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

LIVE FROM LONDON

Gledwoods deutscher Blog

Bitte hier klicken ...

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!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Bipolar?

I HAVE just been scanning the internet to find out what on earth is supposed to be wrong with me. What I found out is not very reassuring.

~ It can't be drug-induced psychosis. That is a paranoid-schizophrenia type condition. I do get paranoia but the other stuff I get is way more extreme. I don't have the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia or drug psychosis

~ I thought there was a condition called "substance-induced mood disorder (bipolar)" but there is not. Substance-induced mood disorder is mania, hypomania (mild mania), depression or a mixed state, all of which I've had in the past 2 months. What doesn't seem to happen in substance-induced mood disorder is that the mood switches poles eg from depressed to manic (as mine did about 3 or 4 weeks ago) and if symptoms last more than a month from last drug use it's generally NOT considered substance-induced

~ Drugs can worsen bipolar disorder (a phenomenon known as kindling) but this doesn't mean they necessarily caused it. Bipolar has a strong genetic component. If you have one parent with type 1* bipolar or recurrent depression, you have up to a 40% chance of getting bipolar i disorder [my mother "can tell by the calendar" when she's going to be depressed and it happens every year. Recurrent clinical depression]

~ Heroin flattened out my moods markedly. That was the first change I noticed in my life: no more mood swings. In fact I had practically no depression in the first 2 or 3 years, so to me heroin was a mood-stabilizer, a mood stabilizer that has now been taken away

~ heroin is not generally associated with drug induced mood disorders; the culprits tend to be crack, speed, ecstasy (uppers); cannabis; psychedelics and benzodiazepine withdrawal

~ at least 50% of people with bipolar disorder abuse drugs and even more abuse drink

~ I have had literally every symptom in the diagnostic criteria for both mania and depression in the last 2 months

~ the hallucinations I had were actually more extreme than is normal. Apparently when most bipolars hear voices they just hear murmuring sounds and can't make out the words, or hear their name. This stuff was going on with me years ago in depression. Now it's clear words, sometimes sentences, and one time a half-hour monologue; I also have seen visions that is I can stare at a blank wall and a movie appears (this only happened a couple of times when I was extremely hyper)

~ I don't have all symptoms at all times. Nobody does. It's impossible to hear voices in the most intense mania as my head is full of just a roaring noise and I make a roaring noise, think a roaring noise and am a roaring noise. This is what happens when you go so incredibly fast you can no longer think

~ Naomi at the drugs clinic who is a dual diagnosis professional thinks I'm bipolar

~ I have the same symptoms and experience as everyone at Nutter Club who is bipolar. But not the schizophrenics. Since I've been coming we've only had bipolar and schizophrenia in the room

~ I have had bipolar symptoms going back 15 years; in the beginning they were mild and transitory (first triggered by antidepressants); over time they have grown more extreme. And now look at me

~ I am not diagnosed bipolar. I just have all the symptoms.

~ And if you want my opinion: when I'm high I think it's fantastic and don't care what it's called; when I'm low the idea of actually being a real life manic depressive is equal to having no life at all

Comment if you like but don't call me a hypochondriac. You haven't seen me, you've only read me. Nobody who sees me doubts I have severe mental problems. I was so out of it one time a couple of weeks or so ago that one of my friends, a 50 year old man, cried

And if you believe I'm being negative, just bear in mind that telling myself I'm sick is the one thread of reality I have left when I lose it and I do lose it. If you think I exaggerate my experience do us both a favour and drop reading this blog. I tell it as it is

Yes I still feel hyper now but have barely any psychosis (yes you can be psychotic and know it: read Kay Redfield Jamison's memoir. She's type 1 bipolar and a clinical psychologist. Knowing the terminology didn't save her from utter madness. It saves nobody)

My situation is not as extreme as it was previously. It's 4:20 I'll do 5 mins in bed but if I don't sleep in that time I'm getting back up. And that's it.

I am not saying I'm bipolar. I'm saying I have all the symptoms. There's still a chance I could somehow get off the hook on this drug-induced thing but nothing I've heard seems to back this possibility up. So this is the situation. I still don't know, but I need to know. I'm fed up of not knowing.

One last thing: yes I think too much. That's another symptom of a manic episode. "Flight of ideas" (racing thoughts).

Night all. I'm doing that 5 mins in bed in a sec. I fully intend not to sleep. (Why waste the time?)

PS I've had ONE drink today a White Ace cyder at 3.75 units alcohol (at 10mls alcohol in a unit).

*type 1 bipolar is more severe than type 2, which involves depression (which may be severe) and mild mania. Type 2 never has psychotic features; type 1 involves full mania and 70% of sufferers become psychotic at some time or other. Hearing voices or seeing visions qualifies as psychosis, whether or not you're also "delusional"

For those who are interested, BipolarAbout.com probably has the best info on the condition.

2 comments:

the guy in the silk taffeta dress said...

Hi,
I wonder if some people enjoy energy shifts of bi-polar?
Anyway, hold tight, some labels take away from a person's confidence and I'd hate that to happen to you.
all the best & take good care,

Gledwood said...

don't care for the label, just want to be high all the time

high off drugs

better than anything else i ever tried

and this one involves no dabbling no experimentation, no desire to get high

it just happens to do

if only it happened permanently; life would be perfect

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