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!!

An OK Christmas

WOW, I'm spelling Christmas with a Ch-. I must be in a good mood.

Yeah it was quite good. Of course I opened the £20 bag at midnight. Cooked up a lovely brown shot. Then cooked up the rest, which was really dark brown. So I saved the really dark one for Xmas morning and took the weak one first.

I had been feeling like I'd drunk a petrol tanker full of black coffee. (Only I hadn't touched any caffeine at all that day.) I hoped the heroin would calm me down. And it DID.

On Xmas morning I had the great big gloopy shot dripping with brown heroin at about 11am. Apart from going over the spoon later that day for the absolute dregs, that was my last ever shot. It went partially into one of my collapsed veins and I felt OK.

I didn't get to Binky's house till past 1:30, even though she is only 10 minutes away, because I was too paranoid to leave my house. I thought someone was hiding somewhere in the hallway, down the cellar or up the stairs. I kept hearing creaking noises and was convinced some psychotic housebreaker was after my stuff. I'm not worried about my person. Just my stuff. So I hid everything and took the tellybox with me. When I opened my door I saw upstairs's water was dripping into the hall and THAT had caused those sinister creakings. The mountains of unopened mail in our hallway are completely soaked through. But I was right to be para. There were people going up the road at 8pm on Xmas Eve dressed in fluorescent jackets making out they were some kind of officials, knocking on doors just to see who was and wasn't in. They were so obviously housebreakers I glared at them as I swooshed past and one, the dodgiest of the two, said "Merry Christmas!" in a criminal type voice. You know really fake.

On the way to Xmas Dinner I had a sudden urge for Advocaat, so I got a £7.99 bottle of Cooymans (Warninks is too expensive). In fact I had orders for a whole array of drinks so I turned up with half a distillery worth of hard liquor. Then when I got there nobody really wanted much. I drink snowballs so weak that even after five I was nearly sober.

Hey but I wasn't manic or depressed either. So how wonderful is that. Neither did I get sudden rushes of ridiculous enthusiasm over nothing, that take two hours to come down. And eventually all join together to form a type of "episode". Perhaps the Advocaat acted as a mood stabilizer. Maybe the eggnog was by a goose who lays golden ones..? Or else it was one of my very rare totally euthymic days.

Binky's housemate Trudy spent hours slaving over the hot stove. She kept saying she had burned the potatoes because they were crispy on one side. But I kept saying they were perfectly done. Don't most people like crispy potatoes? I know I do.

At 3pm HM the Queen came on, so I started yelling and everyone said they were coming but they didn't so I watched it alone with a catatonic person. Then everyone came in and questioned me closely on what Her Maj had actually said. But I couldn't remember any of it. [It was actually about the Olympics. And people surviving Xmas on their own. And something else I cannot recall now. Oh and it was the first Queen's Speech shot in 3D. She looked very cool wearing the special glasses on the news.]

I had tried to avoid eating too much by way of cheese crackers and Quality Street partially because I thoroughly enjoy being on a puritanical diet. But I still couldn't eat the entire turkey dinner. It was really nice though. Trudy excelled herself. She said she's never cooked a Christmas Dinner before, but you wouldn't know it.

So I ate half, then went out to the kitchen for a fag. A terrible film came on ITV called Tangled. It's about Thumbelina or Snow White. Or Sleeping Beauty. The one with the long hair. Rapunzel! And how awful. Like a cartoon that they've had half a stab at 3D-ifying. And everybody too apathetic to switch channels. Oh and then people started dropping off to sleep. So I went home with half a bottle of Advocaat still left. Yes, me, who is supposedly alcoholic of the century, according to some former substance abuse workers. I never finished it until 5am, when I was up watching the foreign shopping channels and wondering what Camilla Parker Bowles was doing for Xmas.

Like I said I went over the dregs on that spoon but there was barely anything. So technically that was my last shot. I didn't even bother trying to find a vein. My veins are now completely hammered.

I have been sleeping all at the wrong times. Drinking methadone like there's no tomorrow. Amazingly, I don't feel that bad. The first day on that stuff is always the worst, no matter how much I take. So feeling OK on day one is a good sign. Ukh: I hope I can keep it up to spend the rest of my life drug-free.

A member of my family recently said to me: yes you give up heroin but what do you replace it with? At that moment I didn't want to say this, but a nice flash of mania is nicer than any drug. It's supposed to be your brain's reward system going totally nuts, so no wonder. There's a lot to be said for pacing back and forth laughing insanely. Real paroxismal belly laughter, at my own witty ideas. (The more manic I get the less of a crap I give about anyone else's thoughts,feelings or opinions. I know that doesn't sound good but, hell, it's so much better than being depressed. Or being on drugs. Depressed people feel nothing. People on drugs would like to feel, but don't think they can afford to get hurt, hence the drugtaking. And maniacs are just cuckoo.) I kind of wish for the new year that I could be "normal". If normal means totally mentally and physically well, deliriously happy and stratopsherically rich, then I'm willing to go for it.

Anyway I hope Xmas was entertaining for you all. How was YOUR day..?





HM THE QUEEN: CHRISTMAS MESSAGE 2012




HARD TRANCE

I put this up before... but I like it...




How can I have nearly missed this?
QUEEN BEATRIX OF THE NETHERLANDS CHRISTMAS MESSAGE 2012
VINCENT, WHAT IS SHE TALKING ABOUT..?



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Cleaner Than My Toilet

YEAH... today I came to this horrible realization: that I have to drop the Big H, the Killer B, heroin, skag, smack, brown number 3, whatever you want to call it. I wasted money I couldn't really afford on a dose just because I had a bellyache, which was almost certainly caused by quaffing down Lithuanian cherry cyder for breakfast... As ye sow, so shall ye reap, you see...

Ever since I hit up many weeks ago, and then found myself feeling hyped up hours later so that I couldn't sleep all night, heroin appears to be having a "paradoxical effect" it never used to have in that every now and then, several hours after taking a dose (if you look it up, heroin is supposed to work for about four hours, this takes place after that time has elapsed) it's helping make me or keep me hypomanic. This doesn't happen every time I take it: if I'm depressed before I use, I usually simply feel less depressed. But if hypomania is crouched around the corner, it seems to be bringing it out of hiding.

I just don't know what's going on any more. I'm on enough of a (mental) health kick to have completely given up caffeine (yet again).

The first time I gave up caffeine I had been suffering from depression, which had mostly faded leaving an ongoing sense of free-floating anxiety (ie anxiety related to nothing in particular). I also happened to be drinking at least five cups of strong tea per day. When I switched to decaffeinated tea, the anxiety quickly vanished.

A few months ago I drank four cups of tea in the space of a couple of hours, after which my mood felt noticably "elevated" (like I'd taken a little bit of speed). As the afternoon pinged past, the caffeine buzz became intertwined with depression, so that I just felt "weird". And then I became really paranoid and terrified that if this feeling didn't go, I'd end up in a mental unit. I really did feel very strange indeed ~ and caffeine seemed to have set off the whole episode. So I now don't drink any caffeine at all. Which makes respectable tea-drinking impossible (because I don't really like decaff tea). The only non-caffeinated, non-alcoholic beverage I can stomach in large amounts is Sainsbury's own lemonade. It's like the lemonade I drank in my childhood. No aspartame or acesulfame-K (unlike Morrisons'). No real lemon juice (which R Whites now add to theirs). Just old-fashioned 1970s style lemonade. Which my dentist would probably reprimand me over... but nobody's perfect. The only other drink I like is chicken and vegetable Cup-A-Soup with croutons (it has to have croutons).

Once I've kicked heroin, I've kicked drugs. There is nothing left, chemical-wise, to inspire me.

I have never promised myself never ever to take another Valium, or sleeping pill, because I don't and never did abuse these. Taking one 10mg diazepam because you're on the verge of a panic attack is no more drug abuse than is taking aspirin for a headache. Whether or not my doctor prescribed it is neither here nor there as far as I'm concerned. The Seroquel I'm on feels like Valium and sleeping pills anyhow. Usually, I get really good sleep on the stuff, which is one reason I don't want to switch to Olanzapine (Zyprexa) like my GP suggested last time I got a refill.

Well this post was written completely off the top of my head, so I hope it's reasonably OK. I have an appointment at the methadone clinic tomorrow and I think I'm going to have to say the unsayable: that me and heroin are finally going to part. It had to happen sooner or later, else there's no point reducing my methadone. The time is coming when using on top is going to completely saboutage my detox. I've given up heroin before. When Britain was in complete heroin drought in late 2010/early 2011 I didn't touch the stuff for weeks on end. Even though I was stupid enough to go back to it, at least I proved to myself that abstainance is possible.

And anyway ~ here's Madonna!

OPEN YOUR HEART
The video seems totally irrelevant to the theme of this song, but hey...



LA ISLA BONITA
One of her best ever tracks...



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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...

My Friend's Crack Psychosis

TODAY was a hot day. Not as hot as yesterday; but still, I was sweating like a swine. I spent most of the afternoon drinking with my friend Greg Arious, who bribed me with heroin to wander all the way down the main shops ~ where I'd already been and did not want to return ~ to get him a mobile phone charger.  Without one e was stuck alone in his flat, cut off from the outside world and too ill to move.

As I walked in, he showed me an almighty slash down the curtains where his girlfriend, Lou, had rent them in two with a knife. She had then severely threatened the nextdoor neighbour before storming off into the night.

While I was there her Mum phoned twice. Greg told the whole sorry tale. Her mother is going frantic, not knowing where she is. She wants her daughter sectioned (put in compulsory psychiatric care). Greg was crying. Lou is having a psychotic breakdown. She's already had at least one, and so has Greg (on speed) and so have I (on crack and on nothing). By the sounds of it, Lou is extremely paranoid. She needs to see a doctor as soon as possible, but how that's going to be sorted I've not a clue. Obviously she needs  to see one quickly because this knife-wielding will get her into serious trouble.

Of course she is piping crack on a regular basis and this will be doing her mental state no good at all. Last week she lost her and Greg's only all-night dealer by losing her temper and flinging racist abuse in his face. The dealer rang Greg to say she should count herself lucky not to have taken a serious beating for what she said in front of the dealer's friends.

I passed on my own all-night dealer's number only to get a frantic midnight text from a drunk and distraught Greg freaking out because the delivery boy was taking excessive time with the gear and crack.

I know you are probably thinking I ought to select my friends with more care. But I have known Greg and Lou for over twelve years and for all their faults, I love them. When I was in my old middle-class house-share in a leafy, bourgeois and surprisingly smack-ridden suburb, they lived practically next door, which I only found out when I was on my way out of there.

I am extremely worried about Lou and hope to God that she gets some help before she lands herself in truly serious trouble. If anyone can persuade her into hospital then I can. I'm not one to over-rate my abilities. But a knack for reasoning with those who have crossed the brink of insanity is one talent I do possess. When I last had a major psychotic episode even though my viewpoint would certainly have differed from my doctor's, I knew I was severely mentally ill. I ended up in a psychiatric hospital's emergency reception because Naomi, who ran the Dual Diagnosis "Nutter Club" took me straight there. I had turned up an hour late hallucinating and hysterical with such extreme elevation of mood I was in fits of uncontrollable laughter, couldn't follow half of what was being said and was convinced everyone I met that day was off the television. I agreed to go to the hospital because I'd been having recurrent bipolar symptoms for years that cycled so quickly, no doctor had ever seen anything bar the depression. Finally my shrink had seen me in a manic state about six weeks previously but that was nowhere near as severe as this time. My urine screens were clear, because during this period I was taking no street drugs at all.

To be losing your mind and know it is such a profoundly saddening experience, that when my own psychiatrist eventually passed his verdict of manic depression and schizophrenia I went home and cried. I had met people with schizoaffective disorder; they seemed the most badly messed up bunch of all psychiatric patients.

If I could only get Lou to the emergency reception she would at least be in a safe place. If they found out about the knife-wielding fury they would probably want to keep her in. (But they might not.) The very least a stay in hospital would get her is physical rest in a relatively safe place, and some badly needed sleep. Greg says she hasn't slept properly in days. Plus she would get a prescription for medication that would be on hand when she felt she needed it, even if she doesn't want antipsychotics in the long term.

My reason for going back  to the Seroquel (quetiapine) by the way, is to establish that I can tolerate the stuff. My big psychotic mania last year became so severe there were times when I completely lost touch with reality. On my own, screaming at the top of my voice. I need antipsychotics, so if I do become manic again, I can stop it ever getting that bad. If I hadn't sought medical attention, I'd have ended up hospitalized against my will, which would have been extremely upsetting. merely thinking about the state I got into is upsetting enough. I am haunted by the memory.

That's why I think Lou would be better off going to the hospital before she gets put there. If hers is a purely crack-induced episode, a break from the pipe will help her get better. What am I saying? The two most popular drugs on mental wards are cannabis and crack ~ the two things most likely to put you in hospital to start with!

I'm not including crystal meth, the substance that seems to cause more havoc in the United States than all others combined, because, as yet, there's no meth "scene" in this country.

The more I think about drugs, the more upset I am by the unhappiness they cause. Ironically it was Lou who pointed out some weeks ago that drugs bring nothing good. I knew that fact, but had long been reluctant to admit it to myself. That's because when I did, on my darkest days, get glimpses of the appalling damage I'd caused myself over the years, i only clove to my beloved heroin all the more.

Any and all pain simply turned me back and back  to the heroin. Heroin, the strongest painkiller in the world.

Years ago I simply stopped thinking about the mess I was in, accepted that I was hopelessly addicted and went on burying my head in the sand by using every day that I could.

I don't know how exactly my own mental problems fit with past drug use, but I suspect the damage was caused in the 90s, by Es and trips. Of course crack never helped matters and heroin is a psychic bullet-proof vest. When you come off it you're left psychically weak and very vulnerable. Psychic forces that a healthy individual could easily deflect are now overpowering. Flooded with psychic influences and impressions, my insecure mind could no longer cope ~ hence my schizomanic breakdowns.

Once you've had two or more episodes, bipolar schizoaffective disorder is usually considered a lifelong condition. Symptom-free periods are called "remissions", during which the Monster lives on, slumbering, ready to spring up and attack without notice. I have been warned that methadone could be stabilizing my mood, meaning that when I finally get off the stuff , my mental state might actually deteriorate. But I'm willing to take that risk.

Naomi and the psychiatrist, both of whom are dual diagnosis specialists, seemed to believe that whatever causative role drugs may or may not have played, my mental problems are independent of my drug problems. That's the expert opinion. I just want to see how well I am in the future. I always promised myself two years completely opiate-free before I even consider giving up.

As for Lou, whether she has a purely crack-induced psychosis or deeper psychological troubles, I have no idea. I just sincerely hope that she gets well soon ...


Links: substance-induced psychotic disorders


Differential diagnosis of substance-induced psychosis and schizophrenia in patients with substance -use disorders