These are my thoughts on marijuana. I smoked pot daily my last two years of high school. Before, after, and during school. I graduated at age 17,and I became paranoid and schizophrenic at age 19. I believe several bad trips on acid triggered my schizophrenia but I believe that I would have eventually become schizophrenic even if I had never done drugs. I smoked pot sporadically from age 17 to age 19. But after I got diagnosed, pot was never fun anymore. It made my symptoms MUCH, MUCH, worse. Especially the paranoia. But I still smoked until I got clean and sober in1990 when I was 29 years old. BUTâŚnow obviously, people who post on here arenât the only people with schizophrenia who smoke pot. And you are not the only ones who says it relaxes and helps them. But in my experience, I smoked it WAY after I should have quit. I knew what it did to me, I knew what it made me feel like, and knew how it made me feel. It made me feel bad.Yet, I still smoked it back then.
For a few reasons. One) people offered it to me and I didnât want to âlook badâ by refusing. Two ) I always thought, " âWell next time I smoke it, it will be betterâ) and 3) I thought I enjoyed it.Those three reasons kept me smoking.Obviously, I was fooling myself.I should have quit long before I did. So I have to ask the question to pot smokers: Are you experiencing any of those reasons? Are you fooling yourselves? ButâŚyou know yourselves better than I do. Maybe pot is beneficial to some schizophrenics. But itâs not for everybody. People have to know itâs a risk before they try it. And not to be too dramatic, but the stakes are high. Your sanity of course. Do most schizophrenics realy have enough sanity left in their brain to make room for the effects of marijuana? If youâre like me, most of the time youâre barely hanging onto reality. Sad but true. I have some good moments but I am schizophrenic and my medications donât control all my symptoms a 100%. Sad but true.I would just recommend stopping and realy thinking it through as to if marijuana is good for you in your life or not. Does it have a place? Do you need to quit? Are you just smoking it because you canât stop, and not because youâre enjoying it? If so, isnât that a big enough reason and motivation to get serious about stopping? Thereâs help out there for people who want to stop. Itâs up to you to let people help you. Good luck.
i smoked it, and it triggered psychosis
Very true for me too. I tried it recently, thinking âhey, Iâm more stable then I have ever been in life. So I bet I can get away with it again.â Wrong⌠Oh so wrong. I was on the first train out of lucid town. I have NO idea how I didnât loose everything I just worked so hard to achieve. I have too much at risk now to play that game again.
Plus, even though my pro of sis was good about supporting me through my relapse into pot assisted psychosis, (aka stupidity) and she helped get me back on track. Iâve heard from others in hind sight that she went after the guy who sold it to me. Itâs said she had a wrath that would scare the average man. Iâm glad she didnât get shot or arrested. I am amazed at the people who can still smoke it. But none for me thanks, I donât want to end up back in hospital.
I didnât enjoy it the way other people said they did though I tried to learn to for years. And I tried to get something profound out of pondering with it for years.
And then finally I gave up my hopes for it.
your story is very similar to mine. I started pot when I was 18 and quit when I was 19 because it made me have âbad highsâ which were actually schizophrenic episodes. I knew there was something wrong with me but I thought I had split personality (I didnt know shit about psychology) so I tapered off, but it still made things more enjoyable as long as I did it at home. But then it went from paranoia to full psychosis and then I quit completely.
Drugs are bad, mmmkay? Mister Mackey is damn right. Unless they are picked up at the pharmacy, drugs are bad for us schizophrenics.
However, I asked the guy who evaluated me if pot triggered it and he said no, that I was genetically predisposed and had too many mental problems to begin with (trauma, other mental disorders in my teens, ect.) Stress was blamed to have spurred my psychosis, and I didnât actually smoke that MUCH pot, I just smoked very frequently. I couldnt afford half as much as my friends smoked (I went to a private school full of rich kids, and my family is middle class)
I think I first started smoking pot at 13 I had an older sister and was into bob marley and being a hippy and I thought it was cool but do to my addictive personality it was never a case of having a few puffs it was how much can I cram into one joint and then onto other harder srugs.
by the time I was 15 i was a heavy user.
i think i was escaping from the fact my parents had divorced and my dad came into my room with a glass of chapayne (drunk out his head) my mum left him and blamed me personally because i had an argument with my mum before she left him.
absolutely no stability living here to there to here again. so i donât think it was just smoking cannabis its doing it from an early age habitually whilst yourt brain is still developing i think it does something to the brain. also environmental its just another risk factor that doesnât help i would say the root cause.
i started smoking at 18 and a half. it made me paranoid then but not to the extent that i didnât enjoy it. i lived with a dealer and heâd just make enough to cover our smoking habits. i smoked for 10 years just over. i quit when i got out of hospital the first time but not soon enough after for it to have made a difference. not that it would have anyway, the â â â â iâve been through. i donât believe my âillnessâ was caused by drugs but i do believe they didnât help. iâve smoked it on the odd occasion since then. sometimes it made the voices worse, sometimes not but it always made me paranoid. i wonât b touching it again thatâs for sure. i wish iâd never touched the stuff in the first place. if i had my time again iâd steer well clear thatâs for damn sure.
Nothing has ever had a profound impact on my voices than weed. I have tried 7 antipsychotics with no impact and one day in 2012 I tried some weed and BAM an immediate impact on the voices. They became more advanced and essentially a version of my voices a few years prior. I will never forget that day. It must do something to your dopamine levels or something.
I smoked pot infrequently in college a long time ago. I really liked the way it made me feel - I laughed at every little thing, and felt happy and euphoric. The following day after smoking was when the â â â â hit the fan. Paranoia creeped in and things seemed darker. I was out of sorts and anxious. I really donât think that our brains were made to absorb certain chemicals. Pot didnât trigger my SZ, I am pretty sure it was that strong hit of mescaline, could have been acid.
Like Nick said, I would have gotten SZ regardless - I was born with the â â â â â â up genes, and my childhood was filled with panic attacks and instability. Drugs were just a trigger.
I started smoking pot at university, a few months before my 18th birthday. I smoked weed maybe 4-5 times in highschool.
1 month before my 19th bday the psychosis happened.
I was texting this girl, basically infatued with her, couldnât get her out of my mind. My eyes turned crystal. I never ended up getting her, she told me to see a psychiatritst.
My parents caught on very quick, took me to the hospital, then I ran away because I felt completely fine.
Ended up arrested, in court, telling them my name was Michael Schumacher. They sent me to the hospital where I snapped out of it in 2-3 days. Diagnosed shortly after that.
Now, past my 21st, trying to quit, but Iâm struggling with hope. Some days I feel great, but others I feel terrible, lonely, depressed, and hopeless.
Itâs become a coping mechanism. And even when I smoke it, I only feel content.
Even when smoking pot was no longer fun for me, it was difficult to stop. Among other things, I prayed for for help with staying off marihuana and did it one day at a time. It is greater than 30 years free by now.
Jayster
good job jayster! I know how hard that is tc