ForEverAfter
Ex-Bluelighter
Junk Mail, Part 2
"262,992 Hours: Diagnosis; and, Thrombosis."
(Methamphetamine [IV/oral], Cannabis [smoked], Alcohol [oral])
I’ll start the day before yesterday, sometime between midnight and midnight. No, I can be more specific than that. It was daytime because the sun was out. That is all I know. Got into the habit of mistaking AM for PM. The other day I woke up after a short nap to discover I was late for work. Got my shit together and ran out the door. Was maybe 50 yards down the road, when I realized it was night. Anyway, the day before yesterday, I needed to have another hit to keep myself going. But my veins were fucked, so I needed to do it right. The best way to hit a vein is to use heat rather than a tourniquet. Sunlight is the best. Increases my chance to register a vein when they’re seriously damaged. Gone down in gauge, from 27 to 29. Got what I suspect is thrombosis in both arms. There are little blood clots drifting around inside me. I know there are. Then again, can I trust what I know?
Over the past two weeks, I’ve been convinced 24/7 that I have combinations of the following: HIV; endocarditis; diabetes; liver failure; brain tumours; deep vein thrombosis; superficial thrombosis; Hepatitis B; Hepatitis C; cirrhosis; chronic gum disease; osteoporosis; tongue cancer; bowel cancer; lung cancer; emphysema; borderline personality disorder; varioius other cancers; and, early onset dementia; among others I can’t think of right now. Half a dozen or so times over the past month I’ve seriously considered the rape delusion: that someone is breaking into my house when I’m asleep and fucking with me. I don’t like going to sleep for this reason. I’ve been afraid of sleep for years. I used to always tuck a knife underneath my pillow. I discovered that wasn’t a good idea. It never helped with the paranoia, anyway. I’ve invested hundreds of hours contemplating how it happened: trying to put the pieces together; and solve the mystery. HIV is the number one hypochondria delusion. I’ve only started admitting this to myself, recently: over the past six months, for the vast majority of waking time, I have been convinced that I am HIV positive. Over the past five years, I’d say I’ve spent around two years believing that I am going to die a shameful lonely death. The amount of time is incalculable. Considering that I’ve only slept with two people in three or more years, including my ex-wife, there is absolutely no chance that I could have contracted it from anyone consensually. Hence, the rape delusion. Or maybe it was the egg and the chicken. Maybe I really was raped at some point and I repressed it. No, that’s crazy. I shouldn’t encourage myself. Anything seems possible. Thoughts are capable of spontaneously establishing themselves as reality.
I have been shooting meth daily for I don’t know how long. At least three weeks. Using the crooks of both arms, only. The cephalic in the right arm collapsed years ago. Up until recently, I was under the false impression that you can collapse the superficial arm-crook veins without any consequences. Fucking thrombosis. My hands are red. My arms hurt. Circulation’s all fucked up on account of clots clinging to my vascular walls. I’ve been getting these flashes of pornographic images from my memory. I suspect the unconscious part of my brain is manipulating me, Like in Fight Club when Tyler inserts subliminal cocks into family films. There’s an evil me, that I repress. A homicidal psychopath. I’ve always known he was there, biding his fucking time, waiting for his opportunity. The lack of sleep and food; the drugs and the psychosis: it’s the perfect time to fuck with me. As I type this, I see them occasionally images of cocks and tits. Mostly cocks. The tits, more often than not, belong to Thai ladyboys. The house is so fucked up, it’s ridiculous. I don’t recall it ever getting this bad. I’ve never spent this long on a meth binge. It doesn’t need to be stated, but it’s too long.
Back to the badger. I sit down in the overgrown grass in my back yard, holding the syringe between my teeth. I’m not wearing a shirt. The sun is warm on my skin. I glance about to check if there are neighbours within eyeshot. Not that I really care. My right arm is considerably worse than my left, on account of there being one less vein over that side. My hands are different colours. The right is a browny red; the left is pale. Sometimes, when partial obstructions in my veins shift around, they return to the same colour. For about ten days, this has been going on. I’ll start to recover a bit, then I’ll fuck them up again. I’ve been surfing this fine line between using as much as humanly possible without collapsing my veins. All shots are careful, now. My technique has never been better. Only cause it has to be, so I don’t waste drugs. Not out of concern for my arms. Though, I am concerned. No, that’s bullshit. I’m aware that I will be concerned.
I decide to hit the right arm, despite the increasing circulation problems in my hand and fingers. The veins are less damaged. Which, at this point, means the veins in the right arm aren’t completely covered in hard lumps; they’re mostly covered in lumps: in between, there are tiny rubbery sections. I can feel them inflate against my fingertip. There’s blood flowing there, just a matter of finding it. I don’t rush things. Take a deep breath. Push in slowly and carefully, between two of the six or seven lumps lining the exposed part of my vein. I feel it go in. There’s no resistance. I’ve actually managed to squeeze in one of those tiny gaps on my first attempt. Registers, and all. I push the bloody meth water slowly back into my vein, re-registering every 10 units just to be safe. The flow is actually pretty good. I pull the syringe out of my arm and put it in my mouth. Walk back to the house, pressing a swab against the site. Fucking brilliant.
Go to the computer lab sometime after midnight, and spend four or five hours speeding through assignments. I write thousands of words more than each essay requires. I write multiple essays, keeping all disused fragments rather than deleting them. Collecting quotes from source material. The lab is empty. I can’t help but occasionally have a peak at some porn. I plug in a set of headphones and stream some videos. My head is full of Nietzsche, Sogyal Rinpoche, Suskind, Freud, and Camus. I’ve read maybe fifteen hundred pages in the past three days. Philosophy, mainly. Learnt a lot. For example, I fucking hate Nietzsche. Prior to reading him, I said I hated him so I didn’t have to bother trekking through hundreds of pages of shit. Now I know. I hate him and, fuck it, I like hating him. Because he’s like me. He’s arrogant. He’s a hypocrite. He claims to be in pursuit of the truth; he even claims he will sacrifice himself for it: yet, he remains arrogant and sarcastic throughout his career. He may be willing to sacrifice his life, but he isn’t willing to sacrifice his ego.
At nine o’clock in the morning I start work: haven’t had any sleep for three days; hardly eaten anything for almost a month. Wait, that can’t be right. Fuck. I smoke a joint and drink a vodka mixer. My considerable meth after-buzz is the only thing preventing me from crashing. Go to sleep at work. Can’t help it. I am asleep for two of four hours I’m rostered to work. When I’m needed, I get up and get to work. Otherwise, I’m snoozing. Technically probably not great behavoir for an employee, but I don’t feel guilty about it. I’m fucking tired. I find myself walking to the bus stop. Four hours felt like four minutes. The time I just got paid for might as well have not even existed.
Catch a bus and a train and another bus. End up in a dodgy suburb. There’s a psychiatrist here that bulk bills, which means I don’t have to pay for appointments even though I don’t have health insurance. Everybody else pays. I have a referral that says I don’t have to. Been about eight years since I’ve engaged in any form of therapy. Except for AA, which I hestitate to call therapy; especially since I was attending meetings in order to research a piece of fiction.
After about ten minutes in the waiting room, I go in with the psychiatrist. He’s reasonable. Better than the others. I told him, I’d been diagnosed on five occasions, by five different doctors. So far, I said, I am: a with psychotic-depressive malignantly-hysterical schizophrenic with an acute anxiety disorder. We talked about this and that. My childhood, family, criminal history. He was very thorough. When we were done, he offered his diagnosis. Hypervigilant narcissism, resulting from an early incident of childhood trauma. I almost laugh. Really wasn’t expecting another absurd exotic diagnosis. Hypervigilant narcissism. I go home, and a litre or so of water before making up a shot. By the time I get out into the backyard, the sun has descended on the horizon. There’s a modst patch of illuminated reeds way at the back of the property, right beside my neighbours fence where they’re always gardening. The fence has missing bits of wood; it might as well be transperant. I don’t panic. I can’t let myself panic. It’s better for them to see me. I have to be extremely careful. The increased chance of missing a shot, considering the condition of my veins, combined the ever-increasing demands from my tolerance monster, means I have to do big hits. I’m unlikely to get a second chance, in the next 24 hours. I’ve stopped weighing my doses. I just eyeball them. This one was particularly large. It hardly dissolved in 60 units, even though it’s practically pure. Even more pure, this batch. Perfect crystals with no clouds. I use a tourniquet, making sure not to completely cut off the circulation. Go for the left arm. There are less lumps now. I tegister first time, and get blood. I push in slowly. It feels harder than normal. I check the register, get blood. I push it in. Still, I feel pressure. Maybe the tourniquet is too tight. But, I fastened it high near my shoulder to give me room. Surely, 60 units can fit in there. 60 units is fucking nothing. I push in slowly, making sure to draw back and register every now and then, as I do. There’s only 10 units left of deep red blood in the syringe. The pressure has increased too much to continue. I gently rest the syringe against my arm and let go of it. The barrel tiwsts around 180 degrees of it’s own accord. I turn it softly back into it’s original position and recreate my entry angle before slipping out.
The rush isn’t as strong as I expected. Five minutes later, I find a huge lump on the vein; big enough to obstruct it. Somehow, despite registering, I missed a fair bit of the shot. And it wasn’t diluted! This pool of corrosive shit, eating away at the outside of my veins. The vein is very swollen. It takes half an hour for the lump to noticeably shrink.
I write another essay, exceeding the word limit threefold. My ability to produce high quality third year university essays this quickly surprises me a bit. Not much, of course, on account of the narccissm.
3:30 am.
I make up another hit, intending to leave some for tomorrow. There’s hardly enough for two, though. So, I make it small. Less than half of what I did earlier, in 30 units of water. I’m seriously unsure about using again. I put the cap on it. If I don’t use, I’m going to crash. And I have too much work to do. I decide to postpone the hit and keep myself awake by salvaging traces of meth from used syringes. It’s been ages since I’ve gathered up the old picks. They’re scattered everywhere.
The place is fucked. Assorted empty bottles. Swab wrappers. Bloody bits of cotton. Obscene pornographic cartoons scribbled on scraps of paper. Broken condoms attached to filthy makeshift sex toys, with rubber bands. Books. Study guides. My desk is covered with cum stains and joint ash. There’s a horrible smell coming from somewhere, but I haven’t been able to locate it for days. Not that I’ve really looked. Most of the time I don’t notice the smells or the shit everywhere.
The alcove I use as a preparation station for IV stuff has layers of used equipment. I find twelve used syringes, with bits of blood up near the needle. Fill a pint glass with water. The glass – it’s the same one I’ve been using all week – is filthy. You can’t even see through it anymore. I suck water up into barrels and spray it back into the glass. I drink it. Tastes quite strong of speed. I drink another three pints of water. Best to wait till the sun rises, I decide.
I take the opportunity to use some hirudoid cream on my track marks. I use too much. I’m not thinking straight. Gather up used filters – bits of cotton – and put them in a little baggy. There’s 9 total, of varying size. I eat two of them. Tastes quite strong of meth. I grab a vodka mixer out of the fridge, and collect a couple of roaches from around the house, before heading back out to university.
I smoke one of the roaches on the way to the 24-hour labs. As usual there are only Asian students working at night, though tonight – being the last Friday of trimester – there’s pretty much no-one. I go up a couple of flights of stairs and find a room with nobody in it. I start typing this trip report. Both of my hands are bright red, though. As I feared, the excessive amount of hirudoid counteracted the swelling to such an extent that there is hardly any circulation left in either arm. My veins are closing up onto clots. I keep checking them obsessively. Every time I go for a piss, I roll up my sleeves and check each vein to make sure it’s still flowing. They’re all fine.
5:31 am.
I realize the fucking windows in the lab are open. It’s probably just cold. That’s what’s fucking with my hands. When I’m on meth, I can’t gauge temperature at all. There is air coming out of the ceiling. Not sure if it’s a heater or a air conditioner.
5:55 am.
My hands are fucked. They’re getting worse. It is no co-incidence that this is happening now. At this exact moment, of all moments. I was supposed to be in India right now, and here I am instead: drinking a black Ruski in a university lab, and worrying about the serious possibility of a vein collapsing with the next hour. I plead with God not to teach me a lesson. Ask him to chose another moment; any other moment.
6:03 am.
Nine hundred and forty-six million, seven hundred and seventy-one thousand, two hundred seconds; fifteen million, seven hudred and seventy-nine thousand, five hundred and twenty minutes; two hundred and sixty-two thousand, nine hundred and ninety-two hours; ten thousand, nine hundred and fifty eight days… that is how old I am at this very minute… one thousand, five hundred and sixty weeks; seven hundred and eighty fortnights; three hundred and sixty months; one hundred and twenty seasons; thirty years; eight leap years; three decades. As the sun rises, I turn 30.
My hands return to their factory preset colour. It is a miserable looking day. No sunlight. I’m not going to try to hit a vein until my hands stabilize for at least a couple of hours; and I’m not going to do it without the sun. I shouldn’t be doing it at all. I’m seriously pushing my luck here. If I have to do it, it needs to be the last time: I need to take the remaining crystal and mix it all together into one syringe. One more hit, on my 30th birthday; then, finally, it’s time to quit.
7:15 am.
I jerk off under the table and release a surprising amount of cum on the floor of the lab. The only thing I can find to wipe it with is a forgotten umbrella. I notice a video camera behind me; but, I don’t care. They didn’t see me. And, so what if they did?
I go home and, since the sky is overcast, I soon go to sleep.
2:30 pm.
Wake up on the floor. Shit everywhere. This is not the sort of reality you want to wake up to. The person I am when I emerge from my dreams, is innocent. Waking up is like being born into shit forever. I wake up and I have to face the fact that I’ve seriously fucked myself up. At least my hands are back to normal.
I don’t shower; I don’t eat breakfast. I grab a vodka mixer out of the fridge, light a joint, and go to get supplies. If I’m going to have that massive hit, I can’t fuck it up. The sun is still nowhere to be seen. I need to do everything I can, to make up for the clouds. So, I go to the hardware store for a rubber tourniquet. Can’t find it. I ask a woman, “You know where I can find some rubber hose, is there a rubber section?” She says, “What do you need it for?” I tell her, “It’s too difficult to explain.” She gives me a look. “Well,” she says, “we don’t have a rubber section. I walk around looking for something appropriate. Finally I settle on an occy strap made out of bunjee cord. I get some beer and more vodka mixers, and everything else I need. I realize, while shopping, that it’s been a long time since I’ve bought the essentials. I feel like utter shit, as I walk around the shopping centre.
At the tram stop on the way back, I open a beer. This kid is smoking a cigarette. I ask him for one, even though I don’t smoke. I figure it’ll make me feel better. He tells me it’s his last one. Then he pities me, and says I can have half of it. I feel bad, but fuck it. He’s obviously not in as desperate a state as I am. And it’s my birthday. 30, fuck. I’m standing here, drinking a beer, with bagfulls of shopping. No wonder this kid pities me. I tell him I feel bad for pinching his last smoke, as it he hands it to me. I inhale deeply, and hold it. For about five seconds I feel good. I feel like telling him it’s my birthday. Maybe he’d get a higher sense of satisfaction, on account of his unconditional generosity. But I don’t tell him. I sensor myself. I repress it. Out of self-loathing.
This is why I don’t like being around people. Because I care more about what they think than I do. I’m not embarrassed when I’m alone. Fucking 30. Shit. I can’t say this is where I wanted to be when I was 25. Or, at the beginning of the year. I wish I didn’t care about the calendar, but you can’t help it really. It’s all about other people, and what they think of me. I’m sick of my fucking uncle and aunty and grandma and the old guys at work and the young guys, fucking patronizing me all the time. So, I’m 30 years old and I just finished a university degree in creative writing. I am aware of the fact that it’s a difficult industry. I was when I went in. People say to you, upon receieving an arts degree, “What are you going to do now? They have this tone, like it’s a revelation they are delivering upon you. Like you’ve never thought about it.
The thing is I don’t care about my life. I only care about what people think about it. And I’ve been trying to sabotage the fuck out of that bullshit trait for the better part of a decade. But I still care. I can’t help it. People don’t kill themselves, on account of the impact it would have on family and friends; my family caring about how I reflect on them, forces me to detest myself. I have to comply to a certain image. I have to exist within a close enough range to their expectations of me. I’ve already failed to make my parents proud. To be a disgrace would kill them. But I am a disgrace. My natural state is unlovable and unemployable. So I repress it. I like being alone because there are no expectations. I’m so tired of having my behaviour dictated by this society and its, admitted decelerating, moral momentum.
Carrying the shopping bags from the tram to my house makes me paranoid about my arms. I’m not sure if I should be lifting heavy objects with this condition, whatever it is. Thrombosis… I don’t know. Maybe I should be exercising. Pumping blood into my veins. Keeping them functional. But I’m getting these weird sensations in my forearms. Pain too, in the crook of my arm, bicep, and occasionally elsewhere. Feels like there’s something too big to be a parasite crawling around inside me. Like a cockroach crept under my skin while I was sleeping. I put the bags down in the kitchen. The fridge is full of rotten food and congealed milk. I can’t put my fresh food in there. The floor is encrusted with dried scraps of old cat food. The litter is full of shit and piss. I hadn’t noticed, somehow. Like the litter box just materialized out of nowhere. This is the smell that’s been lingering around the house. There isn’t a single piece of litter that isn’t soaking wet. It’s like a fucking toxic waste dump. I need to clean up the litter, now. I go grab the bins, and wheel them up to the front door. There are bottles and swabs and needles everywhere. I get distracted from the litter mission. I start cleaning the house. It takes roughly two hours to tidy up. When I clean up my preparation station, I discover tiny crystal shards on the bench. I eat them. Find another piece of cotton, and add it to my collection. I’ve lost track of how much gear I’ve used. The evidence indicates, a lot.
(One week's accumulated swabs.)
The sun has set, not that it ever really made an appearance. I empty the fridge into the bin and put the shopping away. I change the litter. I do a load of washing. There’s a pile of clothes in the bathroom soaked in cat piss. I’ve been using a business shirt to wipe my ass for most of the week. I gather up anything that will fit into a washing machine and dump it in the laundry. There is a mountain in there. Maybe fifteen or sixteen loads of washing. I don’t get tired. My preparation station, which was a fucking disgrace this morning, gets wiped down with eight medical swabs. I sterilize the area, and my equipment. Better late than never.
Empty the baggy onto the spoon. Run out of sterile water, so I fill a 3ml barrel up from the bathtub. Fucking choper. They’ll deliver you three hundred syringes with no question. But they’ll never give you more than two ampoules, containing in total a maximum of 10 mls. They do this because me injecting dirty water into my veins doesn’t threaten anyone else. People who pay for this shit don’t care about junkies. They care about the impact junkies have on society. I dribble some water into two empty half gram bags and squeeze them with my finger, then dump the contents onto the spoon. Roll up a bit of cotton, impale it on the syringe, and mop the inside of the bags for those last little drops. Spill a bit on the bench, rub the cotton on it. Doesn’t matter cause the bench is sterile. You could perform heart surgery on it. Check it out. It’s like the fucking Hilton of junky alcoves.
I grab the hard-plastic glasses case I use when I’m mobile. It’s in the fridge. The barrel is ice cold. I squirt it onto the spoon, and throw it away. End up with 1 cc: 100 mls. It’s impossible to safely use a pick, for IV, when the barrel is at maximum capacity. You can’t register. There’s no room. So, even if you think you know, you don’t. I’m sure people do it, but people shoot heroin into their cock and femoral vein. They have their arms, legs and genitals removed. They develop infected abcesses and don’t seek medical attention. I may be reckless, but I’m not insane. I have two choices. I can either: split it into two 1cc, 29 gauge, barrels; or, dump the whole lot into a 3cc barrel, with a 27 gauge needle. If I fuck up with the 27, given how swollen and clotted I already am, I can do myself some serious damage. The size difference between a 29 gauge needle and a 27 gauge needle is massive. Then again, I’m unlikely to find two places to register. I split it. Figure, I can have the first one then wait till the sun rises for the second.
Finally, I chuck a the massive steak I bought onto the frying pan. Sit down, to watch the new Dexter episode. Smoke a joint while the steak cooks. Drink half a litre of apple juice. Eat the steak, all 350 grams. It is the best thing I’ve ever eaten. I am ravenous. My appetite is back, for the first time in weeks. I can’t eat fast enough; with every bite I feel waves of sensation flowing through my body. I eat a pre-packaged 250 gram Caesar salad. It’s better than a hit. Not as sustained or energizing, obviously, but far more satisfying. I go to get the Brie cheese I bought, only to realize it’s not Brie. It’s Blue cheese, which is supposed to be the worst tasting thing in the world. I cut a third of the entire wedge, and grab a packet of biscuits. Smoke another joint, while I eat. The cheese smells fucking weird. I make the mistake of putting my nose close to it. The smell is very strong. Probably doesn’t taste like it smells, though. I spread it thick on a water cracker, to discover that it does taste as it smells. In fact, the taste is considerably stronger than the smell. My instant reaction is, that it’s disgusting. But then, people say oysters are disgusting. I stop myself from being disgusted. The same way I stop myself from being disgusted by Amanita Muscaria or San Pedro cactus juice. I reprogram myself to like blue cheese. By the fifth cracker, I love it. It’s the best cheese I’ve ever had. You have to spread it fairly thin: it’s got an extraordinarily complex texture of tastes and smells. It’s an experience, blue cheese. I’m glad I bought it. Got to try new things more often.
I was supposed to take three weeks off everything, leading up to my 30th birthday, then have Muscaria. I was saving my Washington caps for today. But I can’t do it. I’m not comfortable having such an intense experience with no supervision given my paranoia and the state of my hands. Unless my hands aren’t red at all, and it’s all in my head. That’s the thing about paranoid delusions. When you say somebody is following you, people immediately reassure you that you’re just being paranoid. Don’t worry about it, they say. It’s all in your head. And then you think, fuck, if I’m imagining that how do I know I’m not imagining lots of shit. You start doubting yourself, after that first paranoid delusion. You become paranoid about whether or not your thoughts are paranoid. If someone really is following you, is it paranoid to think so? What if someone is breaking into your house at night and raping you? Anything considered to be sufficiently “unlikely” is written off as paranoia. That’s why conspirators always get away with it: they prey on our lack of imagination.
I am bloated. My digestive system is working twice as fast as usual. Everything is being processed immediately, and delivered to the various malnourished areas of my body. It’s exhausting. I’m half asleep by the time I finish eating. Time for a little pick me up.
Before I can get started I notice that part of my thumbtip is missing skin, two layers. The small circuclar area is completely numb. I remember, when I was smoking with a lightbulb, that I developed a callus on my thumb from flicking the lighter repeatedly. It’s right there, at that exact spot. I burnt myself there too. But that was over a week ago, wasn’t it? Has the skin been peeling off here, all the time, and I just haven’t noticed it? Like the materializing litterbox? I’m sure it’s nothing. But, I say that about practically every medical concern I have, on account of the hypochondria. Because I think I have every disorder and disease under the sun, I doubt that I ever have anything wrong with me. There’s a boy-who-cried-wolf aspect to hypochondria. It’s impossible, as it is with psychosis and paranoia, to trust your own perception – positive or negative. I simultaneously believe that I am going to die and that I am going to live. I believe I have cancer, but I don’t trust that belief. So I believe I don’t have cancer, but I don’t trust that either.
8:32 pm.
I try to hit the remaining major vein in my right arm, the one with the fucked up thumb. Both left and right minors are too small to sustain any more damage. They’re still delivering blood; with a tourniquet they pop out. But entering them hurts like a bitch. The minors have always been like that. So I’m down to 3 usable. The one on the right is more hard than elastic and it it’s covered with small to medium lumps. Much better than the state of anything on the left side. I’m unlikely to get anywhere on the left side. Don’t know what I’m going to do with the other pick, even by the time the sun rises. I’m running out of options, here. It makes me nervous to think I’m going to lose all this gear. I register and slip out. Can’t find it again. I try further down. I try further up. Force myself to spray it down the back of my throat. I can’t risk another pincushion scenario. Not now.
Grab the other pick. I’m using the medical tourniquet. The bunjee cord is no good. I’m not used to using it. Can’t change my routine now. It’ll fuck me up. So I tighten the medical tourniquet above the same vein that I fucked up yesterday. The lump is completely gone, now, but it’s extremely swollen when it pops up. Like six times the size it should be. But, the other major is small. I’m more likely to be successful with the swollen one. There’s no room above it, so I try below. I do this all the time. Apparently it’s dangerous because you can suck up a clot and shoot it back into your vein – at high speed – towards your heart. Like with air bubbles, you can deliver selectively. Even if it’s up the needle end of the barrel, you can keep it there and push everything past it. Though, to be honest, I’ve slammed a few clots; and, I’m still alive. I register, get two massive clots, try to push forward and find that I’m blocked. Way too much pressure to push anything anywhere. My heart racing, I carefully re-adjust, fractions of millimetres back and forth. But I don’t know if I’m too far in or too far back. I dig around, carefully, for less than thirty seconds; I can’t find it. I pull out, empty the air from the barrel, and pull the plunger just enough to clear the needle so it doesn’t get blocked. I try the other major. Get a tiny spurt of blood, followed by air. Readjust. Pull out. Try the minor. Trying to enter it feels like pushing a sewing needle through my eyeball.
With a sigh, I spray it down the back of my throat. Wash it down with some vodka. I put the picks into a safe disposal container, take the dishes into the kitchen, and gather up swabs and other bits and pieces. That’s it. No more. I should have stopped a week ago. It’s funny, I kept insisting – to myself and others – that I needed it, in order to finish my schoolwork. It does increase the quality, and length, of my assignments. But that’s when I’m actually writing. For most of the past month, or however long it’s been, I’ve been getting distracted. Time dissolves, and I find myself emerging sober having produced nothing. I tell myself, when I re-dose, that I know better. I say it won’t happen again. This time, I say, I’ll get everything done. I’ll just keep going. Writing and dosing.
If I was sober, I wouldn’t have procrastinated so much. Now I have six days to do half a trimester’s work, while withdrawing from methamphetamines. Brilliant. I roll three joints, gather some supplies together, and walk to university. The night air is cool on my face. I roll up my sleeves, even though I should be keeping my arms warm. The breeze feels good.
It’s a relief, I think to myself, as I walk: joint in my right hand; vodka in my left…. It’s a relief, that it’s all over. Going to have to wait a week or so, to see if any of the veins collapse. If my thumb gets much worse, I’m going to have to go to the doctors and insist upon it being treated as an emergency. The hand, too: if it doesn’t go back to normal, or – at least – improve considerably, I’m going to have to find some sort of solution. Although I made it through, alive, I’m not going to prematurely declare myself unscathed.
I believe I will be okay. I also believe my thumb will be amputated...
God doesn’t like it when you finish his sentences for him.
Tagged by Xorkoth
substancecode_methamphetamine
substancecode_meth
substancecode_amphetamines
explevel_veryexperienced
exptype_negative
exptype_healthissues
exptype_addiction
roacode_oral
roacode_iv
"262,992 Hours: Diagnosis; and, Thrombosis."
(Methamphetamine [IV/oral], Cannabis [smoked], Alcohol [oral])
I’ll start the day before yesterday, sometime between midnight and midnight. No, I can be more specific than that. It was daytime because the sun was out. That is all I know. Got into the habit of mistaking AM for PM. The other day I woke up after a short nap to discover I was late for work. Got my shit together and ran out the door. Was maybe 50 yards down the road, when I realized it was night. Anyway, the day before yesterday, I needed to have another hit to keep myself going. But my veins were fucked, so I needed to do it right. The best way to hit a vein is to use heat rather than a tourniquet. Sunlight is the best. Increases my chance to register a vein when they’re seriously damaged. Gone down in gauge, from 27 to 29. Got what I suspect is thrombosis in both arms. There are little blood clots drifting around inside me. I know there are. Then again, can I trust what I know?
Over the past two weeks, I’ve been convinced 24/7 that I have combinations of the following: HIV; endocarditis; diabetes; liver failure; brain tumours; deep vein thrombosis; superficial thrombosis; Hepatitis B; Hepatitis C; cirrhosis; chronic gum disease; osteoporosis; tongue cancer; bowel cancer; lung cancer; emphysema; borderline personality disorder; varioius other cancers; and, early onset dementia; among others I can’t think of right now. Half a dozen or so times over the past month I’ve seriously considered the rape delusion: that someone is breaking into my house when I’m asleep and fucking with me. I don’t like going to sleep for this reason. I’ve been afraid of sleep for years. I used to always tuck a knife underneath my pillow. I discovered that wasn’t a good idea. It never helped with the paranoia, anyway. I’ve invested hundreds of hours contemplating how it happened: trying to put the pieces together; and solve the mystery. HIV is the number one hypochondria delusion. I’ve only started admitting this to myself, recently: over the past six months, for the vast majority of waking time, I have been convinced that I am HIV positive. Over the past five years, I’d say I’ve spent around two years believing that I am going to die a shameful lonely death. The amount of time is incalculable. Considering that I’ve only slept with two people in three or more years, including my ex-wife, there is absolutely no chance that I could have contracted it from anyone consensually. Hence, the rape delusion. Or maybe it was the egg and the chicken. Maybe I really was raped at some point and I repressed it. No, that’s crazy. I shouldn’t encourage myself. Anything seems possible. Thoughts are capable of spontaneously establishing themselves as reality.
I have been shooting meth daily for I don’t know how long. At least three weeks. Using the crooks of both arms, only. The cephalic in the right arm collapsed years ago. Up until recently, I was under the false impression that you can collapse the superficial arm-crook veins without any consequences. Fucking thrombosis. My hands are red. My arms hurt. Circulation’s all fucked up on account of clots clinging to my vascular walls. I’ve been getting these flashes of pornographic images from my memory. I suspect the unconscious part of my brain is manipulating me, Like in Fight Club when Tyler inserts subliminal cocks into family films. There’s an evil me, that I repress. A homicidal psychopath. I’ve always known he was there, biding his fucking time, waiting for his opportunity. The lack of sleep and food; the drugs and the psychosis: it’s the perfect time to fuck with me. As I type this, I see them occasionally images of cocks and tits. Mostly cocks. The tits, more often than not, belong to Thai ladyboys. The house is so fucked up, it’s ridiculous. I don’t recall it ever getting this bad. I’ve never spent this long on a meth binge. It doesn’t need to be stated, but it’s too long.
Back to the badger. I sit down in the overgrown grass in my back yard, holding the syringe between my teeth. I’m not wearing a shirt. The sun is warm on my skin. I glance about to check if there are neighbours within eyeshot. Not that I really care. My right arm is considerably worse than my left, on account of there being one less vein over that side. My hands are different colours. The right is a browny red; the left is pale. Sometimes, when partial obstructions in my veins shift around, they return to the same colour. For about ten days, this has been going on. I’ll start to recover a bit, then I’ll fuck them up again. I’ve been surfing this fine line between using as much as humanly possible without collapsing my veins. All shots are careful, now. My technique has never been better. Only cause it has to be, so I don’t waste drugs. Not out of concern for my arms. Though, I am concerned. No, that’s bullshit. I’m aware that I will be concerned.
I decide to hit the right arm, despite the increasing circulation problems in my hand and fingers. The veins are less damaged. Which, at this point, means the veins in the right arm aren’t completely covered in hard lumps; they’re mostly covered in lumps: in between, there are tiny rubbery sections. I can feel them inflate against my fingertip. There’s blood flowing there, just a matter of finding it. I don’t rush things. Take a deep breath. Push in slowly and carefully, between two of the six or seven lumps lining the exposed part of my vein. I feel it go in. There’s no resistance. I’ve actually managed to squeeze in one of those tiny gaps on my first attempt. Registers, and all. I push the bloody meth water slowly back into my vein, re-registering every 10 units just to be safe. The flow is actually pretty good. I pull the syringe out of my arm and put it in my mouth. Walk back to the house, pressing a swab against the site. Fucking brilliant.
Go to the computer lab sometime after midnight, and spend four or five hours speeding through assignments. I write thousands of words more than each essay requires. I write multiple essays, keeping all disused fragments rather than deleting them. Collecting quotes from source material. The lab is empty. I can’t help but occasionally have a peak at some porn. I plug in a set of headphones and stream some videos. My head is full of Nietzsche, Sogyal Rinpoche, Suskind, Freud, and Camus. I’ve read maybe fifteen hundred pages in the past three days. Philosophy, mainly. Learnt a lot. For example, I fucking hate Nietzsche. Prior to reading him, I said I hated him so I didn’t have to bother trekking through hundreds of pages of shit. Now I know. I hate him and, fuck it, I like hating him. Because he’s like me. He’s arrogant. He’s a hypocrite. He claims to be in pursuit of the truth; he even claims he will sacrifice himself for it: yet, he remains arrogant and sarcastic throughout his career. He may be willing to sacrifice his life, but he isn’t willing to sacrifice his ego.
At nine o’clock in the morning I start work: haven’t had any sleep for three days; hardly eaten anything for almost a month. Wait, that can’t be right. Fuck. I smoke a joint and drink a vodka mixer. My considerable meth after-buzz is the only thing preventing me from crashing. Go to sleep at work. Can’t help it. I am asleep for two of four hours I’m rostered to work. When I’m needed, I get up and get to work. Otherwise, I’m snoozing. Technically probably not great behavoir for an employee, but I don’t feel guilty about it. I’m fucking tired. I find myself walking to the bus stop. Four hours felt like four minutes. The time I just got paid for might as well have not even existed.
Catch a bus and a train and another bus. End up in a dodgy suburb. There’s a psychiatrist here that bulk bills, which means I don’t have to pay for appointments even though I don’t have health insurance. Everybody else pays. I have a referral that says I don’t have to. Been about eight years since I’ve engaged in any form of therapy. Except for AA, which I hestitate to call therapy; especially since I was attending meetings in order to research a piece of fiction.
After about ten minutes in the waiting room, I go in with the psychiatrist. He’s reasonable. Better than the others. I told him, I’d been diagnosed on five occasions, by five different doctors. So far, I said, I am: a with psychotic-depressive malignantly-hysterical schizophrenic with an acute anxiety disorder. We talked about this and that. My childhood, family, criminal history. He was very thorough. When we were done, he offered his diagnosis. Hypervigilant narcissism, resulting from an early incident of childhood trauma. I almost laugh. Really wasn’t expecting another absurd exotic diagnosis. Hypervigilant narcissism. I go home, and a litre or so of water before making up a shot. By the time I get out into the backyard, the sun has descended on the horizon. There’s a modst patch of illuminated reeds way at the back of the property, right beside my neighbours fence where they’re always gardening. The fence has missing bits of wood; it might as well be transperant. I don’t panic. I can’t let myself panic. It’s better for them to see me. I have to be extremely careful. The increased chance of missing a shot, considering the condition of my veins, combined the ever-increasing demands from my tolerance monster, means I have to do big hits. I’m unlikely to get a second chance, in the next 24 hours. I’ve stopped weighing my doses. I just eyeball them. This one was particularly large. It hardly dissolved in 60 units, even though it’s practically pure. Even more pure, this batch. Perfect crystals with no clouds. I use a tourniquet, making sure not to completely cut off the circulation. Go for the left arm. There are less lumps now. I tegister first time, and get blood. I push in slowly. It feels harder than normal. I check the register, get blood. I push it in. Still, I feel pressure. Maybe the tourniquet is too tight. But, I fastened it high near my shoulder to give me room. Surely, 60 units can fit in there. 60 units is fucking nothing. I push in slowly, making sure to draw back and register every now and then, as I do. There’s only 10 units left of deep red blood in the syringe. The pressure has increased too much to continue. I gently rest the syringe against my arm and let go of it. The barrel tiwsts around 180 degrees of it’s own accord. I turn it softly back into it’s original position and recreate my entry angle before slipping out.
The rush isn’t as strong as I expected. Five minutes later, I find a huge lump on the vein; big enough to obstruct it. Somehow, despite registering, I missed a fair bit of the shot. And it wasn’t diluted! This pool of corrosive shit, eating away at the outside of my veins. The vein is very swollen. It takes half an hour for the lump to noticeably shrink.
I write another essay, exceeding the word limit threefold. My ability to produce high quality third year university essays this quickly surprises me a bit. Not much, of course, on account of the narccissm.
3:30 am.
I make up another hit, intending to leave some for tomorrow. There’s hardly enough for two, though. So, I make it small. Less than half of what I did earlier, in 30 units of water. I’m seriously unsure about using again. I put the cap on it. If I don’t use, I’m going to crash. And I have too much work to do. I decide to postpone the hit and keep myself awake by salvaging traces of meth from used syringes. It’s been ages since I’ve gathered up the old picks. They’re scattered everywhere.
The place is fucked. Assorted empty bottles. Swab wrappers. Bloody bits of cotton. Obscene pornographic cartoons scribbled on scraps of paper. Broken condoms attached to filthy makeshift sex toys, with rubber bands. Books. Study guides. My desk is covered with cum stains and joint ash. There’s a horrible smell coming from somewhere, but I haven’t been able to locate it for days. Not that I’ve really looked. Most of the time I don’t notice the smells or the shit everywhere.
The alcove I use as a preparation station for IV stuff has layers of used equipment. I find twelve used syringes, with bits of blood up near the needle. Fill a pint glass with water. The glass – it’s the same one I’ve been using all week – is filthy. You can’t even see through it anymore. I suck water up into barrels and spray it back into the glass. I drink it. Tastes quite strong of speed. I drink another three pints of water. Best to wait till the sun rises, I decide.
I take the opportunity to use some hirudoid cream on my track marks. I use too much. I’m not thinking straight. Gather up used filters – bits of cotton – and put them in a little baggy. There’s 9 total, of varying size. I eat two of them. Tastes quite strong of meth. I grab a vodka mixer out of the fridge, and collect a couple of roaches from around the house, before heading back out to university.
I smoke one of the roaches on the way to the 24-hour labs. As usual there are only Asian students working at night, though tonight – being the last Friday of trimester – there’s pretty much no-one. I go up a couple of flights of stairs and find a room with nobody in it. I start typing this trip report. Both of my hands are bright red, though. As I feared, the excessive amount of hirudoid counteracted the swelling to such an extent that there is hardly any circulation left in either arm. My veins are closing up onto clots. I keep checking them obsessively. Every time I go for a piss, I roll up my sleeves and check each vein to make sure it’s still flowing. They’re all fine.
5:31 am.
I realize the fucking windows in the lab are open. It’s probably just cold. That’s what’s fucking with my hands. When I’m on meth, I can’t gauge temperature at all. There is air coming out of the ceiling. Not sure if it’s a heater or a air conditioner.
5:55 am.
My hands are fucked. They’re getting worse. It is no co-incidence that this is happening now. At this exact moment, of all moments. I was supposed to be in India right now, and here I am instead: drinking a black Ruski in a university lab, and worrying about the serious possibility of a vein collapsing with the next hour. I plead with God not to teach me a lesson. Ask him to chose another moment; any other moment.
6:03 am.
Nine hundred and forty-six million, seven hundred and seventy-one thousand, two hundred seconds; fifteen million, seven hudred and seventy-nine thousand, five hundred and twenty minutes; two hundred and sixty-two thousand, nine hundred and ninety-two hours; ten thousand, nine hundred and fifty eight days… that is how old I am at this very minute… one thousand, five hundred and sixty weeks; seven hundred and eighty fortnights; three hundred and sixty months; one hundred and twenty seasons; thirty years; eight leap years; three decades. As the sun rises, I turn 30.
My hands return to their factory preset colour. It is a miserable looking day. No sunlight. I’m not going to try to hit a vein until my hands stabilize for at least a couple of hours; and I’m not going to do it without the sun. I shouldn’t be doing it at all. I’m seriously pushing my luck here. If I have to do it, it needs to be the last time: I need to take the remaining crystal and mix it all together into one syringe. One more hit, on my 30th birthday; then, finally, it’s time to quit.
7:15 am.
I jerk off under the table and release a surprising amount of cum on the floor of the lab. The only thing I can find to wipe it with is a forgotten umbrella. I notice a video camera behind me; but, I don’t care. They didn’t see me. And, so what if they did?
I go home and, since the sky is overcast, I soon go to sleep.
2:30 pm.
Wake up on the floor. Shit everywhere. This is not the sort of reality you want to wake up to. The person I am when I emerge from my dreams, is innocent. Waking up is like being born into shit forever. I wake up and I have to face the fact that I’ve seriously fucked myself up. At least my hands are back to normal.
I don’t shower; I don’t eat breakfast. I grab a vodka mixer out of the fridge, light a joint, and go to get supplies. If I’m going to have that massive hit, I can’t fuck it up. The sun is still nowhere to be seen. I need to do everything I can, to make up for the clouds. So, I go to the hardware store for a rubber tourniquet. Can’t find it. I ask a woman, “You know where I can find some rubber hose, is there a rubber section?” She says, “What do you need it for?” I tell her, “It’s too difficult to explain.” She gives me a look. “Well,” she says, “we don’t have a rubber section. I walk around looking for something appropriate. Finally I settle on an occy strap made out of bunjee cord. I get some beer and more vodka mixers, and everything else I need. I realize, while shopping, that it’s been a long time since I’ve bought the essentials. I feel like utter shit, as I walk around the shopping centre.
At the tram stop on the way back, I open a beer. This kid is smoking a cigarette. I ask him for one, even though I don’t smoke. I figure it’ll make me feel better. He tells me it’s his last one. Then he pities me, and says I can have half of it. I feel bad, but fuck it. He’s obviously not in as desperate a state as I am. And it’s my birthday. 30, fuck. I’m standing here, drinking a beer, with bagfulls of shopping. No wonder this kid pities me. I tell him I feel bad for pinching his last smoke, as it he hands it to me. I inhale deeply, and hold it. For about five seconds I feel good. I feel like telling him it’s my birthday. Maybe he’d get a higher sense of satisfaction, on account of his unconditional generosity. But I don’t tell him. I sensor myself. I repress it. Out of self-loathing.
This is why I don’t like being around people. Because I care more about what they think than I do. I’m not embarrassed when I’m alone. Fucking 30. Shit. I can’t say this is where I wanted to be when I was 25. Or, at the beginning of the year. I wish I didn’t care about the calendar, but you can’t help it really. It’s all about other people, and what they think of me. I’m sick of my fucking uncle and aunty and grandma and the old guys at work and the young guys, fucking patronizing me all the time. So, I’m 30 years old and I just finished a university degree in creative writing. I am aware of the fact that it’s a difficult industry. I was when I went in. People say to you, upon receieving an arts degree, “What are you going to do now? They have this tone, like it’s a revelation they are delivering upon you. Like you’ve never thought about it.
The thing is I don’t care about my life. I only care about what people think about it. And I’ve been trying to sabotage the fuck out of that bullshit trait for the better part of a decade. But I still care. I can’t help it. People don’t kill themselves, on account of the impact it would have on family and friends; my family caring about how I reflect on them, forces me to detest myself. I have to comply to a certain image. I have to exist within a close enough range to their expectations of me. I’ve already failed to make my parents proud. To be a disgrace would kill them. But I am a disgrace. My natural state is unlovable and unemployable. So I repress it. I like being alone because there are no expectations. I’m so tired of having my behaviour dictated by this society and its, admitted decelerating, moral momentum.
Carrying the shopping bags from the tram to my house makes me paranoid about my arms. I’m not sure if I should be lifting heavy objects with this condition, whatever it is. Thrombosis… I don’t know. Maybe I should be exercising. Pumping blood into my veins. Keeping them functional. But I’m getting these weird sensations in my forearms. Pain too, in the crook of my arm, bicep, and occasionally elsewhere. Feels like there’s something too big to be a parasite crawling around inside me. Like a cockroach crept under my skin while I was sleeping. I put the bags down in the kitchen. The fridge is full of rotten food and congealed milk. I can’t put my fresh food in there. The floor is encrusted with dried scraps of old cat food. The litter is full of shit and piss. I hadn’t noticed, somehow. Like the litter box just materialized out of nowhere. This is the smell that’s been lingering around the house. There isn’t a single piece of litter that isn’t soaking wet. It’s like a fucking toxic waste dump. I need to clean up the litter, now. I go grab the bins, and wheel them up to the front door. There are bottles and swabs and needles everywhere. I get distracted from the litter mission. I start cleaning the house. It takes roughly two hours to tidy up. When I clean up my preparation station, I discover tiny crystal shards on the bench. I eat them. Find another piece of cotton, and add it to my collection. I’ve lost track of how much gear I’ve used. The evidence indicates, a lot.
(One week's accumulated swabs.)
The sun has set, not that it ever really made an appearance. I empty the fridge into the bin and put the shopping away. I change the litter. I do a load of washing. There’s a pile of clothes in the bathroom soaked in cat piss. I’ve been using a business shirt to wipe my ass for most of the week. I gather up anything that will fit into a washing machine and dump it in the laundry. There is a mountain in there. Maybe fifteen or sixteen loads of washing. I don’t get tired. My preparation station, which was a fucking disgrace this morning, gets wiped down with eight medical swabs. I sterilize the area, and my equipment. Better late than never.
Empty the baggy onto the spoon. Run out of sterile water, so I fill a 3ml barrel up from the bathtub. Fucking choper. They’ll deliver you three hundred syringes with no question. But they’ll never give you more than two ampoules, containing in total a maximum of 10 mls. They do this because me injecting dirty water into my veins doesn’t threaten anyone else. People who pay for this shit don’t care about junkies. They care about the impact junkies have on society. I dribble some water into two empty half gram bags and squeeze them with my finger, then dump the contents onto the spoon. Roll up a bit of cotton, impale it on the syringe, and mop the inside of the bags for those last little drops. Spill a bit on the bench, rub the cotton on it. Doesn’t matter cause the bench is sterile. You could perform heart surgery on it. Check it out. It’s like the fucking Hilton of junky alcoves.
I grab the hard-plastic glasses case I use when I’m mobile. It’s in the fridge. The barrel is ice cold. I squirt it onto the spoon, and throw it away. End up with 1 cc: 100 mls. It’s impossible to safely use a pick, for IV, when the barrel is at maximum capacity. You can’t register. There’s no room. So, even if you think you know, you don’t. I’m sure people do it, but people shoot heroin into their cock and femoral vein. They have their arms, legs and genitals removed. They develop infected abcesses and don’t seek medical attention. I may be reckless, but I’m not insane. I have two choices. I can either: split it into two 1cc, 29 gauge, barrels; or, dump the whole lot into a 3cc barrel, with a 27 gauge needle. If I fuck up with the 27, given how swollen and clotted I already am, I can do myself some serious damage. The size difference between a 29 gauge needle and a 27 gauge needle is massive. Then again, I’m unlikely to find two places to register. I split it. Figure, I can have the first one then wait till the sun rises for the second.
Finally, I chuck a the massive steak I bought onto the frying pan. Sit down, to watch the new Dexter episode. Smoke a joint while the steak cooks. Drink half a litre of apple juice. Eat the steak, all 350 grams. It is the best thing I’ve ever eaten. I am ravenous. My appetite is back, for the first time in weeks. I can’t eat fast enough; with every bite I feel waves of sensation flowing through my body. I eat a pre-packaged 250 gram Caesar salad. It’s better than a hit. Not as sustained or energizing, obviously, but far more satisfying. I go to get the Brie cheese I bought, only to realize it’s not Brie. It’s Blue cheese, which is supposed to be the worst tasting thing in the world. I cut a third of the entire wedge, and grab a packet of biscuits. Smoke another joint, while I eat. The cheese smells fucking weird. I make the mistake of putting my nose close to it. The smell is very strong. Probably doesn’t taste like it smells, though. I spread it thick on a water cracker, to discover that it does taste as it smells. In fact, the taste is considerably stronger than the smell. My instant reaction is, that it’s disgusting. But then, people say oysters are disgusting. I stop myself from being disgusted. The same way I stop myself from being disgusted by Amanita Muscaria or San Pedro cactus juice. I reprogram myself to like blue cheese. By the fifth cracker, I love it. It’s the best cheese I’ve ever had. You have to spread it fairly thin: it’s got an extraordinarily complex texture of tastes and smells. It’s an experience, blue cheese. I’m glad I bought it. Got to try new things more often.
I was supposed to take three weeks off everything, leading up to my 30th birthday, then have Muscaria. I was saving my Washington caps for today. But I can’t do it. I’m not comfortable having such an intense experience with no supervision given my paranoia and the state of my hands. Unless my hands aren’t red at all, and it’s all in my head. That’s the thing about paranoid delusions. When you say somebody is following you, people immediately reassure you that you’re just being paranoid. Don’t worry about it, they say. It’s all in your head. And then you think, fuck, if I’m imagining that how do I know I’m not imagining lots of shit. You start doubting yourself, after that first paranoid delusion. You become paranoid about whether or not your thoughts are paranoid. If someone really is following you, is it paranoid to think so? What if someone is breaking into your house at night and raping you? Anything considered to be sufficiently “unlikely” is written off as paranoia. That’s why conspirators always get away with it: they prey on our lack of imagination.
I am bloated. My digestive system is working twice as fast as usual. Everything is being processed immediately, and delivered to the various malnourished areas of my body. It’s exhausting. I’m half asleep by the time I finish eating. Time for a little pick me up.
Before I can get started I notice that part of my thumbtip is missing skin, two layers. The small circuclar area is completely numb. I remember, when I was smoking with a lightbulb, that I developed a callus on my thumb from flicking the lighter repeatedly. It’s right there, at that exact spot. I burnt myself there too. But that was over a week ago, wasn’t it? Has the skin been peeling off here, all the time, and I just haven’t noticed it? Like the materializing litterbox? I’m sure it’s nothing. But, I say that about practically every medical concern I have, on account of the hypochondria. Because I think I have every disorder and disease under the sun, I doubt that I ever have anything wrong with me. There’s a boy-who-cried-wolf aspect to hypochondria. It’s impossible, as it is with psychosis and paranoia, to trust your own perception – positive or negative. I simultaneously believe that I am going to die and that I am going to live. I believe I have cancer, but I don’t trust that belief. So I believe I don’t have cancer, but I don’t trust that either.
8:32 pm.
I try to hit the remaining major vein in my right arm, the one with the fucked up thumb. Both left and right minors are too small to sustain any more damage. They’re still delivering blood; with a tourniquet they pop out. But entering them hurts like a bitch. The minors have always been like that. So I’m down to 3 usable. The one on the right is more hard than elastic and it it’s covered with small to medium lumps. Much better than the state of anything on the left side. I’m unlikely to get anywhere on the left side. Don’t know what I’m going to do with the other pick, even by the time the sun rises. I’m running out of options, here. It makes me nervous to think I’m going to lose all this gear. I register and slip out. Can’t find it again. I try further down. I try further up. Force myself to spray it down the back of my throat. I can’t risk another pincushion scenario. Not now.
Grab the other pick. I’m using the medical tourniquet. The bunjee cord is no good. I’m not used to using it. Can’t change my routine now. It’ll fuck me up. So I tighten the medical tourniquet above the same vein that I fucked up yesterday. The lump is completely gone, now, but it’s extremely swollen when it pops up. Like six times the size it should be. But, the other major is small. I’m more likely to be successful with the swollen one. There’s no room above it, so I try below. I do this all the time. Apparently it’s dangerous because you can suck up a clot and shoot it back into your vein – at high speed – towards your heart. Like with air bubbles, you can deliver selectively. Even if it’s up the needle end of the barrel, you can keep it there and push everything past it. Though, to be honest, I’ve slammed a few clots; and, I’m still alive. I register, get two massive clots, try to push forward and find that I’m blocked. Way too much pressure to push anything anywhere. My heart racing, I carefully re-adjust, fractions of millimetres back and forth. But I don’t know if I’m too far in or too far back. I dig around, carefully, for less than thirty seconds; I can’t find it. I pull out, empty the air from the barrel, and pull the plunger just enough to clear the needle so it doesn’t get blocked. I try the other major. Get a tiny spurt of blood, followed by air. Readjust. Pull out. Try the minor. Trying to enter it feels like pushing a sewing needle through my eyeball.
With a sigh, I spray it down the back of my throat. Wash it down with some vodka. I put the picks into a safe disposal container, take the dishes into the kitchen, and gather up swabs and other bits and pieces. That’s it. No more. I should have stopped a week ago. It’s funny, I kept insisting – to myself and others – that I needed it, in order to finish my schoolwork. It does increase the quality, and length, of my assignments. But that’s when I’m actually writing. For most of the past month, or however long it’s been, I’ve been getting distracted. Time dissolves, and I find myself emerging sober having produced nothing. I tell myself, when I re-dose, that I know better. I say it won’t happen again. This time, I say, I’ll get everything done. I’ll just keep going. Writing and dosing.
If I was sober, I wouldn’t have procrastinated so much. Now I have six days to do half a trimester’s work, while withdrawing from methamphetamines. Brilliant. I roll three joints, gather some supplies together, and walk to university. The night air is cool on my face. I roll up my sleeves, even though I should be keeping my arms warm. The breeze feels good.
It’s a relief, I think to myself, as I walk: joint in my right hand; vodka in my left…. It’s a relief, that it’s all over. Going to have to wait a week or so, to see if any of the veins collapse. If my thumb gets much worse, I’m going to have to go to the doctors and insist upon it being treated as an emergency. The hand, too: if it doesn’t go back to normal, or – at least – improve considerably, I’m going to have to find some sort of solution. Although I made it through, alive, I’m not going to prematurely declare myself unscathed.
I believe I will be okay. I also believe my thumb will be amputated...
God doesn’t like it when you finish his sentences for him.
Tagged by Xorkoth
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substancecode_amphetamines
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