on end, especially if their sleep and/or appetite is affected, it probably is clinical depression, in which case she might be bipolar, type 2.

The difference between bipolar depression and the "normal" type is that a bipolar person cannot just pop antidepressants, which can cause the mood to switch poles or to cycle rapidly. Antidepressants are only ever used for bipolar disorder in conjunction with a mood stabilizer.

The self-help books and sites dedicated to bipolar problems will often mention that the condition typically goes undiagnosed for an average decade or more ~ and then proceed to spout the very generalizations and misleading statements that have long helped such a situation thrive!

For example, many sufferers dislike the term "bipolar" ~ encouraging, as it does, the idea that the illness is somehow a fluctuation between extreme happiness and sadness.

Mania actually means "excitement". Although they do typically feel "high", manic people are usually agitated and irritable as well, especially as the mania gets more severe. Euphoria and depression often intermingle or alternate speedily so that a severely manic person might laugh, cry and rage within the space of a few minutes ~ like a bad drunk.

There is such a huge range of feelings and behaviours associated with (hypo)mania ~ from increased energy, enthusiasm and creativity at the mild end of the spectrum to frenzied overactivity with incoherent thought and speech and delusions and hallucinations at the other that it is hard to generalize at all.

In the textbook form of the illness, mania and depression may follow one another, lasting months each, but there are usually years of normal (or nearly normal) moods between episodes. An average sufferer has "only" eight episodes in a lifetime.

But bipolar conditions can take rapid cycling forms with periods of high, low or mixed moods lasting only days or hours or minutes. Rapid cycling is more common in women, and more common still in people with substance abuse issues. Many if not most of the bipolar bloggers out there are rapid cyclers. Presumably the more of the time you experience manic-depressive symptoms, the more intertwined the illness will be with your own identity. Hence the preponderance of rapid-cycling bipolar bloggers.

It's fashionable to label the condition a "brain disorder", as if as separate from one's Self as diabetes or heart disease. But in many respects a disorder of moods must be a disorder of Self. We are our moods, after all. Descartes could more accurately have phrased his dictum: "I feel therefore I am..."

Not everyone with manic-depressive illness seems to want to present themselves this way. Anna Grace, for instance, prefers to portray herself as an Addict ~ even at the cost of attracting Haters ~ and even though she sticks loyally to her methadone, not touching street drugs for months at a time. Her bipolar problems are compounded by ADHD and a Borderline Personality Disorder, which make her mood symptoms even more unstable.

Originally I had wanted to post something to dispel the misleading generalizations about mood disorder that seem to congregate online. I'm not sure I have managed this.

Really, I wanted to write about moodswings as they affected other people; I'm bored of talking about myself.

What more is there to say about the type of "mental illness" where just about everything you think, feel, say or do can be construed as a "symptom"?

(Probably so much more, if the truth be told, that if I continued writing without stopping, I could die of old age in forty years' time with half the subject still not covered!)

So I will close the Subject here...

★ ★★ ★★ ★★

It has been boiling hot here in London. The weather Picture-Perfect. I hope you're all having a GREAT WEEKEND...



Illustrated: Bugerlugs is a breeer of Roborovski Hamsters; Anna Grace in the Rubik's Cube of time...



☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

GIVE ME ALL YOUR LUVIN' ~ MADONNA FT. NICKI MINAJ & M.I.A




☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

We Are The World

I'VE BEEN FEELING over-emotional all day. I don't know why. I don't know if I had too much sleep. I went to bed around 11pm on Thursday night and had to get up by quarter to ten to get my phone back from where I'd left it in the internet shop. So that's a good ten hours' sleep. By midday I was back in bed again with exhaustion. I slept right through past eight p.m. I took my medication (quetiapine 300mg) and was back in bed by eleven; I slept right through past 5 a.m. ~ making a grand total of 24 hours out of 30. Being so early there was nothing to do except watch Michael Jackson videos. And I was back in bed by six and I woke up around ten. So that's a ridiculous amount of sleep I got. And I still feel I could sleep some more!

I bought Michael Jackson's Moonwalker from my local record shop and have been playing it over and over, as background music. This is what happens when you're deprived of TV. Of all the tunes in that film, it's the snatch of USA for Africa "We Are The World" that's stuck in my head, spinning round my brain.

Happy nostalgia Everyone, and have a Great Weekend!


USA FOR AFRICA: WE ARE THE WORLD (1985)



☺

Borderline, Bipolar and Schizophrenia Among Friends

THERE'S NOT a lot to say [he says at the beginning of quite a long post], except  my mood has plummeted drastically, so that today I've felt unwell most of the day.

I went to see my friend Pinky and she got me to lay down in her bed. I was doing everything to play the sick act, bar wearing pajamas and a Victorian nightcap. O, and no thermometer poking out of my mouth. I nearly purchased a funky digital one in cobalt blue on monday because I was having a manic time. But, fortuitously, ssomething came between me and my money. I still spent "120 on Monday on next to nothing at all. I even plunked down money on Madonna videos that no shop in London appeared to have in stock. Why HMV wouldn't stock Madonna ~ the biggest-selling music act still alive ~ I've not a clue. O yeah and the two biggest record shops in London, Tower Records Piccadilly and the Virgin Megastore Oxford Street have both closed down. ~ And I'm meant to be the crazy one here.

Pinky says my mental "illness" is mostly bipolar mania and says that when I'm hyper I do not realize how high I actually am. She also appears to think I have far more manic episodes than I think I do. So do other people. That's why Mother Hubbard insisted I was bipolar a good ten years before I actually attained the diagnosis ["schizoaffective bipolar ~ differential diagnosis: bipolar 1 disorder"]. Even the Psycho-Iatrist in the old drugs clinic asked whether I was hypomanic when I was plainly "normal". Just because I was chatting away in an over-familiar way. The fact is, I have manic aspects to my ordinary personality ~ a tendency to hyperactivity, leapfrogging ideas and ultrafluent thought.

What gets me most, though, is the assumption by so very many people tht my depressed self is somehow my real and actual self when ~ solipsistic narcissism aside ~ my True Self is only truly manifest in the brilliant vehemence of Mania.

By the way I'm really glad not to be Bipolar Type 2 because most of those (on average) spend 40 times more days depressed than hypomanic. And in many (but by no means all) of the cases ~ especially at the trendier end of the spectrum ~ their borderline hypomania would be no different at all from my Proper Normal Self On Parole from my consistently lingering dysthymia. (That's a posh way of pointing out that one's baseline default mood is actually subsyndromal depression...)!

I felt so ill this morning it took two hours to heave and haul myself out of bed and to push and prod myself a-down the road and down to Pinxx's... and all the rest of it. I really felt lousy. That's why I've not managed to compose myself enough to post anything subsequent to my Manic in the Night extravaganza. I was thinking about my "mental illness" and how it's a "psychotic condition" and a "severe mood disorder" and more to the point, a severe manifestation of a severe mood disorder anyhow, and how just thinking about this could completely do my head in because I'm living with a condition that never truly lets up and that it's considered dangerous, bizarre, unpredictable and obscene and degrading by our Society in General and how I do not want to Live Like This in fact I so frequently don't want to go on living that on my lower days I estimate my odds of Death By Suicide at 85%, with a 10% chance of Death By Firing Squad In Time of War; 5% likelihood of the distant eventuality of Old Age taking me...

Pinky and I got into an intense conflab about "what did I think truly was wrong with her" ~ a lady I sued to consider the most mentally messed-up person I had met, with a treble diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, Paranoid Schizophrenia (which means a psychotic state with fixed and complex delusions; many other psychotic states can feature paranoia ~ severe depression, bipolar disorder, delusional disorder, PTSD, or even Paranoid Personality Disorder... plus she has in the past suffered from severe psychotic depresion (ie she has schizoaffective disorder, but her symptoms are markedly different from mine. For one thing she is the Major Depressive subtype. Schizoaffectives are also often differentiated, for research purposes, into schizophrenic and affective (primarily mood-disordered) subtypes. Meaning she is the schizophrenic subtype of depressive schizoaffective disorder; I'm the affective subtype of bipolar schizoaffective disorder. Her symptoms are mostly schizophrenic whereas mine are mostly manic. Of course I spend far more of the time depressed than manic, but, like I say, my depression is far more likely to be taken as a manifestation of my true self; wheresa when I am manic, the energy just shines out of me, I cannot hide it and, moreover, never have any compunction to do so! Pinky's mood swings are nearly all "Borderline"-related. In fact most of her problems and most of her recent hospitalizations appear to me to be consequences of her personality disorder and not the (far more severe) psychotic illness she has lived with for about twenty years now.

One thing I have learned about Personality Disorders over my years as a junkie (personality-disorderd individuals being far more likely to develop severe drug problems than "ordinary" people)... is that their behaviour often seems inexplicable to outsiders. Even though personality disorders are usually considered "milder" than true mental illnesses (an excuse doctors frequently use not to treat personality-disordered individuals, no matter how desperate, how crisis-ridden they may be...)

In fact, I had managed to "self-medicate" away my chronic, crushing depression so successfully that the mental health professionals at my drug clinic, after more than four hours of interviews, became obsessed with the notion that I, too, might have an underlying Personality Disorder ~ and I was awarded the task of looking them all up and trying to pinpoint which I might be.

The psych nurse, who should really be working as a clinical psychologist ~ that's far more up her street than titration nursing, her normal rôle, seemed infatuated by the idea that I should be on Cluster C, the anxiety cluster, which would make me Avoidant, Dependent or Obsessive-Compulsive. I've only picked up Avoidant characteristics in recent years, have never been Dependent (in this context it means upon other people ~ anyone who knows me knows I'm INDEPENDENT! And I'm nowhere near OCD enough to have that personality disorder.

The only ones I matched were Borderline ~ because I'm highly emotional, but extremely UNimpulsive ~ ie going totally against type in that respect. And although I do get the urge to self-harm, I've not indulged in such behaviour for years. I also have some characteristics of Schizotypal, although I don't consider myself aloof or cold. I do coin many of my own words, am a believeer in "magic" (ie spirituality and psychic powers and so on. And like both Borderlines and Schizotypals have long been prone to depersoalization and derealization (feeling that the Self and World are Unreal) and psychic or psychotic-like experiences. Apart from drugs (which don't "count") physical illness and severe STress have been far more likely than anything else to bring these on.

O and by the way, if you have a "major mental illness" that better accounts for your symptoms than a Personality Disorder then that's your diagnosis. Because I could also, while I'm manic, be diagnosed ADHD by someone who didn't know better ~ because I fulfill all the diagnostic criteria. But when you realize manic people are by definition severely hyperactive and that distractability and inattention is a big part of the bipolar "high" then things should become sparklingly clear. Plus the medication for ADHD, which takes the form of "uppers" sometimes even literal "Speed" (Adderall, which Anna Grace is on, is literally amphetamine ~ ¾ dexamphetamine (the righthand molecule) and ¼ levoamphetamine (the lefthand molecule). Speed being the absolute last thing a person who already feels hyped up, high and grandiloquent, should go near. The reason why some bipolars do take stimulant drugs, by the way, far from "evening out hypomania" as Stephen Fry once claimed, is to intensify the bipolar high. manic states are nothing if not labile: the mood as likely to switch to agitated or irritable fury as states of ecstatic exaltation. Hence the perceived need for drugs in some people. The absolute last thing I'd want when I'm already on a natural high that can outstrip drugged states in every single way is something that's going to make me even higher and possibly flip me out. No, the only nonprescribed drug I've ever felt the need for when manic is Valium!

One last thing what about this poor 16 year-old Chinese swimmer, who pings so fast through the water she actually outdid the male 50 metres freestyle champion when setting her World Record.

And how disingenuous of the American coach John Leonard to describe her feats of excellence as "disturbing" and to allege the poor girl was somehow cheating.

Her name, by the Way, Ye Shi Wen 葉詩文 (叶诗文 in simplified characters), means Leaf Poetry Text!

Have a lovely Bipolar Day, Everbody... What's Left of It... ☺

Illustrated: Susanna Kaysen was misdiagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and confined to a mental hospital for a year and a half in the 1960s after self-harming and a suicide attempt; she was played in the film Girl Interrupted by Winona Ryder... Chinese wonderwoman Leaf Poetry Text in the pool and with her

WELL-EARNED GOLD MEDAL.

WELL DONE, LEAF POETRY!

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




***************************************************************

Methadone, Heroin and Mood Swings

I HAVE YET ANOTHER DRUG WORKER ~ my fourth in less than a year , if you include the titration nurse (who never titrated me at all, as I came there from another clinic, already on methadone). Anyway, I'm to come in next week when my methadone, which is currently 30mg a day, should be coming down to 25.

 The detox unit idea hasn't gone out the window, by the way, we just barely had any time to discuss it. My one problem with such units is that they tend to take you off too quickly ~ 5mg every 2 days, instead of 5mg every 2 weeks, as I was doing until up to a few weeks ago, when I messed it up by taking too much heroin. If anything is going to disturb my mood, a too-rapid detox will do. I have never managed to drastically reduce, or come off, or switch to Subutex (which involves going through some withdrawal) without depressive or manic symptoms or both.

 I emailed one of the top rehabs in the country, which I'd only get into if they made an exception and let me in free ~ which I was told unofficially WAS a possibility, if I could prove my motivation. I told them I was diagnosed "bipolar schizoaffective". They warned me by email that the methadone might be acting as a mood stabilizer. If this is true, it would explain why I've always had such trouble coming off. My worst withdrawal symptoms were always psychiatric, not physical.

 If methadone does have a mood-stabilizing effect, it's markedly weaker (on me*) than heroin, which in the early days pressed my constantly undulating mood to a near-flat line. years later it was still acting as a potent antidepressant. The days when I didn't take it, and relied on methadone instead , I was so low I barely did anything at all. Then the Great UK Heroin Drought hit in 2010. I decided I had had enough of the "gear" anyway. And 24 hours after my last hit of heroin (but on easily enough methadone to eliminate physical withdrawals) I was floridly manic!

 I am NOT suggesting anyone use heroin or any other opiate to treat mental problems of any sort. If you need a mood-stabilizer, take lithium, valproate, carbamazepine (Tegretol) or lamotrigine (Lamictal), or use an antipsychotic. Get your pills on prescription from a doctor. All heroin did in the long term was make my problems far wrose , to the point where I was completely held hostage by the drug. For years I fantasized about being able to get by on just methadone and live a normal life, but it wasn't to be. I went weeks on just methadone but had so many episodes of high and low mood in a year, I literally lost count. In bipolar terms that makes me a "rapid cycler".

 The meds the doctors gave me seemed to cut out the highs better than the lows. I have tried 2 antipsychotics in the year and a bit since getting diagnosed. I had to stop both thanks to undue side-effects . Risperidone (Risperdal) seemed to cause anxiety and panic (on and off, not all the time) and might well be responsible for the lump of breast tissue that grew on one side. (I have a scan regarding that tomorrow.) Seroquel (quetiapine) made me so faint, dizzy and exhausted (amongst other things) it was like having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome all over again. Risperidone seemed to do a better job of keeping mood swings and voices at bay . No medication has ever helped me feel more motivated. The tiniest things feel like massive chores. Somehow the illness, the drugs, or both, seem to have knocked the stuffing out of me.

 So I'm now on the look-out for a third medication. Olanzopine (Zyprexa) may be the one. It is very commonly prescribed over here. I've met loads of people on that and no-one ever complained of side-effects. Whatever I take must not be too sedating, must not cause anxiety or insomnia and would ideally not make me pile on the weight . Which is probably all too much to ask. To anyone with knowledge or experience on the subject ~ please, some advice!

*Everybody is different. Anna Grace in Wisconsin, who is diagnosed bipolar, says methadone actually makes her feel better than heroin and helps her depression more. "I find Methadone the perfect fix for my addiction,"  she says. I only wish I could feel the same, but I don't. My plan is to get off methadone as quick as I can, which may well take weeks or months, but I'm determined to do it!

Music of the Rainforest

THE WEATHER HERE IN LONDON is more like a tropical rainforest today. Hot, sticky, muggy ~ streets splashing wet...

The reason I have been so exhausted, by the way, is that I have been moving around far too much. I used to walk at 4 miles per hour, meaning that if I paced to and fro at that rate I'd ping 16 miles in 4 hours. So I must have walked miles and miles and miles and  most of it in my own house!

My mood has gone down. Dysphoria. Flashes of anxiety. Yet still the headful of pinging ideas!

I keep telling myself I need to go back to the doctor to ask for yet another type of antipsychotic. For all their horribleness and side-effects, and I stopped taking the Seroquel (quetiapine) because it was making me drowsy, exhausted and malaised all the time, they do even out mood swings, halt racing thoughts and calm me down.

Yesterday I felt physically exhausted though my mind was still racing, crammed and crowded with an excess of ideas. I was only a bit hypo. And I'm not entirely sure hypomania is an illness at all! Didn't the French used to call it "manie sans delire" ~ mania without madness...??


Sorry I really wanted to write about something more fascinating than my self self self but I'm running out of time!


I'm also running out of banging tunes to put up. At least ones that are new to me. So here's a classic one:


BINARY FINARY 1998
I haven't got all day to find an absolutely perfect version of this. In a succinct package, this is about as perfect as it gets...



This is the Trance Nation version. The one I originally put up. But it ends suddenly...

 

Why did the typeface suddenly change then??

Here's another mix of the same "song".... give it some time to get going... ukh, i'm not so sure I like this version... a horrible chillout mix. Listen to this if you've no pills and are desperate for something to knock you off to sleep! The proper tune doesn't get going till 3 minutes into it!!

 

Here's another tune I really like, though it's not dance music at all

JESSIE J: PRICE TAG (NOT ABOUT THE MONEY MONEY MONEY)

And all that talk about dysphoria and panic. I feel absolutely fine now. Music is a great therapy. I can get a greater buzz off than anything else ever. Including drugs!!

Why am I talking about drugs? They are infinitely boring.

I haven't taken any drugs except Nytol, which is over-the-counter, in days on end...