Canary Craving

I'VE JUST COME OUT OF THE DRUGGIECLINIC where the local petshop is now selling brown-and-yellow varigated canaries for fourteen pounds each. Considering I have a large convertable hammy cage which with the removal of shelves and addition of perches would make an ideal home for Mr Chirper (see I've named him already: bad move!)... I'm highly tempted. I love songbirds. So to have one chirping its head off at top volume in my own home would be the most amazing thing. I know they're not the calmest of feathered critters, but I'd also really like to make mine hand-tame... Does anyone see any reason I shouldn't buy one? The shop's right round the corner. I have the dosh on me. I'm very tempted.

I just had a long talk with my Drugs Worker. I'm going to change her name from Buta to Duta. Buta, you see, means "pig" and she isn't a pig. She was just in a bad mood with me for coming in depressed to the point of zombification. Which I understand is going to be interpreted in a certain way in a drugs clinic.

The staff behind the counter couldn't believe it was me. The fact they remember me even though I've only had two appointments in the past month says something. I was a walking trainwreck. Or more to the point a haystack. Complete with scurrying creepy crawlies when you lifted the straw!

Duta was well impressed with my new look. She said I'm like a ray of sunshine. I get treated totally differently in shops. People I don't know talk to me on the street. Occasionally I catch someone gazing in my direction and think "what are you looking at, fucker?" then I remember how fantastic I look and my bad mood turns to good.

I said I was going to make an effort with Duta, didn't I? The effort has paid off. It woudln't surprise me if news of my distraught phone call to the manager got back to her. I think the effort now is mutual. We get on OK. And like the lady said, Duta is a nice person. We just failed spectacularly to hit it off on our first two sessions...

I woke up at 2 in the morning and couldn't sleep so I did a spot of cleaning, then I washed my hair. My fingernails were permanently dirty up until Sunday - with muck from my mucky old hair. Now they're perfectly clean. I can now wash my hair in two minutes flat. Wet it looks a pale lemon yellow colour. The new style dries off completely within 5 minutes. I absolutely hated having straggling long dirty dreary drippy hair. I hate long hair on men. I only let mine get that way due to a total lack of self esteem. Do you understand what I'm saying now when I say I just wanted to curl up and die? I had no interest in any aspect of life whatsoever, bar heroin. Yes I liked hamsters. Yes I posted music I liked. But without grains in my veins all this was meaningless to me and a lot of the time I really was depressed enough for life to feel vastly empty and utterly meaningless. The new meaning comes from me. By the grace of God I put it there by loving myself. The meaning of life is the energy of life. God is energy. God is love. God is the meaning of life.

Now I've got to go and daydream about little birdies...

Shades

I STERNLY REPRIMANDED SPECSAVERS YESTERDAY for not informing me that their buy one get one free offer also applies to prescription sunglasses. I showed the extra frames I'd chosen, pointing out that black does not suit my colouring and that they'd ONLY been selected with the intention of getting the lenses blacked out at some future time when I could afford it, so would they please give me what I would have ordered at the time, if only they'd been professional enough to explain it was available there and then.

After some flustering a surly assistant appeared, forced a smile and informed me I could have my lenses tinted to any colour that suited me. I said I wanted them as black as they would go. She said "ah, but if you're driving that's dangerous" I said "but I don't drive". She said come back tomorrow at 5 and your lenses will be at least 80% tinted with full UV filters.

So I left Specsavers in a very good mood indeed. For £104 I have a pair of especially funky ordinary glasses, a pair of pretty dark shades plus a pair in photochromic brown. Without the special offers that lot would have cost £268 plus a £20 eye test. And Specsavers are by far the cheapest opticians on the high street. Their Reactions photochromic lenses are a THIRD the price of Vision Express's standard Transitions. Vision Express wanted £100 for a simple UV protection and tint; Specsavers charge £12. Most opticians rip their customers for the maximum they can get so I'm sticking with Specsavers. I'm saving up for a few more pairs of sunglasses already. Never again will I be reduced to one single pair of broken glasses that fit me like a percentage sign. Never again will heroin come before life. I haven't taken heroin in well over a week and never intend to touch it again.

Everyone says my hair looks fantastic. They keep asking who did it. Last night I went to NA with Paddster, who has a 40-year habit. The woman who sat next to me said I was very goodlooking and asked whether I was a hairdresser.

I got my dark glasses at 6pm today. There were problems in the technician's lab upstairs getting them dark enough. When they came down my specs looked like genuine sunglasses. Not those half-arsed vaguely tinted ones some opticians try to pass off as prescription tints.

So I went straight round Paddster's to show them off. He said I'm manic. We had smoked salmon bagels with tzatziki dip and lemony drizzles. Beautiful.

Then we walked up the high road to Morrisons and Paddster's friend told me I looked like a pop star.

I applied the rest of the slap last night, having realized in horror that my hair was slightly darker at the back than the front with multitudinous missed bits. So I'm now baby blond supreme. And I do look fantastic with my new shades on, if I say so myself... I hope it's sunny tomorrow. I'm determined to get FULL MONEY'S WORTH from these wonderful dark lenses!!

PS the name of the dye was Schwarzkopf ultra platinum and I'm exactly the colour of the models on the packet. If not blonder ...

Tennis Ball Head

ON SATURDAY NIGHT I got out the clippers and shaved off a carrier bag full of conker coloured hair. On Sunday I went to Wilkinsons, the budget houseware suppliers, and spent £4.40 on Schwarzkopf Ultra Platinum XXX hair dye. I now have bright yellow hair à la Christopher Walken in view to a kill.

I have to say the treatment stung my scalp. Literally within 5 minutes my hair was nearly white, which frightened me into washing it off 28 minutes later. I was going to do the whole 45 mins to get maximum value but was frightened by then I'd have melting jelly for hair. With smoke whisping out.

This morning I woke up thinking WHAAAAT have I done??! To add insult to injury I realized I'd missed bits round the back so I had to repeat the performance.

If you want an idea of the colour, it's a very artificial light golden blond. Last thing I wanted was anything tasteful or understated. I might have the personality of a mouse, but I like EXTREMES. I still have half a packet left for next time.

My chemist asked me if this was my new disguise. Even the internet café guy, who knows me from days of yore when I used to shamble in shoelaces untied, vacuum cleaner dust coloured hair exploding out in all directions like a mentally retarded scientist, said he liked the colour. I now get stared at everywhere I go.

I'm glad I didn't go for Sun-in. For one thing you need a hair dryer to activate Sun-in full-on, which I don't have. And like I say, the last time we sprayed that stuff on the hairdressing trainees at our local technical college informed me I was risking permanent hair damage.

Yes, true to title, I do have a bit of that tennis ball head thing going on.Yet I don't look anything like an escaped convict. The colour is far too striking for prison chic.

Now you can all leave lots of compliments about how fantastic I must look. And I do, I promise you!

Glasses Alert

HEY! I'VE FOUND A PICTURE OF MY NEW GLASSES. These are exactly the pair that really suits me. Won't they look amazing in light brown tint??! And can't you see now why I'm so irritated at having to wait TWO AND A HALF WEEKS for this sheer trendiness to be perched on the bridge of my nose in a with snazzy amber lenses? I want to know what y'all think of my excellent taste. Frank opinions only, please!

Nah! Just kidding. Those are the horror glasses I had when I was at school. Note I say "had" not "wore". I hated them so much I'd glance at something important then, in the blink of a myopic eye they'd been snatched away to spare my dignity. Everyone wore glasses like this in the 80s. Everyone who excelled in science subjects. Or had poor social skills. Or a face full of boils. And they made most of us look like multiple child killers who spoke English as a second language. Actually what am I saying. No nation bar Britain would ever countenance such execrable eyewear.

My current specs are the only pair I've ever had that I actually like wearing. Which either says a lot about glasses or it says a lot about Specsavers' range. I've only ever shopped at Specsavers. They do live up to their name. But their staff are offhand and they take AGES to process a simple order for photochromic lenses.

They look like this:I used to have such a thing about eyewear when I was younger (contact lenses not glasses) that my parents got me a job interview at the opticians (gotta work with something you love). Never got the job. That was the old me: so tremulous, I was bleating like a lamb.

I remember when my housemates went on holiday to Mororcco. All I could think on viewing their photos was how their fly-eye shades were so two years ago. This was 1999 so you'll all know what I'm saying.

Now I've got to go. I've a haircut to think about. My friend Pinky says I should go for shaved sides and a bit longer at the top. What do y'all think? I'm neutral. I hate haircuts, just as I hate choosing spectacle frames. Any enforced gawping at my ugly mug in the mirror does my brains in.

If I do get a decent haircut I'm dying my hair too. I used to dye my hair all the time using that Sun-in bleach. I only stopped doing it when my friend Lona took me to a student-run trainee salon where a scarlet-faced, trembling 16 year old scurried back to inform me quavery-voiced, that my strand test not only MELTED under their dye, but started curling out whisps of SMOKE. The schoolmarmish supervisor strode up and demanded to know what on earth I had been putting on my hair. When I said Sun-in with a hairdryer she rolled her eyes and ordered me never to use that product again.

My hair is naturally the colour of dust from a burst vacuum cleaner bag. So what colour should I turn it? Reason I always used peroxide was that it rapidly goes the colour of spun gold with no need for any additional chemicals or colouring. And I've never used those packets of dye meant for middle aged women covering their greys. What do I do? Could my hair turn to jelly and melt? Would I be able to light cigarettes off it? I'd need a ciggie if it melted.

Well that's about all appearance-wise. I'm trying to get some self-esteeem back you see. Y'all have to bear in mind that basically the day I went on heroin was the day I gave up ever shopping for anything bar absolute essentials. Since then I literally have not bought ANY clothes, bar socks and undies. The day things really went tits up and I could no longer afford heroin was the day I turned into a street beggar, with the look to match. Teeshirts, tops, jeans etc were all donated, found on the street or fished out of bins. My footwear came from the boxes people leave behind when they buy new trainers. I used to wear army surplus. Now I just look like a street drinker on my worst days, a down-at-heel student on my better ones.

Another thing: I urgently need a dental scale and polish. My teeth are so badly stained from chain-smoking that there's pretty much no point poshing myself up until a hygenist has given me a white smile again. That service used to be free. Now it's £40 ~ NHS or not. My teeth are so rotten I fully suspect most of them to be HOLLOW. The last dentist ~ who did the emergency extraction on that molar that had rotted all the way up the root ~ was compelled to take an x-ray and read out the state of my gnashers to his surly nurse and I'm sure I heard the word "extraction" at least three times. I only had one hit of heroin and one drink before I came into that shithole of a surgery and yet he treated me like scum of the earth. I lied on the "medications taken" question. No way was I telling that bastard I was on 140mg of methadone!

OK so what should I do with this hair of mine? Ideas please. At the moment it looks like a grey mop and I hate it. I hate long hair. It's long because it hasn't been cut. Fashion doesn't come in to it. (When does fashion ever come into long hair for men?) Last time I cut it I did what I'd long fantasized about: grabbed scissors and literlaly hacked away until only a centimetre length remained. I thought it was OK. Partly because I'd recently had a psycho flare-up; mostly because I'd done 2 £20 bags of heroin before the haircut. Over the following weeks I kept finding long bits, ridiculously short bits. I looked like a fledgling bird with schizophrenia.

Branzie, my stepdad did buy me hairclippers but I'm scared of getting that ex convict look. I won't look hard with that kind of cut. I'll look like Sinead O'Connor crossed with a Red Army Faction terrorist.

So come on. Advice. Needed. DESPERATELY.

Should I shave my head grade 5, or what? Should I hand in my glasses and demand an exchange for the stylish pair up top? Should I take a mood stabilizer to stop me very nearly walking out of petshops with exotic singing finches? My life is a mess and I'm on methadone. Please help me!!




★★★★★★★★★★★★


PS don't forget today's other posts:
Furry Friday on Saturday: Shetland Ponies
Betty Ford Dead at 93
Watch the Birdie (about me nearly purchasing a singing finch for £35 + £12 for the cage)

Shetland Donkies

... little trotter donkies ...


FURRY FRIDAY ON SATURDAY


... officially known as Shetland Ponies ...



... these are the tiniest trotters in the United Kingdom ...



... noted for their distinctive manes ...



... these little trotters are tiny enough to become household pets ...



... in times of old Shetlands worked as pit-ponies, dragging multi-tonne weights, so a grown man is no problem ...



... usually, however, they prefer lighter loads ...


WISHING Y'ALL A CHEERFUL TROTTER WEEKEND


... AND DON'T FORGET TO VIEW TODAY'S OTHER TWO POSTS; BETTY FORD AND WATCH THE BIRDIE ...




★★★★★★★★★★★★

more singing by the greatest voice in the world

Betty Ford dies at 93

BETTY FORD, the American First Lady who made rehab respectable, has died in California aged 93.

Founded in 1982, the Betty Ford Center at Rancho Mirage, Palm Springs, California, was the first licensed addiction hospital in the world.

The 184-bed facility offers detoxification and treatment for all types of chemical dependency.

In 2010, the centre initiated a pain-management course, allowing sufferers of chronic pain to live their lives without relying on addictive opioid analgesics.

Mrs Ford, who had a mastectomy in 1974, was praised for her actions in raising breast cancer awareness.

She is survived by three sons.


"Throughout her long and active life, Elizabeth Anne Ford distinguished herself through her courage and compassion."

~ Barrack Obama.

Watch the birdie....

I NEARLY BOUGHT A TINY BIRDIE this afternoon. It was the only one left in the shop, apart from a cockatoo who kept inclining her head and whisping, "oh hello!" This poor tiny little blighter, who resembled an anorexic robin was fluttering to and fro between two tiny perches looking distressed. He looked in dire need of taming. I asked the man what it was and was told a golden finch or a redfinch. I can't recall which. But it was a boy bird, who would sing beautifully. The man only wanted £35 for him and they had a cage for £12 that would have suited him perfectly. I SO wanted this feathery little teletubby to brighten up my abode with a dawn chorus all of my own. I walked off to the clinic fantasizing about possessing this bird and telling myself how perfect my life would suddenly be if only I had this feathery entertainer in my house ~ the way compulsive shoppers have justified bizarre and/or useless purchases since time immemorial. Next to the petshop was a sweetshop with a bouncyball dispenser. 50p got me an ultra-bouncy spongey model. As I meandered down the street bouncing away I pondered my lot and suddenly realized my sudden bird obsession £35 + £12 cage + sundry seed sticks, spare perches et al... was all the doing of my MOOD SWING. That I really need to exercise more care and attention in these matters. And so I didn't buy and went to my new mental health clinic, and quizzed them on my new appointment. Then I went to my Stabilization Seminar.


Group therapy was FAR more entertaining than envisaged. The moderator had an attitude problem. So much so that somebody knocking patiently at the door for five minutes was studiedly ignored as clients' increasingly fractious demands as to why this person was not allowed in pinged about the room like a hoarde of escaped roborovskis. Eventually a sweating blushig cockney girl blustered in. One man was reprimanded three times for reading The Sun newspaper; two blokes wearing electronic tags were reprimanded for conversing about their crack dealer. An Irish tramp kept fallig asleep and was repeatedly told to wake up. Then blushing cockney girl took to crunching a packet of crisps at top volume.

I did say "don't knock it till you've tried it" and I'm so glad I didn't knock it. I've made friends with a South African alcoholic. I'm looking for the next meeting early next week.

Back down town I paid the opticians another £70 for glasses that darken in the sun. When I was into contact lenses I had the most enormous collection of sunshades that all got broken or stolen or left behind when I moved. So I thought I deserved at least ONE pair. The lazy old shop are taking THREE WEEKS to put a simple pair of specks together. I'm not happy about that. But they're paid for so all I have to do is be irritated every time the sun comes out between now and July 27th.

I'll soon be wandering the streets probably looking like an escaped paedophile. (Perverts wear brown tints don't they?)

Well I've got to go it's 4am. I bought some Valium in town and it knocked me out. I needed knocking out; I was wide awake ALL last night feeling hyper-diaper. I don't know whether it was post depression rebound or a touch of the manics. Long as I don't buy any terrified fluttering caged birds in that state, I don't mind...!

Everybody says I look unrecognizably well. Giving up heroin and eating cherries probably has a lot to do with it ....

And how was YOUR day..??!


I was talking about who doesn't have the best voice in pop (not Mariah Carey, certainly not Beyonce) THIS is the best:~

Fireworks

This is a picture inside my manic brain.







I'm feeling a little manic as we speak. I love the spectacular energy. The razzle-dazzle. The excitement.




My life is like a work of art.

I am a work of art.

I love living like this.

Here you see the meaning of life ~ which is but a dream... Truly wondrous, astonishing, a neverending phantasmagoria of amazingness...

I hope life is beautiful to you, too...

Sun is shining.... expensive new optical wear required...!

YOU KNOW if I deleted everything that might embarrass me at some time afterwards, I'd barely have any blog left.

What was all this crap about me being pushed into lying in front of a train by the bitchy Buta? Ridiculous!

I was in a right tizzy earlier. Then I spoke to somebody else from the clinic, who calmed me down.

Now my mood has switched and I've been feeling slightly manic all afternoon. And it definitely is mania (or hypomania, to be precise). I feel like I've drunk an enormous amount of black coffee and it's kicked in all at once. Or I've taken a tiny dose of speed and it's there, perking me up all the time like a hamster's perky ears... I'm also having mood swings. One minute I'm high, next I have an unaccountable sinking feeling. Then I'm hyper. Then I want to cry. Exactly what happened before when the mood went UP!

I'm quite happy being UP. It's FAR better than being down. I was reflecting on how this is supposed to be a mental illness and thinking what a crazy place is this world we live in. I hope I stay up like this. I think I deserve it. I've been depressed for far too long. I also want some Transitions or Reactions lenses for my glasses. I didn't want photochromic lenses in my only pair of glasses, as they always darken when you go outside, no matter what the weather and I'd only want that in summertime. So I'm saving another £69 to get the trendy frames everyone says suits me in Reactions brown. To be frank, I prefer grey-black to brown, but my frames are bronze so grey would look like a mistake at the factory. What do YOU think?

I was going to get contact lenses (mostly so I could wear sunglasses) but I'm too old for contacts these days...

Ukh you know what, I wish that Buta woman hadn't put pressure on me the way she did. I'm now fantasizing about going into rehab. And to do that I need the rehab seminar. See this is what happens when you cajole and coerce against people's will. They wont' even do what they WANT to do, because you're forcing the point. I would have thought Buta, being a mental health nurse, would understand that aspect of human nature. But then again, she does seem a bit stupid, so who knows....



20:30 hrs The News of the World, Britain's most salacious tabloid is to go out of production as of next Sunday. The 168 year old publication, which sold 5 million copies in its heyday had become mired in a giant phone hacking scandal. Royals, celebrities and even murder victims' families' mobile phones were hacked into resulting in a scandal so great that the newspaper lost nearly all their advertisers ...

After The Phone Call ...

I JUST SPOKE TO A SENIOR CARE PERSON at the druggie service. Buta, apparently IS the Titration Nurse. (A titration nurse is a Senior Torture Operative, somebody specializing in giving subtherapeutic doses of substitute medication to opiate addicts).

Bloody hell if that's what a nurse is like I'd hate to run into a 100% unqualified person.

I agree with the Senior Care Person that, having used on top of my script, I'm not totally stabilized, so I'm going to the stabilization seminar. That was the only one that really appealed to me anyhow. I didn't go to the rehab one as I don't want to go to detox/rehab ~ except as a very last resort. I want to cut down methadone "in the community" and then either switch to Subutex or simply tail off methadone to nothing. I don't mind which. But detox and rehab are heavy going options. I found their reduction programmes too steep for me. My insomnia was so bad, I didn't sleep at all in those places, which wouldn't bother me if I could just get up and start the day at 2am, the way I usually would ~ but you were supposed to stay quiet for the benefit of everybody else who was sleeping (including the night staff). So I was depressed with "suicidal ideation" with nobody to talk to. "Ideation" really is just ideas so talking probably does help. If I ever go to such a place again I'd pick one specializing in "dual diagnosis" (addicts with mental health "issues"). At worst I could end up the sanest person amongst a bunch of loonies. But at best I'd be in the right place to have a "breakdown".

My risperidone is kicking in. I know this after a man wheeling a toddler in a pushchair muttered, "Bleedin' 'ell, mate. Wake up!" as I zombied past. I felt like a zombie last week (which is probably what irritated Buta so much) ~ and that was without risperidone. With it I'm like the walking dead. One of my coping mechanisms is to disengage. I do it naturally. The "thousand yard stare"... that's me.

I don't know why this is but I seem to get MORE psychotic-like phenomena the first few days back on that stuff. That's happened twice before. Does anybody know why that could be? It's not giant, technicolour visions I'm seeing. Just voices talking random words now and then. Like thoughts pushed sideways into my mind. I don't know whether this stuff will ever go away. Good job it doesn't bother me too much. What bothers me most is 1. anxiety 2. depression 3. agitation 4. paranoia 5. mood swings. But I think all the stuff now I get is very low-grade so I cannot complain.

Well I've got to go. I DID NOT TAKE that Valium I was talking about (last post). I forgot to do it. Then remembered. Then reminded myself "if you're able to forget about it, it cannot be so overwhelmingly pressing" so I avoid avoid avoided. I think Valium is strictly for emergencies only and Buta doesn't deserve the Honour of being Valium-worhy.

The Senior Person I spoke to mentiond that Buta was a nice person. Now this isn't something that had to be said. So maybe it is true. What I picked up from Buta wasn't horribleness it was Bemusement. There's a mental block that separates us. Possibly I was doing a lot of "thousand yard stares" without noticing... Who knows? Unfortunately as she's Titration Nurse, there's nobody else who can "work" me apart from the doctor. That is, until I'm Stabilized.

So my goal now is to stabilize as fast as possible, never to use any heroin ever again and to go to this one group that sounds OK. You never know, it might be really good fun. I quite liked group work in rehab. It's being forced into groups I disagree with. So I will try. I will try. I will try ... Wish me luck. I might well need it ...

Waiting on my man

MIDDAY: I'VE just called the Drugs Clinic asking to speak to the manager. A "senior practitioner" is supposedly calling back so I'm waiting.

Ever since I transferred clinic, this new place seems to occupy about 50% of my thoughts. Surely that's not healthy.

If they won't give me a new worker I will put in a written complaint.

O please ring back soon. I want this over ASAP.

Framed and hung on every wall is a massive list of behaviours we, the clients, are not allowed to engage in. Yet this Buta bitch says whatever she pleases to me. I know what's happening. It's all about getting me to break one of these rules so I'm cut off methadone and lie in front of an express train.

I'm having a Valium.

Patronizing Pig Problems II

I DON'T KNOW HOW TO HANDLE BUTA THE BITCH, my new druggie keyworker. Of the ten workers I've had prior to Buta, there was only one who I seriously had a problem with and that was Maple Syrup. I handled Maple Syrup by nodding and smiling yes yes yes and then going off on my merry way doing exactly as I pleased. But this one's different. We've only had 2 sessions and things are already bad. She uses exactly the same lines as Maple Syrup. If you don't go to these groups, I'll know... I won't give you your script unless you go... She's even more bullying than Maple and far ruder. And I thought "service users" were supposed to be treated with dignity and respect..? So I'm finding out who's in charge of this new place and putting my complaint in writing. I'm fed up of drugs workers who barely understand methadone dosing, let alone mental "health" issues... Ideally I want a dual diagnosis specialist, but I doubt the new place even employ one.

I'm trying not to let this get to me, although I am back on the Valium. Surprisingly it made me feel better. I had to take 2 pills. One to cure the post-Buta blues; the second to sleep on risperidone. Risperidone doesn't put me to sleep but once I do sleep, it keeps me under. I slept so long last night I would have missed today's meeting anyway. I'm going to try the detox/rehab meeting. I wish Buta hadn't pushed the point the way she did. She's killed what little enthusiasm I had for these seminars. If they're any good I will go again (I'm not cutting off my nose to spite my face). But the main reason I'm going is to be able to say I've done your meetings, I've done endless ones at the old place. I've done six years of counselling outside that. My psychiatrist doesn't think counselling is the appropriate treatment for me (he said that). If Buta has issues about this, she should take them up with my doctor. Whenever I think about this I feel wound up. I've started using heroin again. I don't think Buta cares about my welfare at all. I think she's uncomfortable dealing with "psychiatric" cases. And I don't think she wants to work with me. So I'll be doing her a favour when I insist on a change.

Does anybody know how these druggie clinics work? Surely I have the right to change workers if my present one is rude and objectionable?... Advice, please!

No other news. I've got to go; I need another Valium. In fact I'm thinking of taking my risperidone early so I can go beddy-byes.

I'm taking the risperidone again because I found out it is used as "monotherapy" in schizoaffective depression and psychotic depression. I don't think I'm really "psychotic" but I do feel depressed and cannot break out of it.

I'm not sure I want mood stabilizers. At worst they would turn a choppy sea into an inland lake. I like my waves. Or rather: I like the ones that take me higher. I sometimes described heroin as a mood stabilizer in this blog. It did indeed seem to have an antidepressant effect that methadone lacked. But like the "official" psychiatric meds which commonly lose efficacy over the course of time, heroin doesn't seem to work any more. I feel pretty much the same on methadone. The other effect of heroin seems to be that it kills joy. How many joyful junkies have you ever seen? The gear appears to put a lid on happiness. I don't want a lid. I want a floor below which depression will not sink. I want to get off this nasty methadone. Many of the professionals believe methadone does have some mood stabilizing or antidepressant effect, which means without it I'd be more unstable than ever. But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. And like I've said before, I'd taper myself off at a rate of a fraction of a milligram per day over the last few weeks. Of course the clinic wouldn't understand this, much less prescribe for it. But I understand it. It's my body and I'll do as I please.

The only good thing I have to say about this new methadone clinic is that they are at least cutting down my juice every single week. Buta refused a 1mg a day reduction then wrote up a 10mg drop ~ which is steeper ~ so much the better! I have a tiny stash of spare juice in case I do ever feel withdrawals but I don't expect to feel anything until well under 50mg.

Nothing else to put today. If anyone has anything inspirational to tell me, please comment.

Bitch Worker II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So that's that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

120 steps to freedom ...

I AM NOT looking forward to going to this new drugs clinic tomorrow. I've only been twice, but didn't particularly like it there, especially last time. They kept asking whether I wasn't using some other drug bar heroin. The doctor asked whether I was manic. The new worker even seem to know what schizoaffective meant. I just want them to take down my methadone as fast as possible. Because I'm a new customer they want me to drink it in the pharmacy. I'm not used to drinking methadone in one go and I'm not used to drinking it during the day. I want to go back to normal consumption so I can drink my juice in bed like a normal person. (Half before sleep, to knock me out; the second half two hours before rising, to stop me wanting to use that morning.) Because I don't think I'm going to find the support I need at this place, I've decided to help myself. I've found three groups that look promising.

Dual Recovery Anonymous
Emotions Anonymous
Schizophrenics Anonymous

Dual Recovery Anonymous UK do groups in London. They might substitute for the now defunct Nutter Club, which was a victim of Prime Minister David Cameron's notorious public spending cutbacks. Ironically it was the psychiatrist who diagnosed me who put the final nail in Nutter Club's coffin (so Naomi hints). I'm writing a letter asking for Nutter Club to be reinstated as it's the ONLY place I've ever found where I can speak freely. NA tend to put everything in the context of addiction, recovery and "working the steps". I've heard of people with psychotic depression being told they're feeling so down because they're "not working the steps". And I've heard numerous stories of mentally ill people and even epileptics being persuaded to throw their medication away because taking pills is "using". This isn't NA's official view, by the way. But it has gone on. I never found the understanding or acceptance I craved at NA; perhaps I might find them somewhere else.

My new worker was enthusing about the wonderful drugs groups this other clinic does. I smiled benignly, because they look exactly the same as the last clinics ones. Groups that made me so wound up and angry at the endless junkie one-up-man-ship ("I'm a cleverer addict than you") and subtle drug snobbery ("I only ever smoked my crack in a spliff") and endless boasting ("I got better/cheaper/stronger drugs than you") that I ran straight to my dealer after every session. Far from feeling empowered or inspired, in a room full of addicts with a non-addict moderator, I just feel like an old junkie at best. At worst I feel misunderstood and out of place, surrounded by crackheads, unable to tell my own experience. The reason I won't take most drugs is that I know they'll exacerbate symptoms of an "illness" I'm not willing to tell a room full of stangers about. Despite all this, I think you shouldn't knock anything until you've tried it, so I'm willing to give these new groups a go. When I'm in the right mood. Hopefully psychotically manic, so I can cause as much chaos as possible (ha-har!)

I'm supposedly getting some mental care co-ordination team thing. And a new doctor. Etc. Yet nothing has happened.

I looked up the NICE guidance on my conditions and found out that as a "service user" with a schizophrenia spectrum diagnosis, I'm supposed to be offered art therapy. Whoopee!! I'd love to splosh paint on canvas at the taxpayer's expense (does the taxpayer stretch to canvas? Or would I be painting on cheap fish-and-chip paper? Ho-hum. Whichever). Also I found out bipolar disorder is considered a serious mental disorder. Which didn't make me happy. And I'm supposed to continue the antimanic pills despite feeling depressed. So there we go. I don't really wanna take anything anyway. Don't wanna take methadone. I wish I could wave a magic wand and be done with this addiction.

By the way I looked up people's experience of Rapid Opiate Detox. When I was younger I really wanted this procedure, where you're knocked out cold on general anaesthetic, pumped full of naltrexone, which knocks all methadone, heroin and other opiates off the brain's receptor sites. Two to four days later, depending on the clinic, you wake up drug free and supposedly happy. I have to say I envisaged myself feeling like a human train wreck in such circumstances. I also imagined I'd be extremely manic and probably psychotic. Or else extremely depressed, and probably very anxious. Sure enough I found a testimonial describing exactly the feelings I'd envisaged. The unfortunate person (who had spent over ten thousand dollars on this treatment) described waking up feeling like she'd been hit by a truck and plagued by nearly unbearable depression and anxiety which didn't let up for weeks on end.

So rapid detox is definitely NOT for me. I have been told by those who know me that any detox I do should be as gentle as humanly possible. I was thinking of reducing from 1mg methadone to nothing over the course of two weeks or more (why not?) using a broken off 1ml syringe to measure my daily dose. British methadone is 1mg/1ml so that would be quite easy. See I'm fretting about the final hurdle already, when I've bearly cleared hurdle number one! I'm also fretting about this bloody clinic tomorrow. I want cutting down down down on this methadone and I'm scared they will try and keep me stuck on a level dose. A level dose of methadone is too depressing for words. You're not going anywhere. I need to know I'm nearer freedom with every passing day. Really I want to reduce at a rate of 1mg per day, but I don't know if they'd let me.

Well the weather is really hot this week. And it's 2:30am. I'd better go. Nasty appointment tomorrow. Must sleep.

Tonkie Ears Returns!

TONKIE EARS MY MANIC HOUSEMOUSE has returned. Scuttling amongst my possessions most of last night and rustling merrily away... Somewhere, deep under my bed, he found something particularly crinkly and loud to amuse him. Then he found something to eat and was nibbling voraciously away until well past sunrise. At last I saw him emerge, perky-eared and beady-eyed at dawn. He pinged off in the direction of the kitchen and hasn't been seen since. Probably he took his mousey anti-manic pills and has been luxuriating in a deep furry sleep ...

I've discovered some lookeylikey pictures of the tiny Tonkie Ears. Isn't he tiny and cute?

I've had enough of posting my confused feelings surrounding not using drugs, at least for now. I've only used gear once in the past week. It barely does anything when I do use it. While I cannot convince myself that using opiates is inherently "wrong" I do think it's wrong for me. For all the "medicating" I may (arguably) have done to myself, it's my belief that heroin puts a lid on happiness at best (hence the mood-stabilization aspect). At worst it leaves those enslaved to it in misery and squalor. And though there are treatments licensed and used for a minority in this country, and though they might have helped me a great deal if only they'd been made available, I'm more interested in getting off all opiates altogether than lobbying for better maintenance therapy which will only prolong my addiction. I don't see methadone dependency as any better than heroin addiction. I'm fretting already that my new clinic won't be willing to cut down my script steeply enough. I want a 1mg a day reduction ideally. I don't see that I'd feel a single milligram a day when I'm still on over a hundred. As my old pharmacist pointed out, you could spill one milligram and not notice it. So it's OFF OFF OFF for me.

The summer has been beautiful here in London. Sun is shining. The weather is sweet. It's high, high summer, like a Caribbean spring ... I'm thinking of investing in some of those self-tinting Reactions lenses. Only £70 for another pair of glasses. I could easily have blown that on gear, so what's the big deal..?

EastEnders' Cindy Beale is in Coronation Street (big news). I'm still at a dead loss over what to chuck out and what to keep in this Great Clearout of mine... Stuff is lying everywhere. I'm dreading moving house, yet I really want to go. Up up and AWAY as soon as humanly possible. Those are my goals. 100% drug-free and living somewhere nice. Then I can do something ... something amazing with my life. WATCH OUT CRUEL WORLD. You will pay for what you've done to me!!

(My memoirs; Valerie's memoirs... bookshops of the world will be groaning in misery wishing Gledwood was still on heroin and too mentally impaired to pen two coherent words together..!)

I hope y'all had a cheery cherry bakewell of a weekend...







Driving on drugs: methadone (with links to most other drugs).

Making a spectacle

OK FINALLY ~ AFTER WALKING ROUND IN A BLUR for months on end due to a pair of broken glasses so wonky they made me look like a human percentage sign %-/ I HAVE NEW SPEXX and look exactly like the guy in the photo. Cept I had less clothes on as I wandered down the high road this sweltering afternoon.

Here's another samey post I bashed out earlier. I don't know whether there's really any point saying any of this. I'm only trying to convince myself I'm doing the right thing by coming off drugs. My brains got confused enough not to know what was right or wrong... so here's what I said earlier...

I only started wearing glasses in a fit of suicidal depression. Yes I hate glasses that much. For years I simply didn't wear them. Or took them off in the presence of anybody important. Eventually in the mid to late 90s soft contact lens technology improved enough that even my fussy eyes would accept them. (Before that I was only able to wear contacts on special occasions; I had to constantly take them out early etc etc. It was the dreaded "daily cleaner" (the only part of the cleaning regime with warnings on the bottle NOT to get it in your eye) that was playing havoc. As soon as they scrapped that and introduced one-step solutions I was fine. To be frank I'd rather get my eyes lasered so I never have to wear glasses or contacts at all. But I do quite enjoy looking intellectual from time to time. And as I get old and knackered anyway there's less point being vain. I usually feel about 85 years old. I was so depressed last week I found myself sitting round pondering how fortunate old people are, knowing how litle time they have left. While I calculate my remaining years like a serial killer in prison, wondering when I'm ever going to be free ...

My main priority now is to get OFF all opiates as quick as I possibly can. I did OK earlier this year on methadone, but I did have a persistently "elevated mood" helping me through. Right when I could really have done with NA as a focus, NA refused to listen to me, assuming that anyone who comes to a meeting hyped up, dishevelled, happy one minute, raging with fury the next absolutely had to be on drugs. Well I think the whole lot of them are hopelessly naive for thinking that. It begs the question, if you believe people are only ever "high" thanks to drugs why give drugs up? Natural highs are far superior to the drug-induced variety. That's why I know I don't need drugs.

If only I could convince myself that heroin was evil, life off gear would be so much easier for me. As it is, I don't believe methadone is any safer or any better than heroin. I'm using it solely as a tool to reduce a habit I got off street gear. Street gear is unreliable; the people who sell it are scumbags. Yes there might have been an element of "self-medication" in my heroin use but I still believe I should be happier without an opiate habit than with one. And I know it takes a year totally opiate free even to begin to feel OK. I'm glad that my moods swing to two opposite poles. This means there's a chance I might actually feel higher than normal off drugs. Most people feel lower. I got a high switching from heroin to Subutex some years ago. I got a little bit hyper reducing from 60mg to 12.5mg over a few days several years ago. So there is hope.

I'm a bit upset with my old methadone clinic for having totally missed my mental health "issues" for several years. I looked up the national treatment guidelines for drug addicts and discovered mental health problems should be highlighted and treated. Instead you get this ceaseless obsession with drugs drugs drugs. That if you give up crack you'll feel a lot better (a lie). That stopping drinking will stop you being depressed (another lie). Nobody ever asked what had brought me INto drug addiction or what I'd done before I was an addict. It seems typical to get a habit in your late teens or early 20s. Not me. I was 28 when I finally got hooked on the "brown". That's 10 years of misery and failed coping mechanisms. As soon as I found heroin I had a focus. Life was suddenly very simple: with heroin I was OK; without it, I wasn't OK at all.

My main reason for getting off opiates (and I see methadone just as much as an addiction as heroin) is that I feel they don't bring happiness. How many truly happy heroin addicts have any of you ever met? I'd like to know. I resent my happiness being in the hands of ruthless criminals and uncaring drug workers. Shane in France says:

The tragedy is this: the dealers will always get to you before the system. They are better organised and certainly more caring. At least they gain something from you, and so stand to lose if they don't kiss your pains better.

And he's absolutely right. I'm past caring about heroin. I know from experience this is no protection against future wobbles. But I'm protected today. My hatred of the junkie life is keeping me safe. Unless I can do something vehemently there's little point in me doing it at all. I can be quite a vehement person. At times. If only I could put the enthusiasm I once put into heroin into something constructive I could have the world in the palm of my hand...

And that's the real reason I want opiate-free. Addiction is slavery. For a while it was fun. But after the first two years I'd done all I wanted to do. Had the experience. Now all I was doing was repeating it over and over, day after day. Each day felt exactly the same. Hazy. Whenever the haze lifted I was unable to handle Reality. Life hurt too much. Methadone was nowhere near anasethetizing enough for me. And that's why I continued to use heroin. A big reason why methadone works for me today when it didn't before is that the street gear is so much weaker than it used to be. I haven't taken heroin for about five days now and I don't miss it at all. I don't even think about it. When I crave more drugs, I crave methadone, not heroin. Conventionally speaking, this is supposedly a step forward. Only time will tell whether that really is so.

I want a new life now. I've tried a life on opiates and it brought me next to nothing. Now I want to try something else. I have been dreaming about university. Literally having recurrent dreams about day one in the Halls of Residence. I couldn't go back to uni in the UK. I couldn't afford it. But I could go in Germany. I'd like to get qualified for something and the one job I'd really like to do ~ bar sitting at home writing ~ would be translating. The best course of action in the short term would seem to be getting my shoddy German to near mother tongue standard. So that's my goal.

My weight has gone down to 13 stone 1 by the way. That's 183 pounds or 83 kg.

I hope this post hasn't been too boring. I know I probably sound like a stuck record lately. Sorry that's just me. I have to reiterate reiterate reiterate VEHEMENTLY to convince myself I'm doing the right thing. Otherwise, where opiates are concerned, I'd just go on taking heroin till I die ...

Fuzzy Donkies in the Snow

FURRY FRIDAY
IT'S REALLY HOT THIS END...
... so to cool y'all off, here's some fuzzy donkies in the snow...







WISHING Y'ALL A CHEERY WEEKEND
IF IT CANNOT BE CHEERY ...

THEN MAY IT BE TOLERABLE!