Health Can psychedelics can bring about mental illness?

[ActiveA]

I think it does, I've seen it happen to a friend who had a tab then had a psychotic break, he still has to take anti-psychotics and its been like 4 months.

He's 17 too...

 

[B9]

I & others have observed before that mental illness/psychotic breaks seem to occur more frequently at a young age in conjunction with psychedelics

 

[Dalfir]

i have personally watched a very close friend have a psychotic break after ingesting 44mg of 4-AcO-DMT, he was a high functioning student at a top 10 university and had to be institutionalized shortly afterwards, more than two years have passed and he has not recovered. so short answer - yes they can.

Any idea what was going on in his head that pushed him over the edge?

 

[fastandbulbous]

Basically, a dose of psychedelics that goes sideways can induce post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), much like any intense, negative situation can. It's the PTSD state that acts as the trigger for unleashing the demons (latent psychiatric illness) - look at people who've been in a combat situation - a lot of them will be suffering from PTSD to some degree, but only a few will go on to completely lose the plot (a quick look at their family medical history had chance to find that their family had a history of flakiness). Left unresolved though, PTSD is in itself a mental illness and can leave low level symptoms such as chronic free floating anxiety

 

[yemil]

This is a subject I've been very interested in recently as any of you that have read my last thread know. It's very frustrating not knowing if my psychosis was drug induced, electrolyte imbalance induced or if I really do have a mental illness. I doubt the last one because other than that period of time I don't believe I have shown any symptoms.

 

[B9]

You'd think if LSD caused schizophrenia there would be a corresponding increase in schizophrenia rates tho.

Here's the same argument for the "cannabis causes schizophrenia" claim:



Countries which had extremely high cannabis use (Jamaica in 1995] had the same schizophrenia rates per 1000 as countries with zero cannabis use (Norway in 1926-1935).

Q: Does cannabis use cause schizophrenia?

A: No. Over the past four decades most countries in the Western world have experienced rapidly increasing cannabis use. None of these countries has experienced any accompanying “Madness” plague. Countries like Australia and Jamaica which have the highest levels of cannabis use have levels of schizophrenia similar to the rest of the world.

We’ve smoked the “Reefer” for four decades, and “Madness” levels have remained steady, not just in Australia, but all over the world.

Where does that leave the “Reefer Madness” theory??

http://drjiggens.com/does_cannabis_use_cause_schizophrenia.html

& here's a link about psychedelic safeguards ( not cannabis ) at high dosages http://www.maps.org/sys/w3pb.pl?mode=search&c_pkey=23043&displayformat=allinfo&type=citation - perhaps they know not of what they speak - Izzy ?

My compliments on the link title you provided tho :D :D

 

[Sunburn]

I'v never seen any conclusive research that they do. In the book "Saying yes, in defense of drug use", it was stated that about 0.08% of LSD users experience profound mental changes, and even then, it's highly unrealistic to assume that it was due to the drugs themselves, and that these people didn't have the illness to begin with. From what I gather, many mental illnesses effects are triggered by profound events in a person's life, and psychedelics are no walk in the park.

Also, at least in the case of LSD, the chromosome breaks that occur in the brain are only temporary, so it would be unrealistic to say that it would actually cause an illness. Perhaps trigger, but not cause.

 

[B9]

No one has offered a definition of mental illness which leads me to suspect we may in fact have different definitions of what it actually is.

Perhaps trigger, but not cause.

Agreed - see poll question

 

[RigaCrypto]

From what I gather most mental ilnesses are quantitative disturbances of mental processes - they are nothing new happening in your skull, they are phenomena present in normal people that increase excessively or take over to the extent that they become pathological. From what I recall this is a diagnostic criterion for many disorders in the DSM - that the symptoms described are present to the extent that they negatively affect the person. The line between healthy and insane is fuzzy and depends on whether your manifestations are harmful or not.

Therefore, some people might need a small push to send them into loony territory, whereas others might have a lot of room to play while remaining normal. But as these processes are present in everyone, anyone could conceivably develop any mental disorder if they amplified that trait enough in themselves. In subjective terms, if you go too far down a certain trip, you can end up anywhere.

 

[Xorkoth]

Bump for prune