Early Morning Blues

I DIDN'T POST EARLIER because I was asleep. I tried the Heroin Cure for depression and it worked well enough to get some words out of Valerie, Heroin Queen of Australia (see below) but I woke up around midnight feeling sour as an unripe lime.

Valerie still makes me laugh. In fact anything I write that I think is funny I can laugh at. But nothing else seems to touch me. So you can call Valerie my therapy.

I don't think there is any cure for depression. For laziness I can imagine the drill the psychologist would tell me: write a list, do a few things every day blah blah. I really don't see the point in doing anything.

Normal people seem to take antidepressants and complain that they make them feel "flat" and at best take the edge off depression. With me they most definitely made me euphoric and the depression evaporated entirely. Nothing flat about them! Problem was last time I went on a rollercoaster mood swing that dipped so far down I lost my ability to bullshit the world with a polite happy act, the one we all do. Soon as they set eyes on me people asked what the hell was wrong. So that's antidepressants.

Mood stabilizers do nothing until you're out of an episode. They prevent mood phases recurring. Which is double depressing. Meaning the misery stays and no mania to follow it up. The thought of going manic is my only real hope in life.

Also I can't have lithium because it needs regular blood level checks. And where would they get a vein? I know the side effects and they're ones I'd find particularly disagreeable (feeling cold, tired, visual problems and poor attention span: EXACTLY what bothered me about chronic fatigue syndome. No thanks). There are other mood stabilizers and these are all anticonvulsants: oxcarbazepine, valproate, lamotrigine et al.

I finally finished the quarter bottle of vodka (found in an alleyway on Wednesday afternoon) at around 3am Friday morning. Which just shows what a heavy drinker I am. I had to put it in black coffee to take the vomitsome taste away.

The Chinese Chicken Curry from Morrisons tasted far too strongly of Five Spice Seasoning, which should only be very vaguely in the background. So they got that one totally wrong.

Now I'm craving food yet don't feel physically hungry. The thought of eating makes my head feel mixed up.

I think my problem is what saves me: I can't focus on things. So I don't focus on negativity the way you'd think I might. Stuff about me being murdered or shot to death by firing squad is half tongue in cheek. But only half. I don't know what I actually think about anything, don't want to know.

The one thing that made me focus in life was drug addiction. It focused me on heroin heroin heroin. Heroin was real. The lack of it was a desperate emergency. Heroin heroin. Such an irony that it seemed to keep me sane. Without it I go all over the place. I noticed this years ago, and noticed that in rehab type situations I got extra meds and appeared to monopolize the attention of the counselling staff. Everybody else in there seemed pretty well balanced. And in the second place, they all slept. I was wide awake despite sleeping pills and antipsychotic (given for its sedative properties). Everybody else seemed to sleep like babies.

I never thought this meant I had some mental condition. I just thought it meant I was a big baby who couldn't cope with something everybody else seemed to glide through easily, no matter how difficult they claimed it to be.

A few years ago I would have latched on to any psychiatric diagnosis as an excuse to continue using heroin. These days excuses are not an issue.

I went beyond desperation and to a state where I realized I had two demons to fight. The psychiatric one was considerably bigger and stronger than the drugs one. When you fight with drugs you're fighting yourself. So you and your opponent are equally matched. Having a full-on breakdown is like being slammed in the face by a truck. You can't fight it as such, you can only resist it in a stubborn type of way.

The only time I've truly felt mentally injured was when my mood flew then plummeted several times in the course of a week leaving me catatonic. I actually felt mentally injured then. Usually my system adapts to anything life throws at it. But not that time.

Well I have to go, it's a quarter to six in the morning and I feel like ****. I regret being awake. I'd really like to sleep for ever. I'm scared of getting psychotic depression. I don't care about being psychotic and manic as much but psychotic depressed scares the hell out of me. That would put me straight in the nuthouse.

I'm surprised my druggieworker is taken in by the idea that someone who has insight isn't ill. There are psychiatrists and mental health professionals who have also had psychosis. Their training never stopped them going mad. I knew the basic diagnostic criteria for mania so I was well aware that I was manic when my mood went high. Mania isn't so much a good mood as an accelerated state where you feel very excited, go into overdrive, stop sleeping, get irritable on the one hand and feel poetic on the other, and the self-esteeem soars. Just knowing I was in this state did nothing to make it any less intense. At the peak of it my attention span was so impaired I was basically disabled. I could sign into the computer (it seemed to take an hour to do this; I was on fastforward). I could post. But I could not edit what I said, I could only grasp the gist of comments etc and when I was really out of it I could barely understand the written word at all. I couldn't follow the spoken word either. People seemed to be talking crap all the time. But I'd still rather be manic than depressed. I know it's not much of a choice, but it's the only choice I've got. Providing the mania does come back. Knowing my luck I'll be stuck in misery for ever. The mania is just a torment. Telling me I used to be able to get high not on drugs, that I'll never ever feel happy ever again.

Being as life is torture anyhow, I have decided to have a stab at cleaning up my house and filling out the DLA form. DLA is a benefit for people who are mentally deranged or severely disabled, who need help in their daily lives. Example: if you live in a house full of rubbish, only ever eat food direct from the tin, sleep on the floor in the clothes you wore during the day and cannot be bothered to shower and your doctor thinks you're schizo you should get DLA pretty easily. I don't get it because I was so depressed when it ran out last time I just felt like a fraud. I got no support from anyone in authority: drugs workers etc. They were taken in by my sardonic pose and heroin-saturated brains and thought I needed no help.

Everything changed when I went mad enough that the dr saw it all over me the second I walked into the consulting room. He looked really shocked at the state of me and I thought I was normal! Then the council sent somebody from another department to do a home visit and this person says I have issues of self care.

They say that depression deteriorates the attention, (which it does) but nowhere near as badly as mania. As long as I'm talking (or writing), I can follow my own outpourings. I'm no good with books at the moment but I reckon I could do that DLA form. Problem is I have to FIND it first. I have about five copies but my house is such chaos I haven't a clue where a single one is.

It's very shaming filling in that form. You have to admit what a fuck-up you are. Under diagnosis I have to write schizoaffective disorder which I'm not even sure is correct. I'm not psychotic, I'm just miserable.

On the other hand, I know if they cut me off my benefits, I wouldn't go out and get a job (what employer would possibly have me?), I'd just live on the streets begging for spare change. So I suppose if I keep this in mind I can feel entitled to money. Everyone else seems to get DLA. I don't get it because I was too much of a mess to make a claim.

Well I have to go it's past 6am now. I badly need a cigarette. I really don't know what else to say.

PS: Anna posted up a video of somebody committing suicide the way I'd so it if 10,000mg Seconal weren't available (gun in mouth). He falls down way quicker than people in the movies and blood comes spurting out of his nose. I don't advise anybody watch it who's thin-skinned or easily shocked. The link is here.