I get money tomorrow. I need to buy a charger and a chip to phone my Dad free of charge. I lost the old chip when I wasn't even on drugs (I remember that bit clearly; neither was I drunk but I spilled water on my phone and went so mental trying to dry it out that the SIM lept out and installed itself between a pane of glass and my seat on the bus. The pane of glass is there because the bus is British and they want to cause more serious injuries in the event of a crash. Well why else would glass be on a bus; not on a window?)And I have to buy socks. Dark ones without heels and toes busted through.
I just spoke to my Dad and his side of the family. That worked better than antipsychotics. But I've taken the antipsychos again to be a good boy in time for Dr NutNut on Thursday. I need to look all responsible. I stopped taking them because I had side-effects that were drastically horrible. Something like a drowsy brain-fog where lights glared into my head making me want to lie in a darkened room (yet not sleepy-drowsy so you just suffer it out till the pill wears off). So I canned the pills and was so high (on "life", not any drug) by the time I had confirmation that I should take the entire dose at once, as in week one that I took no antipsychotics. Then I got tired but was still on a high. Then the high just wore off, just under a week ago, on Monday afternoon. And ever since then I've been pissed off. I'd rather say pissed off then depressed. I hate the word depression. I never know when I do or don't have it except afterwards (when I usually did have it) somehow some sort of denial confuses me. Henceforth I shall attempt not to be confused.
I'm not taking heroin because heroin stops me being high (might as well be frank). I'm dreading going to the doctor because the doctor will also want to stop me being high. Last time I really started going high on antipsychotics I felt really weird, so maybe I'd better get used to feeling weird (I got used to being weird long ago, I just didn't feel it).I cured my depression with drink. It antidepressed me enough to pick the phone up for social reasons and to get clothes washed. I think my doctor should prescribe cherry flavour 4.7% ABV cyder for medicinal reasons (joke).
Meet the Fockers has been on at least four times today. They keep talking about something called a Jimmy Changa. What the hell is that? I thought it was a cocktail but it gives Bernie Focker (Dustin Hoffman) most terrible wind. Roz Focker (Barbra Streisand) said so by accident on their answerphone message.
And now I'm vanishing into the night like a tired moth that's just taken 2x2mgs of chemical cosh. Sleep well. Or GET OUT OF BED (if you're in Australia).
Illustrated: Indonesian owl moth
I just got 3grand backdated and i put 2grand to natwest to pay off my student overdraft i spunked in about 3 weeks on heroin and my heroin pals. with the spare grand i am going to buy a washing machine for sure... i take my washing to my 85 y/o nanna at the moment and that makes me feel rotten as she washes, dries and irons it!!! im trying to find out what furniture to buy to do my house, i try and go with themes but it just ends up looking mismatched. im still cleaning it out, bathroom kitchen living room is needle free and perfect, just the bedroom to go. oh, and im chucking out the cooker because its so caked in fat i cant clean it. this is weird to have money and pay off an od (it was costing me up to 50quid a month interest) and have it sititng there and not using it. od od odd. im still not smoking, using and i have gone a full 30hours wihout alcohol- which is the worse, i have drunk so many teapots of tea i feel like im going to puke.
ReplyDeletewhen i tried citalopram, for the first 2 or 3 days i had bad headaches so stopped. then a few weeks later took them again repeat, repeat. you have to go through the pain weird feelings before they really kick in but try doing that when you feel like shit!
night night, im watching wifeswap usa and grazing on anything + everything to cure my boardem
Hi Gled,
ReplyDeleteI came here through Shane's site and have been lurking and reading a while. Glad to hear of your recent success.
A Chimichanga is a Mexican deep fried burrito filled with meat or chicken, beans, cheese, etc. They are delicious, but one can see where they might give one the wind.
All the best from Canada.
-visi
Sounds like you're getting yourself together Gleds. Can't you take your washing to the launderette? Glad to hear the call to your Dad went well.
ReplyDeleteGled? Question. you can email me back at fractalmom1@gmail.com or just comment.
ReplyDeleteDid you ever do speed? How did you feel when you did it? Did it inexplicably slow down your brain so that you felt somehow normal? Or was it just heroin that did that. I don't mean crystal meth or whatever it's called in the U.K., just plain old speed.
I am really wondering, because, well, you just don't FIT the typical thingys that all the psychiatrists are looking at, AND you don't react well to the meds they keep putting you on!! I hope you answer me. It could be important.
Much love, Dawn
I love that scene in Meet the Fockers when Roz is riding Jack like Sea Biscuit. That is one funny movie. Try a chimichanga some time. Pretty good stuff.
ReplyDeleteNAOMI: you sound way happier than you were back in the day when snowballing all the time. if you can stop at one grand binge wise you've done really well.
ReplyDeletejust in case you hadn't thought of this: premium bonds are a good way of tying up cash and of course you can win prizes, the post office also do other bonds where you get fixed interest rates and you can't get at your money without a month's notice, so they're a really good anti-binge device! i had just £10 worth which you can only have by buying £110, selling £100 back and keeping the £10 and I won £50 from £10 returns-wise, that's my best financial investment ever!
VISI: thanks for that i was puzzling over that one for a few days, in the end i thought they meant a chinese takeaway! (sounds ridiculous now, but that's what i thought...)
AKELAMALU: i'm feeling way better than I was last week i was in a real sourpuss mood! i know i have problems i'm trying to keep a handle on things so nothing goes too crazy these days, that's all i can do
DAWN: I answered you above and am asking him on thursday what words to write on official forms as i NEED a diagnonsense, also i can't even get self-help without one i'm lost in an "it could be this it could be that" bullshit zone and i'm really really sick and tired of bullshit i tell this dr exactly how it is, i think he understands i'm being bang-on straight with him i'm just too confused about everything not to be bc i don't know what he needs to see i just have to tell everything and be blatantly honest and frank and i veer completely away from any mind games territory where you make a joke or be sarcastic i am not up for that in our meetings
SYD: this is another thing i don't know: what is a sea biscuit!??!
A biscuit here means a cookie, whereas a cookie is something home made looking with chocolate chips in it...(!)
2 nations divided by a common language ~~ well said, winston churchill
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ReplyDeleteFRACTALMOM: I have to come back to this; what you say is very interesting. Come Thursday I have to ask this dr what he thinks is wrong. I have a paper diary now, a tiny week-to-view one, that I can record my "biorhythms" on. I found a website that told me what to record: sleep, appetite, physical energy, mental energy, mental speed, physical speed (restlessness), mood level etc etc. I've noticed they don't always peak and trough simultaneously which has confused me as the crap people publish online about moods and attention deficits nearly always attempts to define the problems in an over-precise way that I take literally and then get confused over. For example there are times when my sleep has gone down to an average 2.5-4 hours per night ON sleep meds and I feel hyped up. But I can, in the middle of this, sleep perhaps for 8 or 9 hours one day. Then I feel REALLY hyped up with energy to spare... do you see what I mean. They complain that bipolar takes so long to diagnose and then merely fuel the situation by giving caricatured case studies etc when what people need to read is how and why people took so long to get diagnosed, what the diagnosis is and why. My friend Anna at ppfaceannagrace.blogspot.com had childhood ADHD and is now diagnosed bipolar. But they're giving her Adderall and I can't see how that's helping. Fair dos I'm not a doctor but it doesn't seem right...
ReplyDeleteAnyway I'll get back to you I have to rush out the door to get to this meeting which I'm already late for...
FRACTALMOM: Hi I just read back through what you put. I definitely have a lot of what you're describing; it does seem to come in phases then go.
ReplyDeleteI was musing over what you said on the way to NA and remembered a book I used to have years ago called A Mood Apart by a Dr Whybrow. I bought it thinking it was about depression, because I had been diagnosed with depression twice, and felt the need of a good self help book...
I got the book home and found it was about more than depression but was a v early work on the "bipolar spectrum". I realized as soon as I read it that I was on this spectrum. I also saw straight away from reading the examples of type 1 bipolar that I certainly wasn't clinically bipolar (or so I thought, now I don't know what to think).
My point is this: Dr Whybrow outlines 3 thymic temperaments.
Dysthymia is the shrinks' word for persistent subclinical depression.
Hyperthymia is one notch below hypomania and if you're hyperthymic you might well have a lot of ADHD/ADD symptoms. Hyperthymic people tend to have a lot of energy, be outgoing and into trying new things etc etc.
Lastly there was cyclothymis and that sounded most like me. Cyclothymic people alternate between phases of optimism and pessimism, high and low energy etc etc.
Then I realized from reading further that if you've ever been diagnosed with "major depression" and are also "cyclothymic" you automatically "qualify" as type 2 bipolar, the milder more difficult to diagnose type.
Like your daughter I had a terrible time on antidepressants, they basically brought on bipolar symptoms.
Then I checked more carefully and saw that hypomania brought on by antidepressants doesn't "count" towards a diagnosis of bipolar.
As I said I did have mild mood swings anyhow, but wasn't sure what a shrink would make of these.
The whole issue did my head in so badly that I just hid it from the doctors. When you're mildly hyper it's pretty easy to hide it, it's only when I really "went off on one" that I genuinely could NOT stay still...
Now whatever's happening really does go flat-out when it goes.
You know they are now theorizing that ADD/ADHD, borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder all lie on one and the same spectrum which may account for while your experience and mine sounds so similar.
One major difference: pot disagrees with me so vehemently I just cannot touch it. I get ultra paranoid and hallucinate on a tiny dose it also brings on some of the racing thoughts I can get. It really does nothing to calm my head and produces no "mellowness" at all. It seemed to do this years ago but as time went by I got a stronger and stronger aversion to it and just wouldn't touch it.
I caught a common cold some time ago and felt stoned on cannabis. Kind of like my thoughts went really loud and voices of memories were talking in my head (not "hearing voices" literally, just in my head... and I was so annoyed because by this time I'd given up crack, had long given up cannabis and yet this crap that they promised me was all drug related just happened anyhow!
I'll tell him what you said. This doctor is very cautious and working at a drugs place probably used to hearing people exaggerate their experience. I made it very clear I was being 100% on the line, neither exaggerating nor covering up and when I tell him about my extremes I make it very clear how much of a day that extreme lasts and how often it happens. I think as far as I can tell he's a good doctor.
I have to go now it's late and I have to write this stuff in my little black book so i don't forget it. Thanks v much for the information :-)
let me know. I deleted my long comment, there was just a little too much personal stuff in there to leave it up, but you know how to get in touch with me anytime LOL. i will keep in touch through your blog anyway to see how you are doing!! I sure hope for you they can figure this shit out, it has to be absolute HELL for you to go through. GAK! I would be insane.
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