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 ...