justdifferent
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2019
- Messages
- 48
I'm sure it's not news to anyone that amphetamines, like alcohol, are linked to violence. But if my current situation is to be believed, it's quite appalling how at the present moment in Australia, amphetamines are at least a significant factor in domestic violence, especially ut not exclusively meth (more on that below...)
I'm on a women's shelter right now and every single woman I've talked to ha(about 6 families out of 8) has a partner who is addicted to meth. In my case,my ex did not take meth but he would binge on the dexamphetamine tablets he was prescribed for his ADD, and there's no doubt at all in my mind that 90 percent of the violence between us would not have happened had there not been amphetamines in the picture.
P not being a "Pollu Pure" btw- my ex and I had cp-dependent pill-swapping habits- he'd give me uppers in exchange for my downers and painkillers. And so I would sometimes binge on Dex as well, and definitely noticed that given the right context, I'd behave very aggressively. For example, spending hours sending him nasty texts. But unlike my ex I was simply not able to do hardcore sleep deprivation. And I wonder to what extent his really scary violence was caused by sleep deprivation.
Ex would routinely go 4-5 days without sleep. Sometimes a week. Of course in his mind he was okay-he didn't feel tired because every time it started to catch up with him-he'd just take more pills. He wasn't ordinarily violent or weird until about 72 hours with no sleep. After that, he'd start to get very weird, and at worst, very violent. His memory would go. For example he'd slap me, and I'd tell him next day or whatever that he'd slapped me, and reproach him, but he honestly seemed to not remember having hit me. This more than once led to further blows being exchanged.
I was not above retaliating and hitting him back, or even sometimes being the first out of the two of us to get violent (re my own violence: I am not proud of it, but I do believe that his violence was worse, because he was a very well-built, very strong guy, and easily capable of killing me with his bare hands if he felt like it, so when he got physical with me it was terrifying, sometimes extremely painful while it lasted, and of course he injured me quite often. Whereas at worst me hitting him was insulting, an affront to his dignity, but not "scary " in the real sense of the word).
All that aside, whether it was speed psychosis or just sleep deprivation (are these in fact often linked? I'm sure they must be) - the least forgivable stuff always happened after he'd been awake on Dex for days and days. The least forgivable thing for me was when he choked me or in any other way deprived me of oxygen (like shoving my face into the mattress). because it seemed so sadistic, more full of hatred than a punch or a shove could ever be.
I tried for a while to see even this as "not really him", just a result of the speed and not sleeping. Because I really adored him and I wanted to believe he reciprocated. But if a person deprives you of oxygen and seems to take satisfactions in seeing you desperately flail around for air, you just can't believe in their "love" anymore. And you don't feel the same way about them, either.
All the same (have a feeling the mods might bounce this post but I'll finish up !) I really don't think that he would've been capable of such nastiness were it not for amphetamine abuse. Of course not everyone whose binging on speed is bound to be violent. You could argue that people who get really violent or sadistic on speed have the germ of violence and sadism in their "natural" self but are normally inhibited from acting out.
I suppose the same could be said of booze-driven violence. I've got to say, though, that having experienced both (ex was not good on alcohol either) - the amphetamine-inspired violence was quite different and much worse. Alcohol might prompt a short-lived burst of anger, and very ugly acts, but it wasn't as lethal, as driven and sadistic-seeming as the violence that seemed to follow from amphetamine intoxication. The latter could go on for hours and even days. and whole on speed he was also incapable of remorse and would even defend his actions very self-righteously.
To conclude, according to my caseworkers in this shelter, 80 percent of the DV they see is linked to meth abuse. Obviously i wasn't always so - in the 1950s, for eg, alcohol was often perceived as the "cause", or one of the causes, of wife beating.
Thanks for letting me rant a bit and any thoughts/experiences on this subject would be welcome. It would be especially interesting to know the point of view of a man whose been involved with domestic violence because of amphetamines, although very understandably I doubt any men would want to share such a POV, out of shame. And it's a shame that Shame prevents men who've been violent from speaking out about their feelings, what sort of feelings informed their actions. Such sharing would be so constructive.
I'm on a women's shelter right now and every single woman I've talked to ha(about 6 families out of 8) has a partner who is addicted to meth. In my case,my ex did not take meth but he would binge on the dexamphetamine tablets he was prescribed for his ADD, and there's no doubt at all in my mind that 90 percent of the violence between us would not have happened had there not been amphetamines in the picture.
P not being a "Pollu Pure" btw- my ex and I had cp-dependent pill-swapping habits- he'd give me uppers in exchange for my downers and painkillers. And so I would sometimes binge on Dex as well, and definitely noticed that given the right context, I'd behave very aggressively. For example, spending hours sending him nasty texts. But unlike my ex I was simply not able to do hardcore sleep deprivation. And I wonder to what extent his really scary violence was caused by sleep deprivation.
Ex would routinely go 4-5 days without sleep. Sometimes a week. Of course in his mind he was okay-he didn't feel tired because every time it started to catch up with him-he'd just take more pills. He wasn't ordinarily violent or weird until about 72 hours with no sleep. After that, he'd start to get very weird, and at worst, very violent. His memory would go. For example he'd slap me, and I'd tell him next day or whatever that he'd slapped me, and reproach him, but he honestly seemed to not remember having hit me. This more than once led to further blows being exchanged.
I was not above retaliating and hitting him back, or even sometimes being the first out of the two of us to get violent (re my own violence: I am not proud of it, but I do believe that his violence was worse, because he was a very well-built, very strong guy, and easily capable of killing me with his bare hands if he felt like it, so when he got physical with me it was terrifying, sometimes extremely painful while it lasted, and of course he injured me quite often. Whereas at worst me hitting him was insulting, an affront to his dignity, but not "scary " in the real sense of the word).
All that aside, whether it was speed psychosis or just sleep deprivation (are these in fact often linked? I'm sure they must be) - the least forgivable stuff always happened after he'd been awake on Dex for days and days. The least forgivable thing for me was when he choked me or in any other way deprived me of oxygen (like shoving my face into the mattress). because it seemed so sadistic, more full of hatred than a punch or a shove could ever be.
I tried for a while to see even this as "not really him", just a result of the speed and not sleeping. Because I really adored him and I wanted to believe he reciprocated. But if a person deprives you of oxygen and seems to take satisfactions in seeing you desperately flail around for air, you just can't believe in their "love" anymore. And you don't feel the same way about them, either.
All the same (have a feeling the mods might bounce this post but I'll finish up !) I really don't think that he would've been capable of such nastiness were it not for amphetamine abuse. Of course not everyone whose binging on speed is bound to be violent. You could argue that people who get really violent or sadistic on speed have the germ of violence and sadism in their "natural" self but are normally inhibited from acting out.
I suppose the same could be said of booze-driven violence. I've got to say, though, that having experienced both (ex was not good on alcohol either) - the amphetamine-inspired violence was quite different and much worse. Alcohol might prompt a short-lived burst of anger, and very ugly acts, but it wasn't as lethal, as driven and sadistic-seeming as the violence that seemed to follow from amphetamine intoxication. The latter could go on for hours and even days. and whole on speed he was also incapable of remorse and would even defend his actions very self-righteously.
To conclude, according to my caseworkers in this shelter, 80 percent of the DV they see is linked to meth abuse. Obviously i wasn't always so - in the 1950s, for eg, alcohol was often perceived as the "cause", or one of the causes, of wife beating.
Thanks for letting me rant a bit and any thoughts/experiences on this subject would be welcome. It would be especially interesting to know the point of view of a man whose been involved with domestic violence because of amphetamines, although very understandably I doubt any men would want to share such a POV, out of shame. And it's a shame that Shame prevents men who've been violent from speaking out about their feelings, what sort of feelings informed their actions. Such sharing would be so constructive.
