Do I have something like schizophrenia [probably screwed myself over forever]?

So, like last year has been havoc on my mind. Part of it was my fault, I’m widely aware. But here is what happened. Around March of last year, I might’ve taken a few too many psychedelics. I was at uni, and I was smoking cannabis nearly everyday. If I would look back at the effects I had then, now, I would notice that I’ve been getting pretty bad anxiety from the cannabis and it would give me some geometric fractals that other kids I hung out with would not have. I continued smoking since I thought this was the normal effects of cannabis and that started my downfall at uni.

I started off as a straight A student but as my cannabis intake started growing my willing to actually attend classes started falling. Pretty soon I was missing class almost every day and just working at my job to buy more of it. Soon I was starting to take psychedelics. At first I started off by making my own DMT (since I was actually interested in the chemistry and the process to make it) and shared it among my friends who told me that it was the most intense experience they ever had. Meanwhile, what I would experience was just extreme geometric fractals that overtook my whole vision. I started to suspect that psychedelics affected me different but I really didn’t pay attention to it and just continued to think that I just wasn’t opening my mind enough (whatever that mean, its what I thought at the moment).

After that started experimenting with other psychedelics like LSD and mushrooms. I tried LSD twice, and the first time didn’t really feel too much from it, all I had experienced was very manic behaviour. I tried mushrooms, and all those did was make me fell pretty darn good. The second time took LSD, though, I truly experienced what a psychedelic trip was. The music I listened to, though, induces a lot of anxiety darn good while under the influence (It’s crap like Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold etc.) and since I listened to it while tripping I induced a lot of anxiety on my trip. I really don’t know why but I decided I would, after like two weeks from the last trip, take a huge amount of LSD. This is really where my huge mess up really begins. I took it and after about an hour, was in a full blown anxiety attack. My vision was mysteriously intact, but I started experiencing intense geometric patterns and my field of vision was completely overtaken with intense visual snow, to where I could only see where I was focusing on a specific point. The walls were definitely melting all around and I called a friend over thinking it would help. He recommended I play some video games to take my mind off it but even the TV was extremely saturated with color and looked as if though it was melting. After the effects started to decrease I told him I was alright and I told him that I would just ride it out.

He then left, and I just looked myself in my dorm room. I tried playing video games but they couldn’t hold my interest for more than a couple minutes. I finally settled on some GTA V and just played the heck out of it. After most of the effects were gone I noticed that an audio hallucination remained. The main menu music of GTA V stuck in my head for the whole day and wouldn’t stop. I tried to just got about my day but the music just wouldn’t stop. For some reason, I decided to smoke some cannabis with some students but all it did was bring back the negative effects and I felt horrible after. My whole body felt like it was buzzing and I was constantly worrying about what other people thought about me. This was my first experience with anxiety which I was wholly conscious about it. I stopped smoking , and since it was the end of the school year, I went back home.

I felt totally depressed, hopeless, and full of anxiety. I constantly replayed the same song over and over in my head, which was a very depressing song I must add (Save Me - Avenged Sevenfold if you’re interested). I started to repeat the same conversations with a fictional psychologist in my head (talking about how bad I felt and what I could do to fix it) but never actually did anything to fix it. This whole month I just felt horrible and felt like I wasn’t even alive, it felt more like I was walking through a dream. After this month I started to smoke again. I still felt that intense anxiety but my dumb self decided to still continue smoking. After like the fourth time I smoked, a voice started to speak to me, and started to direct me to actually do something while I was high. It told me to try at least playing the guitar while I was high, in order to distract myself from the madness that was going around me.
Ever since then, I’ve heard this voice guide me through things that I could not even fathom going through. I wont necessarily say that it is a negative, but I’ve tried asking it many times what exactly it is and why it was there. Every time I ask it, all it tells me is that it doesn’t know and that it just happened to show up.

The voice has tried to get me to at least become spiritual or religious, but it seems that I can’t. It’s taught me how to meditate and how to control my psychotic symptoms, which is this unexplainable noise that just repeats over and over in my head. From what I can tell, it’s just a collection of noises I’ve heard before, all bunched together and just set on repeat. I’ve noticed that I can’t smoke anymore or else the voice just starts to put me into a negative introspective mindset and just starts trying to fix what’s broke. I’ve tried to sort of alleviate the anxiety and depression with meds, and they’ve been helping, but I feel so disconnect from other people. I couldn’t really fell empathy for other people when I was younger, and now its even more stronger than before.

I’ve tried searching up what all this could be and the only thing I could come up with is this Buddhist belief that is called the Devine Ear, which I’m not even sure it is. Ever since then, the voice has spoken to me less and less, but the psychotic symptoms are still there. I’m afraid to tell my psychiatrist because I know he’ll put me on antipsychotics, and if my run with Haldol is evidence enough, they suck completely. I felt like a zombie for two straight days after being injected with just one dose, so I don’t even want to know what it’s like to take them daily. I’m currently taking Nardil, an MAOI, for the depression and anxiety, but feel like its sort of making the psychotic symptoms wore even though my depression and anxiety are more controlled. The last psychedelics I’ve taken was a pretty high dose of LSD. Looking back, I noticed psychedelics induced a sort of psychosis that at the time I thought that were pretty normal since that’s what I thought that’s what the effect psychedelics would have. Ever since I’ve taken that high dose of LSD I might’ve screwed up my mind forever.

Sorry for the wall of text but we feel like it was the only way to convey what I’m going through.

Take 2 giant marshmallows, proceed to the green door.

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Lots of people skip reading walls of text without reading it because its so hard to read. You would probably get more “views” and reply’s if you break it up into smaller paragraphs.
Just a friendly tip.

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If u hear voices there is a possibility you could have schizophrenia

Too much text. Drugs are bad. Stay away from them.

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Wait a week, if it is only a drug induced psychosis you will get better; otherwise see a pdoc, it may have triggered a psychotic illness.

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Woah sounds intense! I’d be laying off the psychedelics mate! If it is drug induced psychosis, I would think ‘symptoms’ should be better once you stop the drugs. If not, make an appointment with a pdoc.

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We can’t tell you if you have schizophrenia or not only the psych doc can tell you that. We can’t diagnose you. We are not trained to do so. Some here are hereditarily have the condition due to genetics. Not induced by drugs. So ask you psych doc if you have the condition. Just a guess that your problem is induced by drugs not inherited by family traits. Just a suggestion lay off the drugs. You might get better after a while. Ask your doctor what is your prognosis.

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I had that, and now Ive had voices every single day of my life for the past 6 months, they get desperate when I don’t do what they want!

It is possible you have developed schizophrenia. It is also possible you’ve just developed drug-induced psychosis. Drug-induced psychosis tends to stick around for a year or so, as long as you stick to your treatment. Treatment is typically antipsychotics combined with staying away from all drugs (sometimes even caffeine).

Definitely tell your doctor you have hallucinations. You’re currently taking an antidepressant, and antidepressants make psychotic symptoms worse. You need to be on a medicine that actually helps you. It is possible to take an antidepressant along with an antipsychotic, but just taking an antidepressant alone is not recommended for most psychotic patients.

Antipsychotics are not all equal. Haldol is one of the harshest ones out there. Abilify and Geodon are far less sedating. All of them will make you sleepy for the first month or so, but your body will adjust pretty fast. Some of them make you gain weight, and some don’t. It all depends on your own body chemistry. I take Geodon, and I have not gained any weight. Latuda and Abilify are also more likely to be weight-neutral. It is possible to live a good, productive life while on antipsychotics. I go to school, volunteer, and have an active social life.

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I did the same thing at the university, only it was with alcohol. I was a 3.5 student until I started drinking again. Then I hardly ever went to class. As for the medications. I’ve been on Haldol, and it is hell on earth for me. Then they put me on Geodon and Seroquel, and everything was fine. There are a variety of medications now that aren’t as harsh as the “typical” antipsychotics. You can probably find one that works for you without too much pain.

Hi everyone, I appreciate the responses from you all. I’ve stopped taking anything ever since last November so I hope that it is indeed just drug induced psychosis. Still hasn’t really gotten any better though so I might just have to talk to my doc about taking antipsychotics.

Looking back before any of this even started I’m pretty sure I’ve already had most of these symptoms minus hearing a voice so whatever this is it seems like I was already on track to get it.
It’s just that I’ve been living with it for most of my life so i guess I just got used to it.
And ever since taking all that stuff it made me aware of my symptoms and made them a whole lot worse.

Your psychiatrist will probably want to take you OFF drugs before putting you on antipsychotics. Did you know things like LSD can stay in your system for AGES? It breaks down very slowly, and is extremely potent.

You NEED to stop the drugs. It’s very possible that they could be triggering a psychotic disorder in you (if you are already genetically prone) and that you have screwed yourself over. However the only way you’ll know that for sure is if you are completely clean for an extended period of time. You don’t want to start APs if all your problems can be solved just by stopping the drugs you’re already taking!

I recommend working with a therapist on that, most people don’t see their psychiatrist often enough to do that sort of work.

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I couldn’t read your wall of text.
Stay away from drugs and you’ll do better.

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LSD and cocaine caused my symptoms. I don’t have sz but I have psychotic episodes now that come and go and it is definitely 100% from drugs.
Once your mind has had enough it’s had enough.
Our brains weren’t made to tolerate large doses of foreign chemicals. Unfortunately some of us have to find that out the hard way.

Drug induced psychosis can be permanent, for some lucky people it eventually goes away. I would say talk it out with a doctor, some people with this disease choose to go without medication. For some that is the best option. How constant is the voice, like how many times does it talk to you in 24 hours?

Some find that low even sub-therapeutic doses of antipsychotics are enough to take the edge off their symptoms. If the noise is constant or unpleasant consider starting small with meds and seeing how it goes.

Having a family history of psychosis is one way people are diagnosed, that was how I was diagnosed. Fooling around with drugs was also what got me started, now I have been two years on anytipsychotics.

Nicer gentler ones than haldol exist, and a few even better ones are in clinical trials. So maybe start small with your doctor, open up a conversation and see where it goes.

I’m really sorry you had to go through this, many people end up really bad with their whole lives ahead of them. You might be one of the lucky ones who only has mild symptoms or slips into remission. Keep your fingers crossed.

At least your young Papi. Pretty soon they’ll have a drug that undoes what the drugs did to your brain.
Three cheers for modern medicine protecting us from ourselves!