Bitch Worker II

ME AND BUTA MY NEW DRUGGIEWORER DO NOT HIT IF OFF. She's cut from the same cloth as Maple Syrup ~ bitch-faced drug worker of yore who I fired. Does not listen. (Yet accused me of not listening to HER! So much for being client-centred!)
All she did was bang on about these amazing groups and how I need to go into a detox unit. I told her I've been in detox twice and had a terrible time. But already she wasn't listening. She grabbed the Group Therapy Timetable, cicrled three: alcohol, detox/rehab and "stabilization". She absolutely insists that I go.

Until she said that I was quite open to going. Now I don't want to go at all. I'm not bothering with the alcohol group on the basis that I'm drinking 28 units per week. This is within the UK government's health guidelines and hence I have no need to sit in a room full of drinkers lying about their consumption because they're under the clinic's roof and know anything they do say might get back to their worker.

I said I would go to the detox/rehab group because you can't knock something until you've tried it. I have no intention whatsoever of going into inpatient detox because they cut you down too quickly. My plan always has to be to taper my methadone "in the community". The end of the taper will be very drawn-out indeed. I don't really care what the clinic thinks about my plan because by the time I'm on 10mg, I'd just buy spare methadone on the street as an when it was required. I'd only consider detox/rehab if I were unable to go on taking methadone "in the community" without using on top of it. My resolve is far stronger now than it's been for a while. So I don't think I'll have that problem.

As for stabilization: I'm fully intending to pee out heroin-free piss next week, which means I will be stabilized. I'm looking forward to this group the most because I know most "clients" will be lying through their teeth about how stable they actually are and how much drugs they use. I envisage lots of opportunity for being mischievous and truthful at the same time. So I'm really looing forward to that one.

So I'm going to these two groups and won't be bullied into any more NHS-run groups again. Difference between these groups and NA is that NA has an atmosphere of Recovery. Most NA members are drug-free (that means methadone-free too). Whereas the addicts at these clinic-run events are almost all still using and trapped in the mentality of a crackhead looking forward to their next pipe. That's why I found the last lot of group therapy so insufferable.

I don't forsee any improvement in mine and Buta's "relationship". She seems to think I'm mentally retarded and speaks to me like a 3 year old. Because I don't feel "well" I am not engaging with anything or anyone very much. I'm not putting on a nicey-nicey happy-smiley act for someone who doesn't respect me. I know the woman's problem: she doesn't know how to handle me, so she patronizes.

One big advantage of attending those awful groups is that you get to know other members of staff. Once I have found an ally I will put my complaint forward, the same way I complained about Maple Syrup. I was rid of old Maple that very morning.

So that's that.

I have heard nothing from this supposedly amazingly integrated mental health care approach team plan malarky. As I write, I have a risperidone pill lying on top of my coleslaw pot. Yes I am going to submit to the chemical cosh once more. I've taken a Valium in readiness. Antipsychotics are so rough you NEED Valium to take the edge off the concussion-like effects of them. I am supposedly meant to continue with these pills, even though they're "antimanic" agents, when I'm depressed. But really I need some kind of antidepressant. I know they won't want to give that, so it'll have to be a dreaded mood stabilizer. Part of me would really like a bit of Elevated Mood. What I could do without is my my mind going into such overdrive I'm falling to pieces. It took weeks and weeks to recouperate from the last "episode".

When depression goes away the worst I've been left with has been some lingering self-esteem issues and occasional automatic depressive thoughts. Mania on the other hand put my brains into meltdown. I couldn't remember simple things. Words. Names. Appointments. I lost the ability to do multitask completely. I even had trouble typing. Words consistently appeared backwards. Occasionally I could glance at a page of text and see meaningless wiggles ~ what an illiterate tribesman would see. Nothing seemed to make sense any more. I didn't know where I was going or what I wanted from life. My attention span was so fractured I had to watch DVDs 5, 6, 7, 8 or more times to get the gist. So that's about all I did. Watched endless DVDs. Because my mood was elevated, not depressed, I felt OK. Like a car crash victim, stoked up to the eyes on morphine feels OK. Totally disabled but not too bothered about it. Every evening I felt a distinct rise in mood as the last pill wore off. On a couple of occasions I went into full-blown mania before I took the antimanic pill. Then I'd potter about totally lost in my flight of ideas and racing thougts, unable to sleep because of the cinematic images I saw whenever I closed my eyes. Sometime in the early hours my energy would briefly lull and then I'd run to the bathroom cabinet and knock back the pill.

Those days are gone now. I need some of that energy back.

Only good news is, my methadone has been dropped another 10mg. I knew they wouldn't countenance 1mg a day.

And now I have this bitch-features hacking away at my mental health. I don't now whether she's trying to give me another breakdown, but that's where I'm heading.

By the way, 豚 Buta is the Japanese word for "pig".