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:~~~~