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Nov. 10th, 2009 @ 01:28 pm (no subject)
theres no reason for me anymore.
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Oct. 19th, 2009 @ 04:38 am (no subject)
kinda getting sucked in ..like a deer caught in the headlights-... into the less stable parts of my mind. and thing is... i dont know which way we go from here.
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Oct. 12th, 2009 @ 06:03 pm Epic Failure.
Tags:
(most of this is word for word because i was fiddling around and playing with the audio-recorder on his phone while talking.)

me: did you say something about a cigarette?
will: No.
me: oh. alright
will: why? do i need one.
me: no, i do. but... someone SAID it
will: {{nervous laughter}}
me: then.. i guess... i just realized... you dont talk. or
{{{{moment of silence}}}}

me: or ... werent.

{{{silence}}}}}
me: tall spirit left west
will: tall spirit left west? wha? {{laughs}}}
me: ::looks up::: hm? what'd you say?
will: hmph. hey DANNY! should i leave you alone with whomever you're conversing? i don't want to interupt or anything....
me: ill look harder.. its no bother. whatever there is over there. of no whether to last forever. over here.
me: no. stay
{{{{will stares at me with that horrible confused, pitifying, 'please take your medication' look and as i cant help but suspect, the next words out of his mouth are....}}}
will: da-aan-ny-hay- did you take your medication today?
me: ..you should interrupt whoever im talking to.
will: {{laughs}}} thats right. avoid my question.
me: instead of him-it interrupting me-us
wil: yup. ignore me entirely, too. seriously though, did you take the pills?
me: geezus. crist. i took the fuckin' seroquel, not the haldol. quarter dose. usual. leamme alone about the med crap. not only is it irrelavent, but if id wanted to talk meds i'd have asked my MOTHER to drive me home. please. just.. talk. not about that. but keep talking.

{{{silence}}}

me: no quiet. . get rid of the quiet. ple-eaaase. talk.
will: Ah... ok ok. go away voices in danny's head! we're busy and you're being rude
me: very rude with his tall spiritual cigarettes from the west, ha!
will: We're busy afterall... sitting here doing nothing. and he's being rude.
me: zact.
will: poppycock
{{silence for a while}}}
me: .... fiddlesticks
will: ::shakes head::: gotta laugh at yourself sometimes, buddy.
me: oh yea. i'm hilarious.



after i got home, i am left to take care of Lilia (my daughter) all by myself as everyone else is still at the hospital with my father. just like earlier this week, the noise set in right away. all my internal fears- - somehow externalized into the sound of a baby or child screaming... wailing. screeching the sound of impending death. loud and unbearable. i know its not lilia but i just want someone to get her away from me. get me away from her. get me away from EVERYTHING. but im alone. and im her father, (shitty one though i may be) and i have to listen to this screaming. and at the same time, try and force myself to ... take care of everything.. of her. myself. will offers to stay and help "if you'll have me" but of course i wont. i push him away because they car ride was bad enough. bad enough. bad enough trying to..... sustain what is left of my self. i dont want to have to put up fronts in my own space. this is why i dont have people over. why i dont have (many) friends. why i dont bother with relationships. theres just not enough goddamn sustenance.
but i immediately wish i had some help. not will, really. not really anyone. becca, because she's already seen me trip-out about 700-million times so one more doesnt really make a difference. it loses a lot of the embarrassment and just turns into one of those :::SIGH-YUP-I-SUCK-AGAIN:::: kind of things. the underlying message is embarrasment, but it is tinged so far over with defeat that it doesnt even matter anymore. so i wish becca was home, but i also wasnt going to leave my father at the hospital alone with just my grandparent (his parents) and becca works in the city anyway, so this is what it's come to. until my father is well and home. IF.. he is EVER well. or home. in the meantime, the noise persists. it makes me cry. it reminds me of my failures. it reminds me of myself. it makes me think of children. children who made it and children who didnt. children with cancer who get locked in closets. who probably WERE the antichrist and should have died. children full of radiation. radiation and screaming and wondering if anything has anything to do with anything or maybe none of this has anything to do with any of it and it's all just random and there really is no connection at all. or maybe the hallucination is that everything's okay and really... my daughter IS the one screaming because somehow i've failed -as a father...as i have at everything else- as i knew i would all along.

/fishy
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Oct. 2nd, 2009 @ 06:55 pm (no subject)
ahhhhh ::twitch-fuck::: there was just a NASTY dark blackish brownish greenish wormish THING on me. crawling up my chest towards my neck. one of those... giant nasty ones... might have ACTUALLY been a caterpillar. im not sure. whatever it was... it was -ON- me and im nauseas now. i just jumped up from my computer chair and felt something crawling but i couldnt dare myself to look so i just... flung it off blindly and then tore my clothes off basically naked except my underware and slapped and scratched every square inch of my body, shook my head out , tosseed my clothes out into the hallway and continued in the fashion of dusting myself off and inspecting my head and ears and nostrils in the mirror until i was semi-satisfied no more wormishness was hiding in, on or around me.

im nauseas now. itchy and nauseas and upset. i cant stand those fucking things. just... cant deal with them ON me. maintain a distance and i'm a-okay... but .... i havent had one of them actually ON me in a long time i forgot how horrendous it feels. reminds me how the phobia started to begin with. i keep feeling that same one on my neck even though its gone now. just keep feeling it crawling up that same spot. ::shivers:::

im not okay.


/fishy
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Oct. 2nd, 2009 @ 11:38 am (no subject)
a wise old owl lived in an oak/ the more he saw the less he spoke/ he less he spoke the more he heard. why can't we all be like this wise old bird?


i leave you with that.


/fish
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Sep. 28th, 2009 @ 06:21 pm (no subject)
im better off on my own. i cant fake it any more.
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Aug. 17th, 2009 @ 10:28 pm (no subject)
i fucking hate methadone.
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Aug. 17th, 2009 @ 04:16 pm (no subject)
do you ever look at your life....
and wonder where the fuck half of it went?

....because seriously... where the fuck am i?
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Jul. 28th, 2009 @ 01:22 pm me and my big fishy pussy
havent updated.. in a while.. and my last entry was really depressing so i figured id make an appearance lest the whole world (the whole world being the few people that read my journal- yea, you, you are the world, doesnt that feel good to BE the world?.. or not THE world, but at least MY world...) yea, anyway, lest you all think im dead. of course, im not. which anyone who thought i was dead, well, you must have forgotten- i'm a big pussy. big pussy's are good for some things, in fact probably many things, most of which i will not disclose here because half of them are probably illegal in most states or at least frowned upon, but anyway... big pussys- good for that kinda stuff- not suicide, not death, destruction, or even accidental overdose. none of that. so next time anyone thinks of me dying, or .. yknow... makes those hysterical "IF YOU DONT STOP DOING DRUGS YOU'll DIIIIIEEEE" comments at me... well.. just smile to yourself, and remember me and my big pussy, and then smile to yourself again, (because who cant smile when thinking about big pussies...) and be on your way.


i had more to say.. but i lost it when i started talking about pussies. honestly, i think for a gay guy this is probably the most talk about pussies in any entry on livejournal to date. seriously, how many times have i said pussy now? i challenge anyone to make a more pussified entry than this. Go forth ye minions, and pussify!!

/fish
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Jul. 4th, 2009 @ 12:47 pm We;re comin' out of our shells!!!!
Current Music: teenage mutant ninja turtles - pizza power
please tell me i'm not the only one lame enough to remember this...







....even though i'm sure , even if i'm not the only one lame enough to remember it, that i'm still the only one lame enough to have rewatched the whole thing. not just these two videos... i mean.. the whole concert. i used to have it on tape, complete with 'behind the scenes' footage and whatnot. god the 90s were bad. and yet so good.


pizza power can be delivered to your door. remember that.
/fish
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Jun. 29th, 2009 @ 07:10 pm (no subject)
i'm going to try to write about everything tonight. and post those pictures as well. but mostly write. ::sigh:: i feel worn down with knowledge. bloated with issues and emotion and perhaps its about time i purge myself of all of this. a good old fashioned livejournal Spewage is in order. going to try to do that tonight. dont expect too much, though. i could just as well procrastinate further and.. not.
/fish.e
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Jun. 29th, 2009 @ 12:55 pm (no subject)
just went for a bike ride. through the woods. love love love love love my new bike ;D i havent even HAD a bike since my "extreme-junkie" years where i .. pretty much sold everything i owned out from under myself. my bike.... my keyboard... guitars.. bed, dressers, etc. ha. those were fun times. i slept on the floor for a while until my mom was like "well.,.. alright... i'll give you the futon... but you have to promise not to pawn it..." but i used to bikeride EVERYWHERE around stuart back in the day and then i got rid of the bike and it turned into walking everywhere around town which was slightly more of a pain in the ass. but now i have a bike again, and not only can i bike around town, but its a mountain bike... so i can bike around the wood-trails. i just tried it out. awesome traction. biking over leaves and brush and sticks and dirt is just as easy as biking over hard pavement with a mountain bike. leave me alone, ive never had a MOUNTAIN bike, (why would i when the 'highest point' in florida is fuckin' skyline drive which is only like 10 feet, if that, above see level. and if you try to ride a bike through the brush... you'll sink into swampyness... so yea.. not much need for a mountain bike down there. but here.. ho boy. i'll be zippin' around the trails with robin runnin' behind me and it'll be awesome.

leave me alone. i get just as excited about my toys NOW as i would when i was 8.

/fishy
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Jun. 18th, 2009 @ 02:40 pm (no subject)
we had a grease fire in the oven last night.

funniest. shit. ever.

i mean... after we put out the flames, that is...

end of story.
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Jun. 3rd, 2009 @ 10:57 pm they didnt give me anything, then they took half of that
i'm growing more layers every day. i feel all the secrets of the universe reside in me and its heavy. heavy. too heavy.
need to let them all out, but still searching for the key. and theres an itch in the back of my head telling me i'm the one that hid it from myself in the first place.
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May. 17th, 2009 @ 01:18 pm robin and the labra-cutes
earlier this week we were staying at the rental/place we stay at in new hampshire - we dont really rent it- its more like house-sitting - a friend and i do eachother a favour, we go watch the house once every other week and then we get to stay in it after my dad's chemo in boston, cause it's a lot easier to drive an hour north to New Hampshire than the 7-or-so hour drive back to our place in new york, especially after a chemo session where my dad's not really up for the drive right off the bat.
well while we were there these two labs randomly showed up in our yard. it was weird because the yard there is a lot like our yard in saugerties- similar environment- kinda set back with not too many houses around- and we were inside that morning and robin starts going batshit, like running back and forth to all the doors and windows doing what i like to call his "crazy gaurd-dog bark" -where the hair on the scruff of his neck stands up straight like a mo-hawk/mane and whatnot - its some pretty funny shit- but anyway, i look out the window and theres two labs just... in our yard hangin' out. no idea where they came from. i went out first and they were pretty friendly, i got the number off the tags and gave it to my dad and then let robin out to play with them while my dad called. bella's still in that weird german shepherd puppy phase where she doesnt realize how big she is and is still scared shitless of other dogs that are "bigger than her" (even though she's actually huge and they're really NOT) so she heard all the barking and like tucked her tail between her legs and hid behind my dad the whole time. it was funny and cute. anyway, well apparently nobody answered the phone so he left a message and we decided to go into the front yard to play hoping that maybe someone would drive by looking for them and see them off the road in our yard.

well... they played for about two hours and then i had to do something so i took robin in cause i didnt want to leave him out there unattended near the road, even if theres hardly any people ever driving by, its the extra-cautionary doggy-dad in me. when i went to go let robin back out the labs were gone so they must have wandered off or their owner found them or whatever. i hope they're okay, they were really cute and really sweet dogs.

Photobucket

on with the cuteness:

cute dogs all hangin' out )

fish
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Apr. 30th, 2009 @ 07:59 pm the short answer is "it depends."
"do you mind?" the clerk asked me
curtly and flatly
though surely as friendly as anyone has to be
certainly he in the service industry
so to him i replied
smiling wider than cyanide
only my own business, my friend.
//
i minded it here, while my mind was adrift
sifting the samples of silent insists
sipping and spanning the lines of interest
while skipping with animation's enlist.
do i mind? only those so apropos
worth minding
the only who my heart eschews
i'm finding
do i find myself winding up
till my mind's made up to
to sleep stretched out 'longside
the embers of a haunting docile.
//
finding domicile 'side a smile
while whispers from expatriots
make lace and less and less of sense
from all the frills and tassels
thrills and castles combing bare
a pestilence
tried along so many tiers
of tired miles-- making tears of
tares and tariffs, tolls and barracks
taking turns to train
the eloquence of rain
and tame the ambulance of a waning
wanting
unto the countryside.

only then do i mind.

./fish
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Apr. 28th, 2009 @ 04:32 pm (no subject)
oh yea.... and why am i so goddamn allergic to codeine all of the sudden? I used to drink codeine cough syrup by the bottle. now all of the sudden i take a couple t-3's and i'm itchy all over- like.. breaking out in massive hives that start on my scalp and travel all the way down my head up my cheeks and down my back. what in the fuck?
ive never been allergic to an opiate and this doesnt happen with other opiates. good thing i found this out now, though, before some day when i try to use codiene to stave off withdrawal or some shit and end up even MORE uncomfortable than i was to begin with. still a pain in the ass though.
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Apr. 28th, 2009 @ 04:31 pm even as i left florida (far enough... far enough wasn't far enough)
Although we often wondered
It was no thing of wonder
The shit that flew from our minds
While wearing stains of fresh fruit
And riding on shoes of horse glue
On this ridiculous climb
With great tunnel vision
We built ourselves a mission
To ride our motives design
Oh, what a vague description
Of what we have been missing
So why would anyone try?

It was always worth it
That's the part I seem to hide
And the busy ant empire
Put up the closing sign

I wasn't always cargo
I was once kind of my own
I guess I'll pack up my mind
It took so much effort
Not to make an effort
Oh, what a flawless design

It was always worth it
That's the part I seem to hide
And the busy ant empire
Put up the closing sign

Even as I left Florida

It was always worth it
That's the part I seem to hide
And the busy ant empire
Was always a beehive
It was always worth it
That's the part I seem to hide

Even as I left Florida
Far enough, far enough
Wasn't far enough
Couldn't quite seem to escape myself
Far enough, far enough
Far from Florida
We were all drowsing in cruise control
Far enough, far enough
Wasn't far enough

I stood on my heart's porch thinking
"Oh my God, I'll probably have to carry this whole load"
I couldn't remember if I tried
I couldn't remember if I took my brain out
Threw it so directly at the goal
I couldn't remember if I
I could have my mind erased
And still not know exactly what I don't already know

Even as I left Florida
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Apr. 27th, 2009 @ 02:28 am (no subject)
Ireland was fan-fucking-tastic. however, florida.... not so much. i'm returning with a lot more stress and worries and brainfucks than i left with.
dare i say anything is really worth it?
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Mar. 13th, 2009 @ 05:34 pm laugh hard, its a long way to the bank
beware the ides of march.
a theory about time travel showed itself to me today and i made the mistake of speaking it out loud in class, and then again when i got home for a second opinion.
the jury weighed in and pretty much everybody just looks at me like im completely fucking strange and what im saying makes absolutely no sense. i think the problem is that it makes too much sense and the human condition is conditioned to be skeptical of ideas and things and whatnot that are "too good to be true". another problem is that what i say is often taken in a completely different context than what i actually mean. either because i dont say things right, or because people are dumb, AND , largely in part because there is a single underlying context that exists- probably only within my own paradigme- that surrounds everything i think and say that the human condition is entirely unaware of.

i am a running joke, but i digress...
i should probably not preempt this with the fact that this whole idea comes from experience, as most theorys that come to me do. i experience something... (in this case, the issue of being an active participant in a degree of 'time travel' ) im confused for a while.. and then the frequencies fill me in and im slightly less confused and more confused at the same time as it brings up a whole 'nuther slew of questions, but
what i said has something to do with how time travel is in fact possible AND probable given ones own mental capabilities. (like i said, some people are dumb. some people cant figure out how to pull their head out of their own ass, so what would make one think those are the kinds of people would be able to figure out how to travel through time?) anyhow. one would be able to travel directly to different points in their own life and even change events, while existing in that period of time. however, the problem exists in the issue of time NOT existing as anything more than human notion. time existing as different but interconnecting layers of thought, one should not expect the events of things past, if revisited, to change or have an effect on events here and now upon return TO here and now. the only change one should expect, in dealing with return to the present, is a change of perceptivity.

and of course i could go on for hours but theres not exactly a laymens way of explaining it any further than i already have. the rest, to me, is just inherent knowledge of 'the way' basting in the juices of the universal language (which im finding, isnt so universal anymore) plus i learned the hard way about... not going into my ideas too deeply, heh.

the funny thing is how they're not even MY ideas. im just here, like the rest of you, experiencing what is thrown at me and yet somehow im getting all the credit for it.

/fishy
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Mar. 12th, 2009 @ 05:57 pm (no subject)
lately ive taken to dictating out loud and yet simulatenously in my head the thoughts, details, actions and happenstances of my own conscious being within the context of my life from both inside and outside myself or ... (rather my head has taken to silently spoken dictation to me from within myself?) either way its not important, other than the fact that what prompted me to write this entry was my hearing outloud, in my head the following statement "lately ive taken to dictating outloud........" this sort of thing happens from time to time and perhaps all the time but i seem to be in a state of hyperawareness to everything. an ant on the kitchen floor spawns a realization of a multitude of different worlds all full of meaning and none with any ending. and of course all of this is being dictated (outloud-in-my-head?) but as soon as one voice starts to talk about one thought another dictation starts and here lies so much meaning, all seemingly equally important, all shouting over one another and i ..... have no idea which or what to listen to.. and even if i did, i dont think id be able to FOCUS on any single one of them through all of this... noise.

and this my friends, is how the enlightened become insane. you either pick a path and follow it or you get sucked down into a sea of angry voices and become one of the masses. a quiet follower- saddled right up next to all of these ideas shouting right in your ears while you just try to cover them and go through the motions because of some life-force that tells you nothing can be done. kind of a metaphor and a reality all rolled into one- im good for that kind of thing.

/FISH
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Mar. 10th, 2009 @ 11:32 pm on technology
been re-reading ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENACE... because i was really spaced out (ie/ hospitalized) the last time i read it and im sure i missed out on some vital points of the book. sure enough, rereading it the second time through, away from the gravitational pull down through the gates of suck, im able to glean a lot more out of it.

and we all know how i feel about technology... if it wasnt for this damn computer i could be rid of it.


"all this technology has somehow made you a stranger in your own land. its very shape and appearance and mysteriousness say "get out". you KNOW theres an explanation for this somewhere and what its doing undoubtedly serves mankind in some indirect way, but that isnt what you see. what you see is.. not anything serving people, but little people, like ants, serving these strange, incomprehensible shapes. so the final feeling is hostile. its all ultimately a part of that dehumanized world and we would rather not think about it.... i thought it was something more mysterious than technology, but now i see that the "IT" was mainly, if not entirely, technology. but that doesnt sound right either. the "IT" is a kind of force that gives rise to technology. Something undefined, but inhuman. mechanical. lifeless. a blind monster, a death force. something hideous they are running from but know they can never escape. im putting it on way too heavily here-- but in a less emphatic and less defined way, that what it is. Sometwhere there are people who understand it and people who run it and they speak an inhuman language when describing what they do. its all parts and relationships and unheard-of things that never make any sense no matter how often you hear about them. and their things, their monster keeps eating up land and polluting the air and lakes and there is no way to strike back at it and hardly any way to escape it...."


.fishy
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Feb. 27th, 2009 @ 10:57 am (no subject)
if only half the occasions i had to say something
i'd had half of a something to say
what would that have changed anyway?
it just seemed so adroit to wholly avoid
biting my tongue with it always in my cheek.
seems you've really got to lose yourself
if you want to really find yourself.
but i'll tell you what's a slippery one--
a real sink or swim-mer--
now tell me:
is that a little bit of ice on a lotta water
or a little bit of water on a lot of ice?
clearly, you should look before you leap.
nothing could be clearer!
'cept maybe that ice (or is it just water?)

/fish
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Feb. 15th, 2009 @ 09:34 am (no subject)
listening to and exploring binary beats is alot like "tuning" your brain through lowpitch radio frequency.
lately, i have enjoyed creating my own [binary beats] and seeing just how strange i can finetune myself to be.
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Feb. 5th, 2009 @ 10:07 am you may be a victim of software counterfieiting ;D
Haha.

i love how windows always comes up with this pop-up at the bottom of my screen that says
"YOU MAY BE A VICTIM OF SOFTWARE COUNTERFEITING/ this copy of windows did not pass genuine windows validation; Click here to learn how to correct this problem" ... and when you click it it tries to list you all the reasons why you should pay them $249 dollars, lol.

::cracks up:: No, WINxp, actually, YOOOOUUUUUU may be a victim of software counterfieting...

i, on the other hand, am not a victim; i am quite happy with my bootlegged copy and getting my operating system for free. and i have no interest in paying you 249 dollars. thanks for the concern though ;D

/fishy
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Jan. 9th, 2009 @ 04:41 am when x equals both y and (not)y
i could cry right now. earlier i wrote something in my regular journal to the effect of

i feel myself starting to actually THINK again. its nice to feel the wheels turning a little bit again. all of this shit has been pouring out of me. i have pieces of paper with scribbled-writings all over my room again. thumb-tacked to my walls. under my bed. littered all over my pillow. time to start sorting through some of this brain-goo and put forth some real cohesive ideas. gonna get on that... now.


and truth be told, a real goldmine of conception lies here betwixt the rubble. things that could help to completely tear apart the walls of time-based perceptivities and lay down the footwork of new world disorder. the problem is that this has been spoken to me and put down as 'code'. that wormish (non)language that cannot be translated as it is not even word-based. this, i have found, cannot be understood by humans. the next step i would say would be to find a way to infer symbologically a type of abstraction of that which i am trying to convey, but even then at some point i would have to back off and rely on the intellectual abilities of those around me to connect the dots. no offense to anyone's intellect, but the human race has yet to surprise me. anyway, so all day ive been writing and rewriting and poring over papers trying to rework the theorem into coherency. i dont feel like im getting anywhere and now im left with just this odd, unsettled feeling in my gut.

somewhere, there is a small part of me that is scared to death of this. of where this inevitably takes me. this summer i would have been just thrilled- end of story- to be putting cohesive logistical thought together like this again -but it has been all of 6 months or more and the worms and frequencies have backed off considerably- my life has become mundane, albeit peaceful. i ache for creativity, for excitement, for emotion and i dont like the flattening effect my medication has on all of the above, but i deal with it, and though i am by no means placated at the idea of what these drugs do to me, there has been a lot less upset and agony over the happenstances of my wormish compatriots. at the same time, i havent written anything- NOTHING- in months upon months and i had all but assumed that haldol has been killing my brain and creativity. but recently ive felt the gears begin to shift into motion again. and i was excited. i AM excited, and at the same time terrified.

first it was the bassline earlier this week, and now its been all day -just scribbling down thoughts and half-songs, poetry, ideas, all sorts of things and then trying to sort them out. but its odd-like. its too much too soon too sudden and my self cannot keep up with it after not having done so for so long. there is much potential for inspiration. ingenuity. i should be thrilled. i really should be. but there is this tiny itch in the corner of my mind that reminds me of who i am and where i have been and it frightens me a bit. i scare myself, is all. i know that when i get going on something, i lose any notion of proportionality. a whole slew of substancial matter spews out of my head and there is no point at which i can pull it all apart- i cannot and have not ever been able to tell the difference between what is just a productive output of creativity and separate it all from the type of notions that can, will, or might inevitably take me over the edge. i dont want to end up where i was. where i have been. i am walking this fine line here and its hard to maintain the ground under my feet while simultanously digging down and chipping away at it with a shovel.

its all a bit disconcerting, i suppose, but it needs to be done.

fishy
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Jan. 8th, 2009 @ 06:24 pm dont fuck with science, heroin is good for me.
so becca tends to scan through medical/psych journals in her free time and she found this article. she was almost reluctant to let me see it, fearing id site it as an excuse to do more H... and she was probably right.
but either way, still one of the most interesting reads ive had in a while.



Heroin and Schizophrenia: Subjective Responses to Abused Drugs in Dually Diagnosed Patients


Miotto, Paola MD; Preti, Antonio MD; Frezza, Michela PhD
1Alcohol and Drug Abuse Unit; Conegliano, Italy
2Genneruxi Medical Center; I-09129 Cagliari, Italy
Editors


The prevalence of substance abuse among patients with mental disorders is high. In particular, patients with diagnosed schizophrenia frequently report a history of abuse of cannabinoids and hallucinogenic drugs, often starting in the period preceding the onset of psychosis. According to clinical surveys, between 50% and 90% of patients with schizophrenia are regular cigarette smokers during the active (productive) phase of their disorder. Patients often report that smoking helps them to obtain relief from the unwanted effects of neuroleptic medications, such as sedation and drowsiness. Approximately 8% to 10% of patients with schizophrenia also abuse alcohol. A lower number of patients use psycho-stimulants such as cocaine and amphetamines. Even fewer patients with schizophrenia abuse opiates, because the level of social functioning necessary to carry out life as a heroin addict is often higher than that which a patient with schizophrenia is able to maintain.

In a consecutive series of 135 patients addicted to heroin who were registered at the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Unit in Conegliano (Italy) from October 1997 to October 1998 for evaluation with a view to diagnosis and treatment, we found 5 patients (4 men, 1 woman) with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, which was made according to DSM-IV criteria on the basis of clinical history (including hospital admissions to psychiatric services) and a detailed interview to establish the presence of schizophrenic symptoms, whether "positive" (delusions; hallucinations; first-rank symptoms, so-called schneiderian experiences) or "negative" (apathy, avolition, anhedonia, affective flattening, autistic withdrawal).

The average age of the patients with psychosis was 31 years (range, 20-37), which was close to that of the total sample of addicts, whose average age was 30 years (range, 21-48). As for the non-psychotic heroin addicts, for the 5 schizophrenic heroin addicts, the onset of substance abuse was during adolescence (age 13-17 years), generally marked by escalation from legal substances (alcohol and cigarettes) to cannabis and then to heroin (at approximately 18 years of age). In all but one patient, the onset of the psychotic symptoms coincided with the onset of illegal substance abuse and preceded the onset of long-term (10 years, on average) heroin abuse. In two of five patients, there was a family link for schizophrenia (mother and brother in one case; brother in the second case). Of the patients, the only female in the group lived alone, separated from her husband, in occasional employment; all male patients lived with their parents, had no stable affective relations, and were unemployed at the time of the study.

The symptom profile for all patients included "positive" symptoms (such as delusions, principally with persecutory themes; auditory hallucinations; in three cases, schneiderian experiences: telepathy and sensations of being influenced) and "negative" symptoms (apathy; anhedonia; social isolation, even to the point of autistic withdrawal) were also present. All patients but one were in contact with psychiatric services: two were receiving neuroleptic treatment; two had previously had neuroleptic treatment, but with poor results; one had never taken antipsychotic medication.

Contrary to the behavior of the majority of heroin addicts in the sample, the schizophrenic patients ceased (or greatly limited) their use of cannabis and hallucinogenic drugs as a result of unwanted effects (including the worsening of psychotic symptoms). One patient admitted to alcohol and benzodiazepine abuse, both of which produced a "calming" effect on psychotic symptoms. All patients maintained occasional or frequent use of heroin for its euphorigenic effects. Heroin also seemed to significantly improve negative symptoms of the disorder (apathy, anhedonia, autistic withdrawal). The two patients who accepted long-term methadone treatment also reported an improvement in negative symptoms after receiving therapeutic dosages (50-80 mg/day) of the drug. In one case, higher methadone doses (100 mg/day) than usual seemed able to control the recrudescence of psychotic symptomatology during a sudden breakdown. Two schizophrenic patients also referred to the improvement of positive symptoms (ideas of reference, auditory hallucinations) after heroin use, an improvement which they also observed after neuroleptic treatment, but with a concurrent worsening of negative symptoms.

One cannot rule out that the secondary gain of obtaining acknowledgment for addictive behavior might have encouraged some of the five patients with schizophrenia to attribute greater therapeutic properties to heroin than those really experienced. The recognition of an impairing effect produced by cannabinoids and psychostimulants in these patients, however, contrasts with the persistent abuse observed in many other patients from the same series who tend to maintain the abuse of cannabinoids and other substances. It suggests that the five patients with schizophrenia studied were able to distinguish the effects of heroin and methadone on their symptomatology from the generic "high" effect obtainable with other substances.

It is hard to extrapolate more general indications from such a limited sample. This study is retrospective, is based on self-reported data, and does not have a formal control group. However, other studies have reported a positive effect of opioidergic agonists on psychotic symptomatology in patients with schizophrenia, whereas preparations containing opioids, such as laudanum, have been used in the past with some success in the treatment of psychoses.

We believe that the role of methadone as an antipsychotic drug needs to be studied further; a better under-standing of the actions of opiates in schizophrenia might lead to etiologic indications, the scope of which could well extend beyond the therapeutic usefulness of opiates for dually diagnosed patients. Heroin and related opioid substances, indeed, produce specific effects on the dopaminergic pathways that are believed to be involved in the pathogenesis of schizophrenic symptomatology.14, 15 In particular, opiates activate dopaminergic neurons in the mesolimbic circuits (accumbens).16 Such an increase in the activity of mesolimbic dopaminergic neurons is not associated with a concurrent increase in cortical dopaminergic neurons with frontocortical dopaminergic pathways apparently being less sensitive to the actions of opiates.18

We speculate that the improvement in negative symptoms reported by our five patients with schizophrenia after heroin use indicates a key role for a dopaminergic deficit in the mesolimbic area in the production of negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Mesolimbic and frontocortical dopaminergic pathways have specific and different roles in behavior control. Some studies indicate that dopamine activity in the prefrontal area may exert an inhibitory effect on subcortical dopaminergic functions. Recent studies on monkeys have shown that hyperfunction of frontocortical dopamine projection is linked to a cognitive deficit of a type likely to be similar to that observed in patients with schizophrenia. Our observations (and those of others) of patients with schizophrenia suggest that opioidergic agonists could partially correct an imbalance between hyperfunctioning frontocortical dopaminergic pathways (producing cognitive symptoms that include thought disorders) and hypofunctioning dopaminergic mesolimbic projections (producing part of the negative symptoms).



fishy
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Dec. 21st, 2008 @ 06:28 am i am becoming
Current Location: Saugerties, NY
Current Music: voices and bullshit
i signed back up for classes today at Bard in conjunction with reapplying for my teachers certification in New York. it fucking sucks that a lot of states dont carry over certifications. like.. if you get your certification in Massachusetts or New York it'll carry over to florida, but if you get your certification in florida it doesnt vice-versa. if i'd known this in the beginning i wouldnt have bothered; id have waited til New York to get a more universal certification. so i have to do a few things and retake the test and bla bla bla. shouldnt be too big of an issue, really, its just a pain in the ass for someone as wholly unmotivated as i am. to have done it at all in the first place was a big deal; now i have to redo it all? somebody owes me cookies, goddamnit.

im about to email NCF and IRCC and get my transcript sent over. then ill be all set for my enrollment in the studio and integrative arts program. woo. well on my way to becoming a crazy art teacher. which, really is just an excuse to be a starving artist and at least make a little bit of money while im at it. i'll get paid to sit around drawing and painting all day under the guise of teaching OTHER people- kids or whatever- how to draw and paint. and so long as i get my certification for teaching they'll let me- in fact help me- to take classes and further my own education and whatnot. i always feel like im a breath away from losing it all. like i'm about to fail and just putting up false aires to myself, but at the same time i figure through it all- through my own mental status, lack of sanity, copious amounts of brainfucking medication, addiction, and suicidal ideation- ive managed thus far. its just a question of where do we go from here... and if i even WANT to go anywhere from here. most days i just want to curl up into a little ball and drown my sorrows in pills and needle-full-injections of h. but what really upsets me are the few days in between splashed abuot here and there where i get a sickflashofamoment of thinking i can feel better and i can quit and have this life. hope, really, is what it is.

i dont like it. i dont want it. without hope, without faith, i do alright. hope is what makes me fall apart- siphoning from a small well of what little excitement and positive energy i have left, making me think thing might be okay for a moment and then smashing it back down again- hard- shattering every little last remaining piece of all what positivity was left.

thats probably whats going to happen with the whole school thing, but thats why i'm not putting that much effort into it. i'm not going to worry about it. i'm going to go through the motions. be as i am. and if i succeed i succeed. if i dont.. well.. i continue on in my miserable psychotic little way.

sounds like a plan?

/fishy
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Dec. 10th, 2008 @ 10:40 am (no subject)
what the fuck? i just LOST almost a grand. $950. lost. not blown. lost. i know its somewhere in my house unless becca scooped it up for bills. i feel like an ass asking her if she took it cause thats kinda like i have no faith in her- plus if she didnt- i was supposed to give her money for bills and stuff anyway- so if i ask if she took it, if she didnt, then when i DO find it she'll know it exists and then i'll have to give it to her anyway. ha.
i dont think she took it. i had it late last night and she hasnt even been in my room yet today. so where did it go? im like scrounging around every corner of my room. i thought it was in my jacket pocket. its not. its not stashed away where i usually keep money and things. i had it last night cause i was going to use some of it... didnt end up scoring, so i put it back... but where?

i need to not get so fucked that i cant remember where i put the money i need to get more fucked. goddamnit.

::goes back to tearing my room and the house apart::
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Nov. 30th, 2008 @ 02:54 am (no subject)
Photobucket
the buddy jester? he strikes again.

yea. so i can be strange.

Photobucket
and because this picture of robin, my dog, my buddy, my best friend, the king of the cute- snoozing on my blankets as he dries off in front of the tv (and fireplace not pictured) was too cute to resist... well.. exactly. it was too cute to resist. so there it is. now have fun resisting it yourselves, mutherfuckers.

/fishy.
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