Drink/etc Diary Day 1 (Saturday)

I SLEPT! 4(ish)PM TILL 4AM. 12 glorious hours. I dreamt about this boy I went to school with at my 1st 2ndary school. He left midway through the first year because his parents moved to Bedford. Then came back, still living in Bedford. His Dad still worked in London or Hertfordshire (where we were) and drove him in every day. The time before when I slept, with the exception of an hour or 90 mins early Saturday morn was Thursday afternoon into Thursday evening when I dreamt I was in Madonna's house. I found a crappy old radio in the corner, picked it up and said "whose is this?" and Madonna said "that belonged to my mother". Then I realized I had really upset her and Madonna started ignoring me. Madonna's mother died when she was about 6. She says it was the worst thing to happen in her life.

OK I said I would do an alcohol diary. I had 2 cans, 1 litre. 7.5% ie 75mls alcohol, 7.5 units. Being as I partly couldn't and partly didn't want to sleep and was drinking quite a bit of black coffee, I set my mood from -.15 to +1.5 peak then it dropped back to -1.5 because I was exhausted I felt sick, hungry but couldn't eat.

OK IF YOU'RE AS BORED AS ME OF MENTAL HEALTH SHIT SKIP THE ITALICS.

The mood scale works like this. Zero means absolutely normal and not at all depressed. If something funny came on telly I would laugh my head off. If something good happened I would feel really good. -1 is noticeably depressed but able to shrug it off, except it returns within half an hour. I distract myself a lot by using the internet. -2 is the higher end of "moderate" on a doctorly scale meaning feeling pretty rough but still able to act out, sometimes snap out of it except it crashes back, still able to use distraction. I could sleep 10 hours every night. -3 is the worst I usually get, lower end of "moderate" meaning absolutely abysmal mood. Whereas suicide crosses my head in any low, here the impulse or fantasy to do it can get relentless and I just want to curl up and die. Self-esteem goes low, concentration is terrible, I can write but not read much. I can sleep 14-17 hours or longer every day. -4 is very rare for me, I've only ever been down here for hours or days at a time, it means total incapacitation, staring into space, unable to put on any meaningful act. I feel broken and injured, totally worthless, guilty and filthy. I don't feel suicidal, this has always felt like the very end, life is over. You can start tripping out in this state but I've never tripped intensely (thank God). -4.5 would be so bad I wouldn't be blogging at all, not even single lines. I hope I never go that low. In this state they'd seriously think of ECTing you. ECT is the treatment I least want. I know someone who had it and had half a life wiped away. Google ECT, you'll find witness to this fact. Look at what doctors say, they'll never admit it happens apart from "partially impaired short term memory loss". Yeah I know a lot about this subject I used to have a stock of how to (or rather how not to) books with titles like Depression Workbook. Ukh. Lent them all away and sold the rest for heroin money.

O crap, now I have to explain pluses. OK here we go. When we get to the + and - 2s and higher bear in mind not everything happens at every moment, most things happen at some time while it's going on:

+1 hyperthymia means a good mood, a really nice buoyant good mood like swimming floats you cannot push it down in my late 20s I'd get like this, constantly, days at a time, but it always meant depression was on the way or I'd just come out of it (ain't life great); +2 hypomania racing thoughts or thoughts flooding the head, distractable, disinhibited, pacing, euphoric and/or irritable, like being on speed. Urge to say stupid stuff, eg repeating same words/phrases over and over, or doing it in head. I used to get flashes of this over the past few years, I just thought it was the heroin now I'm not too sure. +3 mania very disinhibited, saying inappropriate things though I'm not an impulsive person and try not to, periodically rushing high alternating with crystal clear shining mental state, irritability tipping into rage: especially at psychiatrists and drug services, endless composition of letters, posts, monologues in head or online, cannot sleep more than 4 hours max, bad paranoia, don't want to go outside. I was in this state when I saw the shrink last time (unfortunately, now I can't get out of what I rantingly told him), some hallucinations eg hearing words spoken by the tap when it runs +4 hearing voices, floridly at the peak, visual hallucinations e.g. seeing fur growing out of everything, flashes of light, Northern Lights style visuals, lights outside look amazing, police car lights make me ecstatic, extreme paranoia, people are talking about me, intruders in the house, irrational thinking though I'm a very sane person and can still distinguish or remember what's meant to be normal. Like the effects of an extreme crack/uppers binge when you've lost it and just cannot come down. No sleep at all at the very peak. Head feels like national electricity grid wired through brain. Eyes closed my mind is lit up like a TV set, brightly with constant moving pictures. This is what happened in early December it was only this bad for about 2.5 days. Into this got mixed depression of the worst type and suicidal urges which were extreme and terrifying. I wasn't even thinking English at some points just bing bing bang bong ong ong ong! Still able to write and post despite all this. Can't get head round stuff like texting on phone, signing into email, putting key in lock though. Bear in mind I can type by touch so typing is dead easy +4.5 you'd be totally incoherent, wouldn't know what you were doing, where you were going, why you were there, what was happening, could do anything and not know it. Never been this bad, but was able to see this was where it would end up if it got any worse. I've witnessed this from the outside (in nuthouse) it's not pretty. I'm glad I never got this far.

+3 and +4 have only happened once, in December. In summer 2001 I got into a horrible state coming off gear cold turkey, very hyper very depressed. Kept losing touch with what was thinking, what was going on at times. Everybody feels mentally terrible but it was more extreme. This isn't just my opinion the nutnut nurse at the druggie service thought it sounded "manic". Antidepressants (Prozac) used to put me +2 for a few days to a couple of weeks. Last time it was worse and I didn't sleep for 4 days, though i don't remember feeling that euphoric I wrote some ridiculous stuff in a letter to my Gran, I'm so glad I didn't post it. Then I crashed, still on mirtazapine (Remeron/Zispin), still at 30mg a day it bottomed out at -4. For 3 or 4 weeks until someone realized what was going on and I stopped it. I never even knew an antidepressant could make you worse.

OK so that's the scale and it's rated conservatively, you give the minimum applicable number. Feeling really nice for a few minutes doesn't mean a plus whatever that's just feeling really nice. These moods are constant and marked and the more extreme they get so the ability to act normal or snap out of it diminishes, eventually vanishes.

Ukh I'm fed up of all this. I wish I had never seen that dr. I had to. What am I meant to be doing? Cleaning my house. Going to AA. Yeah. House has turned into mess as life turned to chaos this past week. I'm not always the most focused person. Yet I can focus fairly well in certain ways. And nearly everything I am, think and/or feel I'm also the opposite. So I try not to be self indulgent but what is a blog? Self-indulgence of the most extreme kind! Life is like that it doesn't bother me unduly. I'm bothering me far more than anyone else ever has. My own behaviour. Drink drink drinking (still). I shouldn't be drinking 7.5 units a day that's double the maximum recommended allowance. I should be cleaning up. I should be nicely well organized. I should be physically clean. I should cook food from scratch because I know how to do it. I should get up at the same time every day so my sleep cycle is as regular as it can be. I should look through mail that comes and open stuff addressed to me. I should wash my clothes, not sleep in them and buy or at least obtain new ones (you can get free clothes by diving a clothing recycle bin). You can also collect them off the street, which I do. I should also do a million other things I cannot remember/be bothered going into.

That's it. See ya. Wouldn't wanna be ya. Wouldn't wanna be me either. Ha ha har!!!!

Illustrated: top Madonna; bottom Trisch Li or Trishli who appeared in video 1 on Friday manic +3 or more on my lovely scale. In video 2 she's sane and looks amazing. She died 2 years ago. I don't know why. I like her.
You can also find some good links re cocaine or crack psychosis or mood episodes and mixed mood disorders and other nauseating things

PS if you want to see more Trisch Li and Jen on the telephone here's 3 more:

Trisch and Jen on phone 3 Jen's weird night



Trisch Li and Jen on the phone 4



Trischli and Jen on the phone 4 later that night I love the background on this one