Gledwood Vol 2 (Main blog): Welshcakes Council Psychiatric Rain

DIARY OF A SLOWLY RECOVERING HEROIN ADDICT

I used to take heroin at every opportunity, for over 10 years, now I just take methadone which supposedly "stabilizes" me though I feel more destabilized than ever before despite having been relatively well behaved since late November/early December 2010... and VERY ANGRY about this when I let it get to me so I try not to.

I was told by a mental health nurse that my heroin addiction was "self medication" for a mood disorder that has recently become severe enough to cause psychotic episodes. As well as methadone I take antipsychotics daily. Despite my problems I consider myself a very sane person. My priority is to attain stability. I go to Narcotics Anonymous because I "want what they have" ~ Serenity.

My old blog used to say "candid confessions of a heroin and crack cocaine addict" how come that one comes up when I google "heroin blog" and not this one. THIS IS MY BLOG. I don't flatter myself that every reader knows everything about me and follows closely every single word every day which is why I repeat myself. Most of that is for your benefit not mine.

This is my own private diary, my journal. It is aimed at impressing no-one. It is kept for my own benefit to show where I have been and hopefully to put off somebody somewhere from ever getting into the awful mess I did and still cannot crawl out of. Despite no drugs. I still drink, I'm currently working on reducing my alcohol intake to zero.

If you have something to say you are welcome to comment. Frankness I can handle. Timewasters should try their own suggestions on themselves before wasting time thinking of ME.

PS After years of waxing and waning "mental" symptoms that made me think I had depression and possibly mild bipolar I now have found out I'm schizoaffective. My mood has been constantly "cycling" since December 2010. Mostly towards mania (an excited non-druggy "high"). For me, schizoaffective means bipolar with (sometimes severe) mania and flashes of depression (occasionally severe) with bits of schizophrenia chucked on top. You could see it as bipolar manic-depression with sparkly knobs on ... I'm on antipsychotic pills but currently no mood stabilizer. I quite enjoy being a bit manic it gives the feelings of confidence and excitement people say they use cocaine for. But this is natural and it's free, so I don't see my "illness" as a downer. It does, however, make life exceedingly hard to engage with...

PPS The "elevated mood" is long gone. Now I'm depressed. Forget any ideas of "happiness" I have given up heroin and want OFF methadone as quick as humanly possible. I'm fed up of being a drug addict. Sick to death of it. I wanna be CLEAN!!!

Monday, July 23, 2007

Welshcakes Council Psychiatric Rain

WOW! WHAT WAS I TRYING TO SAY YESTERDAY in paragraph six? Sometimes when I read back what I've put (only usually after it's been embarrassingly posted up for all to see for a good 24 hours!) I can't help but laugh. (The other thing I could do is cringe.) ... O wow! All those sentences going nowhere! Not that they were meant to fizzle out. I still remember their intended destination. Somehow, in all my dissonant cognition, they never arrived ... Ooer. The diarrhoea's gone though.

I asked Mother Hubbs should I tell the man everything on Wednesday (the shrink, during the psychiatric appraisal) - even if I'm scared it's totally damning and I'll end up on the FBI most wanted list forever afterwards (oops. That's paranoia talking ...) She said yes. And added for good measure: "I think you're bipolar." Oh thanks a lot!

Mother Hubbs was on lithium for bipolar disorder for ten, twenty years. So her home diagnosis is not encouraging. She only stopped lithium when opiates came her way. Opiates have a similar mood-stabilizing effect. This is something that has been observed but not proved by experiments and case studies (what are they going to do? Take a load of nutters and let them shoot up three times a day for three months and see whose symptoms improve? - I mean, it's not the easiest thing to prove; not in a randomized "scientifically" done trial ...

But I thought I might throw that controversial little "fact" into the mix. Even though I have been depressed I've been far, far flatter in mood than I was before the heroin period of life ... ho-hum!

Anyway I digress because Sainsbury's is nearby and I'm off to purchase ingredients (at last) for my famous Welshcakes. I've had a craving for these for ages ... First thing, in case you don't know them: they are not "cakes" in the accepted sense. More like jaffa cakes they're actually very crumbly biscuits ... or something like American cookies but ... well quite crumbly raising dotted sugary cookie-shaped biscuits. That's what I'd call them. I'm off to get the sugar and currants and butter I need.

Went to the council today to get a rent payment card. Because the last one got stolen when I left a bag-o'-shite in an internet caff. And have no payment counterfoils or whatever they're called things left. It said on the original letter the first card came with: if it is lost or stolen go to a certain building that I know quite well. So I get there. First you have to queue to tell a receptionist your problem. Then the receptionist gives you a number. Then you wait at least half an hour and your number is called. Then you repeat everything you told the receptionist, only to be informed you are, contrary to the council's mass mailshots, in the wrong building and should in fact be over three miles away. Ho-hum. I spoke to the correct person on the phone (from collections department. Ooer.) They're sending the right things along asap. They know that if they don't they haven't a hope of getting arrears payments out of me!

What else?

It is raining. Twilight. All lights on. Dismal cars hissing past. To and fro. To and fro. (Where are they going?) Bright lights of the Turkish takeaways ... Makes me wanna get Chinese but no! Proper food that has to be cooked is all I am purchasing. I have a kind of Sainsbury's craving ... OK gotta go before the cheese counter shuts. See yer laters

9 comments:

Audrey said...: Lol Gledwood do you think councils include this in their training programmes, this happens so often Im surprised the workers make it to the right offices in the mornings

I had a close friend when I lived in England who was given a diagnosis of bipolar, she was highly talented and creative, very caring woman, bright and vibrant, it was sad to see all that disappear under the blanket of Lithium. A colleuge of mine has a son who is going through medical school at the moment again he has a diagnosis of bipolar.

Didnt Winston Churchill??? and although I have yet to watch it I believe Stephen Fry's account of living with bipolar was very illuminating and moving.

Although I work in the field of mental health I hate how the labels can detract from the fact that people are people and any sign of negative syptoms are automatically assumed to be a deterioration of mental health when very often they are no more than a normal human reaction to what may be a challenging situation for someone and that differs with us all.

I so enjoy your descriptions of the streetlife, the rain, the traffic, the people :)

Trust your instincts on Wednesday,I hope is a positive meeting for you,; 23 July 2007 at 22:54
Edyta said...: gleds!
sooo nice to see u've been moving on.
yaaaay, u'll be cooking soon (maybe u r already cooking as i am writing u or already eating ur cooked welshcakes)

i had a wallet stolen by a gypsy once. its weird how ppl steal from simple ppl... she only found some lunch money there anywho. strange...
hope u've been doing fine :); 23 July 2007 at 23:07
Pablis! said...: how are you doing over there??

i don't know what kynd of blog is this... but.. its stange for me.. 'cause i don't understand anything... hehehe!!

I'm Pablis!! I live in Uruguay a country between Brazil and Argentina... it's really nice live here.. but now we are in winnter and i hate it!!!

love ya! visit my blog!!; 23 July 2007 at 23:36
The Discovering Alcoholic said...: Speaking of cooking Gled, my wife made some so the best home-made spring rolls I have ever tasted today. The sauce was what made it special, a sweet chilli dipping sauce loaded with crushed peanuts.

Out of this world.; 24 July 2007 at 04:11
jungle jane said...: So nice to hear you are not homeless, Gleds. You need to whip up a batch of those Welshcakes and ship the across to your landlord!

Still peeing down here too - summer? errrrr yeah right...; 24 July 2007 at 08:11
Akelamalu said...: Glad the squits have cleared up. I can almost taste the welshcakes!; 24 July 2007 at 11:57
raffi said...: tell the shrink everything.. he/she will be the one to make the diagnosis of bipolar... not hubbs. as long as your honest.; 24 July 2007 at 16:57
Wayward Son said...: You just described a trip to the Social Security office here! You sound quite chipper in your words. I am coming to believe a depressed Brit is like an anorexic whippet. How does one know? :—); 25 July 2007 at 04:51
Anonymous said...: I hate to say this, but didn't I point out months ago that I think you're bipolar? Oh Gled, you know I'm always right. ;-); 26 July 2007 at 18:32

Christiane F

"Wir, Kinder vom Bahnhoff Zoo" by "Christiane F", memoir of a teenage heroin addict and prostitute, was a massive bestseller in Europe and is now a set text in German schools. Bahnhoff Zoo was, until recently, Berlin's central railway station. A kind of equivalent (in more ways than one) to London's King's Cross... Of course my local library doesn't have it. So I'm going to have to order it through a bookshop and plough through the text in German. I asked my druggieworker Maple Syrup, who is Italiana how she learned English and she said reading books is the best way. CHRISTIANE F: TRAILER You can watch the entire 120-min movie in 12 parts at my Random blog. Every section EXCEPT part one is subtitled in English (sorry: but if you skip past you still get the gist) ~ to watch it all click HERE.

Drugs Videos

Most of these come from my Random blog, which is an electronic scrapbook of stuff I thought I might like to view at some time or other. For those who want to view stuff on drugs I've collected the very best links here. Unless otherwise stated these are full-length features, usually an hour or more.

If you have a slow connexion and are unused to viewing multiscreen films on Youtube here's what to do: click the first one and play on mute, stopping and starting as it does. Then, when it's done, click on Repeat Play and you get the full entertainment without interruption. While you watch screen one, do the same to screens 2, 3 and so on. So as each bit finishes, the next part's ready and waiting.

Mexican Black Tar Heroin: "Dark End"

Khun Sa, whose name meant Prince Prosperous, had been, before his death in the mid 2000s, the world's biggest dealer in China White Heroin: "Lord of the Golden Triangle"

In-depth portrait of the Afghan heroin trade at its very height. Includes heroin-lab bust. "Afghanistan's Fateful Harvest"

Classic miniseries whose title became a catchphrase for the misery of life in East Asian prison. Nicole Kidman plays a privileged middle-class girl set up to mule heroin through Thai customs with the inevitable consequences. This is so long it had to be posted in two parts. "Bangkok Hilton 1" (first 2 hours or so); "Bangkok Hilton 2" (last couple of hours).

Short film: from tapwater-clear H4 in the USA to murky black Afghan brown in Norway: "Heroin Addicts Speak"

Before his untimely death this guy kept a video diary. Here's the hour-long highlights as broadcast on BBC TV: "Ben: Diary of a Heroin Addict". Thanks to Noah for the original link.

Some of the most entertaining scenes from Britain's top soap (as much for the poor research as anything else). Not even Phil Mitchell would go from nought to multi-hundred pound binges this fast: "Phil Mitchell on Crack" (just over 5 minutes).

Scientist lady shows us how to cook up gear: "How Much Citric?" Lucky cow: her brown is 70% purity! Oddly we never see her actually do her hit... maybe she got camera shy...

And lastly:

German documentary following a life from teenage addiction to untimely death before the age of 30. The decline in this girl's appearance is truly shocking. "Süchtig: Protokoll einer Hilflosigkeit". Sorry no subtitles; this is here for anyone learning German who's after practice material a little more gripping than Lindenstraße!