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!!!
ANNA GRACE constantly wants to know what I look like.
Well here you are Anna!
I don't like letting my hair grow because it makes me look like Norman from Eastenders
With nasty long hair and glases I am the spitting image of Olive from On The Buses
On a particularly bad day I look like Worzel Gummidge
And you wonder why I resorted to heroin, drink and crack for years? Drugs were the only way I could cope with being my horrid self! I do have an excuse ~ it's staring back at me in the mirror whenever I dare to look!
THERE'S not a lot to say today. Poor Mouth put on his blog a proverb about me"tis better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt" ~ let's face it, I've most certainly removed all doubt about me!
Anna Grace has gone in hibernation. She's back on the heroin and hiding from Anonymous, who keeps saying what a loser she is. I filled up her newest post with comments, as did Valerie and Boomer (2 drug dealers). Valerie signed in as me and started typing about her personal warts, the dodgy old cow.
My Chinese is coming along swimmingly. I keep getting discouraged, thinking "I will never learn this" I will never learn a language where all the words are weird and sound the same and there are two sets of characters (traditional and simplified). Yet I do learn it. The words are more difficult than Spanish or Italian but they're just as foreign if you think about it. The Chinese accent sounds more like an American accent than any other foreign language, as it contains retroflex R (like an American R). But it also contains sounds like a cross between S as in Sand and SH as in Shake or a sound halfway between S in Sand and CH in Church. Most extraordinary.
Usually I have zero discouragement and one hundred per cent inspiration when learning languages. It's the mysteriousness factor that appeals most, which is why Asian languages are to be preferred over European ones. Also as Valium Marilyn even knows, Chinese is "the easiest language in the world" ~ which is not strictly true as it's harder than Japanese or Thai but there you go. It's not as difficult as German, French or Spanish.
Seeing as it's my goal to speak 10 languages fluently, once Chinese is done there'll only be 7 left to go. (English is done; French and German are half done).
There's an awful programme on TV called "Ibiza Rocks" awful formulaic oldfashioned guitar music on an isle famed for brilliant formulaic and stereotypical dance music!
Here are 2 love songs. The 2nd one has a proper video:~~
I'VE NEVER BEEN IN LOVE BEFORE
the montage on this is more interesting than most of the others
IF I LOVED YOU
live recording session
ps that awful Professor Green is on telly ~ a one hit wonder if ever there was one. his only decent "song" is this one and that's because it has the best part of an inxs tune chucked in!
PPS how come Barbra Streisand stars in Yentl with a Man Named Mandy (Mandy Patankin) ~ did he have a brother called Wendy? Is his middlename Suzanne, so he could be a boy named Mandy and Sue?~?? And if Mandy isn't short for Amanda what is it short for?
20:14 HRS and I'm sat here with dark glasses on because of the GLARE. Bloody hell. Why do I have to go and catch photophobia now? I could turn the blinkin' light off and open the curtain actually.... There that's better. I'm not taking the shades off. I like to look cool when I'm blogging.
Barbra is crooning tunes from Broadway over my TV. I always play CDs through the television: the sound's way better than the £17.99 stereos I buy. Why a woman with a voice like that wasted years recording middle of the road pop, true with the odd gem thrown in, and only late in her career recorded the stuff everyone wanted to hear, I do not understand. That's why I don't count myself as a fan of Babs; she is too annoying. I'd better watch what I say as I'm still hoping for an invitation for dinner round at hers before I die. Knockout tunes with a knockout voice. Inspirational! Latitudinal! Roses!! There Barbra. Can I live in your house please, so you can sing me lullabyes when I can't sleep? Also can you leave me your house after you die? I need a house desperately. That's my new goal: to get several million pounds and a house. You need millions just to buy Tescos Finest basic necessities in today's world...
Well I spent most of today sleeping in my chair like a pensioner. Then I had to go out, do someone a favour. That made me all excitable again and my head was racing. Then I started getting tired again.
I have to say when I woke up this evening I wandered about wondering what the hell I have been doing the past week. I remember feeling incredibly euphoric and pacing back and forth at 4am. I remember deliberately putting Barbra Streisand and Chinese lessons on my telly at top volume at 5am. I remember becoming furiously angry over nothing several times. Luckily when I'm with other people I generally calm down because I have some focus for my energies. They just find it disconcerting that I hate sitting still and would rather wander about babbling than be all boring, like I normally am. I wasn't into rioting, strangely. You'd think a manic person would be well up for smashing up a few shops, but I never knew where the riot would be as I'm not a gang member or Blackberry owner. Also I'm way too paranoid to indulge in crime. I think fingerprints, CCTV, DNA. I'm prone to paranoia as it is; I don't need to fuel that fire, I really don't. Anyway I don't approve of mass shoplifting and certainly don't approve of arson. As for attacking the police, well I do understand that one I won't lie there. The police are 2'-faced bastards. Sometimes they're so kind it would make you cry. Other times they basically break the laws they're meant to uphold just to secure convictions. They don't care. On the morning I went up to have a good poke through the wreckage, I was quite tempted to crawl through HMV's window in Wood Green. I doubt the looters would have cleared out the Barbra Streisand section so it was all waiting for me. If I'd got caught I'd just have claimed squatters rights and declared I intended to live there. Now this rioting just makes me feel sick. I'm glad I didn't feel much at the time, it would have sent me off on one bigtime.
Well I don't recall what the hell it was I intended to say here. Oh yeah! Anna Grace and I got a comment telling us both to commit suicide! I love these:
It's more sorry ass to read that crap than write it. If I kept a journal I'd just lose it, that's why I post it online instead. Anyway I've come too far to stop now. And why do those comments always come to Anna's blog and not mine? Do they see her as a softer target? She barely ever answers back. I directed that commenter in Melody's direction. Melody loves haters. She says she enjoys people obsessing over her life.
As I told Anonymous, my life is pretty perfect at the moment. I'm off drugs, off drink and I feel spectacular. I'm certainly not depressed. I only felt ill because I caught some diarrhoearal disease. Also I think I might have expended too much energy being manic or hypomanic. Whichever it was.
Right that's it I'm off.
PS I just found out risperidone could give me woman's breasts. In which case I hope I geat great pendulous knockers so I can get a job as a tranny prostitute. I desperately need something to bring the money in. I know a heroin addict who did that and bought a pretty nice flat with the proceeds! WHILE using gear every day!!
I'm thinking of getting my meds changed to quetiapine (Seroquel) it's meant to knock you out way better. I don't know whether to take the risperidone again as I stopped it as soon as I started getting manic, in order to become as manic as humanly possible, which I thoroughly enjoy and revel in, in case you didn't notice, because mania just means being your natural self without restraint. So should I take these pills or those pills and GIMME A DOCTOR BACK I don't even have a shrink!! Thanks a lot XXX healthcare trust for shafting me yet again.
WHY DID I CHOOSE YOU?
I HAVE DREAMED/WE KISS IN A SHADOW/SOMETHING WONDERFUL
I HAVE BEEN looking into doing a methadone taper and how steep can I make the taper with any chance of longterm success. The gist of the research seems to say you can reduce in 10% or 10mg steps (whichever is the smaller) in increments lasting one week to ten days. Because scripts are one or two weekly I would opt for weekly steps. Ideally I'd just reduce down by one milligram a day: I can't see that I should feel anything at all reducing like that. You certainly wouldn't feel anything reducing heroin by that amount, but methadone is different, which is why I rant and rage about it being "more addictive" it IS. Which is plain ridiculous and plainly true. My own whingeing and complaining annoys me so much I just want this reduction got on with as fast as possible, so the Whining Junkie Persona can be left in the trashcan of the past, where it belongs.
I'm on over 100mg of methadone a day, by the way so I have to think of the reduction in three phases. Phase One: taking the dose down to anywhere between 90 and 60mg. 70 or 80mg used to be the ordinary highest dose an NHS methadone clinic would allow in days gone by and prescribing practices seem to be reverting back, with people who once were on relatively generous doses complaining the clinic won't reinstate them.
Oral methadone is said to have an equivalence to IV diamorphine of anything from 4 to 1 to 1 to 1. 4-1 meaning that 150mg methadone would cover a habit of 600mg diamorphine ie about a gram and a half of street heroin as it used to be at 40% purity (about a year ago). Since the Great Heroin Drought in this country heroin is only a fraction of its old potency, making methadone very much easier to stomach for me. It holds me way, way better than it ever used to.
Once I get down to Stage 2, which will be hopefully not much more than 60mg, I'll push for them to reduce it at 5mg a week until I'm down to about 30mg.
From 30mg methadone you can in theory transfer over to Subutex or Suboxone (same difference, from what I've heard). I would like to go on Subutex but I'm scared of the upheaval it involves. You have to go days without methadone until you're in pretty florid withdrawal, then switch over to this stuff that made me feel hyper, shrivelled my sleep down to a maximum 4 hours for days on end. Even when it started coming back I was only sleeping 6 hours. I felt so high on days 2 and 3 of Subutex I barely noticed the withdrawals. Looking back I had quite a few symptoms of hypomania during this time. I don't mind being hypomanic but my moods and sleep are so incredibly sensitive to withdrawal it would seem unwise to rock the boat unnecessarily.
From much below 20mg if I stayed on methadone I'd want absolute control of how swiftly and by how much I reduced and if the clinic won't accommodate me, from here on I would just score methadone myself and drink it to suit my own timetable. I don't trust drug clinics. The new one I'm at offered to transfer me to Subutex from over 100mg methadone. Which all sounds very nice but would probably put me in a mental hospital. They don't care. So when I have to, I'm looking after myself. The ONLY reason I'm sticking with an official clinic during the cutdown, apart from the will to save money, is so that if I ever DO end up in a nuthouse I'll get my methadone automatically without having to go through "titration" (chemical torture when they won't give you enough for days on end).
When I'm near 1mg I'm just diluting the stuff in a huge bottle of water and supping it all through the day. I would cut down to zero over several days ending up on microscopic doses so tiny they couldn't possibly be doing anything (why not?)... then finally at some point many months from now... I SHOULD BE CLEAN!!!
BTW I have to be heroin-free for anything bar the very beginning of my taper to be worthwhile. So I count myself off the gear as of now. My methadone dose goes down 10mg as of the middle of next week.
********
Ha! Becha all thought I was going to post exclusively about Anna (again). I have little to say about her. Except that I put her book up here because if she wants attention HERE IT IS. She says she faked her suicide because she wanted to end her blog. The post by a "friend" does echo this:
Anna wanted me to say Good Bye to everyone who reads this blog. She's sorry she couldn't keep it up.
I'm not at all convinced she properly thought out what she was doing or going to do.
On 4 June she mentioned an Hispanic guy named Jose staying at her parents' house. On 14 June 2 news reports appeared about a Jose Machiote, who was in possession of drug paraphernalia, being arrested for armed robbery at a corner shop. Which does chime with Anna's post on 24 June:
That homeless guy I had staying with me ended up sticking up a store and getting caught.
I feel depressed enough and stressed out enough (about coming off this methadone (and moving house)) as it is. I keep waking up in the middle of the night in horror. My head kind of resonates with stray words in an odd sort of way. The way I wouldn't be surprised if I'd smoked a spliff and it did that, only I don't smoke spliffs at all. And I'm pretty fed up with methadone clinic staff for having lectured me that all my problems would evaporate if only I gave up drugs and they plainly haven't and didn't when I was just on methadone. (My depression was constantly blamed on crack. They no longer lay my moods at alcohol's door, as the amount I drink is so tiny now.) I want off drugs because I'm fed up of them, not because I believe life will be any better. What I want to do most of all is just up and away and get out of the country, which I cannot do on methadone. So that's my goal...
Anna WHY did you do that? What reaction did you expect?
Well you did find out what I would have put if you HAD died, because it's 2 posts below.
When I found out you definitely weren't dead I was so happy I laughed.
I just feel bemused now.
ANNA YOU SWINDLING SWINE!
Her book is doing OK. She said it's sold 300 copies "most to a bookstore in Green Bay" (her hometown). When the second edition comes out I reckon she should publish under her full name Anna Grace Young, it's a lot more memorable than plain Anna Young. She wants her book to get as much attention as possible and I'm only too happy to help her. I still think what she did was ridiculous and in very bad taste. I think I know why she did it but I don't agree with any of it. I don't think she should delete her blog.
I HAVEN'T A CLUE WHAT IS GOING ON WITH ANNA GRACE. A notice appeared on her blog by a "friend" who had suspiciously similar punctuation to Anna (no spaces between brackets and the surrounding words(like this). A ghost post appeared promoting Anna's memoir I Hate Myself And Want To Die, then was quickly withdrawn, but you can still read the front of it by glancing down the blogs I follow on my sidebar. Last thing I knew Anna was bingeing out on heroin, had a homeless Hispanic man staying at her parents' house while they were away (recipe for disaster). And she was talking about going back on methadone, although she had already cleaned herself up in a minor cold turkey. It's not at all unusual for people to go 100% clean and then decide they just can't cope without a tiny dose of daily methadone or Subutex. Which is why when I finally get to that position I don't care what the clinic say, I'm buying the one milligram of methadone or Subutex on the street and dividing it into micro-doses myself. If it takes six months to reduce from one milligram to nothing, I'll do it. But I'm not following some run-for-the-convenience-of-the-staff-and-for-the-glory-of-their-statistics clinics's schedule.
Anyway I don't know what to think now. If you read Anna's mother's Facebook pages there's reference to Anna's book dated yesterday yet no mention of her death which is supposed to have occurred on the 16th. Which just does not fit.
I haven't heard anything from Anna for over 2 weeks. My feeling is that she is alive and unwell. But I do not know. COME BACK ANNA!
Maybe Anna does have the oddest family in history. Their daughter dies and they carry on posting away as if nothing happened. Maybe Anna is just trying to sell her book. So I'll do her one more favour: her UK Amazon link is here; the US Amazon link is here.
*******
Here's what I wrote yesterday:~~
NOBODY SEEMS TO BELIEVE Anna Grace really is dead. Just because the "friend" who posted on her blog sounds a lot and punctuates a lot (brackets without spaces) like Anna doesn't mean the situation isn't true. She could have posted that a week ago and instructed Blogger to hold on to it and post it up yesterday, when it appeared.
This ghost post showed up: MyTrafford Dashboard: "Title: I Hate Myself and Want to Die Subtitle: Project ID: 297745 Author Name: Anna Young (edit profile) Pen Name: Anna Young Genre: F...
it means a post appeared and was subsequently deleted. Which still doesn't mean Anna is alive. The "friend" could have posted this.
Oh I don't fucking know. ANNA GRACE COME BACK!
I can't believe I'm doing this, shouting at the dead: COME BACK ANNA!
Because if she isn't dead she's not going to WANT to "come back" now. Oh Anna why did you do it? I'm checking the public records office for Green Bay, Wisconsin because I just want to know. None of the online searches I've so far done have shown up anything, which isn't really surprising because it could easily take the relevant government departments a month or more to process paperwork.
In this country a death certificate is usually issued straight away. Nearest kin are called upon to identify the body. Any case where illicit drugs may be involved, or suicide is suspected goes forward to the coroner's court. It's not uncommon for the body to stay in cold storage for a few weeks if the actual cause of death is uncertain. Example: my friend Lucky was a long term (30 year +) heroin addict but died suddenly probably of multiple system failure, not drug overdose. She stayed in the fridge for at least three weeks.
O I can't believe I'm writing all this about Anna. Can anyone who knows anything please get in touch. I want to know for sure now.
I don't know what to think. Yesterday I was upset, today I'm walking away.
If you really are doing this to draw attention to your book Anna congratulations: attention drawn. But I really can't believe you would do this. Because whether or not you're living and breathing and hiding offline, you're dead to me.
ANNA GRACE is dead. A week ago today, she stuck a gun to her head, pulled the trigger and blasted herself into infinity.
Anna why did you do it? I know why, you don't have to tell me. You don't have to be sorry. You did what I would have done.
Anna had bipolar depression and had been addicted to a variety of opiates for over a decade. Nothing except heroin or Dilaudid ever seemed to make her truly happy.
She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
BRUSHWOOD DOGS come in a variety of colourings...
In the "old Nagano dialect" where shiba-inus come from, shiba can mean "little" (as well as its mainstream meaning of "brushwood") so 柴犬 shiba-inu can be translated "little brushwood doggie"...
I DIDN'T POST yesterday because I had nothing to say. Me and my "symptoms" went down the methadone clinic where I had little to say. Luckily I managed to change the subject off myself by talking about my efforts at Japanese.
On the way home I bumped into a schizophrenic I know who was having a psychotic episode. He seemed to be in a very Elevated Mood and was burbling on about God and the Devil. Then my Worker phoned me up about what Nutter Clinic I was supposed to go to. And this guy was blaring away down the phone about religious matters (but not in the matter of a country vicar sipping tea at Miss Marple's house; more manic street preacher style). I think my Worker thinks I have really peculiar friends now.
Deshane is coming by this afternoon. I'm depressed from trying to put together a to-do list in my head. The list seems un-do-able. Every time I feel like giving up some inner spirit kicks me and says Come On!
My council tax is in a complete mess, unpaid and seemingly unpayable. I wish I'd ticked the box now saying I was Severely Mentally Imaired. The Student Loans Company who I'm also in default to, wanted me to make a similar declaration of severe mental illness a couple of years ago, but I didn't think I WAS mentally ill. At least not in the way they said. Now I supposedly am ill but confused about the whole matter. A lot.
Deshane the home help key worker person is coming and I'm trying to keep positive. That's not very easy when something is slipping through my fingers. I don't know what's slipping. I just know I need to GET A GRIP.
Staying alive is the absolute bottom line; but what then? I feel confused now. I decided to continue my home clear-out. I have 3 typewriters. 2 are electric and just unusuable. The 3rd is manual and might be handy in a powercut, or if I decided to write a novel on a desert island. I have 3 dining chairs all retrieved from the street. 2 have to go. A whole bunch of Nigerian DVDs for the charity shop. I must have had a compulsive hoarding thing going on but I barely noticed it. See what I mean about living in a whirl. Whenever I try and make sense of things I'm told I Think Too Much. But without thinking, All is Nonsense. See I don't know. I just don't know. Did anyone except Mr Furtheron notice yesterday's last Shiba-Inu was a soft toy. The label on the back left leg gave it away...
Anna Grace's book I Hate Myself and Want to Die is available from Amazon. The American version has it in stock at $15.04; Amazon UK charge £9.86 and say they'll order it in.
I'M STILL SLEEPING hours and hours: all night then half the day as well. I'm fighting against depression. When I wake up my head is full of horror: I cannot imagine anything that would make life worth living. I keep telling myself to take one thing at a time. My house is more of a mess for my attempts to clean it. Recently I lost an important piece of paper and tore the place apart searching for it. I still have no idea where my old passport has gone. I need that passport. Even though it's out of date, it's the only proper form of ID I have.
I keep telling myself I ought to get off my arse and get a job. There was a programme on telly only the other night telling how all the sick and disabled are to be thrown off benefits and forced to work. What job could I possibly do? I'm qualified for nothing. I used to enjoy working with people but that would be very hard now. Ever since I went psycho I can't bear to be in crowds, can't handle looking into people's eyes. They make me too paranoid. Sometimes I feel the government is trying to hound me into suicide. Nothing makes me want to live more than knowing somebody wants me to die! Yeah: sheer bloodymindedness will see me through!
I tried to do some research on whether or not methadone works as a mood stabilizer. I suspect that in many people it does. Heroin certainly does on me and far more than methadone ever did. And this is where I ran into problems. With methadone not stabilizing me, my mood plummeted. During the worst period I couldn't even handle my fortnightly appointments at the methadone clinic without first dosing myself up on heroin. I couldn't handle the pain.
When I feel the way I do now, there's almost no subject that doesn't put me in an angry or negative mood. Even the Chinese language annoys me, because they simplified their characters after World War II. The whole joy of Asian langauges is that they are complicated. So simplified Chinese is a sheeer offence against nature! The Japanese simplified many of their characters too, but they strayed nowhere near the vulgar excesses of the Chinese who, for example, hacked horse from 馬 into 马. Whoever's responsible for that travesty should be shot between the eyes.
Anything that remotely impinges on politics annoys the living crap out of me. London annoys me because it is too small, underpopulated with irritating compromise-skyscrapers: tall enough to be a blot on the landscape and totally out of character with traditional London; nowhere near tall enough to be internationally impressive. Anything to do with addiction treatment annoys me beyond the pale because addicts should be offered injectable diamorphine prescription (or else shot dead). Something drastic should be done and methadone is just a toxic compromise. Blah blah blah everything's bad. It should all be done differently and the laxness, the mediocrity, the uncaringness of everyone in society appals me.
My only joy in life, apart from Hammy from Tales in the Riverbank, is the Japanese langauge. The people who write the textbooks should be shot between the eyes, because they teach you to read in European characters! It took me MONTHS to figure out how Japanese sentences are actually composed in Japanese script (which is not entirely phonetic). By learning the script I now have a vocabulary far in excess of anything I ever knew in French or German at this stage. I know the names of 25 animals. I can talk about atomic bombs, volcanos and elements. Traditionally Japanese formed its technical vocabulary by compounding Chinese characters, so manifold new words can be formed just by slamming them together. Even there you have the issue of irritating homophonous words. Example the syllable shi し can be represented by no fewer than 56 Chinese characters: 市,詩,氏,詩,師,死,史 and so on. Sushi is written 寿司 but you could spell it out phonetically すし in hiragana or スシ in katakana.
I can't explain why I find the Japanese langauge such a source of enduring fascination, but I do. Somedays I have found myself thinking: I wonder how you say this? And I wonder how you say that? Which is how I learned the words for bee 花蜂, wasp ワスプ and hornet 雀蜂. A hornet is onomatapoeically named a soo-zoom!
EARLY TO BED EARLY TO RISE makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise! I got up nice and early today and now I'm feeling healthy.
Didn't I go into a right downer yesterday? While I was actually posting it as well.
Today I went to my methadone chemist then got waylaid seeking out good misery memoirs. WH Smiths has a stingy selection of books at best, so expecting them to stock what I want is like expecting an industrial chain-pub to serve up Real Ale They just won't do it.
I searched the charity shops for The Quiet Room by Lori Schiller and Andy Behrman's Electroboy. I couldn't help wondering how on earth anybody managed not only to take crystal meth and cocaine but to nose them up in copious amounts during repeated bipolar manic episodes. When I was manic a mere couple of mugs o black cofee appeared to amp up my racing mind so very fast that my flimsy thoughts fractured and fell apart as they streamed letter by exploding letter into the warp-speed vortex of my delirium. During the peak of it all I don't think I was in any state to take an international flight, let alone set up and run businesses in art forgery the way Andy Behrman says he did. I have this suspicion that if he was compulsively drugging all the time then his mania might well be as much a drug-induced high as a natural one. What I remember of mania is not NEEDING drugs ~I felt high enough anyhow! Different strokes for different folks. I always had a wonky tolerance to uppers.
My friend Pinky (Perky's ex) still wants me to write her life for her. She says she's gone as low as you can do in depression and this is most definitely true. She spent weeks on end withdrawn into a catatonic stupor unable to speak or even move without prompting. I'm not surprised she has "mental health difficulties" considering the life she's had. Her story is the saddest life story I have ever heard. I don't know how she survived it. The last blow was when her best friend went and committed suicide last year ~ that was Perky. Perky had been messing about with that 4-methylmethcathinone crap. Its street names are mepherdrone and meow.
Pinky tells me I'm crazy because I once kept my washing up in the shower for 6 months showering it instead of wiping it clean. And she describes me as "excitable". Bloody hell. I don't think she's ever seen me in a true state of excitement. I did go a bit manic a couple of weeks ago and find myself cackling uncontrollably down the phone. This was around the same time I ended up running around in circles in the middle of the night laughing. I was bouncig those bouncy balls like crazy! Then the lovely hypomania wore off and I was all boringly depressed again I only knew I was manic because if, say, I glanced at a book which said "house" on the cover, I'd start seeing words following on from house that weren't actually there: housekeeping, house work, housewives, full house, house of ill repute... &c, &c, &c! Even today just now my brainbox was picking random words out of the air. I don't know whether that "means" anything. My own book was supposed to be a search for meaning in a morass of self-induced confusion. More to the point, it was supposed to explain why I did what I did. Which would explain how I got where I am today.
In the library I had a good flick through a Mental Misery Memoir titled Sectioned. I know the nomenclature varies around the world: being sectioned here means being placed under involuntary commitment ~ banged up in a nuthouse! The publishers don't even mention what manner of madness he suffered from, which is rather remiss in this day and age of cod psychiatry. I soon figured out he was manic-depressive. He was orphaned at 14, ECTd at 16. But his life seems to be a blur. Maybe I was flicking through it far too fast, maybe he just doesn't want to remember. He talks of a "delusional mist". But there's nothing misty about delusions, which aren't just false beliefs ~ they have a brilliant, compelling quality. The only thing indistinct about such a state would be one's memory of it afterwards. With time, the bright swirl of the moment does fade into the mists.
My favourite drug memoir, by the way, is Anna Grace's I Hate Myself And I Want To Die. Gone is the bleary mush you come to expect of such books. Her writing is crystal-sharp and focused. She thinks her writing isn't good enough, but I tell her again and again it's not about being clever, it's about putting your point across. Which she does perfectly. Which is why she is so readable. Authors who spend more energy trying to be witty and itelligent than telling a rattling good read... I'm sure y'all have encountered that type of tome. As far as the drugs go, of course my own misery was self-inflicted, though it doesn't feel that way at the time. Addiction isn't self-inflicted in the ordinary sense of the word, because addicts take drugs automatically. I once heard a lady police officer saying "nobody puts a gun to their head and forces them to take heroin". But that's the point: they do! She phrased it perfectly: heroin IS a chemical gun to the head! It that forces you to use it more and more ~ and if you don't you'll pay for it. Of course you pay a heavy price to use the drug as well, and that's the main reason addiction is such a misery. Marianne Faithfull once said you only stop using when the pain of being on drugs exceeds the pain of being clean. I'm not sure that's exactly true. Pain has never ever made me want to stop taking the world's best painkiller. What does make me wanna stop is being fed up a substance that never made me feel good enough for long enough, has never been strong enough for long enough. One that seemed to make me feel better but in the end probably made me feel worse. I've grown tired and intolerant of the whole scene. All the best people have died. I can't stand the baby gangsters who deal in the stuff. I feel old and tired. I never intended to be the heroin addict I turned into. I only continued taking heroin because I felt a lot worse off it than on it. But I'm now getting to the stage where I want more from life. I don't know what more is on offer, but I'm willing to give it a try. In a way I don't care how much life without heroin might hurt, because the life I had on it was intolerable too. I feel like I'm on a ride to nowhere. If there is some point to it all, I'm sure I'll find it sooner if not later.
Of course, drug addiction is a type of self-inflicted misery, but I was miserable before I ever took drugs. Mood-altering substances were especially tempting when your mood is so low. Even when I didn't think moods were the root of my difficulties I've had counsellors telling me to see doctors, and doctors telling me I was depressed. Only when I got addicted to heroin, strangely enough, did my drug habit become a be-all and end-all in the eyes of the medical "experts". My own drug addiction has been a gigantic exercise in self-harm. I never managed to die. So the issue now is learning how to live. I wonder I wonder what life has in store next. I'm bored sick of life lived between methadone and heroin. Now I want to see what's next...
6:54pm I've run out of online Tales of the Riverbank, so here's the Russian version of the Canadian original, Hammy Hamster
Escaping hamster. This one's obviously well practised in the art of getting out of a boring plastic tank:~
IT'S HALF PAST ELEVEN. I got up dead early this morning and drank methadone. Watched the Royle Family and met a friend who owed me money.I got paid in gear which ****ed my resolve up not to use. The gear was crap anyway. Then I went up the chemists, got methadone. This methadone is for the early hours when I'm knocking back the lot so I can face the day with no cravings at all. I'm hoping the huge dose will put me in a good mood. Fat chance of that probably but you can but try.
I've been doing a spot of cleaning every single day. The full sacks are piled on a chair. I daren't put them out until the binmen come round. Otherwise some wild animal or scavenging human will tear them open revealing my cyder-drinking and other sins to the world.
Our local charity shop sold me a hardback copy of the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book for £1. It's the fourth edition. Like the NA book, the second half is packed with personal stories how I took up and gave up drinking. Surprisingly I found the stories more informative than the Narcotics Anonymous ones. When I read the NA ones I keep wondering how white the heroin was, how much they paid for it, what type of needle they used, and which vein. Junkie questions. In the AA book I focus more on the point.
My concentration span is going downhill (again). But it means I get more value from the book. I can read the best bits over again and it's all new every time.
I went to bed at 4pm from sheer exhaustion and slept till 8. That means I've slept 12 hours today. I woke up with my head going everywhere. 12 people have voted in my hearing voices poll so far and most people say they have heard them at some point. Which doesn't surprise me. According to the Voice Hearers Movement 2/3 of those who regularly hear voices have no psychiatric diagnosis. I was crossing the road today when I heard Jim Royle say "bloody hell!". I nearly got hit by a VW Beetle. A red one. Now that I know that I'm not mad I'm much happier about it.
I've had corned beef and a bag of chips. Couldn't finish the chips. I don't know why I'm still so fat. It was only one tin. I did give up corned beef for a few days but the craving gets so intense it's too much to bear. Far worse than the craving for heroin.
Anna Grace has posted nothing since Friday. She might be sicking out her habit. I hope she does get clean. She said she was going all manic. Having an elevated mood is really helpful for coming off drugs, well I think so. Why on earth would you want drugs when you feel fantastic anyhow? Only drugs I was glad of when I went hyper were zopiclone sleeping pills. I got some sleep every single night. Even though it was only 2 and a half hours, it's better than nothing. That line drs like to spin about your body getting the sleep it needs is a lie by the way. I've gone 4 days on no sleep at all and I've heard stories of people going 7 days. All that happens is you go more mad and hallucinate floridly. And when you do sleep after all that time, it's usually only for a few hours. And then you're awake for days on end again. This is in mania by the way. So all that stuff spouted by doctors is just crap. I hope Anna isn't too manic, it really melts the brains does mania. She might be in hospital. I hope she's OK.
I need to do some voluntary work, but who would have me? Need to finish clearing my house first. What shall I do work-wise? I don't know...
I keep hearing voices in my head jabbering in Northern accents. Jim Royle saying "my arse!" over and over. They're not hallucinations, they're kind of really loud thoughts from outside. But they didn't happen when I was sane. And I know they're supposed to mean I'm mentally deranged. The pills can block them out.
Also the risperidone has some sort of blockading effect on the heroin hit. It doesn't stop the nasty stuff working but it somehow makes taking it not seem worthwhile. So that's a good thing for me.
The reason I stopped taking it was that I was feeling incredibly flat and I thought risperidone was responsible. Then I began feeling depressed on top of that and risperidone is not a mood stabilizer as such. It did make me feel a lot less manic, but I'm not manic any more. So I wasn't sure whether or not to continue with risperidone. So I stopped it. And slumped into a pit of depression.
I was remembering what happened in full-on mania. My brain did everything bar melt on me and drip out of my ears down my neck, hissing, popping and fizzing as it drooled in luminous fingers down my back! Not good. The in-between hypomanic stage was good. That went on for several weeks and prompted my doctor to write to my GP telling of my "elevated mood". The only other detail I remember from that letter was "paranoid ideation".
My Mum wrote to me threatening that I'd get chucked out on the streets. My head was confused enough that I kept thinking she wanted me out on the streets. Or thought I was supposed to go and live there. She thinks that because my doctor mentioned schizophrenia I must have at least 2 personalities. She says some course she went on many years ago taught her this. Whoever taught that course needs shooting between the eyes. I only have one personality. That person might be quite warped and I don't like it very much. But it's only one person. If I could turn myself into somebody else I'd be overjoyed.
Originally I wanted a manic episode back. This had as much to do with being depressed and despairing of ever being "normal" as actually wanting to be so-called "ill". I didn't see much choice in the matter. So I wished the mania would hurry up and come back.
But now I'm feeling out some dimly-lit middle way that might somehow lead to happiness.
I woke up this morning with my head still dreaming. The Royle Family were having a loud conversation in between my ears as I wondered what on earth I was supposed to do. Life seemed so overwhelming. Then I told myself I just had to keep clearing and cleaning my house. Every day. Do a bit, every day. Don't think. Don't think too much. Don't think about it. I only think when I'm unhappy. Unhappy thoughts. So don't think. Just do it. Then when it's done you can think up something else.
So that's my plan. I've been spending hours asleep. Yes the sleep pattern has come back. I slept all afternoon, then went to bed around ten at night and slept through till nine in the morning.
So here's my plan for today. I'm still fighting unhappiness (if the truth be told). And if the truth be told further, I could do with some of that hypomania back: heightened mood and energy. Trust me to get it back only for one bloody day! That has happened before. I costed out how much it would've cost me to go that long on cocaine: £2-300. So that's a good coupleof hundred pounds worth of free high. You've got to look on the bright side.
I'm wondering how Anna Grace is. She was detoxing off heroin in her parents' empty home last I heard. Only her tiny terrier Elle for company. Then she started going manic. But her mood cycles quickly so she's either stuck to the ceiling or feeling a bit down or very down by now. Being as no post has appeared since Friday I'd assume she's down rather than up.
She's taking all these meds for bipolar disorder and they still don't seem to sort her out. Taking an Addreall (dexamphetamine) prescription from another doctor might have somethig to do with this. My own doctor said taking speed on top of bipolar was highly unadvisable. (I only asked this purely for Anna's sake; I haven't bought any speed since 1993). O yeah apart from Dexedrines purchased on the street in 1999. But I'm not into speed. It never agreed with me. Sent a clinically depressed me into comedowns so bad I could barely function at all, at the worst of it. Then the last time I did it, having found a great lump of it at a bus stop, a few lines taken on Monday evening had me speeding away into Wednesday and beyond! That was several years ago when I was still living in a crackhouse. Drugs like that and me don't mix so I stay away from them. So I don't know why Anna takes it. Something to do with an attention-deficit diagnosis as a child. ADHD and bipolar are said to present fairly similarly in children, with bipolar being more severe. She was taking uppers in her childhood (amphetamine and ritalin are supposed to calm down hyperactive children)... then surprise surprise had severe mood swings in adulthood. In fact 50% of bipolar 1s have a known history of substance use disorders. As do 50% of schizophrenics. So drug-use and mental illness are inextricably intertwined. You're only diagnosed after several weeks of symptoms while drug-free.
Well it's my goal to break away from all of this. I'm fed up of being arguably mentally unwell. And unarguably a drug addict. I'm trying to focus my head on more positive things. I'm pondering how I might make a book out of Valerie, the China White Heroin Queen of Australia. She has plenty to say for herself. If I can get a 300 page manuscript out of her, I'm sure Harper Collins would be delighted... wish me and Valerie luck with the inspiration..!
PS I just read this back and it looks like I don't know what the hell I want. I want to be OK and I want to write some amazing books that make me a fortune. And I don't want to be addicted to any substance at all. So those are my goals in life.
PPS I just went down Morrisons for corned beef and cheese coleslaw. It’s my first tin of corned beef in three or four days so I’m doing really well on that score. I was hoping for the Royle Family to accompany me down in my head. But they didn’t. Deserted me just when I wanted them most? Does anyone else get that? Voices in their head repeating catchphrases, telling jokes? I only remember it happening to me after I’d been in the nuthouse at least once. The first 2 times I only stayed in a week, then they chucked me out. I’m scared if I ever go in again they won’t want to let me go. But I could do with a little holiday sometimes. “A retreat” as Bipolar Becky once called it. I don’t want to go in the nuthouse now, but if I get offered it again I think I’m going back in. My head is too confused about what I’m doing with my life. That “breakdown”, if you want to call it that, really threw me on my head. I only use phrases like “mental illness” because it sounds so insightful and grown-up. Really I didn’t feel ill at all. I felt like finally I was in touch with my real self. I was in a really good mood. And the world felt unreal. Which is all, if you think about it, a pretty idyllic state to be in. You could argue that medication has ruined my life and brought me back to a sallow reality. Like waking up in the bath of near-freezing cold water you tried to drown yourself in, floating in a white haze, miserable and still alive. That’s how I see reality. And I want a better life than that.
SO COME ON you nutters! (Or normal people. I heard normal people hear voices too, there's even an international Voice Hearers movement for those who do; link given below...) I want to know whether you get voices in your heads? Or outside your heads? Or both? If so where and how loud? Do they come in from outside? Or do they hover in the air floating? What do they say? What do they sound like? When did they start? How often do they come to you? And is it supposed to be to do with any sort of so-called illness? If so what label? And do you wear the label round your neck like a Jim’ll Fix It medal? Someone I knew with a borderline personality disorder used to do that and I saw other people seemingly confusing diagnosis with identity. Put me off divulging anything of note to a psychiatrist for years, did that. ANSWERS PLEASE!! + Y'ALL CAN TAKE PART IN MY NOSEY SURVEY (ABOVE)...
I spent the £20 that could have gone on gear on a Royle Family DVD box set. “Princess Anne: the Divorce Years” is particularly good. Nah, I’m just kidding. The Royle Family, as all Brits will know, is a sitcom about four people who sit around watching telly, smoking cigarettes and eating chocolate biscuits. You get series 1, 2 and 3, three Xmas specials and a documentary all about the making of. That’s every second of the Royle Family ever broadcast. Now there’s a complete 30-film Carry On box set. The Carry On films, for those of you on foreign shores, are ancient British comedies full of very repetitive innuendo. Carry on Doctor, Carry on Nurse and Carry on Camping are the three all-time classics. Last night Carry On At Your Convenience, set in a lavatory factory, was on BBC2.
Well my mood was on an even keel pretty much all day. I had terrible trouble sleeping on Wednesday night. Suddenly, as I was pinging around Morrisons I started feeling hyper. Stayed hyped up all day. Like an idiot I went and bought gear, as I posted. But that’s the last gear I bought. It was really weak and did nothing to chillax me. Not that I really wanted calming down. By two In the morning I was in a really psychedelic mood. Loud psychedelic trance was banging out. I even did a spot of cleaning.
Suddenly I realized it was light outside and I hadn’t been to bed. I got to bed by sometime after six, but the glaring light kept me awake. So I hid under the covers and still got no sleep. It took me something like five hours to actually start sleeping properly. Then I got up after three.
Nearly all my depression has evaporated though I can never be sure how long it’s gone for. Today I felt totally normal until this evening when I suddenly got dog tired. I was watching the Royle family and chain smoking and didn’t want to go to bed too early (I want a sleep cycle back). I’ve had trouble sleeping for some days. I wake up again and again and again in the night.
It’s currently 3:10am. I did go to bed over an hour ago but my head was too full of random thoughts pipping and popping in all directions. Sometimes it can be really entertaining listening to them all, but I’ve been feeling a bit ill. Full of fluctuating energy. Sudden whooshes of energy. Sudden exhaustion. It just means I’m having mood swings, but sometimes I really don’t feel well.
I’m feeling a lot calmer than last night so maybe I’ll be able to get some shut-eye if I have a lie-down around four.
I hope this stuff isn’t too boring. If I actually had a private diary I’d write all this here. I know my sleep-cycles probably aren’t a source of fascination to the world, but I’m supposed to be keeping a mood diary, so I keep it in my blog for ease of access. Least I know where my bloody blog is. A journal in book-form I’d mislay all over the place. I hope the mood stays up and doesn’t fall down yet again. I was starting to feel desperate enough to submit to the dreaded Mood Stabilizers. I’m going to have to tell this doctor of mine about all this depression I’ve just gone through. I’ve had depression for most of my adult life. Not always full-blown extreme depression; maybe unhappiness is a better term for it. But whatever it is, it’s become a way of being and I’m fed up of it.
I decided a few days ago to focus myself on more positive things. Which was well nigh impossible when I was back on heroin and just wanted to curl up and die. Now I’m in my right mind it’s up to me to seek out some new interests. Can’t think up much apart from my Valerie book. Valerie has lifted me from the depths of despair on several occasions. She’s the only person who can make me laugh when I’m in depression. Apart from Anna Grace in Wisconsin.
Anna had an appointment at the methadone clinic on Thursday and I don’t know whether she went, thanks to Blogger being down. Anna got herself totally clean. Came off Suboxone. Then relapsed back on heroin and some of those strong pain pills American junkies jack up: oxycodone and Dilaudid (hydromorphone). Anna has a real thing about Dilaudid, it seems to be her favourite drug. I’ve never tried pain pills. Over here the only opiate commonly available to addicts is heroin. And if you’re in treatment, methadone and Suboxone.
I hope Anna manages to get herself on an even keel soon. She purloined an entire month’s supply of her Dad’s oxys and replaced them with aspirin. Apparently he hasn’t noticed. And she blew all her money on gear. She’s been depressed for as long as I remember, with the odd hyper phase chucked in. She doesn’t ever seem to be truly happy. Who does that remind you of?
Well I’m ploughing on with Project Life. Don’t know how the hell I’m going to do it. Has something to do with repeatedly putting one foot in front of the other, from what I know. My house is still a tip. My housing manager person (at least I think that’s who she is: the Stern Council Lady) tells me just to chuck out a couple of black bags full a week. I’m aiming at one bag a day, if not two.
As for other plans, there’s nowt but a gaping hole. I got so badly disoriented by all the crap that’s gone on since the end of last year, what with psychiatrists and methadone and all, I don’t even know what I want any more. I wasn’t living in the same world everybody else seems to live in. I went into a parallel universe. Now I’m relatively OK it’s time to decide what I am doing.
I was going to write a little book called Little Trotter Donkey Goes Away With The Fairies. About a little horse who accidentally grazes on some magic mushrooms, swirls into a psychedelic vortex and meets some gnomes, trolls, imps, sprites and fawns. I’m not sure WH Smiths will want to put that in their children’s section but hey…
THAT LAZY COW ANNA GRACE HASN'T POSTED ANYTHING TODAY. Probably in a heroin-induced stupor. Or sick as a parrot due to a lack of gear.
I scored a £10 bag this morning to go with my shopping (corned beef, cyder, cigarettes). I borrowed £20 off someone till Monday morning.
The £10 bag knocked me unconscious all day. Really good stuff it was. I'm buying more tomorrow. Told you I would wait till Monday to decide whether to go with antidepressants (street heroin) or death (a train).
When I looked at what I had posted I thought "why did you say all this". I know it was true and all but still. I suppose I wanted people to get used to the idea that I wasn't long for this world.
I only feel OK now because I've been drinking. The film The Deer Hunter is on. It's that scene when they're in the water and the helecopter only picks up one of them. So cold and wet and disappointed. Then the Vietnamese captors force them to play Russian roulette. Gun to the head. Piles of money (that would be the Vietnamese dong). Lots of jabbering in SE Asian dialects. Must be like Valerie's house when the hungry kids come home from school.
Not much else to put. I've done a spot of cleaning. Head cloudy. Head all over the place. Head much better now alcohol is in it. Now I feel clear.
I know the corned beef diet isn't a good one. Keeping myself alive has hardly been a recent priority which means eating fills me with conflict. I'm going to eat a bit of salad anyway. Salad's supposed to be good for you and it's really low in calories.
I wish Anna Grace Old would get in touch. Her dog has mites! She thinks the dog caught them off a mouse!
Tonkie Ears my pet wild mouse has deserted me well and truly so it's all depressing here. My back's better so cleaning will begin in ernest. My family say I should do things I enjoy but I enjoy nothing. Only thing that induced me into cleaning was that it's a torture and suffering is what life is all about. I used that reasoning and it worked. I got a binbag full of crap outside.
LOOKING BACK OVER MY LAST FEW POSTS, how miserable was I?! Misery and suicidal ideation left, right and centre. Yes I have been very unhappy of late. I basically feel ill all the time. And yet I don't feel I'm depressed. I feel like nothing is wrong with me, that I'm a time-waster, a malingerer and a fraud and I don't deserve help. Yet looking at my life I'm in desperate need of something. Most people would call it "help". But how can I accept it?
I question why on earth I ran to a doctor in my "elevated mood" of yore.
But that isn't true. I didn't run to any doctor while manic. What happened was I went manic-depressed ~ BOTH in the same week. The walls started talking to me LOUD. I had the most severely mislaid lost weekend of my life. My sense of hearing suddenly went ten times more acute than normal. It was like living in a house without walls. Everything anyone said or did in any room I heard full-on, like the bizarrest radio play. Everybody on the street. My next door neighbours even. I heard conversations, chatter, sex and a sawing noise like somebody constantly going at a piece of wood. When cars rushed down the street they whooshed echoing into a cyberdelic vortex of sound. And I was hallucinating auditorily vividly. At one point I heard voices speaking Spanish and Chinese. At another it was as if somebody had strewn fifty or so radios all on different channels spewing music, spouting speech all babbling and jangling at once. My mood zoomed and soared and I saw visual spectaculars: the northern lights in full colour in my own living room. This is the most floridly psychotic I have ever been. Although I'd woken up feeling so dire I lay on the floor for four hours before eventually mustering energy to get out of bed, have a cursory shower and heave myself up the road to collect methadone.
I couldn't sleep all weekend. Neither could I eat. I remember drinking tomato soup straight from the tin, cold. Something that looked like a cross between fur and grass was growing out of the top. I knew it wasn't actually there, but that didn't help it go away.
Up and down, twisting in and out my moods dipped and soared. I was cycling in what psychiatrists call a type of mixed bipolar state. And I wasn't on drugs. I was NOT on drugs, this is how my brain reacted to "normality". This is what kept me using for so many years. Untoward mental symptoms, only now they'd gone truly spectacular.
The next few days I felt not only down but injured. I curled up in a chair by day seeing visions of myself in prison, full of guilt, imprisoned for the rest of my life. I didn't want to die: my life was over already.
One day I was perfectly blank. Another day I was depressed. Some friends came round wanting to score. I was totally averse to drugs by this time. They used my dealer and I partook nothing. But I got into their car and experienced a rush like suddenly coming up on Ecstasy full-on. I couldn't stop babbling.The more stressed I got ~ and I got very stressed indeed ~ the higher my mood soared. Nothing this intense had ever happened to me before.
I knew that first weekend that something had gone drastically wrong. I phoned my Mum who was already shocked, having seen me bombed out of my head on dodgy benzoated heroin. She had phoned my druggieworker in horror so they had a dialogue going. I told my Mum to tell my Worker I had been hearing voices. The worker called me on Monday morning. I got a psychiatrist's appointment that Thursday. Seeing a psychiatrist is always stressful. I was particularly stressed. On the ride down a black girl was very obviously talking about me and insulting me repeatedly. I was very angry and kept my hands to myself though I felt like throwing her downstairs. I paced back and forth in the medical building, knowing it would hype me up but destroy anxiety. By the time the doctor saw me I was more hyper than I realized. If you want to see the state I was in watch the video on my sidebar "manic episode: Trisch goes nuts" ~ I was in that type of state. A markedly elevated mood, racing thoughts, rapid speech. Knowing the doctor wanted to know what happened, how much, how long, how intense, what it felt like, how I felt, I told him all this in one uninterrupted stream of consciousness. He only asked three questions in the entire session. To my ranting banging "you can't say I'm manic; I've only been like this six days and the diagnostic criteria say seven" he replied "what do you know about schizophrenia?" I answered "it's not caused by a mood and it's a psychosis"... At home his question came back to haunt me and I wondered whether I did have schizophrenia. And I cried.
I stayed off heroin, went down into a depression. Went back on heroin for a week. Wasn't impressed. Back to methadone. My mood was still cycling. One Sunday I was depressed, hearing voices and wandering aimlessly on the streets, too unhappy to enter my own front door. I went home, slept and woke up the next day in a markedly elevated mood. I remember queueing for my money in the post office. By the till they have shiny bags covered in rainbow holograms. One had acid-smiley faces. I was transfixed by the bright colours and depth of texture. I felt wonderful and sensual, the way I used to on Ecstasy. Though I would never in a million years have dropped an E in order to appreciate goods in the post office!
I'm not sure I slept that night. Next morning my hearing had gone hyper-acute again. A man turned up on our garden path jabbering into a mobile phone about having moved my bed around. I lay there thinking WHAT??! All day, I felt irritable, angry. As I was about to leave for NA I heard two voices. In one ear "nervous breakdown"; in the other "schizophrenia". Schizophrenia again. This put me on a real downer. I stomped down the road, caught the bus and endured loud conversations about my background, my reputation, my school records from other passengers. At this time I was getting well meaning but off-beam comments telling me to go to NA or AA every single day. I don't think anyone realized what I was actually going through. One person even said "I used to hear voices too on my way to meetings" this same person criticized me for sitting in a meeting for five minutes then upping and leaving. Maybe their mental condition was markedly different from mine. But hallucinating floridly and poor attentionspan tend to go hand in hand. We were cooped together in this meeting. Everyone smelled of periods and semen. I thought the man next to me was going to pick my pocket. The man giving the chair kept staring at me. And the meeting was so packed there was a chair in the way of the door. I couldn't stuck this out for nearly 20 minutes and eventually left, causing marked disturbance. But I didn't care. I just needed fresh air.
I didn't sleep at all that night. My mood soared higher and higher. My house was a mess and I was supposed to be cleaning it but I couldn't focus myself enough to clean anything. There used to be a dual-diagnosis meeting I always referred to as Nutter Club. It took place once a week. Naomi, the lady who runs it is expert at dealing with people with severe mental health issues. Most people there seemed to be bipolar. A couple of schizophrenics turned up, but they say far less. Naomi had met me and we'd spoken in depth a few times over the previous couple of years. She knew that I believed I had something bipolar going on. Not necessarily bipolar disorder. But I was definitely on the so-called "bipolar spectrum" as it's very trendily known nowadays.
I remember her saying one time between the florid stage of my condition and my actually getting a diagnosis "you know and I know that it's not drug-related but you've got to stay away from everything so the doctor knows that too". This particular comment came back to haunt me. On the one hand I didn't want to be thought of as a druggie timewaster, going nuts because I'd used too much. On the other I was terrified of the term "bipolar disorder" I didn't want the label slapped across my forehead. I didn't even consider that it could have been something else, something worse...
I was in such a state this day I went to the nutter club. I had been dancing about my kitchen in a state of disarray. My clothes were dirty, my hair unwashed; I was thoroughly unkempt. I had great difficulty getting myself and my keys and my Oyster card (for the bus) and a little bit of money and my phone all in my pockets with my brain flying all over the place at several thousand miles per hour, on no sleep (which I didn't really need, though it felt strange to someone used to sleeping sixteen hours or more a day in my depressions...) I arrived at the nutter club thinking my mood was fairly normal, that I was just a bit hyped up. In a group with three other nutters I was unable to contain myself from laughing hysterically. People tried to talk and I kept stopping them saying WHAT??! They might as well have been talking backwards: gibberish. Naomi said "look I think you need to be seen by a doctor" so the meeting closed early and she took me to the mental hospital which was just down the road. I kept asking "do I have to speak as slowly as possible and not wave my arms about?" (ie not act manic) she said "oh no they're so full you don't have to worry about being sectioned" (involuntarily committed). The only thing that could have got me sectioned, as I understand it, would be direct, focused threats of violence or active suicidal behaviour with a specific plan. I was seeing this doctor because I had known for years that something was wrong, that I'd had bipolar symptoms and nobody listened. Nobody took me seriously. i got the distinct impression they thought I was lying. Trying to make myself seem more interesting.
In the mental reception my mood soared higher than ever before. Naomi introduced me to a colleague who looked just like a woman off the television. I peed in a cup and sure enough: no speed, no crack, no cannabis. Nothing except heroin METHADONE and benzos, both of which are downers, not uppers. The benzos were from my attempt a week earlier to give up alcohol for once and for all. But I never managed it.
Naomi and TV Girl said goodbye and I was left with a depressed middle aged man and a depressed black girl who kept phoning someone and screaming her boring personal problems down the phone.
Meanwhile my head was going more manic than it had ever gone before. I went through double doors to a corridor where the walls and doors and ceiling were echoing with scores of conversations. My head went from racing into complete overdrive. The words in my head broke off. So that "I'm going too fast" might stop with "going", the "-ing" broke off: ing-ing-ing-ing-in-in-in-INININININ" whooshing round with spectacular speed.I was losing my mind and the only way I could keep a grip was by yelling these syllables as my head disintegrated into random noise.
I calmed myself down by running through the alphabet out loud ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO.... over and over again. Pacing back and forth avoiding the bad letters. A is for acid, that's bad. B is for brown ~ heroin. That's bad. C is like the sea. It's brilliant in the sun; it's calm. That's good. I flew through them quickly and the black girl was staring at me. I didn't care. And I knew the nurses wouldn't be observing me.
Eventually I saw a kindly man who introduced himself as a psychiatric social worker. He pointed out, very patiently, that we had 45 minutes to take my entire psychiatric history. This was quite some challenge. When was I first depressed? In childhood. In my teens. It first became a major problem at university. Suicide? Yes twice. This got me raging about tetracyclic antidepressants. I took 8 pills and a bottle of vodka. Then I thought "fuck it" and downed a bottle of sixty heavy strength lofepramine. I puked them up almost straight away. The coating was still on the pills in the vomit which was everywhere. All over the floor. On my clothing. Down my hair.
If only I'd gone for Prothiaden/dothiepin I might be dead now. Merely touching on this subject sent me crazy with pent up anger, self-hatred, frustration and rage. I had to enumerate every upsetting, depressing experience. Being yelled at on railway station platforms by people who thought I was going to jump. Being waved at BY THE DRIVER of a high speed train. I've mentioned this before but it gets me to this day. How did he see me? How did he know at close to one hundred miles per hour that I, acting as normally as anybody in such a situation could, wanted to kill myself under a train?
When my depression reached one of its all-time lows I had a persistent idea that the train would hit me and I wouldn't really die. I'd just lie on the trackside in the cold, in the rain, in agony forever, trains rushing past and nobody ever healing me.
Having to dredge through this psychiatric history in the highly impressionable manic state was traumatic beyond words. Now that I FINALLY have a psychiatrist and proper notes and a diagnosis etc etc etc I should never ever have to go through this again. If I ever had to do it in an emergency situation I think I would walk out rather than seek treatment. It's just not worth recalling all that. People seem to assume that I dwell on my past. But I don't. I only dwell as I write. Then I'm in another zone.
Mild thought echo: age 23. Mild antidepressant-induced hypomania: age 23. Natural hypomania: age 27. First heard voices: early 30s.
A long, slow, slide downwards.
The psychiatrist looked stunningly beautiful. Her legs were shiny. The lights outside looked amazing. She asked more questions; this time about the present: how fast was I? How high? How irritated? How many voices? What did they say? How little sleep? She prescribed zopiclone 7.5mg ~ the best sleeping pill I've ever tried.
I walked for two hours then took the bus home. This night I slept for all of five hours. I hadn't slept this long in days. Next day I was even more euphoric. I felt grandiose and grand. I was out of this world. The world was left behind. I hate this world in both phases of my "illness" I never want to be in it.
The mania intensified until I felt like a tiger roaring. I swaggered up and down the streets. When people crossed me, as they often did, it was sufficient merely to glare at them. They seemed to spring backwards. People seemed to make way, clear paths, back off. Yes they looked terrified, but that was a new thing and it felt fantastic. A confirmation of my higher power.
I was obsessed by energy and power. My willingness to drop drugs turned into an aversion for drugs of all kinds. Taking crack or E or speed was the saddest thing you could do. By this time I'd gone higher than I'd ever been on any drug. The drugs seemed a pale imitation of reality. I tried heroin towards the end of the mania and it did little except make me sleepy and racy at the same time.
Over the weeks my mood went through a roughly seven day cycle. Seven days flying high; seven days lower. Sometimes hypomanic, sometimes vaguely depressed. Then up again. I thought this would never end.
My first few days of mania were by far the most intense. My psychiatrist prescribed the antipsychotic risperidone. As I came down gradually over the weeks it began to eat away at me that I didn't even know the name of this very obvious mental condition. I thought it was bipolar. I could see that I was high sometimes; low at other times. Surely that was bipolar disorder? No. The S-word returned to haunt me. SCHIZOAFFECTIVE. That's what my doctor, a consultant psychiatrist, thinks I am. Meaning I matched the full diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia and mania simultaneously. He said my psychosis was more florid than most manic psychosis. I think he also recognized my longstanding issues of self-care. People have long been deceived because I'm articulate, that because I'm able to talk and to touch type that it somehow follows that my house will be in order, my life will be in order that all will be perfect. it's not perfect; it's a mess. During the worst of my illness I couldn't even handle money. I just lost it. Keeping track of my housekeys was a major hassle.
Most people who go manic feel sociable and sexy. I felt neither. I was just as reclusive manic as depressed. I tried to use my hyperosity and energy to clear up my scruffy house, but I couldn't stick with it. Unsociability and avolition are key characteristics of schizophrenia. If you can be manic and still have these things going on they're extremely deep seated. Realizing this has done nothing to help my recent depression. I know I can't choose my illness from a psychiatric Chinese takeaway menu. Though I cried because I had schizophrenia, there are still a thousand physical illnesses I'd less rather have. By itself schizophrenia isn't necessarily a horrible condition. It makes me feel dissociated, unreal, bizarre and poetic. Occasionally I feel paranoid, but nearly always in public places. When I'm on my own I'm OK. It's a big reason why I keep myself to myself. Other people only bring me down.
I've been feeling depressed for several weeks now; it's not the worst depression in the world but it will not shift. It won't go away. It's eroding my self-esteem, making me feel worthless and guilty. Making me want to be dead. I've spent years in this state, so it's like Welcome Home.
This is the state that kept me using heroin for so long. I used every day I could afford to last week. Which puts me into desperation. Addicted and stuck, not coping, back on heroin a drug that I gave up for weeks on end during mania... back in the morass. I can't cope. I don't want to go on. I really can't cope, I'm not coping at all. I'm thoroughly dirty, living in a mess that the council send a sterm lady once a month to complain about. I'm waiting to be housed in a mental health hostel because my coping skills are so bad. I'm 39 years old yet life is reelling backwards. I've done the exact opposite of scrounging. None of the help that was meant to be out there for me came until I had a full-blown psychotic break. I know of people who have faked schizophrenia and psychosis to get housed, to get sick benefit and DLA and they make me so angry because even getting to my appointments feels like a major stress, yet these people are acting, they're quite capable. That's why I feel like I should be dead, I'm only a drain on society. If they cut off my money I couldn't work because there's no job you can do at your own pace. No job that accommodates someone who sleeps more than sixteen hours and NEEDS that sleep, every single day when the depression intensifies. I'd have to keep myself clean and tidy and get there on time. I can't handle looking people in the eye. I deceive people on the phone because I modulate my voice, but I can't do face to face when Im sick.
The jobs I'd most like to do are writer of novels which I'd be able to do even when quite sick. Even when I can't focus to follow a book by another person, I'm able to write ~ as you see from my blog. I don't believe I'm the greatest but I do have a uniqueness and that's what I'd aim to harness.
In more down-to-earth jobs painter-decorator is one I'd like to do. Many years ago I had an intuition that whatever career I went for, it'd have to be low stress. This coincides with all the advice I've read about schizoaffective disorder. Stress makes my condition very much worse. In mania I literally feel something like an accelerator, foot to the floor and a WHOOOSH!! In a normal mood, which I'm hardly ever in, I get horrible anxiety. And I still can have psychotic experiences when I'm in a normal mood. This is how my condition differs from bipolar disorder, where the psychosis occurs only at the polar extremes of mood. In depression everything feels like too much and I can't take it on.
Anna Grace and I have a lot in common. Anna has several years' history of intravenous opiate abuse. Tar heroin, white heroin and Dilaudid (prescription hydromorphone) being her favourite drugs. Her mental diagnosis is bipolar disorder but she's like me. Nearly always noticably up or down. Hardly ever "normal".
Most people with bipolar have episodes, which last weeks. But they end and the mood between episodes is neither low nor high: it's totally normal. But Anna and I are always depressed and when we're not depressed we're manic or at least hyper. We've both had psychosis. Neither of us function very well off opiates. Only problem is, Anna lives 3851 miles away in Green Bay, Wisconsin. We would like to live together in New York City, but short of a massive lottery win, whats going to make that happen?
Anna is my cyberwife. She's cheating on me with some guy called Jess who does bootycalls, as she calls them. Of course this isn't unfaithfulness, there can be no chastity or commitment over 3851 miles' distance. Still, if I meet Jess in a manic episode I will punch his lights out.
Now you've read some of the story of my mental health. I'm not always sure I'm ill. When guilt gets me bad I can feel like I deserve unhappiness. When I really get severely depressed, which is rare for me, I believe I'm in spiritual crisis rather than depression as such. In the lowest of the lows life is over; there is no life. My highs took me higher than drugs. A feeling of connectedness, of spirituality as my thoughts exploded in starbursts. Impervious to weariness, my body seemed to be turning from physical flesh into spirit. That's what I wanted most of all: to be out of this world. As I say, I hate this world at all times. I don't want to be in it, I want to be out of it. It's the only way of coping I know of.
MANIC EPISODE: "TRISCH GOES NUTS" Knowing she was going to spend all day cooped up in a car, she was letting off steam before a road trip... The comments at Youtube contain a lot of doubters but this is the only film I've seen captures true manic behaviour:~
FUN WITH BIRDS ON THE BEACH ... and here's the sane Trisch with some very entertaining birds
PS: I've found a new blog by Jane, the mother of a freshly detoxed addict who's troubled by anxiety, depression and insomnia. He's opiate-clean but in a very vulnerable situation. Check out her blog and give Jane some moral support: http://janeinsearchofsanity.blogspot.com.
IT'S 5:44 I SCORED ABOUT 45 MINS ago and I'm still feeling pretty good. I spent all of £1.59 on my substance of choice. It was corned beef from the local shop.
Why did I write all that crap I posted earlier. It's true it was what was circling round my brains at the time but I just read it back and it's SO depressing. I'm trying to keep my thoughts on positive things. The only positive things I have are Boomer and Valerie. Boomer from Yuma gives Anna Grace Venom heroin in exchange for sex when she goes down to Arizona. Valerie is the Housewife Superstar Heroin Queen of Australia. She has a bouffanted Margaret Thatcher hairdo, a French manicure, wears treble strings of pearls... and imports ten tonnes of China White heroin into Australia and New Zealand annually. Her beer-drinking crack-smoking husband Bruce invests the money in what Valerie terms "respectable enterprises: gambling parlours, whorehouses and strip-joints". I can't really think of anything else to write about. Valerie will be furious for me mentioning her and I'll probably get another death-threat for writing this, but hey.
Actually writing is the only thing I can still do when I'm down. Nothing much else gets done at all! I'm stewing already about having to lumber down that chemist's shop to pick up a weekend supply of methadone at nine o'clock. I hate going in there being judged as an antipsychotic-blitzed junkie. When the doc-doc does prescribe a mood stabilizer which he probably will, they'll have even more to laugh about. My drugs worker is making an appointment with the dr which I don't really want. I told him I wasn't really severely depressed or ill or anything, just lazy. Wish I'd kept my big mouth shut now. I was just stewing about being labelled schizo then having looked up the symptoms and seeing I had the "negative" ones. Negative symptoms is a medicalized term for damn laziness. So I'm afflicted with laziness but I can't break out of it. I've tried and tried but I just can't. And I never used to be a layabout, by the way. I somehow turned into one and can't stop it. That's one big reason I never truly got on with the potheads at university. They seemed to revel in lazing around doing nothing. My attitude to life was you had to set goals and achieve them. And I wanted to be extraordinary, not ordinary. An extraordinary person is one who produces extraordinary things. What have I done at all? Got myself addicted to heroin. Felt OK for the first time in my life (early childhood excepting). Now I can't get used to feeling totally un-OK. It's for THIS reason I say I don't really care about losing my mind to a manic episode. Least mania burns brightly and is creative and loud and jazzy and FUN. Heroin is frankly boring. A drug for people in pain (which is why I took it for so long). Depression is beyond the pale. The only psychological state I hate more than depression is anxiety, which thankfully I barely ever get. I want to be ALIVE again. Only time I ever felt truly alive was when I went "manic". So that, if you were wondering, is why my constant references to mania. Mania is a state where you're so full of life you literally fizz over with it. It was the severe mania I had problems with. The moderate grade was fantastic. I can't bear to listen to any of the tunes I did back then, they all sound so flat and miserable now. I want to be ALIVE AGAIN.
My back is still bad which is annoying. Well, obviously. Soon as it's better I really have to tackle the state of my house. Empty corned beef tins, cyder cans, cigarette ends strewn all over the place.
I'm annoyed that Tonkie Ears the mouse seems to have deserted me. Perhaps if I bought some Wild Bird seed he'd be tempted back.
I really wish I hadn't posted up the crap I did earlier. It makes me look like a really mixed up confused soul. Sometimes I do think what I put; other times I don't. I don't know what I think or feel any more. I mean I feel a bit depressed and yet when Anna Grace posted up a lurid sexual fantasy I laughed hysterically. She did exactly the same thing the first time Boomer got in touch. She was down in Yuma desperate for some gear and then a cab driver sorted her out with a connexion who got her a gram of tar heroin for $90, which is supposed to be good value.
You know top notch heroin used to cost only £30 a weighed gram, that's $50. I know they were full grams; I had scales. Proper great lumps of brown (not suspiciously fine powder) that reeked of Afghanistan. I used to love it. Still I binged on it whenever I had the chance. When I begged for a living my usage averaged just under a gram a day, although I could survive on 0.6g (my dealer sold 0.3g for £10). With purity fluctuating between 40-50% in this period that's quite a lot of intravenous diamorphine. No wonder I had problems with methadone. When a doctor tried to convince me 120mg methadone was a stonkingly high dose I pointed out that I'd researched equivalences online and with opinions varying between 1mg-1mg and 1mg methadone to 4mg (neat) heroin, 120mg methadone wasn't very much compared to 360mg diamorphine. In British hospitals, 5mg diamorphine is the usual dose of painkiller for a heart attack victim. In exceptional circumstances the dose might be titrated up to 10mg. So 360mg was quite a lot. Yes, pharmaceutical heroin is used in British hospitals, no need for Dilaudid unless the side-effects profile specifically calls for hydromorphone. Diamorphine is considered a better drug than morphine because it reaches peak plasma concentration far more quickly than morphine (which takes 35 minutes intramuscular!), it can be dissolved in tiny amounts of water (several hundred milligrams in 1ml) and because it DOES provoke euphoria it's considered especially useful in palliative care where the terminally ill could do with every lift available to them. The only reason medical heroin isn't used in America is to justify their "war on drugs" stance, that heroin has "no medical value". It's actually the number one painkiller for terminal care in the UK because it's better-tolerated than virtually anything else.
I took my methadone early last night. Around 2am instead of 7am. I can grudgingly accept it might have a tiny effect on mood as it did make me feel a little bit better.
I'm off the alcohol today. Blew my beer money on corned beef. The corned beef craving actually exceeded the one for alcohol, which is saying something...
Now I'd better go. I still feel crap. I'm so pissed off, it's unreal. I'm going to try watching Michael Jackson to cheer me up.
SAY SAY SAY This features Paul and Linda McCartney and La Toya Jackson as Michael's "luuurve" interest...
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.
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?
Here's the 4-methylmethcathinone molecule. This is the "cocaine plus ecstasy"-style "legal high" I took that time and didn't even know what it was... After a brief but intense craze for meow, it was eventually banned in the UK in April 2010
If you wanna see what manic looks like, watch this. If this is the mood she stayed in all day she'd be moderately manic (severely manic is literally all over the place verging into complete incoherence)... I have been known to yell the same stuff over and over, which is why I like this:
Ferry Corsten remix. William Orbit performance. Samuel Barber's Adagio
DJ Seduction: Starlight August 1992
I love this style of music and WHY do kidz today call it OLD SCHOOL? MAKE ME FEEL ANCIENT WHY DONCHA! I really like that ting-ting-tong tune that comes into it about 3 mins in "release the spirit" yeah....! Respect goin' out LizzyD Yeah ;-)
Angelina Joelie: Crazy Chic
Girl Interrupted: best scenes
Mozart's Requiem Tranced Up
I like danced-up tunes now that I'm "OLD". Like this one... The actual name of the tune is "lacrimosa" which means sad. Which is weird it actually sounds uplifting. but there ya go:~~~~~~~~
Click herefor the Drought Post, news is in the comments.
Because there's more than 200 comments, look closely at the bottom of the form for for "Newer/Newest" - THAT is where you click to find most recent comments.
PETITION THE GOVT FOR PROPER PRESCRIBING TO ADDICTS: CLICK HERE
SUMMER'S LEASE
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*And summer's lease hath all too long a date,* as the bard did not say and
as I think everyone would agree here. As most of you will have seen or
read, we ...
Must stop
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Have downloaded three - um, what do you call them? - read aloud books? To
keep me happy on the drive. Plus two books for kindle. That's as well as
four p...
After Writer's Block by Janice Seagraves
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After I experienced writer's block a few years ago, I decided to be nicer
to myself.
But so far this year, I have been having the worst time writing. ...
HODGEPODGE DECEMBER 18
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1. What's one thing on your to-do list that you want to get done, need to
get done, or that must get done before the year ends?
*Youpee, my "To do li...
Cancer Update
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Dear Readers,
I need to apologize to you all. I have not provided any updates from my
last post about my cancer diagnosis. So here we go.
(if you are ...
Blogging Break
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I'm taking a break from blogging, for two major reasons :a. I find it
hard to concentrate on chosen topics, while there's war and tragedy going
on in m...
Just a Thought for the HBO Execs
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I want to rename Game of Thrones, “Two Crazy-Assed Bitches.” Mail me my
check, motherfuckers! Actually three crazy-assed bitches if you count
Sansa. The me...
Souls of the Goldhawk Road
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It was one of those tawdry summer evenings and all I could think about was
the heat. It was everywhere, stuffy and humid and crucifying even at that
late...
Yeah
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No, I am not returning, just updating out of boredom. Plus writing on my
phone sucks, so it won't be a long post.
Yep my book sucks, makes close to no mon...
The (complete) rainbowrain
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Today is the last time I'll post blog-photos from my work as tomorrow, the
last day of this blog is a Saturday. So you can enjoy this view one more
time ...
Twelve Months
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I can't believe it's almost 12 months since I posted anything on my blog!
I confess I've been spending a lot of time on Facebook - I know you think
I'm a t...
Graphic Wisdom to Begin 2016
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*By three methods we may learn wisdom: *
*First, by reflection, which is noblest; *
*Second, by imitation, which is easiest; *
*and third by experience, wh...
Obat Herbal Stroke Berat dan Ringan
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*Obat Herbal Stroke* - Penyakit ini terjadi karena peredaran darah didalam
organ otak mengalami penyumbatan atau gangguan. Penyakit Stroke ini adalah
adany...
Iboga- A Magic Bullet?
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Thoughts and random musings
I get the feeling, that this blog and therefore, my own thoughts and
behaviours are, to the average reader, quite controversi...
The People You Meet
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Not saying this is a come back of any type, but after farewelling my
darling friend Jeffrey today, I felt the overwhelming need to blog. Met a
weird Japan...
Despair and Dissolution
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I haven't written partly because I was confused by the new setup. Took me
ages just to get to my blog. Frustration.
Everyone can say "I told you so". Hate...
A long time coming....
-
I cannot believe I have neglected this blog for so long.
Just to let you know I will be uploading a post in the next couple of days.
Things are good.
My hea...
Gone but never forgotten
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Hello everyone....
Saturday the 24th May would of been Merle's 80th birthday...
Unfortunately she is gone, but never forgotten...
I just thought I would...
Everything in it's place
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Yum.That people are reading this in Israel and Indonesia, as well as so
many other places around the world that I never would've expected is pretty
fuckin...
How to Negotiate With Used Cars Dealers
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Car traders have excellent discussing abilities. They know how to deal with
their clients with their methods and methods to make sure that they shop.
Amazi...
starry starry night…
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Ho Ho Ho! Hope everyone had a merry fucking Christmas and will enjoy a
drunken orgy of pleasure on New Years Eve. I had a nice Christmas Day with
Melinda(a...
byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
-
.....I think the time has come to acknowledge that I'm not actually
blogging any more.....
PLUS
I'm off on Sunday for a Big Adventure Down Under, with L...
Drug Law Reform - NZ Show Australia How it's Done
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It seems that our New Zealand cousins are finally taking some much needed
action on drug law reform. Australia should take note of this and consider
caref...
Daze of Summer
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Her mentor is one of the most gentle people on the planet. He catches flies
in his hands and sets them free outside his studio, and he flicks
mosquitoes a...
Musings
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A week has passed since my last post and it's been a week of contrasts.
Right smack bang in the middle of week, Wednesday, was Australia Day, a
public holi...
Who buys CRACK without Brown ?
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See these F.cking dealers up here they cant get the brown sold cause its
shite so lots of people are just buying Whisky and im thinking to myself No
For Me...
-
Would you trust someone who was never sure if they loved you?
I want to be held (or posses a large amount of drugs)
I want to be skinny and pretty
I want...
The Neighbour's Gun
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I remember those lazy summer nights. In my light, light dress, I would open
the window and gaze at the moon in the night. I would look and almost feel
th...
THIS is classic slice-of-life video; filmed from a sushibar conveyor belt in Japan. You don't need sound for this one (unless you speak Japanese...)
Never Mind The Balearics...
LOST WEEKENDS... Lost weeks... Lost lives...
THE SPANISH ISLE of Ibiza is the "spiritual home" of much British dance music...
Eva Cassidy: Autumn Leaves
I wonder if Autumn is as miserable your end as it is here..? This song wonderfully reinterpreted by Eva Cassidy (I think) brought tears to my eyes when I first heard it. See what you think ...
Christiane F
Christiane F
("Wir Kinder vom Bahnhoff Zoo")
Berlin has long been a centre of "alternative" living, attracting the artistic and dejected. And of course heroin rushes into such a void:
You can see the film in its entirety by clicking HERE.
These are my 3 roborovski hamsters!
(And now there is one...) Itchy, Bashful and Spherical... Itchy, the scruffy, dopey (and tamest one) died a few weeks ago. I was very ****** off (no swearing on this blog (or I'd be effing and blinding all the time...)). Spherical and Bashful were the remaining "Trotters" aka Hamsta MCs, Carrot Nose and Trotter Donkey ... until Trotterdonkey died and now poor Spherical Carrot Nose remains alone ...
What name should I give to my fictional slavering English mastiff hellhound..??
Name the Uncooth Doggie...
NOW I'M PUTTING UP A NEW POLL...My forthcoming fiction shall feature a giant, ill-tempered slavering hellhound of an English Mastiff who spends her time savaging pram wheels, dolls, etc; pulling soft toys apart... growling at houseguests, baying at the light fittings etc etc. She has a total personality change, however, when she gets "raped" down the park by a local rottweiler... leading to a howling, baying, snaggle-toothed litter of puppies!Anyway, which of these three names do you think fits best?(In alphabetical order)GwendolinaPansyTinkerbelle???Vote now ...!!
London Time
GMT (aka "Universal Standard Time"):
ahead of the Americas; behind everywhere else...
Trisch & Jen on the phone
Real life spooky phone call. Trisch Li is speaking to her friend Jen, who has a stalker sneaking round the side of her house. I Love the film exposure. I love the funky background. And I love Trisch. She had bipolar. She died. She left some amazing stuff behind ...You can see Trisch manic here.
Moby: Go
Anyone who was a Twin Peaks fan will know this tune: the in-sequence floaty tune played in-episode (not the theme tune) that made that tellyprog so dreamy.
This tune is something else:~~~~~~~
Future Sound of London: Papua New Guinea
THIS tune is transcendently beautiful.
Thank you to Lizzy who reminded me:~~~~~~~
The Orb: Little Fluffy Clouds (Danny Tengalia)
Archetypal triphead/herb-tokers' tune ...
Urban Shakedown: Some Justice
One of my all time favourite "hardcore" rave tunes. The "woman" singing "we live as one family" is actually a man speeded up. The primal line "Now eeeee-yeah-oh-eeeee-yeah we live as one family," sounded to me like the sun rising at psychedelic dawn. For a long time there was forever a part of me left from this 1991-1992 era, still out there, tripping in a certain corn-on-the-cob field at dawn...
Praga Khan: Injected with a Poison
Sums up what my attitude used to be and is once again to gear. That because, "There's a rainbow inside your mind ... Injected with a poison.... we don't need that any more."
Scott McKenzie: San Francisco
I really used to believe all this crap with all my heart. Peace and love and chemical dreams. If you've ever tripped out high upon higher and sublime upon sublime there is no way of bringing the beauty of the experience back with you... I once had a friend down who brought some cocaine. I did some lines and was soon stuck to the ceiling. I had tickets for a rave in south London. He was too wasted to go. So I had to negotiate an hour and a half nightbus ride all the way down. By Trafalgar Square I was eeing out on 2 pills as well and my eyes such massive discs I couldn't read the bus time tables and had to tell passers-by I'd "forgotten my reading glasses" (how embarrassing)... then I arrived around 3pm. DUR! Not pm (wasn't THAT late 3AM): though these pills didn't wear off till well after 11am which made them superstrong... anyhow... Security let me straight in I'd obviously taken all my drugs (indeed I had: felt like I was flying by this point)... first person I encountered was a middle-aged woman in a ball gown swaying back and forth in the foyer (Brixton Academy: a venue for 5000) I told her: "you are so cool". We subsequently made friends. Watching this video and seeing how stuck in the neverending moment of bliss some "flower kids" are I remember this lady having to tell me: "there's the party. Then the party's over. You have to accept that." But I never could. I wanted happiness to last for ever...
SCOTT MACKENZIE HAS GONE (copyright reasons)
HERE'S JOE BELTRAM 1990 ENERGY FLASH
Who is the superior writer? (From... in no particular order...)
Itchy's "Windy" Face
Not because she has the "farts" but because she "runs like the wind on a windy day" this is Itchy's look when she is nervous...
Bashful and Spherical look like this
(Itchy is a bit smaller)
Bashful's Lookie-Lykie
Hello you Tiny Tubby! Roborovskis are the tiniest of all hamsters, being a mere 5cm/2" fully grown... "Bashful" is pulling a bit of a grumpy face here; but hey!
Should my daily videos stay giant on the top or go mini on my sidebar? (You can only vote once.)
Doggie or Kittie?
You Are: 50% Dog, 50% Cat
You are a nice blend of cat and dog.
You're playful but not too needy. And you're friendly but careful.
And while you have your moody moments, you're too happy to stay upset for long.
38 year-old guy, 6 blogs (the main one is gledwood vol 2 so go there for new postings: blogs are linked via my sidebars), I also have 3 video blogs. One mainly music vids, the other random "novelty" clips from Youtube/etc. The third is my Fabulous Celebrity Blog for fans of trash culture. Unfortunately addicted to drugs - yes it was my own fault but what can I do about it now? Addicted means trapped & can't stop. That's how addicted I am. But that's not ALL I blog about. Apart from drugs I love drink. Apart from drink I'm into little furry animals like Pingpong, my Chinese hamster, and my 3 roborovski hamsters: Itchy, Bashful and Spherical... and ... er, food. Lately there has been a drought of the substance that enslaved me for so long. Will I clean up? Only time will tell...
Fun, comforting, and friendly.
You are a true classic, and while you're not super cutting edge, you're high quality.
People love your company - and have even been known to get addicted to you.
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