Funnies

 What? Funnies? On the psych ward?  Well yes actually. While I don't wish to downplay the the unpleasantness and pain of mental illness for many. , I actually enjoyed my stay on the ward. I came in presenting with manic symptoms which gradually subsided over a couple of days. Mania, subjectively, makes you feel like you have done a couple of fat rails of coke which last for days. And so it was that I came in with a swaggering confidence, like Jack Nicholson on One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and got them to tell me their stories, some of which were intentionally amusing, some unintentionally, and some tragically sad.

Amir:

Amir: So who is da best at philosophising and all that stuff now?

Me: It depends what you are into. I like the whole consciousness debate. Dennett vs Chalmers.

Amir: Aight. I know these guys.

Me: What you've read Dennett and Chalmers?

Amir: No man.  mean I know them.  I used  to feed them, aight?

Me: You knows these are philosophers, Amir, not cats, right?

Amir: I know. Not feed them. I mean FEED them. I used to sell dem crack and smack, like, innit?  All the best philosophisers are on coke and heroin. Get yourself back on the good shit. You come to me when you get out. No word of a lie man. I'm outta here. Take care brother.

Nazeem and Lydia
Me: Is there a list of rules somewhere, like, 'do's and 'dont's?
Lydia: There is but they never tell you. You have to work them out. It's a good idea to make notes like you are doing. I have thousands, I still don't know what's going on.
Me: I see.

Lydia: You'll be all right. You'll break the rules and not care. 

Me: How can you tell?

Lydia: I just can.

Nazeem: The main rule is that we are not allowed to play near the cliff. On no account are we to jump off of it.

Lydia adds this to her notebook.

Me: There's a cliff? Sounds very dangerous! Where is it?

Nazeem: (smiling knowingly) I don't know. I've not found it and they won't tell us.
She seemed intrigued by the fact that I was writing her comments down.

Nazeem: Why are you writing this down.
Me: It's for a blog. Don't worry. I'll change your name, my name, the name of the hospital the town, etc.
Nazeem: (pauses, thinking) I might have a cigarette. I might not.
Me: Well, I'm not going to write that down. It's neither funny nor interesting.
Nazeem: I see.
Me: Anyway, do you smoke or not?
Nazeem: I don't wish to comment on that.
Me: (writing) Now it's funny.
Nazeem: (blankly) I know.

Flashback: Sats on the floor.

 December 2021

    My third trip to A&E as a result of an overdose, this one, by far the worst, hanging on to life by a gossamer thread. This near-death experience, while fascinating, was not what I expected. There was no white light, ushering me through to the next phase of my existence, just blackness, neon pink flashes and a hideous humanoid gurgling, like a high pitched Doctor Who monster: gliblublubliblunimflupnimflup. I remember thinking, with my philosophy hat on: 'Is this the true nature of reality? Is this the Kantian thing in itself? If it is, I'm not sure I like it much.'
    Two days later I woke up to a surly nurse. He didn't actually say it out loud, but his body language and tone said 'For fuck's sake. We've got enough  to cope with with covid, never mind twats like you ending up here through sheer stupidity.' I was about to launch into the defence I always use against such people, and those who oppose recreational drugs use in general when he vanished. And I mean that quite literally. I mean one minute he was there and 'ping' he wasn't, like the shopkeeper from Mr Benn in reverse. If I'd been doing the sound design I would have use an open piano chord of 4ths, 5ths and 9ths, reversed a reversed cymbal and reversed reverb. So I didn't get to say:
    "Would you say the same thing to someone who ended up with a broken neck from playing rugby league or a sprained ankle playing badminton?' "or perhaps more aptly 'or someone who shattered their pelvis and spine while mountaineering' Because condemning recreational drug use is petty moralising. One is far more likely to end up in casualty after three hours of horse riding than three hours of clubbing on mdma, which is not among my favourite drugs. Besides, it wasn't even my fault I'd ended up in A&E. It was the arsehole who had cut my dope with fentanyl and not mixed it evenly through the bag. They could pump naloxone into me until I was blue in the face and it would make little difference. Actually, scrap that. I was blue in the face when they took me in. Point is, for some reason which makes no sense other than mob mentality, exploring inner space is stupid and selfish. whereas exploring the great outdoors is utterly wholesome. I remember once having a conversation with a doctor at SDAS (Southwitch Drug and Alcohol Service) as I tried to get him to admit that the illegal elements of my passtime was less dangerous than horse riding. 

'Look here, Mr Southey. It's just the way we do things here. This is not the time for a philosophical discussion. You've tried baclofen and it didn't work. Now we try antabuse'

If that wasn't the time for an ethical discussion on drug use, speaking to a GP who is about to write a script, I don't know when is. 

Anyway give me ketamine any day. Which they did, incidentally, to sedate me for the ventilator. A rather large dose. I often wonder if the doctors and nurses who lay heavy doses of K on patients, especially children have ever tried it. It's a bit like a dreamy smooth acid trip, or for those who haven't done that, rather like the time before wakefulness and sleep, but while it pretty much paralyses you, it can be utterly terrifying. The dosages used therapeutically are enough to put patients in what a rec user would call 'The K hole' a state of semi aware detachment from reality. Doctors and nurses think it's an analgesic. It's not. Painful things still hurt like hell; you just don't really mind the pain as much.

Anyway. To our story, 'Suicide attempt was it?'. I agreed groggily. A few days later, I worked out it wasn't. But I just agreed with her. Because I knew I'd been feeling suicidal and I'd woke up in hospital after what I'd been told was an overdose. I later worked out it was a mistake, but 'intentional overdose' suited my narrative as much as theirs so I didn't worry.

As I used my WhatsApp messages to piece together what I had happened, how it had been a mistake with bad batch of smack, I also worked out that this was different from the other ODs'I'df had. I couldn't speak except in a sort or drooling spastic burr. My nose had a huge scab on it from a pressure sore when I passed out. Oh, and I couldn't walk. Double oh, I needed a pacemaker. It took a couple of weeks to get over it. Which was actually a relief. For a while I thought that I was going to be like someone who had made a half hearted suicide attempt with pills and succced in becoming a cripple. 

    And my glimpse of the afterlife? In retrospect I think the pink pulsating lights were my brain's way of interpreting the cpu I was being given, and that the garbled voices were my dying cerebral cortex doing its best with very little to go one from a sensory point of view.

    It was Sputnik, the love of my live, trying to hammer some life back into my dead heart and shouted at me:
    'Don't you dare die on me you cunt. Breathe, you fucker, breathe!'