I Don't Wanna be a Pinhead No More

What kind of monster have I become? Deep self loathing of the failure of my most basic qualification to be a man stripped away. A dieing, lieing, self denialist spinning yarns, building narratives of self deceit, critical of others yet blind to my metamorphosis in to some perverse monster. Blaming everyone but myself. Spouting moral judgement from ,my moral vacuum. Saving the worst of my bile for those loving me most. There is no nourishment of my better shrubs, just a garden of nettles, blackberry vines, undergrowth of spiky weeds designed to deflect people. Rather than work to improve my mental health I selectively fuel it, sculpt its deformed and ugly tumour with potions and powders. Self harming the self I hate. Faking to all. A fraudulent performance designed to disguise my horrible, monster like being. Conversations I use to promote my denial and deceit, communication comes second to presenting a fraudulent character, a child would laugh at the pathetic delusion that I'm fooling anyone. Any affection offered i leach on, greedy with my opportunity to steal. The worst, the vilest parts I save to insult the only person who cares. Saved my life more than once and I repay this with a systematic and gradual erosion of her self worth. To end my life would be my most valueable gift, yet this final act of evil, this damage, cruelest of blows in truth would be an act of vanity. I'm far too chicken to eliminate myself under the pretence that removing the monster could protect anyone fool.ish enough to love me so I hide in corners, darkened secret holes, bathrooms, hidden in vans. administering a poison to avoid the lack of bottle to do the noble thing with rope. Slurring, disoriented and paranoid I stumble from place to place, passersby witness my dereliction. Being too weak to tell people truths, my time is spent developing alaborate lies. Clearly visible I run the delusion that my faking and lies are believed. But pity prevents the decent from telling me I fool no one. Leave him to his poison and denial. A creature unworthy of pity, I chose to be this monster. In preference of being decent I chose to be a fraud, I alone selected this creature.

What took my capacity for love? What stole my right to call myself a man? Is it the prescriptions doctors have had me on these fifteen years? The experimental partial agonist bupronorphine initially saved my life, eliminating the possibility, removing the option to continue a heroin habit. Successful in preventing my return to heroin use, at first this seemed to answer my problem. But no long term studies had been done. Now I'm finding how it erodes a person. Many outsiders assume heroin is taken so the user feels stoned, sedated. In truth , though the sensual gouch is a joy of personal pleasure, a rejection of communal fun. Primary reason junkies use is it blocks the emotional responses to pain. Bupronorphine does the same. Removes emotion, or turns it down to a low level. This means the user can not love, can not react in a normal emotional manner. Over the years the user becomes distanced from society as this based on emotional interactivity. A deadness. A love free condition emerges and remains. I don't even know if once I manage to get off this drug if emotions will return. Perhaps that's it. No more love accepted or given. Just this tundra that subutex has made of my life. Sexuality goes. The mechanics remain functional but it ceases to have any reason. The touch of others feels an irritable intrusion. You can't love nor be loved. It has no role in that type of being. 

Attempting to withdraw after fifteen years behind this emotional shield is so frightening I canot put the depth of gear in to words. For a long time I thought I would stay in this emotional vacuum till I die. Interacting with others has always been traumatic. A single brief chat could leave me running it through for days, studying the emotional significance. That depth of emotional sensitivity needs medical adjustment if one is to operate in society. I believe, when science of neuro peptides and receptor sites developes, heroin addiction will prove to be akin to diabetes. An inate inability to emotionally process ones everyday interactions. A deficiency in endorphins, or an instability of endorphins meaning sufferers are unable to achieve a passable level of emotional negotiation of the world.

But I so dearly want to love again. Perhaps gods greatest gift, natures most precious human capacity. To share love. So I am withdrawing from subutex after some fifteen years. Reexposure to this is more than traumatic. I can not do this without help. Yes, it's my fault on that I took opiates but I didn't choose a predisposition necessitating a chemical shield. If you believe consiousness as emergent from matter then you believe emotions have a physical source. Some are born naturally buoyant and happy. Others born low in chemicals to keep happy. Some are born overloaded with whatever neurotransmitter makes one fall in love and must endure a constant barrage of rejections. My misfortune is a poor endorphin system.

Returning to society free of substitute opiates is constant fear, trauma, constant notions or revelations feel like enlightenments as significance hierarchies are distorted. A simple observation can feel like newtons Apple just fell. Interaction has to be minimal. It's intensity impossible to describe. You are reminded of when you were a baby and anything at all could pierce your defences and crying regularly necessary for releasing adrenaline.

I am not strong enough to do it alone. Benzos appeal and occasionally help yet trigger explosions of irrational anger. Regular meeting of final itics. A minor row is a relationship ending. Stepping on your dogs toes accidentally unleashes guilt vastly disproportionate. Inappropriate gestures abound as the awakening reveals bundles of errors overlooked and a seeming need to repair long forgotten minor disagreements. Everything is heightened, emotion knobs all cranked to eleven.

Another very real hazard is a slip, unwitting mostly, in to replacement drugs. Drink habits, speed habits, crack habits all able and willing to slip in to th vacuum you have left open. Despite my consious awareness it was pointed out, quite viciously I was slipping in to ethylphenidate and diclazepam not noticing these rising replacement addictions.

Drug withdrawal is a far bigger personal change most humans have to undergo. Equal, of course are the anorexic, the 30 stone obese where there addictions even more visibly than the junkie. These people too make similar changes. It isn't like refraining from beer for a I th, unless you're an alci, or giving up chocolate, shopping or other habits. It is deep realignment and few can do it. Most just change things round a bit. Find a fresh method to accommodate their addictions.

The change is one akin to rebirth as a fresh individual. For sure, I have done my fair share of heroin rattles. Even worse, a benzo cold turkey. It isn't the three weeks not sleeping, sweating, diarrhoea, overwhelming cravings, the utter pain as existence free of endorphins is. This intense illness of seven to twenty eight days offers genuine fingers to fight, opponents clear, a fixed target one can battle with.

The real bit is once that is over. Now the reinvention of the new self begins. Flooded with blocked out memories endlessly resurfacing in your guilt Ocean. No freinds to support you, they either remain on drugs or lack the knowledge to help. Relearning how to react to everyday sleights can find you in tears, fist fighting strangers, no end of stuff. To add to this malaise depression is constant and very intense for many months, often years. There is no respite. You have no defence. Nothing to keep out those buried memories of abuse. You are utterly naked, completely exposed.

I would be lieing to miss out a small benefit. As your brain circuitry reconnects it is similar to a trip. You marvel at snippets of beauty normally filtered out. I recall balling my eyes out at the raw beauty in a water rdroplet on a leaf. So strong was my response. Few get this second chance to look through a child's eyes. To see the new, not merely recognise known and catalogued details. I recall another time on a bus, reading about the demolition of Central Park, home of Wigan, rugby Leagues third most successful side, and as a Leeds fan, the foe. This small northern town that had risen up in sport and beaten the world. Their bricks and mortar, now rubble. I was that raw I cried for the pies. I have been very open in this posting but admitting that took guts.

Who knows? I might not make it, few do. But I've got a feeling a reason has arisen. Deedee Ramone wrote a song called Pinhead about his desire to return to an opiate free life. His simplicity sometimes captures what eludes the greatest poets. Sadly, having beaten his addictions he took a hit for old times sake and died, aged 50.

Pinhead - DeeDee

Gabba gabba we accept you, we accept you

Gabba, gabba we accept you, one of us

I don't wanna be a pinhead no more

I just met a nurse that I could go for

I don't wanna be a pinhead no more 

I

I just met a nurse that I could go for

D.U.M.B. everyone's accusing mD.U.M.B. e ergo e's accusin