Schizophrenia and drug use

What do drugs have to do with developing schizophrenia and what drugs are dangerous for people who have the possibility of developing schizophrenia???

I'm interested because I have schizophrenia running in my family and have used weed for a while(although I've haven't smoked it in a month or so) and have done shrooms once and am planning on tripping soon. Should I cease my drug use??? And is there anyway I can use them safely???

Your best off staying away from drugs full stop, but if you are going to do something then stay away from shrooms and lsd in particular, long term weed use is not a good idea either.

Theres nothing you can do to use them safely, its better that you abstein.

What Jase said. Seriously. Going off the deep end for life isn't worth a few fun nights with drugs.

If you must do drugs stick to the one's that fuck with your head the least. Even though I don't care much for them myself, perhaps opiates would be something to consider. Don't mess with psychadelics... especially the strong ones.

EDIT: What's the connection between drugs and schizophrenia? When high on most substances, or when you are psychotic you are not grounded, not dealing with the same (more, or less) reality everybody else is. Schizophrenics, or those perhaps predisposed by family history do much better when surrounded by and continually interacting with people who are sober and sane. The reason is these people help ground them. When you take drugs you get out there, this is the last thing a schizophrenic needs. It's going in the opposite direction of where they need to be in order to relate to the rest of the social and physical world.

I beleeve coke brings it up too.

This question shows up every now and then. I, for one, am mystified by the blanket assertion that schizo is enhanced with psychedelics. I would say that my psychedelic experiences have actually helped me manage my schizophrenia. I am not on meds, and I can manage episodes with much more clarity becasue LSD has given me a sort of reference point. My mother is schizo, and she is able to function perfectly well with certain meds. She was committed for 17 months in her twenties. She now has two Phds.

Scizophrenia is not widely understood. When I listen to my doctors talk to me about my condition, it strikes me that they are far worse off than I have ever been.

I would not recommend drugs to anyone for any reason. That being said, I don't think there is any additional risk for the schizophrenic user.

Now, let me point out that if you harbor a latent fear of having a psychotic break as a result of LSD, well...you may decide to act that out. I don't do acid any more because it frightens me in a strange way. But I have done it
many, many times, and I do not regret a single one.

Well I don't excactly know but I can give your a little somthing that might help......

I know this kid from my town he is like 23 now and I know older kids who grew up with him saying he was just a normal kid.
He does any drug he can get his hands on though.He loves tripping hard and crack coke meth basically anything he can get his hands on.
Well he is now a skitzo he takes all sorts of pills for it.He lives in his parents shed in the backyard he has a couch he sleeps on a tv and his radio that's about it besides a table.Well he just sits out there listening to the dead and phish and stairs at the wall.He will just fall asleep while you talk to him.HE is so out of it.
I don't know if he would have been skitzo without the drugs but He probably would have been alot better.

synchrojet:

If LSD did cause a major break would you be able to recognise that it was LSD that was the trigger?

This is perhaps the greatest danger as its possible that you'll keep making the same mistake over and over and over and over again.

Its not nice for an outsider to watch.

A gentleman I know who I thought was rock stable was admitted to the local mental hospital this past week with apparent drug-induced schizophrenia.

It isn't worth it.

Jase--

That is the question, the final and most legitimate question. Instinctively I would have to say that there would be no way of knowing. There are many factors to take into consieration, though. Schizophrenia is weird. I feel normal all the time and it is difficult to recognize delusional thinking. There is a constant internal struggle with regards to intellect/trusting others. To this day I still inwardly believe myself to be someone who just sees more than most others. I cannot bring myself to honestly be convinced of any pathology, even though I see all of the evidence. To me, the evidence being offered as proof of a mental illness is not really being properly analyzed. I find my attitude toward my doctor, friends and family to be somewhat condescending at times.

I have made a conscious judgement to trust my fiancee, and accept the fact that whether or not an actual illness is present, we can agree that I process external sensory stimuli differently than most other people, and that there is a possibility that neither interpretation is wrong. Certainly, since any one person's interpretation of reality is not comprehensive, one cannot claim that what another person is observing is entirely impossible.

Think of it this way...a cube can cast a shadow in the shape of a square, but also in the shape of a hexagon. Depending on points of reference, two people could conceivably be correct and in total diagreement. One says: "I see a square. It has four sides equal, plain as day." The next replies' "Can't you count? There are six sides, clearly you are mistaken."

The person who comes along and says, "Both of you are right, but not complete. It is actually a cube, elsewhere."

This person might well be regarded as crazy because he is claiming that a cube exists that niether of the first two can see.

Okay...I see the cube. It's a matter of data extrapolation in a non-linear syntax. My reasoning occurs, primarily, without words.

Or so that is my belief. My doctor says that if I do not go on meds, eventually I will have a psychotic break. Well, I have had two. One on meds and one off. The one on meds was bizarre, because I was planning some strange things right out in the open, not realizing that those things were not connected to reality. I just talked about my plans to my relatives and friends, who then took me to the hospital to have my prescription changed immediately..lol.

The one off of meds was obviously a hallucination to me, even though it seemed very real. I kept telling myself that all I had to do was ignore it and it would go away. It was a comprehensive hallucination, mind you, not just visual. It was intense. However, in the end, I faced it down that night, and part of the reason that I was able to do so was because of my experiences with LSD. I am sure you know about those trips where you think you are fucked up forever and will never come down. I have had those many times, but they always ended.

If we get into the mindset that we are disconnected from reality, we then tend to act that out. Actually, that concern is indicative of being connected to reality. When one is in a psychotic episode completely, one is unaware that they are doing anything abnormal at all.

Now, think that through on your next LSD trip and watch what happens...

Anyway, as I stated, I do not recommend drugs to anyone for any reason. the only recommendations that I give revolve around enhancing one's spiritual relationship within their own heart, as well as with their God.

I see I hit something there I'm glad that your doing ok and that you've got someone keeping an eye on you and they know when its the right time to drag your mad head down to the hospital for a servicing.

Perhaps thats the only "harm reduction" advice we can give this guy, make sure that someone close to you knows what your taking, understands what risk your taking and is prepared to drag you in for treatment should you have a proper flip out.

smoking weed - especially long term - can exacerbate any existing or underlying schizophrenic tendencies. use of most stimulants, especially meth- or regular amphetamine, can also contribute to an increased chance of a psychotic break.

there's some good advice running throughout this thread .

In the 60's GHB was given to people with schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is something to do with a dopamine imbalance isn't it?
I know that it's organic too, you can't just develop is, it has to be somewhere in your family.

Anyway, does anyone know how GHB was used to treat people with schizophrenia?
I'm guessing they were giving it 24/7 to suppress their dopamine and stop the rebound!

Anyone got any info'?

synchrojet,
I can relate to your story, my good friend has gone through such episodes of erratic behaviour and many people have labeled him as being schizo. I think he would technically be schizo, he has had some breakdowns. For him it was eventually understanding that like you said, there are different perspectives of thought.
I do think these schizo behaviour could of well started with drugs such as shrooms and lsd. But in defense of this, these drugs helped him understand his behaviour and live in the real world. He went from living a *perfect life, thinking that he understood the workings of the world, only to having the world collapse on his beliefs and make them questionable.
For example, it's like first studying classical newtonian physics, to then having these truths being broken by new truths such as quantum mechanics.

my friend just had a drug induced case of schitzo..(sorry dont know how to spell)
his father was a shictzo...
he was smoking pot several timesa a day.
mushys finally got him.
he said he was tripping and didnt come down....
mental hospital for several weeks.
there is a link between mushys acid and mental illness.
"if you have a mental illness lsd will eventually bring it out"
(or something like that)
hes not to bad now 2 months later but it still shows....
hes pretty lucky.

dont tempt fate.

I will admit that pot does not do me the same way it seems to do others. I simply wig out on marijuana. I do not get sleepy at all, and there is absolutely nothing enjoyable about it. I just feel 'dumbed down' and unmotivated, as well as confused and then paranoid. I've been more paranoid on pot that I have on mushrooms, with the exception of one particularly hard freakout that I have yet to understand.

Sonjay...I am not sure how one would stay up from mushrooms. The half-life of psilocybin is well known. He might have gone into a type of 'circular thought loop', wherein he relived his tripping experience as a method of escaping the everyday pressures that life yields. If I were to attest the effect to drug use, I would look at everyday pot use as the more likely culprit. Even 15 grams of good shrooms only has me out there for about six hours, and the show is over after ten hours every time. Of course, I will admit that I have many times on shrooms been afraid that I had done just that--gone away forever. However, when we find ouselves confronted with that notion, the way out is to simply say to oneself, "I can live with this, so be it." I have had to say that to myself at least ten times from hard trips, even trips where I have 'died'. I just remind myself that everything is a blessing in regard to the fact that I am experiencing it, so I am therefore alive.

Most paranoia comes from our fear of judgement, or our fear of solitude.

Believe me, I get as frightened as anyone else on trips. In fact, I do not take LSD anymore because it just scares me to death. And I have taken HUGE doses, just to get to the other side and see what was there. DMT finally gave me the journey I wanted, and I subsequently abandoned LSD. DMT put all of it in perspective. Everything.

Gaz--
I don't know about GHB treating schizophrenia. I have done so much GHB that if it cured the condition, I would definitely be cured by now! I must admit that I get hallucinations quite frequently without any drugs at all. Most are brief, and in fact most are conceptual hallucinations. An example would be feeling fo a minute like you are a 45 year old housewife who is writing a book and living in Pennsylvania when in fact you are in Utah, and a 35 year old man.

An interesting aspect of it (I think) is the occasional premonition. I called my father and my mother on the morning the space shuttle burned up over texas because I woke up with burning hands and a bleeding nose, after dreaming that I was piloting a ship over Texas and it exploded. I also dreamed of a black square with a number on it. It was about six in the morning. I was so frightened by the dream that I called my doctor and left a message. Now, I didn't even remember consciuosly that a shuttle was in orbit. Two hours later I saw the news that the shuttle was off radar.

P.K. Dick was schizophrenic, and he related the life pretty well. In his book VALIS, he related his experience with a pink phosgene beam that told him several things...three eyed invaders, etc., but also that his son had cancer in the brain.

It turns out that his son did have cancer in the brain. So what causes that? I believe that one side effect of schiz is the ability to exptrapolate very subtle data to its extreme. In the case of the space shuttle, it is concievable that I had overheard the launch, maybe on the TV, or maybe by actually mentally intercepting broadcast waves (a common feeling that I get anyway, like turning on the radio only to find them playing the song I was just thinking of)...anyway, and then maybe seeing a video of the launch and subconsciously detecting the foam that struck the wing (In my dream I knew the left wing broke off), and extrapolating the possibility of a breakapart, then picking up on the frantic minds that actually underwent the experience.

My doctor still has the message that I left him, wherein I described the salient points an hour before the fact. He advised me not to get excited about it, just chalk it up to intuition or data extrapolation and leave it at that, which is exactly what I have done.

Is that schizophrenia? I do not know. I can tell you that some of my core beliefs are laughable to most people, so I keep them to myself. For example, without elaborating, I know that we do not reside inside of our bodies. I feel as though I know exactly where we do reside, and in what form. When I attempted to describe these concepts in detail, as a child, my parents were understandable concerned. Obviously I had not taken any drugs before my tenth birthday!

Anyway, here I am am rambling again, sorry bout that.

hey hey this is where you can ramble Parents are naturally concerned...
My friend has this sense about things too and these strange coicidences keeping popping up, and i have known him for years. He is in tune with something that I am not aware of. We all laugh about it but I think generally it's similar to what some people refer to a 'gut feeling'.
These *extrapolated gifts are not commonly talked about since they do not fall into any identifiably scientifically tested group, at the moment. It is too hard for many people to swallow but eventually more of this will be better known and understood. Right now there is a debate on what exactly is a schizo, some suggest there are 3 types, yap yap yap. But nothing is taking for real unless a mathematical equation can prove it.
If you can live a healthy life then I don't think people should be handing you chemicals to get back to *reality. Acceptance is important, and it's people's fear that you will turn into something horrible. The horror!!!
I find taking psychadelics, i become *schizo, my reality is broken into pieces and other things that I have not seen start to appear. On that note, have you read the 'Invisible Landscape' by the McKenna brothers? It's a pretty technical explanation of these types of interactions. Basically, our mind works at certain frequencies, so we cannot see things outside of these ranges, like the visual spectrum of light for example. Anyway I would highly recommend this book because it can provide some clues at to the how schizophrenia works and maybe even how to treat it and accept it.

Yes, I am familiar with McKenna's works. I try to stay current on all of the 'guru' psychedelic literature. However, I find the current influx of prose lacking when compared to the writings of Hoffman or Huxley...

Perhaps Wilson's 'Undoing Yourself' is woth considering as an adjunct to that body of literature, but for me the real fascination is tracing the ancient religious ceremony back to pre-Christianity. Especially intriguing is the correlation of Aztec art found on ancient walls to the style of hallucinatory fugues often observed on high doses of mushrooms. An interesting study is how the arrival of Christianity insinuated itself even into the Mexican mythology, with such examples including the belief that mushrooms grew where the sweat or tears of Christ had fallen on the earth.

I study the Buddha alongside the Bible and find that the message exactly correlates and overlaps, only the earthly presentation of the messenger is diametrically opposed to the other. One born rich, one poor, etc. But the message is exactly the same. There is some merit there worth considering. Without a doubt I believe in a benevolent God (has saved my ass MANY times, heh heh...), and I believe that too much emphasis on physical phenomenae can be taxing on one's spirit. I am also one who believes with my heart that we are delivered from insanity through Christ Jesus who lives. However, I recognize that the Teacher has appeared many times and in many forms. I am not bound by doctrine, only grace. That being said, I find myself always trying to keep my body in good shape, because it is, after all, the antennae/language converter that I am accessing, and to have it damaged would be frustrating, to say the least.

fuk man you write some interesting and well written stuff. With your illness do you hear voices and do you find that you can still live a normal life? Whats it like living with schizophrenia?

Synchrojet I have a feeling you're not schizophrenic at all. You are someone who truly KNOWS their own mind. And in knowing so much, people who know less but think they know more label you such so they don't feel stupid and inferior. They don't want to face the fact that there is a lot more to the workings of the human mind than they will ever have a clue about.

I can relate to a lot of the stuff you've talked about on a far denser level, but as far as I know I'm not schizo. I just think you're a REALLY FUCKING SMART DOOD. Don't get a big head but I suspect you're smarter than 98% of the population, thanks for sharing that stuff!

Some of that shit you said about knowing about stuff before it happens, I get that sometimes. Like you said, it does feel like a gut feeling!

I don't have schizophrenia either.