MOOD SWINGS. I nearly had a panic attack in Sainsbury's. But I have decided panic attacks and me are NOT going to share a bed. Absolutely no way. I went out and scored 3 Valium blues (10mgs) now I feel all zonged. But way more with it than I was on meds last night.
I have been sleeping really well. Didn't want to get up at 12:30 today but I had to.
Problem with anything antimanic; it's liable to make you a bit depressed. Today I felt manic inside my skull but not outside it. Which meant my head was clanging. Saying the same syllables over and over in my brain. I'm glad I didn't have access to a computer: knowing me I would have posted them.
There is nothing else to put up. No positivity as I have done no positive things. All I want is to run away and hide from life. It's all too too much. Today I had to go home early I know when I have gone to my limit. When I push myself past it I just end up as a nervous wreck so better NOT push too far. See I am mentally disabled now. Not in principle; in practice. If I can talk and move hands I can type. I don't drive so I don't know whether I'd be able to in this state. If it's too much to do the basics it's too much to move pedals, steering wheel and gear stick. It just is.
I was googling stuff to do with death and came across someone who has said "there is no quick and painless way to die so I am going to pick up the pieces of my life and carry on; maybe you will too". You have to get out of your head that death is negative. Death is positive. I just hate being left behind. I would be very nervous facing eternity but I would still go through with it. If I could dive into a pool of infinity and execute a perfect dive, I'd do it. Then again I was too inept to do it when I really wanted to. Poisoned myself and felt really bad. Now I'm too pussy to try again. So I'm still here. Don't worry about me. Still here. Always will be. I will probably outlive you all knowing me. So worry about yourself before you worry about me.
This is what legal medication does to me:~
DOES ANYBODY KNOW THE FILM THE DEER HUNTER? This is the tune Cavatina, that makes such haunting music. I love that track. Although the film is supposed to e about PostTraumatic Stress Disorder and how it affects one character, eeen Robert DeNiro who pays hard" first and only Iie Ill see that and they were masquerading... see this is what medication does to you. Makes you forget.
Earlier on Tuesday I felt so low and depressed (physically exhausted as well as mentally "ill" I nearly went to bed. My phone kept ringing but I wouldnt answer it. heroin doesnt work. Now my mood has risen anyhow. Far more rapidly than heroin ever works. I spose Im a rapid cycler, in psychiatric termonology. DEER HUNTER: CAVATINA
IT'S MID EVENING. I am trying to remain calm. I know I was ranting like anybody's business this morning and part of this afternoon. Feeling very euphoric and "grandiose"!! Yeah!! Fantastic in other words. Way better than I did any other day. Higher, yet clearer. And less bizzledizzle in the head (I can say that without my head going fizzle dizzle wizzle hizzle) OK it just did, but at a far lower grade. I didn't go into a vector cyclone thing where it takes me off like a helecopter flying into a spiral and out the other side, then touching down on top of all that energy, looking down on everything. On top of the Universe. That feels pretty good.
I'm half tempted to give a list of drugs I didn't take to get there. I do need to make one point clearer. If I mention my experience in terms of drugs or psychedelics, those are merely terms of reference. I never ever was an addict to those substances. I'd done heroin more times in my first month of heavy using (not my first month of using) than I ever did Es, trips and all else in my life. You need to get in perspective the AMOUNT of something taken and the IMPACT it has on you. Heroin has had near-zero impact. It only ever took stuff away. Gave me very little. Psychedelics give. Ecstasy gives. Whether the giving is good I'm not going into here, and I do have a policy of not condoning drug use. Describing, yes, condoning. NO! Live your life, do not use. I cannot think of a single chemical I truly think was "worth it". My biggest recurring dream re drugs was of temazepam, which used to come in yellow (or dark green) eggs full of gel (or liquid). I dreamed of rugby ball (that is an American football) sized yellow ones. I only ever took temazepam in the early 90s that was prescribed to me. So I was dreaming of my own sleep medication which my own doctor, who was the best GP I've ever had (had a rolling once a week appointment with him, that's why I wasn't raving ALL THE TIME back then I was really badly in a mess. The music was a soundtrack, I indulged occasionally, it made a big impression, I indulged again in the late 90s when I was more together, it still made me a mess, I don't do it now) ~ that's me and raving, Eeeeing, clubbing, party drugging. Yes I did it every week for a short while maybe a year or so. So when I feel really good of course I'm going to think of E, the drug which made me feel "like I'd finally found the pot of gold at the rainbow's end". Ecstasy also made me feel lied to. Like nothing else, including heroin, ever has. And I have also spent days lying in bed crying because I felt lied to, let down, and that the people who seemed so nice were themselves on E, I was myself, but we all had issues, sometimes deep-cut horrifying ones and I mean other people, not me that horrified me who didn't need horrifying. And the whole thing turned out into a mess with me hallucinating a good 24 hours after the last pill which MDMA doesn't do, I was scoring the same pills off the same dealer as everyone else. And I wasn't the only one cracking up and not coping come Monday morning. It was horrible to see. When I realized the truth, the real truth about clubbing, beyond the obvious fact that these were young people pretty badly overdoing it in some cases (not mine ~ I was just doing it and the little I did, usually no more than 2 pills... except the very end when it went past 5 then 8... that was over... 4 occasions ie 2, 2.5...2.5 (shit I'm lying I did 1.5 then 1 ie 10 pills=4nights out) ... and I was very well organized re timing etc. When I didn't want to take it I didn't take anything. Or a tiny handful of mushrooms. So few I wasn't "tripping" just had a euphoria you get off a tiny mushroom dose but not acid.
I can't even remember where I was going with this, and Im not spending all evening editing and obsessing. Other people can obsess if/when they want to. I'm not as obsessive as some people seem to think. I have ASPECTS that are.
Hey I found a different tune. It's slow. It kind of makes me want to cry. I don't want to cry about anything. Never cry about myself, it always mystifies me when people cry because they ... whatevered. Tears of giult I can understand. Crying because you hurt someone, I understand. Ha! Do you know what actually healed a lot of my friendships (in retrospect) was me crying when we were yelling at one another. These were friendships/relationships with the opposite sex. Didn't realize at the time they were probably touched.
When my friend Lucky died I felt nothing for a whole month. Didn't go to the funeral. I was in a mess. Had nothing to wear. Didn't want to face people I didn't know who knew her who knew when..? Banging on about her. She fell into frienships with the opposite sex that weren't sexual (or weird) she was nearly 60 they were probably late 20s or in their 30s and they did crack and heroin round at hers. Lucky's flat was a safe, quiet, peaceful place to go. I deliberately kept some distance as her friends seemed to last a certain time then vanish. (She was an addict: an expert at self-confusion.) Then she died, suddenly. It wasn't an overdose, she just dropped down dead, in front of someone else. The paramedics couldn't save her. She always thought she was invincible but I remember myself dragging her from her bathroom after she overdosed. The jolt woke her up, but in those moments she was gone. If you don't take overdose seriously you really are a fool. Anyway a month later I ran into her old friend who showed me the Order of Service from the funeral. I suppose the fact that he was carrying it on him said a lot. And then I cried. And cried and cried and cried and cried. I have never cried so much over anyone I knew. I hope wherever you are you feel flattered Lucky. I cried for you.
I wanna contact the living... not sure I understand this road I've been given... that's it!
ps if you wonder why the unedited rants, if i tidy up when i'm extreme i'll get lost in the words, if i wait till a time like now: I'll make my own witness statement to myself into a lie, so I can't do it. The "worst" stuff IS who I WAS who I AM who I BECOME when I am like THAT.
BEFORE I START I WILL GIVE YOU ALL ANOTHER REASON TO BE DISAPPOINTED IN ME. I scored heroin last night. I felt so depressed I didn't know what else to do. I have never felt that way before and not used. Once I had the heroin in my hand I cheered up a bit and blew the last bit of money I had on Chinese takeaway.
The heroin was crap, even worse than usual. It solidified twice in the works but I recooked and banged it up anyway. I lost respect for my body a long time ago. I only hate having to live in it.
Despite this heroin I didn't sleep at all last night. I was looking up ways of inducinga mood-switch. These are 1. stay up all night or get jetlag 2. abuse stimulants (including caffeine) 3. drink alcohol 4. (possibly) eat MSG 5. take antidepressants: I have a 28-pack of expired Prozac, which makes me hyper, agitated and euphoric. Drinking 3 cups of tea in a row on Prozac used to give a speedy high 6. stress (not much you can do about that). Stress induces racingthoughts, and sometimes "voices" (same thing, higher volume) which feel really good 7. sugar. I ate a Cadbury's Creme Egg yesterday and the day before. And the day before it was a Caramel one. Could this tip me over the edge~??
The sleep deprivation (which wasn't intentional) didn't work anyway. I slept all afternoon into the evening and woke up feeling miserable, sinful, full of guilt and wishing I hadn't seen that NutNut doctor when I did. Because I have made a reality out of what was previously dismissed as me lying to make myself look more interesting. I know what they thought of me. Well they can spit on my grave, those bastards.
A week or two ago I the same experiences I had when I went cuckoo started coming back but at lower grade. Racing thoughts, euphoria, disinhibition, less sleep etc. Then of course it just mingled into depression and I've felt miserable ever since. I know a lot of you out there want me to just do myself in, well I have a proposition for you. I'll provide the broken bottle YOU slash my throat you bastards. You want me to die, you fucking kill me. I get death you get life and I hope you get ****d every single day you're in there.
So there we have it. I am an illusion. I'm thinking of getting a job as a support worker. Most people feel miserable. Act their way through life, especially at work. Get home, don't even kick off shoes just fall into exhausted coma only to have to get up again far too early to work again to pay for things you don't want. That's what I should be doing. I'm not taking heroin today. I only had one drink.
I know I should work with the dying but I was thinking about that earlier and I couldn't handle the misery. Doesn't mean I'm not doing it though. I've pushed myself through loads of things I didn't feel up to, past tears and into complete physical and mental collapse. How come other people do stuff they don't want to and are fine, but with me I'm in bed for a week too ill to move? I sweated so bad that week the bedsheets looked covered in white wine stains.
I don't know what to do. I know no-one can help me. I always told myself if I ever felt really crap again I'm going straight in the nuthouse but the nuthouse wouldn't take me because there's nothing wrong with me except life.
That's been the problem all along.
And I don't have bipolar disorder either. The drugs worker, the mental health nurse, the social key worker all say my experience sounds very bipolar but the dr wants to think it's drugs and I'm with the dr. If I actually am a true manic-depressive I will kill myself and have done with.
Anna you bitch leave a comment under that REM song or was it really such a cliched choice? I put it there specially for you. Or are you really still feeling too shit for words? Anna has the most gorgeous blue eyes and a blue wig. I love all things blue. I love Anna.
There was a pill out a few years ago called Blue Mystic. With a name like that I'd have ran to try it, had I not already been engulfed by heroin by this point. I knew it was good as the press claimed several deaths (I've taken heroin for years and know loads of people who died on or via it; I went clubbing two years and didn't even know a friend of a friend of a friend who'd ever died on ecstasy or been put in hospital by that, bluemystic (2C-T-7) or anything else.
That bitch from QVC is on terrestrial television. How this is allowed I do not know. Home shopping! On ITV. And worse still LIVE ROULETTE for hours on end. Imagine this on ABC, NBC, CBS in America, that's what ITV is to us.
*******
Question: have you ever wept bitterly to this tune?
REM: LOSING MY RELIGION This is way better than the official video. The official one's crap:~
I SCORED HEROIN YET AGAIN THIS EVENING. I wasn't intending to do it. But I did. I used. I bumped into a posh boy who grew up with every advantage in life. Privately educated. The whole shebang. He should be married by now with a trophy wife, lovely posh kids who call her Mammar and him Pappar. A job in the city (if he feels the need for a job). His wife would probably be in PR, events planning (setting up stuff like Cartier Polo) or jewellery design. I believe (or suspect) that his family have cut him off. Smart move on somebody who grew up totally dependent on the family's money and status. No wonder he's in and out of prison. Thievery is the only way he knows how to make ends meet with a raving heroin and crack habit.
He scored me a lovely £20 bag of gear. Nothing is as it was before the extreme heroin drought that thwarted supplies, reduced purity to a minuscule fraction of what it had previously been, and left multiple thousands of addicts in constant withdrawal sickness. Even now in the new year things are a mere shadow of their former selves. I used to fix up a £20 bag (0.4, 0.5g) in two or three hits. In my recent binge I've done it in one. I seriously doubt the situation will ever go back to how it was pre-drought, not for many, many months indeed.
I can't believe I've let this relapse go on and on for as long as it has done. I'm beginning to feel desperate. When I did give up heroin I was lucky. I had a psychotic episode that threw me so far off centre that gear was the last thing on my mind.
So I'm now musing on whether or not I ought to score cannabis and smoke it heavily. Cannabis makes me psychotic. My last highly "enjoyable" (not!) experience involved heavy paranoia and voices from the sky yelling down at me. I don't want paranoid psychosis, but if it stops me being a heroin addict, it's surely worthwhile. And the druggieclinic don't mind anyone smoking "dope" as it's naïvely labelled here. (Doesn't "dope" mean "heroin" in the USA? The Americans have the right idea, as in most things.)
David Chaytor, Member of Parliament is being severely punished for swizzling Us the People of fraudulent expenses claims to the tune of over £20,000, that's more than $30,000. He will be punished in prison for a mere nine months of his poxy 18-month sentence before the idiotic justice system lets him out on licence. Unfortunately because he's not in Malaysia or Singapore he won't be whipped on the bare buttocks until they explode and blood pools round his feet. You can see the photographs here. I'm hoping the one featuring quasi-medical treatment involves rubbing sharp rock salt crystals into the rapist's broken bum. A more severe whipping ought to have been imposed on that MP. That would make those bastards think again before claiming OUR money for duck pond islands, moat cleaning and castillation repairs on their castles. Whipping should be brought back for housebreaking (definitely ~ domestic burglars are the lowest form of scumbags and I'd be well up for rubbing rocksalt into THEIR wounds), muggers, loan sharks, cannabis dealers and most especially corrupt policemen. The ones who spray CS gas into "suspects'" eyes at point blank range. The ones who perjure themselves in court. The ones who beat up "suspects" in the cells. These should be whipped without mercy.
When I was about nine years old some pleasant young man tried to pick me up from our local railway station. This bastard KNEW MY NAME. Despite the fact that I'd never knowingly set eyes on this character in my entire life, he KNEW MY NAME and insisted he was here to pick me up, and I was to come with him.
I wasn't at the main part of the station, I was on the footbridge, where I waved a 1977 Silver Jubilee Union Flag at the express trains as they trundled past. This made them honk-honk! To my juvenile mind this made it all worthwhile.
Of course when he said are you Gledwood? I'm here to collect you I said, "No that's not me," and this threw him. The fact that we were on the bridge made things, to my present recollection dodgier still. Less chance of genuine mistaken identity. More chance of a pervert willfully picking me up for God knows what. I wish he had got caught and spanked.
In my view paedophiles ought to be shot by firing squad. And none of this pussyminded crap about loading only one gun. Every single gun but one should be fully stocked with bullets. And I'm talking machine guns here. No crappo rifles. Death should be swift and merciful. Put the bastards out of their misery. I feel sorry for them. Remember I'm a drug addict. I know how it feels to have an addiction disapproved of by society. So kill the bastards. If the death penalty seems too harsh, institute a voluntary one. How many prisoners attempt suicide? Many, many thousands. All they need do is get them to fill out a little pink form, then within five minutes the firing squad is assembled and BANG! The bastard is dead!
I don't know what to do about this ongoing addiction of mine. Should I take up cannabis? Surely it's better to be crazy than addicted to heroin. Committing suicide is immoral so I can't do that. That's why I believe drug addicts should get the voluntary firing squad too. I'd have signed up for that years ago.
Happy new year everyone. The bastard from the council had the cheek to inform me my living conditions are of a reprehensibly low standard. Well he can go piss himself. It's my life. If I want to sleep in a nest of quilts like a tubby grizzly, that's what I shall do. He should FCK OFF and be soundly spanked. Or better still hanged.
How do I give up this terrible habit? I purchased some diazepam blues (Valium 10mg). They make me feel rubbery and nice. But nothing makes me feel nice enough. Is it really wrong to want to die? I never asked to live. Now people want to convince me that it's my duty to suffer. Why should this be so...?
I'm putting down my name for the Hospice Work I was talking about. It might take some time to get through the process of Reference Approval. I have no references, but the Druggie Agency ought to provide some. They are there, after all, to set druggie idiots back on the straight and narrow.
So wish me luck, please, and if you've any ideas, please pass them on. Click on "Answers" below ....
JOKE!
What do people call it when you talk to God? Prayer. What do people call it when God talks to you? Psychosis. What do you call somebody who thinks he IS God? A psychiatrist.
HM Prison "Service" website. (A "service" most "service users" could well do without!)
Illustrated: evil cannabis spliff; idiotic cannabis man; rapist's bum after 20 strokes of the cane; another criminal's bum after a good whipping ~ this is what they should have done to those corrupt MPs; Her Majesty's Prison Wormwood Scrubs where £20,000 fraudster MP will be punished but unfortunately not soundly caned.
TO ANYONE WHO PERUSED my last-but-one post, "in answer to some comments" I'd first like to point out my rantings were not a personal attack on any friends or commenters. Not a direct attack; not a sideways swipe. Passiveaggression (where you express anger obliquely, then deny you're doing it) is not my style. If I have a problem with someone I tell that person ~ it's the only way of doing it. Some of your comments did touch a raw nerve and that is what I was responding to. The fact that I'm me... not me... who am I?
The crux problem I had with heroin was that, apart from killing my pain, it held me very much together as a person. On gear I felt whole. The way other people seemingly feel.
Without gear I am Consciousness Aware of Passing Impressions. I'm expected to behave like and vouch for being "Somebody" but I do not feel like somebody. I feel many things at many times. I don't add them up. Somebody else might try to. Sometimes I have to account for whoever that person supposedly was, what happened to them. That's when it gets confusing. You see that's outward pressure to account for myself, to explain the inexplicable. It causes untold stress.
People seem to read into my words what they perhaps might feel had the words been their own. You need to be careful of doing this. Oftentimes I am comfortably numb. I never needed heroin to induce this and that puzzles me.
What heroin did do was give a certain confidence and a togetherness I had never in my adult life. That's why gear was so addictive. Whenever I tried to give it up, I (unwittingly) gave up my whole life also.
Far from over-analysing or ponderously dwelling on the issue of my life and feelings and future (the way many have assumed I do, probably due to my question-answering style)~ I realized in rehab that I actually hadn't the faintest clue what on EARTH I was going to do afterwards.
I was jumping blindfold into icewater! No wonder I ran out the door within half a week both times ~ despite immense preparation in the form of regimented drug-reduction, especially the second time. Despite what I'd assumed was motivation enough, I simply was not ready. Not the way I needed to be. I just did not know what I was doing.
You might also bear in mind that when I write, I use a naturally analytical style. This doesn't mean that I spend hours pondering myself in this way too!
People sometimes assume that because I write a certain way I must inevitably spend hours picking over my life in this manner too. That simply is not true. If I say I feel lost, I'm expressing a feeling. I don't wander about telling myself "I'm lost I'm lost I'm lost". I only say "I'm lost" when I talk to you.
At the extremes of experience I've found myself thinking far too quickly to ponder anything much. (That "breakdown" not long ago was like a tornado. Some of you read my words and appeared to assume I was more grounded than I really was. I was whirling a good one hundred times faster than usual ~ literally! It felt fantastic! But is not too conducive to self-examination.)
At the other extreme I slowed down and barely thought at all. My writing style cannot not reflect my minute by minute thinking style, unless I was willing to post near-blank pages or ones full of badddadah-dah-DING! Which is what my mind started doing when I was a little over-"manic". Perhaps that's my problem: if anything I ought to engage my brain MORE, not less!
On Sunday afternoon when I was tripping (on nothing; I've not taken psychedelic drugs in about a decade) and the Scouse of the South came blaring out a broken intercom I finally got fed up of people thinking I had DTs or needed Lithium. I popped some Librium which didn't really do much. My so-called Friend put pressure on me to find heroin. This was impossible, I said: it would be tiny, weak, money down the drain. He didn't care. Eventually to great irritation, which spilled into a dur euphoria (because I'm me and I am dur) heroin arrived. I took heroin. It was rubbish. I scored more that night and that was OK. Then I scored again and again and so I've done a lovely heroin binge.
And do you know what? The voices that were chattering away at night have vanished. (So much for drug-induced psychosis. If you wanna use the dreaded psycho-word this is a drug-REMOVED phenomenon. So the psychiatric industry can shove that in their crack-pipes and smoke it! Suddenly I feel put together and sturdy and strong again. All the reasons I got into gear to start with are revalidated.
Mental health nurses at the clinic will limply coo "ooo you're self-medicating" ~ yet they NEVER offer any alternative course of treatment or action. When I got into telling something particularly involved they crossed legs, leaned forward with a look in their eyes as if something really good was playing out on television. That's all I ever was to those people. Free entertainment.
Though I am supremely annoyed at this "Friend" for pushing me in that direction and will lance hi with expressions like "No ******g respect for MY feelings or MY sobriety," next time we meet, I am not "going back on gear" for anybody's sake. I took what was left tonight. I made sure I used it all. When it's gone ~ that's it.
I got a fantastic practical boost from heroin: it put me together enough to clean and tidy my living space back to the bounds of normality. Without it one disparate aspect of me nags "You've got to clear up" yet the other is not listening. I went on nagging myself this way for days, weeks, months with little-to-no avail. I could tell Mental Health Staff and this would provoke loads of engaged scribbling. With no benefit whatsoever to me. I don't care any more about my convoluted notes. I want RESULTS. Doesn't it come to something when only heroin will fix me?
Yes I could have not taken it. And I'd still be in a mess. I wouldn't have slept (I didn't sleep before). Less than a third as much would have been done (that's what happened last time). And my fractured less-than-self would watch caring-uncaring. Who cares anyhow? All I need do is get this task done. It's done enough now that I never need repeat that pharmaceutical relapse. I'm not offering an excuse for having used. I'm merely telling how using helped me. I only took heroin at all because it helped me a lot.
I was no longer crying. On heroin I was a whole person.
I'm willing to fracture up again, that's the inevitable result of pulling the plug on diamorphine. Please don't assume I'm telling you I suffer horribly. I feel nasty when I'm depressed, that much is true. But did you know, when I'm severely depressed it actually feels, in a paradoxical way, not as bad as moderate depression? Moderate depression, to me, involves constant impulses to suicide. In severe depression the suicidal idea is gone because there is no Life. Life is finished. I'm Finished. It's all over. "Rock Bottom" ~ if you want to use that phrase (personally I detest it). In this state I never even saw myself as depressed until afterwards. To me, I was in spiritual crisis. I'm no longer scared of going there because there are plus-points. While desire has gone, so has any sense of life. So I no longer desired to use. At long last I was free. The blackest stormclouds have a silvery lining. There's something to be gained from everything everything. Severe depression freed me from the constant craving to use ~ and for that I shall for ever be grateful.
Which is why I'm not scared. My life is a journey and I'm not even half done. This I am well aware of.
Just because my life is coloured in different hues to yours doesn't make me ill. I know that doctors could well see some of my experience as a mental sickness, but you need to throw out of your mind the idea that I suffer more than anyone else. I really don't think this is necessarily true. As mentioned earlier, I believe some of what's uniquely me is just a nonstandard coping mechanism. I don't walk about telling myself I'm ill. I only feel ill inasmuch as stuff has needed doing for a long long while, yet hasn't been done. No matter how hard I've tried to engage I've so far failed. The room-cleaning was a big one. If I can get this done, I'll be OK. A pigfull of meat shall slither off my shoulders. Then some other person can bring home the bacon.
You see it's not "feelings" that bother me, it's DOING. There's so very much I need to DO DO DO! Time is running out.
So that's my new question: how do I engage a disengaged person without using heroin in the process...? Surely there's some magical method? Some shortcut. Some effective way?
I very much appreciate the Answers I got back on Happiness. Thanks to Akelamalu and others, I made a decision to take a volunteer position at a Hospice. I have never in my life set foot in a hospice, but I believe passionately in what these organizations do. When people are terminally ill there comes a time when Doctors ought to just leave well alone. Stop their needlesticking, blood-letting, scanning, operating, endless interfering. Stop the painful tests, painful chemo, burning radiotherapy. Stop tormenting the dying and leave them in peace ~ dosed up on painkillers, tranquillized and happy as the chemicals can make them. I'd want this for myself. I'd want it for my friends. I'd want it for my loved ones.
I always donate to the hospice charity first when I'm giving away clothes etc (I find vast amounts of clothing on the street that doesn't fit me, so it's always trotting into that shop). I'd love to see how a hospice is actually run. Surely it's a privilege to spend the last days and hours with people who are dying. There's nothing maudlin or morbid in this. To be able to bring comfort ~ or even joy ~ to anybody's final moments would be a great honour.
So these are my feelings on feeling and not feeling, and on gear. As I said, yesterday's post was not a personal attack on anybody who commented, it was merely inspired by your remarks, so please, Syd and others don't be offended. No offence was ever intended.
PEACE, LOVE AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!
LINKS: HEROIN AND METHADONE AS ANTIPSYCHOTICS AND MOOD STABILIZERS
COLDPLAY: FIX YOU This video and the Madonna Hung Up Video both seem to have been filmed in the same place the Warp Club happened ~ inside the most enormous railway arch club, just round from the London Dungeon and London Bridge Station ...
MY ALARM shrilled me awake at 7am; I was up by 7:20. Did all the bits I had to e.g. picking up methadone. At 10:30 my dealer rang me but I ignored him. At 11:00 I rang the dealer using my harshest voice to demand "a decent one, coz they've been getting smaller and smaller" (dealers like to try it on ~ they wanna see how much they can get away with. I had been punishing him by going elsewhere.) He said yeah yeah and he would be "fifteen minutes" (ie ages), so I took my time getting to the place. At 11:15 I was at da place. Then I sat on a lawn reading my 1943 Kathleen Speight edition Teach Yourself Italian, which I so wasn't in the mood for, but I'd left my German book at home. (I can actually enjoy this German book without constant recourse to a dictionary (though I'm not claiming to know every word) ~ what a wonder that is! I was knocking back white cyder and puffing on cigarettes as I learned to conjugate my verbs. At about 11:45 the dealer showed. Home by midday. I had one hour clear. I checked on my clothes, hanging dry from my windows on coathangers (I've nowhere else to dry them). Then I rushed to cook up my hit. The my first attempt was far too pale in my opinion, though a goodly chunk of "brown" had gone in. The dealer had made good on his promise and sold about six or seven "points", as we say, for £20. (Those are points of a gram ~ five points being half a gram.) Well as I say it looked too pale, so I added more and re-fried. I'd put about a third of a gram into the spoon. With vitamin C it dissolved into half a millilitre of tapwater. The resulting hit was midnight black. I took this half-millilitre of death-black liquid, dropped my clothes (which also gave relief from the oppressive heat ~ only 31, 32 degrees C but this morning so humid, I looked like I'd showered with my clothes on.) Afterwards I was trying to remember where I'd banged the hit in, but I couldn't. But it went in directly... ... and knocked me out cold. Next thing I knew it was 1:45 hours. FIFTEEN MINUTES TO GO. There was absolutely no way I was gonna make this event on time, and crematoria will not put funerals on hold just because some stupid junkie took too much gear to get there on time. I rushed to the shower and washed my hair. This only took three minutes but when I next checked the clock it was two o'clock. Knowing I'd missed it I slumped back in my chair of living death and was instantly unconscious. I woke up at 2am. Y'all can have a go at me if you like. I feel the weight of your disappointment already. My second thought, after "what the hell have I done to Pinky?" was "what will I say on my blog?"! You see your opinions matter very much. As I saw it I could: 1: obfuscate ~ give an oblique account of the day. Not lying, but making it seem to the uninformed reader that I'd actually been, even though I hadn't. 2: lie. But the day I start telling lies on my blog is the day I should give up blogging 3: tell the stark truth So I'm sorry, but this is the truth. I missed the funeral because I was too stoned on heroin to get there. And there you have it. Trust me, you won't be any more disappointed in me than I am in myself.
I CALLED up my friend who's unofficially organizing Perky's funeral tomorrow, I was stressing about where it was, who I was going with, how I would get there and what the hell to wear. I do have a suit, but it stinks of 10,000 cigarettes having hung on the back of a door for three years. Also I don't have a shirt to go with it. Or a tie. Except for a bloodstained old school tie I found on the street and have used as nothing other than a heroin tourniquet...
I was told: just come as you are, wear normal clothes, that's the type of date it's going to be. And I was saying, Yeah but I don't want to turn up as my regular scuffy self and show everyone up. And I was told: You'll be fine, you'll be fine. Then I said: Well shouldn't I dress as if I'm going to the doctor's?~ and she said: Yes! That's exactly right!
So my sartorial stressings are sorted, at least. I presently have a huge bucket of clothes soaking in the corner. (I hand-wash.)
I said I'd Google the address and bus-routes for the crematorium, so I'll have to ping off and do that in a sec.
O man I how am I going to get through tomorrow. All the drugs in Burma wouldn't do it for me. What am I going to do? What will happen? How will I cope?
I've never been to a funeral before. Not a friend's funeral.
The only ones I've attended were my Grandad's and my old Aunt Dot's.
How I'll handle seeing a coffin that I know contins a body that used to be inhabited by the most marvellous, wonderful woman who brought so much (and the most classic Turnip accent you've ever heard) to so many ... How I can look on this coffin and think of her laid out inside so lifeless and still, staring blankly into the dark; this person who was so full of life and is now about to be chucked into the furnace and burnt to ashes ~ how can I possibly do this?
I don't know how.
I don't know.
Of course I will survive. But what about poor Pinky, so cruelly left alone? A woman who, despite the most gruesome, grotesque, horrendous life you could possibly imagine ~ in childhood and in adulthood ~ has survived and lived as best she could. A woman who has endured years of psychotic illness. Nobody can comfort her. For there is no comfort. And no hope. (At least none to be seen.) To pretend otherwise would be to descend into clichés and platitudes and I'm not into them.
I cried this morning. I actually cried. And I never cry over suicide or drug deaths. These are personal decisions or inevitable consequences of life ill-lived. So how can I cry over the inevitable?
Perky's death was far from inevitable. It is wrong, so wrong. And that's the difference.
I'M not really in the mood to write this, but I painstakingly posted these facts in German so I have to do it in English too.
In January a someone I know threw himself in front of a train and died.
I had known him for years. Originally I met him in a mental hospital, where he was undergoing alcohol detox. He had borderline personality disorder and always seemed cheerful enough, though he was always on antidepressants and, towards the end of his life, bipolar meds as well.
He was depressed because he had to have an operation. Also he had been taking that legal high mephedrone, probably in large amounts. He ended up in a mental hospital (again) and was, according to someone who really knows the meaning of the word "really psychotic". This is why I suspect this nasty drug had something to do with his death, because in all the time I'd known him he had never, ever seemed "really psychotic".
So anyway, he's dead.
He was best friends with a lesbian I know who I'll name Perky. Her and her girlfriend reminded me of Pinky and Perky. When we met Perky we were so happy. Although she had recently been discharged from hospital having had psychotic depression, she was funny, witty, lovely to be around.
Better still, she came into the life of the most damaged person I have ever met (and I've met a few broken people) ~ that is, her "Pinky".
Pinky and Perky were together for seven years. I was so happy for them because at last Pinky had found somebody who respected and loved her. Someone she could trust.
But when John died, Perky was devastated and quickly got admitted to hospital.
She used to spend three days every week with John. They were very close. Pinky, you have to understand, has multiple severe psychotic and personality disorders. She is the epitome of a "vulnerable adult". So Perky probably NEEDED somebody like John to talk to. A voice of reason. Despite the "borderline personality disorder" label, John was an intensely reasonable man. And then John killed himself.
Six months later I got a call from Pinky sounding utterly distraught. She mentioned nothing about Perky. All she wanted was a good heroin dealer. Now I know why. She scores off the same person I do, so I couldn't help her ...
... then last week the ugly truth emerged. In a fit of depression, "Perky" had swallowed enough methadone and psychiatric medication to kill an elephant.
So now poor Pinky is left alone. And I don't know what the hell is going to happen to her.
I'm so angry with Perky for having done this.
The funeral's in a couple of days' time. I'm not sure I want to go.
In Wisconsin, Anna Grace, who tried Naloxone SUBoxone ~ get it right, is back on methadone and riding the great Bipolar Cycle to... who knows where? In New Mexico Melody Lee is lacerated to pieces. Everybody dies. She says
...please don't turn your good intentions my way, misguided sympathy I can do without! I don't feel sorry for myself, I damn well don't expect anyone else to. If you are stupid enough to extend a sympathetic hand, don't be surprised if I lop it off and sell it for dope, **** your pity and the horse it rode in on bitch! I refuse to be that person, the one who pens a pretty tale of coercion, addiction, destruction and eventual redemption.I'll leave that to all the whiny ****s who get off on waxing about how high were their highs and how low their lows. Pfffft! Enough whiny ****s, I won't add myself to their number.
I am reminded of the song by Sinead O'Connor that says He won't ask for your pity or your sympathy But surely you should care...
SINEAD O'CONNOR: SCORN NOT HIS SIMPLICITY
In Oklahoma, Noah says he wants methadone (why?!) Methadone is more addictive than heroin (simple fact: if you don't believe me, phone a detox centre claiming to be on heroin and methadone and see if they don't tell you to stop the methadone before you come in (not the heroin ~ the methadone! What does that tell you? Which is worse? And how did this farcical situation ever arise?))
If you don't want heroin OR methadone, here is a lullaby to lull you to sleep. I don't know WHY she called it "rebel song" ~ it is a traditional Irish ballad!
Talking of whiny ****s moaning about high highs and low lows and redemption, she just put her finga on why I couldn't write a misery memoir. It's not like I didn't have the material. For one thing there was no redemption, so I thought that might make a good surprise ending I AM STILL ON IT TODAY! Other thing was, I had a thing about changing names to protect the guilty. How much was my own story, how much theirs? In the end, I decided the TRUTH could be far better told fictionally, where you have full range to say anything you like about anyone. Because they are not real. If I actually finished this, if it was actually any good. If it actually came out and I actually got cash, I would put myself through rehabilitation. But not some summer camp for the broken. I mean quick anaesthetic detox and away to Timbuktu type rehab. I would rather sit on an African beach crying alone than talk this crap out "in group".
When junkies get clean and the mutual interest of the sheen of drugs is dulled, they are incredibly boring people to be with. Addiction bends unique individuals the same same way. That is one reason rehab is so intolerable. The talk talk talk. All the same. And the untruths about "chasing some first-time high"... that they probably heard on television and didn't think about long enough to see it's NOT TRUE. Are you chasing breast feeding or the bottle every time you eat a meal? Heroin (but not so much crack/cocaine or speed ~ which I don't bother with now) is like food. It is taken to feel OK, maybe better than OK, but not much. There is so much hypocrisy and bullensheisse around drug addiction. Someone someday should tell the truth as it actually is. Until then, hope lies with the dealer, not the government (certainly not with the self, who lets us down time after time) ~ at least for most of us, in most situations.
Until then: heroin ~ TILL DEATH DO US PART.
FUTILITY
Move him into the sun - Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown. Always it woke him, even in France, Until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds, - Woke, once, the clays of a cold star. Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides, Full-nerved, - still warm, - too hard to stir? Was it for this the clay grew tall? - O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth's sleep at all?
I KEEP THINKING of Andra, the lady who died and what a waste and how sad and poor cow. I feel guilty now. I feel shamed. I feel that my first reaction was callous. This is the thing. About FEELING. She and I both lived in the land of the unfeeling. So when something happens to any of us, it's hard to know what to feel. I feel sorry now.
NA say addicts are divided into thirds: one third do get clean; a third are killed by the drugs and the last third carry on using till they die. Even when the drugs aren't directly responsible they hardly extend life, do they ..?
I felt that I wanted to give a proper memorial and tribute to all those who died ~ the names, faces and lives behind the statistics and I suppose that's part of the reasoning behind my book. I chose to write fiction because paradoxically it's a better medium for telling truth than a living memoir can ever be. To write about real people in such detail would be a gross invasion of privacy. Hence the need for fiction.
I can't think of many good books about addiction, Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting is in Scottish but it made a good film. Kate Holden's memoir In My Skin is as much about her career as a prostitute as about drugs but it is a well-written account of the confines of addiction. But neither of these delve far into the nittygritty of life and death. And I think someone should. Hence my book.
I took Sharon Osbourne's autobiography Extreme off the library shelf and found I couldn't stop reading. I don't know about elsewhere but the publishers in Britain are going crazy for celebrity memoirs ~ even when some of the "stars" in question are barely past their mid-20s, and what have they done? Love her or loathe her Sharon Osbourne has lived a fascinating life. She's been a rock manager and promoter. If it wasn't for her, Ozzy would probably be penniless. Reading her story, I realized I had more in common with her husband than I'd cared to admit previously and that the drugs I'd been taking have dulled me and disabled me and I don't need them anymore.
For the first time ever I thought to myself, "I don't need heroin," and felt a surge of excitement. That's a feeling I want to grab hold of ~ to feel good about not taking the drug.
I've already turned tables on just about every other substance. Not only do I not want them, but I'm glad they're out of my life.
When I can finally do that with heroin I'll know I've got some way towards getting this problem licked.
LET THE NEWS BE WIDELY SPREAD... MY ACQUAINTANCE and Valium Marilyn's friend the "Greek Crackhead ..." is dead!
She was never really my friend and we never got on. So I'm not going to start pretending to adore her now. I hate that sort of hypocrisy. I feel sorry for her boyfriend though. He is said to be utterly distraught.
Medically this is a familiar story: middle aged person ~ cocaine user (snorted/injected/smoked ~ it doesn't matter) ~ has sudden heart attack and dies. Apparently in America one heart attack patient in two tests cocaine positive... So none of this is any surprise.
But still... Rest in Peace Andra xx ~ Safe at last
2. The drug services seem obsessed with the idea that crack use can spread the hepatitis C virus. I'm not so convinced. This whole thing comes about from self-confessed crack smokers, who claim never to have injected anything, and yet still test positive to the blood-borne hep C virus. Would you take a crackhead's word for anything? They say things like "the hot pipe can burn your lips"... yet most pipes are built in such a way they do not GET hot at the mouth end... Grrrr! o I dunno.
feel all zonged. But way more with it than I was on meds last night.
