Antipsychotics and Tripping

[blowjay]

Hello all,

This is a thread I would like to see grow with information if at all possible. There are a small subset of us who have the unfortunate reality of being diagnosed with schizophrenia and being put on antipsychotics to treat the positive symptoms of schizophrenia which include delusions and psychosis. I am medication compliant and take my antipsychotics so that I don't start hearing 'secret messages' from the universe in music or on the television. When I am compliant with medication I do not have paranoia or believe in delusions and am completely in touch with reality - just wanting to clarify this before going forward.

For those not aware, antipsychotics have the ability to largely drain the fun out of life to a degree one would not know besides experiencing it firsthand. Having my serotonin and dopamine 'regulated' to such a high extent for the past 3 1/2 years has left me largely unable to experience pleasure out of life. I don't have the same personality I used to have and my spontaneity has pretty much gone out of the window. I could go on an on about what antipsychotics and schizophrenia have done to me but lets just leave it with the short version of having had my spark dim down to a mere flicker of what it was.

I previously had a very exciting life that was multifaceted. I used to be able to become engrossed in a variety of interests and activities, I used to feel a deeper connection to others, I used to be able to communicate easily and articulately how I felt or thought without having to grasp for the ideas or right words. Things used to be much easier and meant more to me than things do now. Now things are MUCH more bland and I deal with negative symptoms (similar to and including depression) and I also have cognitive symptoms. I encourage those of you who aren't familiar to look up schizophrenia and read about the symptoms, it is a bitch but I am high functioning and hold down a job which is more than many can say.

I used to be an avid psychonaut. I was, and still am, convinced that psychedelics are able to treat depression and other mental illness as well as offer user new perspectives on things. I used to trip on many different serotonin agonists including phenethylamines and tryptamines and found they helped me become a better person. They renewed my outlook on life and allowed me to work on faults, I had a spiritual relationship with these compounds and they helped me navigate many situations and opened up my mind to many possibilities.

When I first started experiencing delusions and paranoia it wasn't completely different than tripping. I seemed to have a connection to the universe in a not dissimilar way to tripping however there were major differences. I did irrational things and believed in conspiracies and thought I had abilities - reality shifted for me and I wasn't in control of my mind anymore. I didn't immediately regain control of my mind/life but when I finally did it wasn't the same as it was before. My spark and drive had both decreased and I wasn't as sharp as I used to be. My memory and thinking aren't what they used to be and as I said before my personality had changed. The medication worked at stopping the delusions but I now had to deal with a much different headspace than pre-schizophrenia me and delusional me - now I had a life of damage and devoid meaning.

Que LSD for a refresh therapy. I had been stable for 3-4 months so I wanted to see if I could get back to my old groove through tripping. The antipsychotics completely blocked the LSD and I was stone cold sober. To those not familiar, this is not abnormal at all as the action of antipsychotics blocks serotonin and dopamine. I tried with 2C-E and 25N-nBOME as well and pretty much not a thing different with me. I went on bupropion at 450 mg for 2 years and that didn't do a thing either.

I was able to use JWH-250 a few times and it worked but synthetic cannabinoids always made me paranoid and never really supplied positive thinking to me so that was not of much use to me, I used alcohol and benzos to escape or relax but none of the things here mentioned was able to help me in any way to connect to my old self again (or others) as I previously was, with a fuller spark. Alcohol would hit some receptors the right way and part of me could be made to come back out but not all of that was good. For the most part I had given up on searching for something to help brighten my inner spark.

Until 3 days ago.

 

[blowjay]

That was when I decided to give memantine a shot at a higher dosage than I had previously tried.

I have used NMDA antagonists fairly extensively in the past as well and have tried a number of them. They used to walk the fine line between spiritual use and escapism, especially methoxetamine, but I but didn't think it in my best interest to play around with them after the schizophrenia diagnosis due to their potential to cause psychosis - seemed a smart call. I did however read reports of someone using memantine to help with negative symptoms for schizophrenia and even found a bit of literature about it. This was 2 years ago and I give it a go a handful of times and dosed up to maybe 40 mg at once but was not impressed. 3 years ago I had first used memantine to see what it was like and to reset amphetamine tolerance but was mostly unimpressed. This was before 3 days ago.

3 days ago I took it up to 75 mg on a whim to see if I could get some more energy in me as I recalled it being a tad energizing even on antipsychotics (paliperidone at the moment but I was on paliperidone and aripipiprazole at one point with it as well). This turned out to have given me the most fulfilling weekend I have had in a very very long time. I was able to interact with my family with an incredibly positive mindset and was able to experience the moments as unique and wonderful, I could feel a spark again and not only that I could think clearly with my intentions and had much of the mindset of being under the influence of a serotonin agonist but without so much of the over analyzation that I have had in past experiences.

I posted in the Big and Dandy Memantine thread about it if anyone wants to see more of my line of thinking but lets just summarize the experience as a very positive one for me. I will be trying memantine at 100 mg this coming Friday and will report back about it as well, I see no reason why it won't be as positive unless there is some different change with the slightly higher dose.

I want this thread to be about the experiences others have had - positive or negative - about tripping while being on antipsychotics. I am considering other NMDA antagonists to explore in the future but am doing so cautiously as I don't want to play too much with fire. I don't think DXM would be the right decision for me as it just doesn't mesh well with me personally but I would think that it would probably still work if one wanted to use it on antipsychotics. I already got rid of my 3-MeO-PCP and 4-MeO-PCP and won't be getting more to see how things would go with them but I also feel that they would work.

Besides memantine, my next steps are likely to get DMXE and see if that gives me a helpful mindset - but this will be in the coming months I think. It really felt good to wake up part of my brain that hasn't been active in a while again and I can see myself doing this as a refresher every so often but I would like to be able to know what else is still active on antipsychotics.

Does anyone else have success with tripping while on antipsychotics with anything? Any tips?

 

[pufnvhmo]

I would like to be able to know what else is still active on antipsychotics.

That's a pretty long post for a 1 line question

I've been on abilify in the past, I can tell you from direct experience that it kills 90% of LSD and aMT effects. Most serotonin acting psych are surely not gonna work as you want.
It also greatly reduced the effect of methamphetamine.

But all dissociatives should be fine, tho those that also act on serotonin and dopamine could be feel slightly differently.

 

[ions]

Forget upppers, they don't work. But for me the classical psychedelics, mdma, lsd, psilocybin all work. Marijuana is my go to. There was a time 2011-2013 where I smoked weed maybe 4 times and hated not having it. It turns up your antenna or internal monologue. It allows you to slow down and be comfortable with the thoughts in your head. You got to be real comfortable with the thoughts in your head. I was diagnosed schizophrenic and have disagreed with the doctors diagnosis as it's a lazy approach to addressing what may be the result of trauma or drugs. We don't know. Anyway, marijuana has helped me tremendously. That and I'm a heavy drinker.