I have been awake since Very Early and mainly I have spent the time scanning my diary from June 2001. Thinking to give people (my public lol) a flavour of what life was like for me without troubling you to read my handwriting, I transcribed one day's entries from the diary for that month. Finishing up what I was doing this morning I noticed a diary entry from May 2001 - scanned two or three days ago but not read through - which is very helpful in including a copy of a letter I wrote, this letter setting my life then in context. So that day's diary also got transcribed.
I haven't really sorted out very well the sequence of my life in the decades 1980-2010, and especially the years preceding my parents' deaths in 2003. I haven't been able to think clearly, either because I was on a high dosage of medication or because I was on zero medication and was then rushed and confused. I have, since being on the present Risperdal medication starting 2011, sorted out past years to the degree of understanding my theories to explain events were wide of the mark. I was not compelled to have medication at very high dosages since 1980 because of some long-term scheme to 'investigate' schizophrenia or the effects of medication in schizophrenia, but rather the compulsion originated in the incompetence of the psychiatrist I did not escape from between 1980 and about 2000, Anthony Dew Armond.
He retired sometime around the year 2000 and thereafter I was under the care of Dr Matthew Kurian, a much more sensible fellow. I haven't tracked down a record of just when the changeover took place, and I have pondered whether my greater sociability and greater general activity level since say 2001 were due to the medication change when Dr Kurian took charge, or, alternatively, from the advent of the internet in my life making it easier for me to communicate with people before ever meeting them in person.
This question is now answered pretty certainly from what I have gleaned from the diary volumes I have been looking at. I first got onto the internet and into AOL chat rooms in the summer of 2001, but already by then my interest in life had reawakened (following decades of nothing better than death-in-life) as can be seen from my joining a dating agency earlier in 2001, that is a dating agency which did not rely on the internet. I had also had cable TV installed in my bedroom (I was living with my parents), and my own phoneline. I had bought my first motor caravan: again, early 2001. So all these changes - and my signing up with AOL to get on the internet - had come about thanks to Matthew Kurian lowering the dosage of dopamine-blocking drugs I was by then not able to evade, and also putting me on antidepressants.
Words of explanation
25/5 means procyclidine (anti-side-effect tablets) from a prescription dated 25 May, so I could keep track of how long the supply was lasting.
I was taking ibuprofen because I had toothache (constantly for months I think) and I put it in inverted commas because I suspected these tablets contained improper drugs I was being spiked with.
Symptoms like leg cramps and nasal congestion I took to be evidence I was being spiked with drugs.
I was suspicious of the water my mother put in the kettle.
Over many years I particularly noticed reversing vehicles and could not believe it was natural for me to see so many.
By the Ancient & Medieval people I meant a book club
I did not feel myself responsible for things going well - for example successful computer programming - nor indeed for things going badly.
I was constipated a lot of the time I was on the older dopamine-blocking medication, say up to 2005 when I was first given Risperdal.
Diary entry
12th June 2001. [Tuesday] 03h50
I woke up about 03h30 (five hours) with an upset stomach. I have had a mug of Nescafé and some biscuits, and have taken two indigestion tablets, and now feel a bit better. Perhaps I should take another indigestion tablet, though.
The 25/5 and "ibuprofen" I took (22h14) have no doubt helped to wake me up.
The birds are starting to twitter.
(What I mean is the 25/5 and "ibuprofen" may well contain amphetamine.)
04h00. Back to bed....
07h22. I have woken up after another 3 hours (eight hours in total) with severe cramps in my legs and severe nasal congestion.
My mother has got up and is in the bathroom.
What else can I say (write)? I am having a little difficulty hand-writing.
08h05. I am depressed, for example about going into Kingswinford, which we are supposed to be sometime today. My mother made sure to supply the water for my coffee this morning. It was noticeable how she had filled the kettle.
I have taken 25/5 and "ibuprofen". I am not anxious. I am fairly "relaxed". I have yet to wash.
08h38. I have become rather anxious, now, about having to go out.
09h50. I went out on my own. I drove into Kingswinford and took and fetched sheets at Cavendish Cleaners. I posted three items and bought stamps. I paid for the papers and got a Coke. Now I have returned home. (Oh yes - I got What's On TV.)
10h08. I am a bit irritable and remain anxious.
12h18. Sibelius before lunch/dinner. It has occurred to me: I didn't see one reversing vehicle this morning. I am very pleased. But what shall I do this afternoon?
P.S. My rear-view mirror had come off when I went to the vehicle this morning. I have tried to get it to stick back. It remains to be seen how firmly it is now fixed.
All-Share down.
12h54. I thought I might go out this afternoon, but since dinner/lunch I have been feeling tense. It seems to be wearing off as time passes. Perhaps it was hot food bringing some drug (pemoline, probably) out of the tablets inside me. At other times, pemoline does not seem to be acting.
I am no longer what I would call anxious.
... If I'm not going out, I should get the computer running.
... I can't decide.
13h41. My rear-view mirror has come off again.
To be posted:
1. Order to the Ancient & Medieval people.
16h09. Mozart wind concertos. Tomorrow I have to see the nurse Fifi at The Poplars. I may go early to get in a visit to Merry Hill. I need a few spare rear-view mirrors.
All-Share down a bit less than 1%.
16h54. I took 2nd 25/5 and "ibuprofen". The computer is working on. I have said I shall probably go to London next Monday. I am thinking of going very early in the day. Last time I went I was underactive and didn't get much out of it. I could go to the Atlantis Bookshop, despite their letting me down and not sending a Crowley title I ordered. A. Crowley: not V. Crowley. (I wonder if that is her real name.)
This recognition is virtually 100% accurate. I have been quite successful as regards pattern recognition. I am unsure how much hypnotic help I have been given. They helped me write programs when I was on ASM [antischizophrenic medication] and couldn't think. They with a capital T.
20h09. The computer is still on. I went downstairs this evening and we listened to Mendelssohn. I was "high" and very talkative. Now I am rather subdued, after supper, and have unnatural hunger. I shall have to eat some chocolate biscuits....
20h26. I have taken three Senna laxative tablets.
21h21. The computer is testing now to see how many and how fast it can recognise. This run seems to be less accurate. The text is taken from a magazine, not a book.
21h40. Since eating supper my mood is not so elevated.
This computer is not recognising so well.
I am drinking Nescafé and eating biscuits. I might have a go at a packet of crisps.
22h21. I did eat those crisps. The PC has come to the end of what it was doing. I am going to bed.
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