HAMSTERS & HEROIN: Not all junkies are purse-snatching grandmother-killing psychos. I'm keeping this blog to bear witness to that fact.

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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!!!

Attack of the Furry Entertainers!

Attack of the Furry Entertainers!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Schizophrenia

07:07 I HEARD A VOICES SAYING NERVOUS BREAKDOWN AND SCHIZOPHRENIA. They ruined last night.

Schizophrenia Screening Quiz

Please note, this quiz has limited validity.
Please interpret the below results cautiously.


You scored a total of 34
You scored a total of 86

Based upon your responses to this schizophrenia screening measure, you appear to have some early signs commonly associated with schizophrenia or a schizophrenia-related disorder. Your responses are similar to others who experience early symptoms of schizophrenia or a schizophrenia-related disorder. Because no online test is 100% accurate, please be aware that this does not necessarily mean you do have schizophrenia, only that this particular quiz found sufficient evidence to suggest that you may.

You should not take this as a diagnosis of any sort, or a recommendation for treatment. However, it would be advisable and likely beneficial for you to seek further verification and to see if you qualify for a schizophrenia or schizophrenia-related diagnosis from a trained mental health professional as soon as possible in order to rule out a possible schizophrenia or psychotic disorder.

The most common schizophrenia disorders diagnosed are: Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder, and Schizophreniform Disorder.


Yeah I did a quiz twice before and after writing most of this. I can, especially now, only answer re a viewpoint of mine in a split second in time. Thinking of every possible permutation of what everything means/might mean/represents to me/others/you/some person future/my own future self i cannot do it does my head in. this is the fly-eye vision i have, to which that voice last night was obliquely referring. doesn't schiz mean a split-up mind? if it does and my own split-up-ness concurr then i spose i'm schiz, but only a dr can diagnose that.

last time i saw a shrink, bear in mind i thought i was normal, maybe a bit hyper. now i look back and see i was full-on +3 manic on my own rating scale (with +4 as psychotic manic). I was paranoid enough to be close to assaulting one perticular individual on the bus-ride there, for insulting me twice using exactly the same wording, but I wasn't floridly psychotic... anyway part of what I ranted at him went along the lines of "ha! you can't diagnose me manic because I have to be excited for a whole week and it's only been 5 days..." i carefully looked back and it was 8 to 9 days up, counting first instance of hearing voices as the start. definitely. which puts me into that dreadful DSM diagnostic trap. not to mention my own behaviour. it was in THAT context that i was asked "what do you know about schizophrenia". despite my paranoia centred upon this dr last night, believing he was out to get me, i do trust him more than any psychiatrist i've ever had. he's head and shoulders better. i'm usually a good-to-superb judge of character (though i don't claim infallibility, like everyone i've made dreadful mistakes, and also let WANTING something be override what i actually saw and really in my heart knew, if only id listened...) anyway his question made me ponder the matter far more than was comfortable. i wasn't allowed to google, read or look up anything until the fearsomely intense symptoms receded, and i felt more together, which took perhaps a month from that appointment, even though the "mania" or "mixed affective episode" only lasted maybe 10 days, 2 weeks tops before re-transforming into my characteristic depression... anyway i did eventually have a very quick look through the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia which I had seen and remembered as wide open. that's because schizophrenia is diagnosed in the ABSENCE of prominent mood symptoms ie you think bipolar and depression first, schizophrenia and related illnesses second.

theoretically ANY symptom of schizophrenia can appear in bipolar. I've gone beyond the possibility that what's wrong with me is called "Depression with psychotic features", even mood-incongruent ones (which I have). Depression never feels good. What I have can feel fantastic. It can be terrifying. It can be very upsetting. It can hurt me a lot. It can do all those things and it can make me feel very blank. Last time I was really ill I remember feeling strongly that I didn't exist. The world was real; I was not. That's because I no longer WAS who I'd been I really was all bashed up!

The features schizophrenia has that are NOT usually in mania especially are socalled negative or deficit features. That is, disorders of volition. I very often feel like I'm shouting at somebody behind bullet proof glass. Someone who just won't listen to me, despite the urgency of action required. I'm reminded of the time I was threatened with homelessness. Instead of panicking I instantly went unreal. Moved my stuff to a friend's house rather than engaging with the local council (my landlord). And only actually made it down the council at 4pm, despite the situation. Where I remember the lady talking to me as if I was six. Saying loudly that I "looked a bit confused". Confused? You can say that again. It's these things, and my inability to do stuff or TOTAL UTTER LAZINESS whatever you want to call it. Eg I should have gone laundrette yesterday I just could not do it. I should clean my house I cannot face it. Whether high or low, which runs totally contrary to mania as traditionally envisaged, where people are ultra-involved. I'm involved/disinvolved in everything in every way. I'm a person of opposites, always have been.

no i don't feel people understand me at all. those test-writers really put their finger on it with that one. i feel especially misunderstood at na because they're looking at me through junkie-goggles. i don't FEEL like a junkie i'm fighting something way more formidable than drug addiction ever was; i can feel it; i can tell. It knocks me sideways, it upsets me, it rips into my life in a way not even drugs could do. and it makes me more unstable than i ever was on drugs. i barely think about heroin at all. that is the truth. i'm not craving. every often i semi-automatically want to go score: i need only remember i don't want to do it to squash that one. I won't harp on about na negatives as it's a positive place but i do wonder what they'd think of me if I snapped I HEARD VOICES TALKING TO AND ABOUT ME ALL THE WAY HERE. what they hear is "i'm an anxious/depressed junkie and think i'm ok bc i'm raging one minute, smiling the next yet can't focus on anything at all for any time which they think is drugs. drugs focused me in a way more, not less. every single one i can think of gave me a sense of inner peace, weather it was an upper or downer (not psychedelics though, apart from e which is semi-psychedelic, more transcendent than truly psychedelic...)
and no i don't think i'm "suffering more" than another addict.
i know i'm SUFFERING LESS that is the very point!!
i got what Sid gets from Ibogaine, which costs over £1000 a pop, FOR FREE. And it worked for me. Whatever bad it did, it distracted me from an addiction that nothing could break. Certainly not piss-weak methadone against industrial-steel heroin. As Mother Hubbs used to say, 60mg methadone is equivalent to a £10 bag as was, pre-drought. Meaning you need 120mg to equate a £20 a day habit IV. This is somebody who is a bit discriminating in who they score off. Neither one of us would EVER ring someone we don't want to just to keep a connexion open. I never did that. I scored off the same person for weeks on end as long as they were serving up and still had the good stuff. If it went bad they'd not hear from me until i got a promise all was OK. Heroin is Food of the Gods and anybody who dares sell rubbish is commiting a Crime Against Junkiedom ~ a highly serious matter!
Wow I feel a whole lot more together than I did last night. I need sleep now; it's 20 to 8 and I'm exhausted.

And yet again I've strayed into territory that makes me highly uncomfortable online. Because this really is very personal. I am not comfortable talking online about being near- mentally raped. I'm ashamed to talk about cracking up. I'm embarrassed to have been so very frank. I feel idiotic to have repeated myself so many times, though I only do this so somebody finding one single post by a google search can comprehend it without reading multiple days in both directions... I feel wide open, exposed, when I want to curl up and hide. I feel very hurt and very upset. Among many other things I feel these and if I dwell on them I really will get extremely upset so I'm derailing that train into a chinchilla did you know the fat furries need a marble in summer? Not a little rock-ball or glass ball. A stone chopping board you store in the freezer to take out in high summer for them to lie on, as their heavily furred mountain mars-bunnies. Sorry if that sounds irrelelvant but I can't think about THAT any more.

One last thing: when I talk about "not allowed" it's ME not allowing myself. I do have iron will you know. It is this will pushing me into territory I'm frankly miserable blogging about but I've gone this far, why not totally humiliate myself, y'know..? Iron will and lack of volition can go together. I never expected to find pictures illustrating what I feel you don't understand but here they are. Those images are what I feel, what I try to tell you, what I don't feel you see, but I feel. That.

(Especially picture one, the top one. That's exactly what I am. (But that colour lippie doesn't suit me))

I wish I could find a rave track to perk things up. I could do with some "euphoric recall"..! And I'm posting this NOW with no glancing-over. Else it won't get done, I'll be too self-conscious to do it so here goes...###!

No I don't "think" I've got schizophrenia. I don't "think" any one thing. I think lots of things and know nothing! I'm well aware that drugs drugs drugs have done me no good at all for a long long time, but I'm come to a point where I have to help myself and I don't know how. That's the point!!

09:57 That Jeremy Kyle is on. Always makes someone else's problem his own. But not in an Oprah-like way. (I say this for folks in foreign lands obviously. We're all sick of yet addicted to the bastard.) Like a rude, intrusive diametrical opposite of Oprah.

Just met 2 guys from NA in a van I was off me head. Shambling along the street. One said "when you've dropped the drugs..." which made me laugh my head off. Couldn't stop smiling anyway. Nothing wrong with being happy. Doesn't mean I'm on drugs. Means I'm on the magical powers of Walking Somewhere. And just happy. Woo


LEFTFIELD: (thanks Lizzie) Not Forgotten

7 comments:

Baino said...

Gleds I have a friend at the moment having a major bi polar episode and he won't recognise that he's depressed. He just thinks it's the way his life is. He won't seek help and it's tearing me apart. At least you're cogniscent of your moods and issues and linking in with professionals who can help. You should give them a link to your blog, you say more here than you probably do on the couch. If only I could get my darling boy to seek help, I'd sleep at night. Very sad today.

Gledwood said...

I'm glad I read what you put twice. Slightly scattered attention span going on here. I wish I could do that but that is mixing 2 identities. Both are real, but one says things not said in real life and it would make me too para. I get paranoid enough considering that they might have stumbled across it and recognized me... which is vaguely possible y'know... something I don't want to think of.

NA all think I'm ON drugs IN denial bloody hell. It made me laugh before. It's getting to me now. Usually I'm expert at not letting anything much get to me. With or without drugs. Which really begs the question why I wasted my time on them.

I feel high enough without drugs why the hell did I bother I feel such a fool.

I hope he gets better soon. I cannot say anything else, We're at opposite poles psychologically in a different sense, I mean it was obvious to me once I heard about it, that something had gone wrong in childhood because OCD is so distinctive. The depression bit was harder to grasp as it involved worrying about dying to the extent of actually feelling like I was dying.

I do understand how he feels. In a sense the way you see things from the top and bottom pole are real truth, the in-between is too grey and boring for words. then again what th hell is severe depression compared to "grey and boring"... post-nuclear? How bad does he want it to get?? Sorry I'm probably not helping.

I think he will one day see. You'd do better talking to him once he's in a normal mood because he will see a pattern. In depression he's only going to look back on depression.

I hope I haven't wandered off the point I'm so tired I cannot think any constructive thing you could do

Jess Mistress of Mischief said...

LOL, you are a liar, not in the normal sense, you lie to yourself.

You ARE on drugs right? Doesn't matter that you decided
a) to obtain through other means what you believe a doctor would prescribe if you had the money to go to a DR
b)whether a doctor or clinic prescribes
c) whether you've taken/scored illegal drugs recently, you're still on drugs.

If you say not, you are lying to yourself.

Also, alcohol IS a drug, and you do use that.

The idea is to get honest with yourself and others who have experience with what you are going through, but you can't do that so long as you are closed-minded and trying to keep from seeing where your experiences and lives are similar to an alcoholic/addict.

Drug addiction masks itself in LOTS of symptoms that can be diagnosed in different ways, depression, mania, OCD, ADHD, ADD, Bi-polar, scizophrenia.... NONE OF THESE CAN BE ACCURATELY DIAGNOSED (I think you've heard this before) until your system is clear of the drugs that can cause those symptoms (alcohol and all other mind altering/mood altering)

Self-diagnosis by someone with your history is insanity.

You're mind is lost in a haze of drugs and psychosis, NA and AA tell you that we've been there and no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't get clear until we were willing to concede that we had been using our own idea of the perfect chemistry for so long that we had no idea how to distinguish real psychosis from the drug induced craze that MAY indeed BE permanent damage, BUT we don't know for sure until we're willing to dry out and allow the chemicals to leave our system COMPLETELY!

You're not willing, that's ok. You'll either die trying your way, be locked up so that you have no choice (for the safety of the general public and yourself) or get so hopeless trying to figure it all out yourself and failing that that you'll get willing.

That's the beauty of the programs NA/AA, no one can force you, only your personal circumstance and your experience can become the force. The law or another powerful organization can step in, but that's still your own experience with failure to be powerful enough to stop the progression that causes it to happen.

So far... you're still free to choose even if your choices are insane, schizophrenic, manic, or disordered. You get to pick for now what you believe and how you act on your belief. Course, if I was experiencing what you are, I'd prolly be willing to listen to someone who had the psychotic feelings and thoughts and got free (and didn't need any chemicals to do so)

Good luck

Anonymous said...

Ditto everything Jess said.
Also, the people in NA are far from perfect, just like everyone else. We make mistakes, we judge people, we can be self-centered, but we are working on it.
In my area of NA we had a member that had schizophrenia. He sometimes talked to himself, and people that weren't there during meetings. Some people accused him of not actually being clean, although I don't know anyone accused him directly (he was a big biker dude, a bit intimidating even without the mental illness). But I actually hung out with this guy a few times (which, sadly, elicited some snickers from my peers) and I truly believe he was drug free. And when he shared, if you could open your mind and truly follow what he was saying, it was pretty clear he had an excellent grasp of the program and how to work the steps. Like you, he was highly intelligent, but not easily accessible. He doesn't come around anymore, which is upsetting because he needs NA, and NA needs him as well.

bugerlugs63 said...

also ditto pretty much what jess said. a few weeks off gear aint long enough, after ten yrs on, to stabilize. but u know all that and sleep deprivation enough to make the sanest feel like they truly mad. so both mixed with alcohol and much self analysis is going round in circles. i got no suggestions as i still at foolish stage of keep trying another bag to see if it better than the last, (well it cant be worse i think at the time) only to be proved wrong. . again! get some more robos to look after u . i got seven and highly poss few more on way as i sexed them by watching behaviour instead of recommended way. but u seem happier today. . the you that we hear about that is. hope the real u ok 2 x

the guy in the silk taffeta dress said...

Hi Gleds,
Hmm, pretty ruff day.
Jess Mistress, good reply.
Take good care Gleds

Syd said...

Wow to Jess. I think that she has given an ace of a comment.

I WANT OFF METHADONE AS QUICK AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!

METHADONE ~ A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH







Heroin Shortage: News

If you are looking for the British Heroin Drought post, click here; the latest word is in the comments.







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.

To See Gledwood's Entire Blog...

DID you find my blog via a Google or other search? Are you stuck on a post dated some time ago? Do you want to read Gledwood Volume 2 right from "the top" ~ ie from today?
If so click here and you'll get to the most recent post immediately!

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!































Nosey Quiz! Have you ever heard voices when you weren't high on drugs?

Manic Magic

Manic Magic

Gledwood Volume 2: A Heroin Addict's Blog

Copyright 2011 by Gledwood