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Spike24
Stranger
Registered: 08/27/13
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Cannabis induced Depersonalisation/Paranoia
#18764966 - 08/27/13 05:14 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Hey guys, I'm writing this thread in order to get some help/advice with my recently developed psychological issues.
I've been a solid weed smoker for about 6 months now. Before that I only used to indulge in a sweet bite of Mary Jane very rarely,but I noticed that my issues have started around the time that I became a full-time stoner. I've done other drugs, like MDMA quite a few times and K. I tried LSD twice but it didn't have any effect, but the second time I did it I had symptoms similar to those that I will explain below for about an hour.
In the past 3-4 months, sometimes when I got high with my mates, I started going into a weird state of paranoia. I started considering everything I said, or anything my mates said, very weird. It made me feel uncomfortable. gave a sense of non-belonging, made me uncommunicative and I developed a lot of self-doubt. Whilst sober, I also started going into some deep thought about my life/my actions/why I am who I/Wondering whether I was weird and If I changed in any way recently. It kind of changed my perception of self and friends but I kept on smoking it.
The culmination of my problem was a few weeks back at Boomtown Festival. I felt a bit weird and unexcited about the festival for some reason, but I obviously still went. On the second day, I smoked some weed, did some MDMA and K and drank a bit of alcohol. All was fine for the first 4 hours or so, until I had a really weird come up. I was in the crowd and started freaking out, I wasn't enjoying the music, I couldn't think straight, I felt like my friends were talking behind my back(even though I know they would never do that) and it just made me feel weird. So I went back to the tent, stood awake for a few hours analysing this bad experience and went to sleep. Next day, woke up really tired and groggy and slept through the whole day. Woke up again, had a few tokes of a spliff and it felt like I was gonna die. I didn't want to be at the festival, I felt uncomfortable, I felt like I was never getting out of there, it was very intense, but it went away after an hour or two.
Convincing myself that I'll never do drugs again, I stood sober for the 3rd day and had a lot of fun, so I decided to try some more mandy on the last day. History repeated itself, as I was fine and happy for a few hours, but then started getting the same symptoms, only this time even more amplified. I told my mates that I wasn't feeling well, they took me back to the tent and I stood outside for three hours, feeling empty. Literally, empty. I wasn't sensing happiness/fear/joy/amusement. Nothing. Just empty.
After I got back from the festival and slept for a few days, I felt better but was still in some sort of shock over what happened. Ever since then, I feel a bit weird, like I'm not the same as I was before. I analysed every aspect of that experience and the paranoid episodes that occurred with weed in the past and came up with explanations for them. Being a very rational and objective person, it's easy for me to do so, but at the same time, I never had these sort of self-scrutinizing thoughts before. In a way, I feel like weed liberated my sub-conscious and somehow made me more insecure.
Although friends assure me that I haven't changed in any way, I still feel weird at times, but it only seems to be when I start thinking about it, which points that it's all in my head. I've smoked weed since, but again, it's not the same as before, even though the paranoia has gone away.
But now, I'm generally worried that this experience has left me feeling empty and triggered some sort of psychological problem, withing myself. Maybe 2-3 times, I've had episodes like the one experienced at boomtown, after I've woken up from the first bad experience, even though I am sober when they are happening. I start freaking out and talking to myself inside my head and some really dark thoughts start surfacing. It goes away if I sleep it off and then I feel perfectly fine again, but due to these episodes, I feel like something has changed withing me. I don't know if I'm being paranoid about it, if it's all in my head or if I've really damaged something, but I'm still a bit scared.
I also feel that my memory has been affected, because I have trouble and minor delays in remembering certain things that I've done during a day, or finding hard to remember certain concepts that I've learned at uni. Keeping focused on conversations and general activities also seems like a chore, before this though, I had no problems focusing at all. I also find that I zone out into thoughts a lot more now, especially when sitting on the train or when I'm not doing anything, and the picturing of scenarios in my mind seem a lot more visual and realistic now. Sometimes, I feel like i'm on auto-pilot and that I'm doing things without thinking about them, and when I do feel like I'm on auto-pilot, I sort of view my hands and my body from a slight 3rd person, but I am fully aware that I have control over my body and actions.
But I just want to know, has anyone had any similar experiences? If so, I would love to hear from them in order to get some comfort that it's not just me.
Edited by Spike24 (08/27/13 05:23 PM)
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circastes
Big Questions Small Head


Registered: 01/14/10
Posts: 8,781
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Re: Cannabis induced Depersonalisation/Paranoia [Re: Spike24]
#18766833 - 08/28/13 12:53 AM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
In the past 3-4 months, sometimes when I got high with my mates, I started going into a weird state of paranoia. I started considering everything I said, or anything my mates said, very weird. It made me feel uncomfortable. gave a sense of non-belonging, made me uncommunicative and I developed a lot of self-doubt. Whilst sober, I also started going into some deep thought about my life/my actions/why I am who I/Wondering whether I was weird and If I changed in any way recently. It kind of changed my perception of self and friends but I kept on smoking it.
Quote:
hey took me back to the tent and I stood outside for three hours, feeling empty. Literally, empty. I wasn't sensing happiness/fear/joy/amusement. Nothing. Just empty.
Textbook schizophrenia.
Sorry man but you've got a lifestyle change coming up. No more drugs and maybe some new friends depending on how central drugs are in your circles and their fun times.
You sound like you're doing alright for yourself and have a future and a lot to offer. So I fear for you and I've just been blunt; if you don't stop it will take longer and longer for the effects to wear off until it is chronic. You can completely bypass any future problems if you get it early. But even now you will have doubts about your sanity, yeah? They will go. Give it 6 months to a year drug free and you'll just be back to who you were. If you go back to drugs, after that you will need to give it 5 years probably before you're back, then 10, etc. The brain is delicate. It is especially delicate if you have a predisposition.
Thinking you are in some kind of story where you are the hapless victim of some total failure to even be a mildly respectable human being and that your life is all wrong and people aren't telling you but when they enter the room you are sure they just stopped talking about you, or that what they said is an attempt to drop a hint to you. There is usually some kind of dark, ominous eternalness to the experience, like it will never end and that you are missing out on a ticket to heaven, this is how badly you feel...
This is essentially the persecutory themes of paranoid schizophrenia.
I have it. I went back to drugs. I went on the whole roller coaster ride through a pitiless hell. Now I've realised me and drugs are finished and I'm just praying this clears up soon.
Peace and love bro.
-------------------- My solitude... My shield... My armour... TESTED WITH FULL FORCE
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circastes
Big Questions Small Head


Registered: 01/14/10
Posts: 8,781
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Re: Cannabis induced Depersonalisation/Paranoia [Re: circastes]
#18766863 - 08/28/13 01:05 AM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Oh and I recommend antipsychotics for a good 6 month stint. Tell a psychatrist what has happened to you.
Non-predisposed people don't ever get what you described from drugs. The drugs are harmless in moderation, but not for people like us.
-------------------- My solitude... My shield... My armour... TESTED WITH FULL FORCE
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philopian_tube

Registered: 08/24/13
Posts: 443
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Re: Cannabis induced Depersonalisation/Paranoia [Re: circastes]
#18770541 - 08/28/13 09:02 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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I disagree, emotional numbness is pretty common among those with DP/DR. As for the paranoia, who hasn't while being high? I've had those exact thoughts lingering even when sober. If anything, it can make you more self aware of your surroundings.
Dissociation =/= Schizophrenia
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Edited by philopian_tube (08/28/13 09:08 PM)
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circastes
Big Questions Small Head


Registered: 01/14/10
Posts: 8,781
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Re: Cannabis induced Depersonalisation/Paranoia [Re: philopian_tube]
#18770568 - 08/28/13 09:05 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Empty for hours is flat affect, a hallmark. If the paranoid experience is so profound that he's still thinking it through after the drug has left the system, and if he's overwhelmed, even... PERSECUTED... by it all... it's more signs.
Why are you laughing? Stop laughing. I will kill you.
-------------------- My solitude... My shield... My armour... TESTED WITH FULL FORCE
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philopian_tube

Registered: 08/24/13
Posts: 443
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Re: Cannabis induced Depersonalisation/Paranoia [Re: circastes]
#18770597 - 08/28/13 09:11 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
circastes said: he's still thinking it through after the drug has left the system
It's hard to explain the symptoms of DP/DR, even to a medical professional. The drug had changed his perception of the world, but in a way that his mind created a barrier to prevent stress as a coping mechanism.
I've been on anti-psychotics while in this state, and it only made me feel like a zombie. Most are generally used to stabilize mood for those with bi-polar or psychosis, so it exacerbated the symptoms.
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Edited by philopian_tube (08/28/13 09:14 PM)
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Vsnares.Zappa
bend over


Registered: 05/04/11
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Re: Cannabis induced Depersonalisation/Paranoia [Re: philopian_tube]
#18770697 - 08/28/13 09:30 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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It's not responsible to diagnose someone on the internets IMO.
Though I agree 100 % with circastes : TAKE A BREAK OF CANNABIS. your health is at stake.
I would recommend like 4 months without it.
(by the way , I experienced everything you said OP, I have been a daily pot smoker for 3 years (still smoking from time to time, had a psychotic breakdown in march. I changed my lifestyle and going to college in one week )
one love
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Spike24
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Registered: 08/27/13
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Re: Cannabis induced Depersonalisation/Paranoia [Re: Vsnares.Zappa]
#18772298 - 08/29/13 10:01 AM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Thanks for the reply guys. Reading back on my post, I think it has been interpreted in a much more serious sense than it actually is.
The emotional flatness that I talked about, it wasn't 100% flat. I could still conjure up normal thoughts, dark thoughts, about the festival I was at and the experience I had, but they were still thoughts. I was telling myself during that time that I was gonna stay off drugs and was analysing what my friends were doing and how they're lives and friendships revolved around drugs, which was disturbing and inspired a sense of fakeness in what they were doing as well. So I wasn't totally blanked. It was more of a bad reaction to the MDMA and feeling that way is a known side-effect of a bad MDMA come up.
Looking back on it and all my bad experiences with drugs, they're all linked to my sometime negative way of thinking. It's simple... weed amplifies the mood you're on. If you're feeling uncomfortable/just came out of a bad experience, then it's normal for weed to amplify that feeling.
Also, weed releases the sub-conscious. If my sub-conscious is full of unanswered questions as to why that happened to me, and why I'm paranoid, then it's normal for those thoughts to surface out while i'm high and the days after I'm high. Then if I'm feeling normal for a few days, the times when I realize that I'm acting normal, bring out the separate thoughts of perceiving events in a weird way. Then, for a brief moment I start perceiving them that way because I remembered being paranoid. So, in my opinion and rationalization, it's all in my head and my state of mind at the time. Also, the more I analyse the situation and answer my questions, with your help as well, the better I feel. It's just a phase that I'm going through, nothing more than that.
I will obviously stay off the drugs and weed for a long long time now. My health and my future is more important.
Edited by Spike24 (08/29/13 10:03 AM)
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Satanschild
goodbye

Registered: 01/16/13
Posts: 281
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Re: Cannabis induced Depersonalisation/Paranoia [Re: Spike24]
#18772493 - 08/29/13 10:47 AM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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I don't think you're schizophrenic, not even psychotic. You're neurotic and probably have been using too much drugs/weed. I am as visibly emotionally flat as you can get, it has nothing to do with schizophrenia. Paranoia and denationalization from weed is normal, you need to smoke less.
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circastes
Big Questions Small Head


Registered: 01/14/10
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Re: Cannabis induced Depersonalisation/Paranoia [Re: Satanschild]
#18772768 - 08/29/13 11:58 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Oh I thought if you had bad times on something as mellow and popular as weed, that you were really asking for it to try more.
If anything gave me schizophrenia spectrum symptoms (depersonalisation, paranoia, derealisation, even incredibly deep thinking are all schizophrenia spectrum) including alcohol, which, well, it does, I would just run away from it screaming and find a new life, as I have done. 
It's the worst, really, it just fucks your life up, it's the same every fucking day for years. Maybe take a break and if it's no different just run screaming.
-------------------- My solitude... My shield... My armour... TESTED WITH FULL FORCE
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circastes
Big Questions Small Head


Registered: 01/14/10
Posts: 8,781
Loc: straya
Last seen: 7 years, 8 months
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Re: Cannabis induced Depersonalisation/Paranoia [Re: circastes]
#18772819 - 08/29/13 12:07 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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This sort of goes back to that sort of recent thread about "why do you take drugs if you have bad times?"
It's crazy. It's like pressing a button gives you a punch, but you keep doing it.
I'm pointing the finger a little bit at other people in the thread who have had bad times...
I think if you can get away with huge binges and survive unscathed as far as mental health goes, you're one of those people who can play with this stuff and it's all yours, enjoy your times... but if you get any kind of mental health issue from this stuff at all it's probably just latent schizophrenia. I say again it's no joke. The last time I smoked I became so depersonalised that I couldn't tell what existed anymore, if I existed, or if anything was happening, it was like those automatons you see in the classical psych wards, those people who just stare. It was the subjective experience of that.
Fuck that shit. Don't go there if you can avoid it lol.
-------------------- My solitude... My shield... My armour... TESTED WITH FULL FORCE
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TheMule73
Stranger


Registered: 08/26/11
Posts: 1,797
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Re: Cannabis induced Depersonalisation/Paranoia [Re: Spike24]
#18775540 - 08/29/13 10:50 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Spike24 said:
In the past 3-4 months, sometimes when I got high with my mates, I started going into a weird state of paranoia. I started considering everything I said, or anything my mates said, very weird. It made me feel uncomfortable. gave a sense of non-belonging, made me uncommunicative and I developed a lot of self-doubt. Whilst sober, I also started going into some deep thought about my life/my actions/why I am who I/Wondering whether I was weird and If I changed in any way recently. It kind of changed my perception of self and friends but I kept on smoking it.
Yes, Same thing happened to me. What you are realizing is how your ego works. Shit had me depressed as fuck, but only because I was so far depresonalized (imo, I never saw anyone) that I was like an observer to my own actions. Use this as a time to see the pattern in your behavior. See how it matches the pattern of behavior with those around you (only difference is within the particulars).
If you analyze this intensely (which i did) it will fucking suck. For you are analyzing a lie (yourself). But once You understand how the lie works , it isn't as painful/weird anymore and is actually very beneficial. Social anxiety and depression allows you to see how you thought-process works because you are in a state of mind in which you know yourself (the acting--as in 'actor--of yourself) too damn well.
If you don't want those thoughts, and since you said they didn't start until regular weed-smoking, then most definitely stop smoking.
Also, you probably did change. You are now aware of how you present yourself. And how you present yourself (As if the case with everyone) is in a false way.
Edited by TheMule73 (08/29/13 10:51 PM)
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