Early Morning Blues

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ideas and/or Advice, Please!

I'VE BEEN TRYING TO SORT OUT MY BENEFITS STUFF TODAY. They paid me the grand total of £21 this week; I've no idea why. So now I know the correct number I have to ring back tomorrow when they're open. I also am meant to tell them I have schizoaffective disorder. I got a letter a while back that seemed irrelevant but it said underneath that any change in your medical condition must be notified. I don't think the name makes any difference but it might mean I get treated a bit different (if anything, better). They don't seem to quibble so much with severe mental illness whereas depression they subject you to a test to see how depressed you actually are. With this I don't see what test they can do, I just feel too confused a lot of the time to do a lot of basic things. Sad but true. I don't know how I'm going to rise above this one. Depression I fought against but mania you can't fight against it's too intense and also feels nice most of the time, so I don't know what to do. And the schizo-bit in schizo-affective just feels too weird for words so I don't know how to dea with it. Not very good I know but true. They might push me down a pit with people sword fighting like people on television now but I don't know how I'll survive. See I feel confused these thoughts come in my head and I push them out but I push out everything else too so I dont know what to keep in there. This is why I get ill, because I don't understand. I try. I do try. But I feel confused.

Does anybody out there know about schizoaffective disorder and what things I can do self-help wise? PLEASE. Anybody? If you can direct me to a good website or just a forum I'd be ever so grateful. I'm floundering about knowing I have "symptoms" of this "tripolar disorder" (because there are 3 things I get: mania, depression and schizophrenia) and knowing broadly which symptom and experience is flavoured with what, but I don't know what to DO. I want to know what to DO. And why I should do it? And what I might achieve... Please anybody who knows please answer. You don't need to be a fellow sufferer or an expert I'm just after ideas. Remember I have had depression for years and am glad I followed my inkling not to indulge in books that didn't mention Seasonal Affective (SAD) or bipolar. Because I've always thought my depression was partly psychological and partly biological. Even though I hadn't a clue I was schizoaffective until the dr told me so, I've followed the right path, where you accept your illness has a biological component. Purely herbal tea and counselling based stuff just ain't gonna cut it with my illness. I accept I need to take meds. I can feel when I haven't taken them, usually. Apart from Saturday night when I honestly forgot my pill (I'm on one pill now; 1x4mg risperidone rather than 2x2mg, which are too easy to get confused over) I wasn't messing about I really did forget to take it. And for once didn't get "a free coke binge" I just felt nothing bar a sluggish depression I've been in for days. Depression which now has a slight excited tinge in the background. I'm hoping this means a mood switch is occurring.

Yes I used HEROIN today but it did nothing. It was so weak. I wish I wouldn't do it. It doesn't take away "psychotic" things (which I don't really have today) and it doesn't dampen down my bad moods any more so I wish I'd get it THROUGH MY THICK HEAD THAT I'M WASTING MY TIME.

Im pissed off with NA because I shared even though it fucking hurt to do so I still shared something that is personal that I don't have to share and not one fucking person gave any response except the kind of response you get when they know you're using drugs still. I mean I told them I had bipolar mood swings and not one person could think of one faintly constructive thing to say about that.

I don't know what I was expecting. Certainly not "there there" type crap but something. I expected something and I don't think my expectations were unreasonable. Considering nearly ALL bipolar people use drugs which means there must be a lot of manic depression "in the rooms" as they say I expected more. So I was right when I realized NA was NOT for me. They cannot help me, they do not help me. Only seductive thing about NA is the attitude that taking medication is wrong, so I can "not use" my antipsychotics and have "a free coke binge" on them. That is a free manic episode, even a short one for a couple of days. But I'm trying to be grown up and responsible, I don't know why, but I am. Am trying.

I felt misunderstood by them when I took up going again and I still feel misunderstood and unappreciated.

Bear in mind I have been coming to NA for over 10 years, since I very first saw a problem developing, so I know NA, know their philosophy and their ways and feel let down, now that I genuinely want to be clean and serene I feel nobody has made any effort towards me, not genuine effort. All I get is "do a detox" (ie have a psychotic episode) and likeminded stuff in other words they're telling me to go crazy. I'm willing to go crazy as long as I can do it IN THEIR HOUSE. That will teach them to throw out platitude-ridden advice, when they see what happens when I "detox" and "go clean" as they believe clean is.

TIESTO/RALPH FRIDGE: PARADISE
when i went mad that time my shower kept saying "paradise paradise" after this song!



I'm not getting too wound up by Narcotics Anonymous and I refuse to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But I'm only doing one meeting per week at the moment. You have to bear in mind I have bad memories of coming to NA having heard voices all the way there on the bus, then locking myself up in a dark room with them in a psychotic state only for them all to believe I was high on crack when I was "high" yes, but on nothing! Just like you I have only a certain tolerance for such bullshit and then I start feeling genuinely upset. You see I know the name of my disorder now and it's not a good one. Now I have to tell the Social Security this crap, which I don't want to, but they need to know. They do say any change in your condition should be notified to us so fuckit I'll notify them. What on earth they'll do with that information I hesitate to think. You see I had symptoms and knew I wasn't right. Then this doctor tells me in these same words "I think you have a mental illness". I have never thought of myself as "mentally ill" before. Depression is supposedly a mental illness but it didn't make me feel mentally ill. Only the crash from mania into depression has truly made me feel injured and ill. Very very sick and ill. The crash I had in December counts as one of five all time worsts. The fact that there are FIVE not one probably says a lot but I'm not dwelling on that one. Do you understand why I disengage rather than wallow? If I wallowed I would never get out of self pity and it would destroy me. I'd rather pretend nothing is wrong than wallow in the wrongness. I don't care if I'm doing the wrong thing; life is so very difficult I don't know what else to do.

TRANCE VISIONS: PARADISE (KOMAKINO REMIX)



Well I hope I've been grown-up enough today I don't feel grown up. I feel like the parent of a 3 year old child ~ as per usual ~ saying "DO THIS! DON'T DO THAT!" and the recalcitrant child barely listens..!

And how was YOUR DAY? rsvp!


RALPH FRIDGE: PARADISE (PUSH MIX)

Shame

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Lost in Paper/Paper Lost

I JUST SPOKE TO ONE OF MY CREDITORS. They wanted proof of my income. Which involves sending in an "award letter". The letter I do have, which states how much I was paid in the last year, although it's from the same government department (it was issued for tax purposes) is somehow unacceptable. "Can't they divide it by 52 and work it out themselves?" I asked. Seemingly not. So now I've got to contact Jobcentre Plus or the Benefits Agency or the Department of Work and Pensions ~ don't ask me which one, they all seem to operate in tandem. I suspect Jobcentre Plus is the building you go to, the Department of Work and Pensions is the one that handles people's claims and the Benefit Agency actually pays people. So now I've to trek up the library and feed more money into a nongeographic phone number* (I hate them!) I'm in arrears (as per usual) which I can't really pay off. I didn't tell the guy I'd been living on the internet and on the floor for much of the time I could have been sorting this out. (I don't believe the papers they're demanding were ever sent to me. Or at least not received.) Oh well. I'm having another drink now and I'm going up the library. Sometimes you have to get off the floor and get on with your life. I turned back here just now to input this because I was just walking past my house to get to the library when my landlord's van came rumbling down the road. His face makes me want to be sick. I avoid thoughts of personal violence in case they escalate to murder. So rather than stabbing him or puking I tapped in this.

Healthy catharsis. Ha-ha!!

*Nongeographic numbers are one of the curses of the age. They cost everyone more money. Mobiles they charge typically 35p a minute instead of 5p, callboxes something like 10p a minute instead of 40p for 20 minutes, normal home phones something like 7p a minute instead of 1p. I'm so glad there's an orchestrated campaign against them. They stink. But nobody's going to do anything about them because (this is the big no-one tells you) companies and organizations can actually make a small income from using these numbers. Yes. BT and the number holder split the difference between the normal phone rates and the ones I just told you. And as I said, I think it stinks.