Nutter Club

I WENT TO A THING CALLED NUTTER CLUB EARLIER. Well that's what I call it. You go to the building opposite where people are punished for shoplifting by having to attend group therapy each morning. Instead of court-imposed group therapy for tea leaves, we had voluntary group therapy for the mentally deranged and confused. I fitted right in!

I'm not mad any more by the way. Just my normal self, so if that's crazy I'm still barking. I'm not into excessive self-analysis, which is why I hated counselling so much last time I tried it. I did OK at the sessions; what I couldn't do was link what I said to the real world and effect changes. Counselling is about changing yourself, otherwise it's hot air. Well that was my approach. Whatever it was I said stayed in the room, I barely considered any of it. I think I was meant to practise Positive Navel Gazing.

Interestingly the counselling style that worked best for me was Psychodynamic, the deepest and least problem-centric type. I thought I needed one that finds a solution to a problem, not one that turned over stones to see what psychological woodlice went scurrying back to the shadows. But this psychodynamic psychotherapy actually worked. I learned to think outside the tiny little box that is my head. What I didn't like was that my counsellor and my GP independently both suggested repeatedly that I see a psychiatrist because in the counsellor's words "you need more help than I can give you".

This was just before I launched full-tilt down into that decade-long morass of heroin adddiction. In this period, just before addiction sucked me into the Poppy Void, I was miserable and lost. Physically sick: that was called post-viral fatigue. What the virus actually was, I never found out. It cannot be HIV or Hep C. I tried to put a life together as I wanted to live it, but could never be well enough to both put it together and do all that lovely living!

I had ideas. Things got started. But nothing got seen through. I even got myself on a part-time uni course. I forced myself into this. Originally I really wanted to do it, but a chill wind was howling. I had found something that would help me. so I forced myself to go through with it. Forced myself into a breakdown. Still forced myself on and signed in and did the first year. I did lots of forcing. But very quickly I was too addicted to heroin to go on.

I thought this was what Grown Ups did: push themselves through situations that are supposed to be to their benefit no matter how much they don't like it at the time.

I query why this never worked for me. "Feel the fear and do it anyway" only pushed me to despair. Maybe it's because it wasn't fear as such I was facing. Fear is easy. This was a sense of hopelessness, impossibility. The only fear I couldn't face was that of living without drugs. But we have despair behind that one again. Life without drugs (specifically heroin) is utterly meaningless, empty, bleak beyond imagination. I'd like to say "was" not "is" but I'm a methadone addict. I'm still on a drug. Still a drug addict.

The Nutter Club invigilator says I've done really well. Maybe I'm meant to give attention to that, but I can't. She picked up on my use of past tenses. Heroin does feel past. I always had a sense that if I gave up I would never go back. I would feel too stupid to do that. Conventional wisdom claims getting off is easy; staying off's the hard work. I've found getting off impossible. I'm not surprised giving up heroin coincided with a kind of mental breakdown. My sanity depended on heroin, literally. And you have to be crazy to quit a drug as good as heroin, the only thing that made me feel together. So far I've not had any of the difficulty I might have expected steering myself to stay away.

There's no point wondering about the future, something I have a huge hand in. (I wouldn't say I alone can make my own future; I do not live in a bubble.) But I can make a very large contribution. I can steer my ship. I can alter my attitude. In my experience turning a corner can get you to wondrous places you never dreamed possible... I just cannot see anything wondrous yet...

I'm coming back to Nutter Club next week. I'll let you know how I get on.

Time for something new...

THIS ISN'T WORKING ANY MORE.I think I've finally proved to myself that me and heroin do not mix...

If I've learned anything from all those counselling sessions I attended with very mixed feelings over the past year, it's that I've been asleep, and while I slept calamity came. And now it's time to get up, clear up and move on...

I hope you like the hammy picture. It's totally irrelevant, I know; but I thought it looked nice!

Drunk counselling session

COUNSELLING, COUNSELLING, PSYCH-IN... TOTAL PSYCH-OUT, I have appointments coming out of my ears. Yesterday I was in such a tizz. "Tizz" is a nice way of putting it. All I wanted was to take a fat hit of gear, jump out of a 50th floor window. Or stay by myself staring at the wall. Actually TALKING about anything was not on my agenda. But I HAD to go to a pure counselling appointment ~~ not a druggieservice appointment but a counselling centre one, where the format is 50 blank minutes, unstructured, with the counsellor staring across and I so much could not handle this. Did not want to go. Missed the last one because did not want to go. Thought "I'm just wasting your time here. We should call this off." Didn't want to let the counsellor down, who I knew was coming in just to see me. So I turned up "reeking of drink". Laughing, Crying. I wasn't that drunk (I mean, 2 hours later I was stone cold sober.) I was only laughing out of nerves and a penchant for self-mockery. Somehow whenever anything bad happens to me, part of me finds it hilarious, no matter how bad it is or was. I don't know why. The counsellor tells me that these years of drugs have made me remote from myself. I'm constantly switching my emotions off. Like other people on heroin (and methadone only perpetuates the state at a lesser intensity) "the lights are on but no-one's home". This is the state of heroin intoxication addicts crave. Many of us have probably witnessed this on the bus. Someone gets on obviously out of it. Sits down, barely conscious ("the lights are on ~ no-one's home"), jolting and swaying to the motion of the vehicle. But because the lights are on, and burning bright, a smackhead ~ as opposed to a drunk ~ is highly unlikely to fall off the seat, trip over or crash into something on the way home. Weird.
Anyway the counsellor said "I cannot work with someone who is pickled with alcohol" so sent me home early (I was so glad).
I don't want to give up on the counselling because it is a link with normality. And thought therapy-speak does annoy me, I am able to tolerate it. For example, the notion that emotional pain is somehow self-inflicted or wallowed in and thus easily escapable to one who sufficiently desires escape. So I said "what about someone swathed in bandages with horrific burns in a hospital bed, can that person convince themself to stop hurting?" "No, because that's not emotional that's physical." So I said "but emotional mechanisms are as real as physical ones..." blah blah blah, we went on from there.
I had two huge chunks of counselling in the past. 3-&-a-half years of it, at least... so how far down I can dig in just 12 more weeks, I'm not sure...
I had about 18 months or two years of "person centred" (ie crap) in my early 20s. Two-and-a-half years of "psychodynamic" (ie deep) in my mid 20s. The bookings were supposed to be limited to 24 months only at this place as it was staffed by qualified volunteers, working pro-bono. But I was such a mess I got this 6-month extension. The latter counsellor, who was spot-on and very bright kept saying "I think you need more help than I can give you" meaning seeing a sinister psychiatrist. I was totally against the idea.
Then I turned into a raving smackhead. Now I'm here. Nearly 40 and no hope left. What a wondrous journey life has been!!

Chinchilla ii

I CAN'T really have an 秋田犬 Akita-inu where I am now (nor in most rented accommodation). Plus the cost of jabs and microchipping, bowls and leads or leashes and other incidentals mounts up exceedingly high (though I would really love one) ... so I've set my sights on chinchillas instead. These only cost £25 or so each. Maybe £50. But I don't want a fancy one I want a grey one... The cage is the biggest expense as to house a rabbit-sized creature it has to be massive, with a huge ratty-style wheel for them to ramble on plus dustbath to play in. Chinchillas (so the books say) require a certain type of obscure volcanic sand from the high Andes to brush their fur on... otherwise it will go all sweaty-looking and greasy...



Chinchilla dustbath ~ isn't this entertaining? Look how he gets right in..!



And don't they have South American alpaca/emu/llama-style faces..?

... And don't they look sweet!!

As for the "mental health" comments yesterday:

Thank you y'all!

I tried pretending nothing was wrong for so long and it never worked, so does it mean "embracing" a label?... or just ploughing through therapy to get the hell out as quickly as possible..?

All I know about therapy and counselling is that the more you put into these things, the more you get out. You can (and I'm sure lots of people do) use these sessions merely as an outlet to complain about people, things and circumstances that have occurred during the week. You sound off in the session and do nothing about anything between sessions and the time in the room becomes an emotional outlet. You can also look deep within yourself, like the character described yesterday staring into his own eyes saying "aren't I amazing" (and in counselling ~ complexicated ~ and contradictory and deep and fascinating. (But so is everyone else!!) OR you can use such sessions as a means to throw up insights you can hold on to and use as a means of change. And though it might sound a bit snotty-nosed, that's what I would hope I might do with these "therapeutic" experiences.

I hate counselling, in a way. Because it is an inherently one-sided relationship. They know all these things about you, yet you are talking to a human whitewashed wall. What's "healthy" about that?

The blankness of such a relationship is its freedom, because you should be able to say anything you like without fear of emotional fallout (as might happen if you confided in a family member, who is inextricably tied to the same web of interconnected conflicts as you are)... so it all gets deep and meaningful and whatever. But every time I turn up I look at the watch and see 50 minutes of blank time ... and wish I could somehow fast forward it over!

And every time, somehow the minutes go too quickly!!

Right I gotta go find me a chinchilla. Have a nice day, y'all...

Not Drunk on The Juniper Gin

I HAVE STARTED DEEP INTELLECTUAL HEARTRENDING personal-inner-pus-spilling counselling sessions!

I use such language because most counselling "dynamics" seem to operate upon the premise that human beings are all traumatized. We are all like boils who need our pus massaged, oozed-out and cunningly extracted.

Counselling, I have always thought can transpire as an almighty waste of time. At one extreme it can be like gazing at one's own eyes endlessly in a mirror indulging in the marvel of how beautiful they are; at the other, you can use the sessions as an outlet to complain about your life every week for 50 minutes flat, do nothing at all about it and return next week to complain again. In the middle, perhaps one might find a place where one might learn and grow. How on earth you learn or grow when the counsellor does little more than clarify what they think you've said and "reflect back" beats me: but if you're willing to put in some welly, it somehow does appear to bear fruits.

My last experience of counsellling wasn't very happy. The counsellor said I turned up to one session and curled up in the foetal position crying for an hour. But I don't remember this. (But I do recall being very upset.) She kept saying she thought I needed more help than she could give me, which didn't make me happy. She was talking about psychiatrists and I've never trusted their dogmatic interpretation of the extremes of human suffering. I just think a lot of them are there to pay their credit cards, cars and mortgages. But aren't most people??

Well I'm going to give this thing a go. Apparently you DON'T have to bee absolutely and 100% opiate and -oid free to benefit from counselling's understated (or unstated) delights. So as I say I'm giving it a bash ~ and who knows what might "transpire" ...??

PS the gin-reference is to my new Spanish counsellor's name. I never did get a hold of it, but it sounds something quite like JUNIPER ... as in those bitter berries that Gordons, The Bombay Sapphire Company et al crush into gin ...

PS See that Juniper berries pic top lefthand corner and see why most gin tastes of pine-fresh toilet-cleaner..!

Insalubrious Firsts

I SURVIVED IT! Survived a bitter weekend blank with lassitude and bleakness.

Before addiction snapped me fast in its hopeless mantrap, in my mid-1990s era, when I was blighted with chronic fatigue syndrome (so bad sometimes I could only go to bed and lie there as my exhausted brain sizzled and zapped like a massively burnt frying pan that is grabbed off the fire, flung to one side and yet still continues to smoke and spit for ages afterwards.)

I used to get so mentally exhausted I couldn't focus on a tabloid newspaper even, couldn't cope with the visual overload of anything, not even television. it was then that I took up talk radio listening. I also used to get so guiltridden and depressed I felt that as a non-contributory member of society I had no place in the world.

I told my Counsellor this and said maybe the fascists of World War II had something, and that the sick and disabled (ie I) ought to be put out of my misery as I was doing nothing but costing the state money. Her response was that in a civilized society everyone has their place; that's what civilization is. A situation where the sick and needy are cared for by those able to do so...

She was a great lady. And I'm no fascist by the way. Such guilt was a symptom of my depression, not my politics. Politically I'm so central and boring that in many countries including this one, I could vote for any major party as I occupy that central space where they all collide...

Anyway! I was trying to say that despite my troubles (perhaps because of them; and my Counsellor used to say that we all have our crosses to bear ~ we cannot pick or choose our cross...) I was growing in self-awareness, self-belief, self-mastery. So my most recent addiction Eureka!s would barely have registered on my old radar...

I'm only just realizing that no matter who we are or what our predicament, we do have the power to pick what we choose to think about; and our musings do eventually furnish our minds.

Such a spectacularly ordinary revelation... well it was no revelation back then, but a fixture of my psyche and one among countless many other fibres of wisdom that held me together and shored me up... which one by one fell away, deteriorated or were stolen from me in the course of my addiction. Knowing how very much I have lost is one of the matters that makes recovery so difficult for me. Each bridge I crossed on the way down was a bridge of shame: even dabbling in heroin put me at such serious odds with some old friends they pretty much disowned me just for trying the stuff...



Then there were the inglorious firsts: my first period of daily use with no break (I never let myself use more than four consecutive days at the start. Each day representing a quarter of a £20 bag as smoked.)...

The first time I held out my arm to let somebody fix me up... My first OD (my second IV "hit", as it goes; and that should have told me something)... the first time I injected myself "skinpopping"... first time I "mainlined" (went into the main vein in the crook of my arm)...

The time I eventually ran out of all money, credit and borrowing options and had to go out and beg on the streets... my habit trebling from £10 to £30+ a day, which was nearly a gram (3 x 0.3g: that dealer sold £15 worth for £10) ... and the first time I realized that £20 of heroin wouldn't hold me all day and I needed that £30 or more worth just to stay normal...

My first speedballs (crack IV'd with heroin)...

My first attempts at rehab, where I spent nearly all the time in the counselling room in pieces before just running out the door and back into the welcoming arms of my beloved drug. And so on and so on.

I lost my dignity. I nearly lost my mind (on crack). I lost myself. Will I ever get anything back?

SONG:
RADIO HEAD KARMA POLICE
Do you like this or hate this? Do tell!


PS Vivienne Vyle
Does anyone like this? I posted the entire series on my random blog (like a lot of British comedy this is all written by one person (in this case Jennifer Saunders, who also stars as V Vyle) and runs to all of six episodes..!

Took me ages to realize the pun: Vivienne Vyle/Jeremy Kyle!!

PPS NB the male guest's ridiculous Jerry Springer guest hair (stick-on moustache-stylee...)



You can see the entire series on my Random Blog:
Rest of this (episode 1)
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6