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!

Monday, February 07, 2011

Shame

I GOT THREE MORE FILMS for a £10er today. They are to go with my 5 war films. I like to collect books/films/etc that make me look like a divorcing couple. So with Desert Rats, Farewell to Arms etc goes Girl Interrupted, The Queen and Paris je t'aime. I wanted The Queen or Young Victoria. Young Victoria wasn't there so it had to be The Queen for £3, Paris je t'aime is in French with English subtitles. Lazy buggers couldn't be bothered dubbing it into German (don't care about English).

Girl Interrupted is my favourite mental hospital film. Next time I go crazy I am going in the nuthouse. I now despair about my mental health so I'm going in the nuthouse. I don't care about anything any more.

Anyway I watched this one as it's about Borderline Personality disorder, which Angelina Joelie's character DOES have, Winona Ryder's character doesn't. In fact Winona Ryder doesn't have anything conceivably wrong with her. When I was TOLD to look up personality disorders to see which one I had (my family had SUCH a laugh about that one, if I do have a personality disorder it certainly ain't anxious-avoidant or dependent the crap the thinks-too-much nursie posited.

Those are diametrical opposite to me. She was picking up on my general misanthropy, the fact that I liked locking myself away and not engaging with the world and called that anxious-avoidant, NOT LISTENING to me when I hammered the fact at her ~ quite hard enough for even a stupid person to get it ~ that this was a NEW THING. Ie not a personality trait. As for dependent I'm INDEPENDENT.

At heart I don't give a shit for anybody's opinion of me. Of course I like to be thought well of, as does everybody. But I wouldn't exactly be keeping a blog like this if your High Opinion of me was my be all/end all in life, now would I? My blog would be far more "cool" than the neurotic confessional ramblings you get each day. Anyway the only personality disorder I flagged up bam-bam-bam-bam-bam was BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER. Which is kind of invalidated if you have a mood disorder causing these mood swings. I also think the DSM authors' idea of "impulsive" is exceedingly patronizing and judgemental: promiscuity, drug-taking and self harm are acts of desperation; all three become habits. Impulsiveness is surely by its very nature not habitual repeated actions but random actions belying a lack of self control.

Impulsive is being unable to resist stealing. Or licking cream off a cake. Those things are impulsive. Being in desperate pain and trying to salve it ~ that ain't impulsiveness. I also scored high on obsessive-compulsive and schizotypal and schizoid. Obsessive compulsive yeah I am. Schizotypal just means you're eccentric and coin your own words. Schizoid means you don't NEED people to be there, which I don't. I like people, I don't NEED people to validate my existence. If I woke up tomorrow and the entire world was empty ~ just me ~ I wouldn't cry. I'd break into houses and listen to other people's record collections. And I'd steal a boat and ride to Burma, find a China White refinery and get high.

Most true Borderlines are women but I knew a man with this personality disorder. He, like many others, wore it like a Jim'll Fix It Medal (which put me off the idea of psychiatric diagnosis until True Desperation intervened). And he jumped in front of a tube train about a year ago. And caused a hell of a mess in his friends' lives as ANOTHER one killed herself not long after (Perky).

I rang Pinky, Perky's former girlfriend today as I'm filling in a Government Fuck Ups Form for people who are a total mess. This is the Form of Shame and I've filled it in twice and had extra money. But I have to tell them all about what a complete loser I am, which I hate doing. I was too depressed, paranoid and guilty to fill it in before. So I'm doing it again.

I rang Pinky with my answers. Pinky [who has paranoid schizophrenia] says I sound hypomanic. Hypomanic means "mildly manic" (in other words in a perfectly proper and right mental state. Mania is normality. It's normality that has something wrong with it in my view.) Anyway we spent half an hour on the phone and she gave some good pointers but I'm not sure I wish to slant my answers the way she suggests. The ugly truth is brutal enough. The fact that I sleep in a chair or on the floor, that I've set fire to my bed by accident, that I never cook proper food and live on takeaway, that my clothes are covered in cigarette burns, that I sleep every day in the same clothes I spend the day in, that I find it impossible to keep my house clean, even when the landlord is after me.

All this crap has to go down. That's why I call it the Form of Shame. I absolutely hate it. My ambition is to either win big on Euromillions lottery or to write some bestsellers then I answer to no-one and can be as high/low/sideways as I please without having to answer for my mental state to any government doctor. They wanted a diagnosis so I could only write down depression/psychosis/mania/drug addiction. Doesn't it make me sound wonderful. Psychosis does NOT mean being permanently mad. It means having episodes where you're paranoid, hear people talking about you [eg on the bus, where they normally don't], are scared to leave your house, and find public transport a huge challenge, that's psychosis.

The rest of my crap comes under moods. Being a drug addict doesn't figure on this form, in fact I don't think you can claim for drug addiction. My parting shot on this form will say I'm a 38 year old man who wants a normal life. Ha! That won't get to them, but I feel like being expressive. And I MUST fill this in now before my mood drops, as it no doubt will. Because if it does I won't want to be bothered submitting it. I'll feel as I felt before. Guilty, unworthy and fraudulent. Even though I'm telling the truth. Most people lie to that shrink at the druggie service, I'm sure they do. That must be why he looked so taken aback to see me off my tree on "mood disorder" the time before last. He asked whether I was me, which seriously confused me. I thought at one point he believed I was somebody else. Then I thought he believed I was faking.

I know TWO people who fake schizophrenia which makes me too angry for words, considering how desperate I was feeling and NOT GETTING HELP, considering I had suicidal thoughts every day for months on end and NOBODY EVER ASKED HOW I WAS. Considering I was in truly desperate straits at some times and NOBODY EVEN NOTICED. This is the druggie service I'm angry with. I had a mental health nurse as Worker. Apparently I should have gone in all mumsy simpering away about "mental health problems" when my problem was depression with paranoia ~ hardly a recipe for heart-on-sleeve.

This bitch never once asked how I was. It was always drugs drugs drugs with all of them. Recently they've changed their tune now I come in bouncing off the walls on my own energy. All that stuff about mood swings I repeatedly told them about is now seen as True. At last. Now it's got so incredibly bad I fit criteria for a Severe Mood Disorder. I would like to get those two nursies and bang their wooden heads together. Probably they'd make a resonant xylophone noise.

Well I don't know where this rant is going. Yeah I'm hypochondriacking yet again because YET AGAIN I have to Account for my own life in horrible gruesome detail which I absolutely hate doing. So I scribbled it all out in half an hour. Then Pinky told me it was wrong. I have to add this that and t'other. So I will. But I'm very annoyed. The only thing I'm looking forward to is NA at 7:30 tonight. So I'd better go. I just wanna switch off. I've had enough of everything for today. I never slept at ALL last night. My antipsycho pills are disagreeing with me. I'm giving them a break for a few days to see if I can get a bit higher. I wanna get high, man. High on my Higher Power which blazes inside me.

Gotta go, else this will never get down. See y'all later.


GIRL INTERRUPTED: END OF THE WORLD
Anna this is for you:~~~~


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the song. I love the movie, Girl Interupted. I've seen it at least 10 times. Although nut houses are not like that. Maybe back in the 60s, but now days its mixed men and women. They don't put you in for a year very often normally its about two weeks.

The song that you picked is the song that plays when they wake up at Brittney Murphy's house and she has hung herself. Still its a good song.
I'll post a song for you. Do you not like guitar music. Are you from the rave era with house music? I don't know any house music. Do you guys over in Europe call it house music? The song I've picked is guitar music. Its sort of sad, but I don't mean to make you sad.

TTYL
Anna

Gledwood said...

I like guitar music I just wasn't into it when I was younger so I don't know it. I'd rather you posted something you know and love ...

... house music is like modern disco with no words or samples, garage is similar but tends to have a diva singing a tune, UK garage has a 2 step beat and doesn't necessarily have proper vocals, drum & bass sounds like machine guns and thunder, techno and rave are similar... trance has a psychedelic vibe to it... that's basic dance music don't worry about stuff you're not into Anna I like your taste in music.

That Need To Feel Love is probably what you'd call vocal house. It's kind of dance pop but not cheesy like a lot of europop which is just commercialized dance music... sorry to go on.

I know that's from the suicide scene but I really like the tune!

Yeah I love Girl Interrupted. I don't mind women's films as long as they're not about fucking luuuuurve and romance y'know. I got it for £3 on DVD. I go through their bargain films for stuff I Love. the last stuff I got was WAR FILMS which I really have to be in the mood for. I also got The Queen with Helen Mirren for £3 which I really wanted to see it has Tony Blair our ex prime minister in it and recalls a time I remember v clearly 1997 when Diana died. I cried every day for a week, which seems ridiculous now, but so did about 20 million other people. Probably 20 million more shed tears, 10 million more were upset and the other 10 million thought "what the fuck..!"

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Yes, Iìm always amazed at how many people in the "caring professions" do not care! This is a very informative post about personality disorder5s, Gleds. Don't give up.

Gledwood said...

Thanks Welshcakes!

I'm no expert on personality disorders, Pat. But as I say I was asked to research them when the issue came up with me and did I have one. I was asked to look into them and say which if any I thought I might have. The only one that reallly flagged up was borderline because I HAVE had a poor sense of identity in the past and I have had trouble with moods.

But my moods are more
depression/hyper than bad moods/good moods. Hyper means having LOADS of energy mental and often physical. Depression to me means very little physical or mental energy.

I've had mood swings for many years but only recently have they become extreme enough that I absolutely had to see a psychiatrist as a matter or urgency. It would have been irresponsible not to and I absolutely must take care of myself because these moods get so intense I could easily get lost in them. An emergency situation, really...

Re the professionals:~~

I think most do come in wanting to care... then some get jaded and waylaid by bad attitudes of other staff.

Others are on a power trip right from the beginning.

Most of them care more for their jobs in the end.

Sad, innit...

the guy in the silk taffeta dress said...

Hi Gleds,
I haven't seen Girl Interrupted and it sounds great.
I liked One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Three Faces of Eve and Lilith. And also Harry and Lisa (I think that's the name)
I had a friend with borderline personality, he was always getting arrested, mostly for fights and still exactly the same now, though borderline supposedly diminishes with age and around age 40, very mild traces remain (from what I've heard)
You seem to be doing well, right?
all the best,
j.

Gledwood said...

I'm OK. My friend with borderline must have been 40 and he wasn't letting go. But like I said, you did get this sense he wore the diagnosis round his neck like a gold medal. Also he didn't give out the vibe you'd expect of a borderline. Very warm. Seemed very centred. So I just don't know.

But he killed himself. And I learned not to judge others' mental health from that point on. People have thought I was fine when I was desperately unhappy, just because I didn't wish to engage with them and their feelings they assumed I was OK.

One even seemed to ask whether I was faking (I was manic when I spoke to him so I'm not sure precisely WHAT he said) but when I heard "oh so you're faking" I said straight back "oh yeah of course!"

I'm never ever going to argue my mental state with anybody. If they wanna think I'm OK when I'm not that's their deception I'm not wasting energy on anybody who wants to deceive themself re me!

Syd said...

I guess that I don't understand the search for a diagnosis. It just seems all so negative based. What about a search for those good things about you? I realize that you are filling out forms and such. But when that is all done and you put it down, I hope that you will provide some affirmations of the good things about yourself.

Gledwood said...

Syd I need a diagnosis for these forms. Why do you think they drive me berzerk? Because I don't even know what all this shit I go through is called and it is NOT just drug addiction. When drug addicts talk of mood swings they seem to mean feeling OK one minute, down the next. Mine usually last for days, weeks, months even and range from feeling so high it's better than ANY drug to so low I feel post-nuclear. I get days of paranoia so bad I cannot face going outside. I have to sort this out. I'm already on antipsychotic meds, but the Govt want to know what this is called and I want to be able to YELL IT OUT AT NA MEETINGS BECAUSE I'M FED UP OF PEOPLE JUDGING MY REALITY BY THEIR LIMITED EXPERIENCE. That's it really it is very negative I grant you that. But it absolutely has to be done.

When things weren't this bad I wanted to avoid the diagnostic issue and was happy to be misdiagnosed with depression. But I get absolutely desperate and CANNOT TAKE ANTIDEPRESSANTS they send me too hyper, too high, too irritable and I hallucinated on them last time quite floridly sometimes. I need diagnosis or I cannot get treatment!

Anonymous said...

nobody in a proffessional position or government would ask you to diagnose yourself! haha thats the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard. you say about that guy wearing it round his neck like a gold medal but you do the same with these "antipsychotics". it don't mean shit, I've been on epilepsy meds for my mental state but it don't mean i've got epilepsy. also, gilr interrupted, wasn't she a sociopath not BPD...

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

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