I'm 18 now coming 19 and from I was 15 I was drinking and using drugs quite frequently.
Looking back at that time now I did suffer quite a lot from anxiety and perhaps subconsciously I used alcohol/drugs to self medicate but the way I looked at was I lived my life by the epicurean philosophy.
For those of you are unsure this philosophy states that "the greatest good one can do is seek momentary pleasures in order to attain a state of tranquility absence from fear and bodily pain." So basically no matter what happened through the week I knew I would have my release at the weekend.
I mainly used mdma/ecstasy but I would have took pretty much anything and I thought I had a pretty good tolerance and understanding of drugs and thought that because of how strongminded I was that I could take anything but I was completely wrong.
My drug use never got out of hand so I was a highly functional user but whenever I left school everything changed.
I was laying around the house doing nothing all week so when it came to the weekend I felt like I hadn't earned my right to enjoy a good weekend and indulge myself but I gave into temptation and continued using.
This went on for a month and it felt like all I had to look forward to was partying at the weekend.
My friends were always busy at school/work during the week so I started to fall deeper into depression and started questioning a lot of aspects of my life.
My dad had booked a holiday for me and him to go on so I thought it was a great chance to get myself away and relax but ended up doing the opposite.
My dad and I ended up drinking a lot and he would be too drunk to know what I was doing so I put him to bed then went out partying taking all sorts of stuff like coke, ecstasy a lot of weed and a heavy amount of alcohol.
On our last night something quite traumatic happened to me while i was alone which I don't wanna go into the details of.
The next day I was going through what I thought was alcohol/drug withdrawal because I was heavily paranoid, felt distant from my body just did not feel like myself.
My friends had text me saying they were having abit of a party for me for coming home because they missed me and wanted me to go when I got home and I missed them a lot so I let them know I would be home quite late but I would definitely call round.
This is where my life took a turn for the worst. I got to my friends house and I felt like shit but it was good to see them so I started drinking and my friends had ecstasy so I dropped 2 and thought it would pick me back up and it did.
Everything was fine but one of my friends had a shit load of weed so we started smoking a lot and that's where it all went crashing down.
Everytime I would say something mid sentence I would forget what it was and just couldn't speak, I started thinking deeply about my life my friends, people's opinions of me, what my family think of me. It's like I was falling into a black hole of my own thoughts and my perception of reality was distorting and everything felt cartoonish and I felt like life was all one big reality tv show.
I thought I was going to die!!!! I remember being extremely paranoid and delusional and thinking my friends were out to get me and then I just blanked out.
I woke up the next morning still extremely paranoid, couldn't trust my friends at all.
Everything they said i was linking it to me and everything looked different. My whole perception of reality had changed in the worst possible way imaginable.
I put on my shoes and left my friends house and went home and told my mum and stepdad everything that had happened and they tried to comfort and assure me that I would be okay.
I couldn't believe them I thought I had lost my mind and it would never come back.
I had heard stories of people who really messed themselves up and never thought that would happen to me, it used to boggle me how people could end up with a drug induced psychosis and I was convinced it had now happened to me.
My mum put my tv on to try and distract my mind but anything I tried to watch I found some way to link it to me, that's how badly paranoid I was.
After the worst day of my life I felt considerably better but nowhere near 100% I spent that whole day in my room sleeping because I couldn't imagine doing anything else.
Eventually after a couple of days it felt like my mind was starting to come back. I felt like myself again and the paranoid delusions were gone.
My friends wanted to see me so i met them and went for a walk but for some reason the paranoia was still deep in my mind somewhere and for some reason my opinion of my friends had changed and I didn't feel like I could completely trust them.
They said they were so happy to see that I was fine again and I asked what happened because I blanked out. They said I was just rambling on making no sense and even talking to walls, which really scared the shit out of me to hear that.
As the days went on I got increasingly better and convinced myself that it was a one time thing because I had absolutely no idea wdf happened and this is where the problem got worse.
I convinced myself that I was fine and decided that I could start using again but the same thing happened again. I completely blanked out this time and all I could remember was the drug kicking in and that's it. The next day I struggled with the same paranoia and then after a few days I got better again.
This cycle went on for a few months where I would use at the weekend, lose my mind and then look for it during the week, find a small portion of my mind and then use again. It eventually got to the point where I lost touch with reality and the period of recovery I had relied on had disappeared.
I would take the drug and would still be extremely paranoid and anxious during the week. I completely withdrew myself. I isolated myself from my friends, my family tried to get me help, I was extremely depressed to the point where I wouldn't sleep for days and when I did wake up I would be angry that I didn't die in my sleep. i eventually jumped off a bridge. But I survived... Or I wouldn't be writing this now.
I ended up breaking both my wrists, fractured 2 vertebraes in my back and my pelvis in 2 places. I had to undergo a lot of surgery and ended up staying in hospital for 3 weeks to recover.
During this time I had a lot of psyche tests done and I was told that I was just dealing with drug/alcohol withdrawal and that I will be fine despite feeling the complete opposite.
During my early days in hospital I believed I was in a mental ward and I would be there for the rest of my life and because of these delusions that's why I didn't believe the doctors when they told me I would be fine.
I thought they were shepherding me from the truth so that I would try to relax but I couldn't relax I was restless. I was allowed to go home after the 3 weeks and I was fully committed to staying completely sober.
I have been completely sober for 9 months and I would say I have gotten slightly better but I have reached a point where I am not going any further. I feel like I am in purgatory.
I have completely cut myself off from the outside world again. I do everything in my power to avoid any sort of social situation and I avoid all contact with my friends.
Occasionally I will check Facebook just to see if there's any messages and there's usually messages from my friends saying they miss me and they want to see me but I can never bring myself to reply.
Whenever I do have to go somewhere and I'm in the car with my family and if I drive past any of my friends my mind almost brings itself back to the extremely terrifying experiences I went through and the irrational and paranoid/delusional thinking returns.
At this stage I have completely convinced myself that I am permanently insane and that through my own stupidity I am now dealing with a drug induced psychosis that I will never recover from.
I have typed every word of this straight from my heart without thinking too much so I might not have covered everything or explained everything that well but I would really appreciate your opinion on what you think is going on with me and any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read this, it really means a lot!!!!
Looking back at that time now I did suffer quite a lot from anxiety and perhaps subconsciously I used alcohol/drugs to self medicate but the way I looked at was I lived my life by the epicurean philosophy.
For those of you are unsure this philosophy states that "the greatest good one can do is seek momentary pleasures in order to attain a state of tranquility absence from fear and bodily pain." So basically no matter what happened through the week I knew I would have my release at the weekend.
I mainly used mdma/ecstasy but I would have took pretty much anything and I thought I had a pretty good tolerance and understanding of drugs and thought that because of how strongminded I was that I could take anything but I was completely wrong.
My drug use never got out of hand so I was a highly functional user but whenever I left school everything changed.
I was laying around the house doing nothing all week so when it came to the weekend I felt like I hadn't earned my right to enjoy a good weekend and indulge myself but I gave into temptation and continued using.
This went on for a month and it felt like all I had to look forward to was partying at the weekend.
My friends were always busy at school/work during the week so I started to fall deeper into depression and started questioning a lot of aspects of my life.
My dad had booked a holiday for me and him to go on so I thought it was a great chance to get myself away and relax but ended up doing the opposite.
My dad and I ended up drinking a lot and he would be too drunk to know what I was doing so I put him to bed then went out partying taking all sorts of stuff like coke, ecstasy a lot of weed and a heavy amount of alcohol.
On our last night something quite traumatic happened to me while i was alone which I don't wanna go into the details of.
The next day I was going through what I thought was alcohol/drug withdrawal because I was heavily paranoid, felt distant from my body just did not feel like myself.
My friends had text me saying they were having abit of a party for me for coming home because they missed me and wanted me to go when I got home and I missed them a lot so I let them know I would be home quite late but I would definitely call round.
This is where my life took a turn for the worst. I got to my friends house and I felt like shit but it was good to see them so I started drinking and my friends had ecstasy so I dropped 2 and thought it would pick me back up and it did.
Everything was fine but one of my friends had a shit load of weed so we started smoking a lot and that's where it all went crashing down.
Everytime I would say something mid sentence I would forget what it was and just couldn't speak, I started thinking deeply about my life my friends, people's opinions of me, what my family think of me. It's like I was falling into a black hole of my own thoughts and my perception of reality was distorting and everything felt cartoonish and I felt like life was all one big reality tv show.
I thought I was going to die!!!! I remember being extremely paranoid and delusional and thinking my friends were out to get me and then I just blanked out.
I woke up the next morning still extremely paranoid, couldn't trust my friends at all.
Everything they said i was linking it to me and everything looked different. My whole perception of reality had changed in the worst possible way imaginable.
I put on my shoes and left my friends house and went home and told my mum and stepdad everything that had happened and they tried to comfort and assure me that I would be okay.
I couldn't believe them I thought I had lost my mind and it would never come back.
I had heard stories of people who really messed themselves up and never thought that would happen to me, it used to boggle me how people could end up with a drug induced psychosis and I was convinced it had now happened to me.
My mum put my tv on to try and distract my mind but anything I tried to watch I found some way to link it to me, that's how badly paranoid I was.
After the worst day of my life I felt considerably better but nowhere near 100% I spent that whole day in my room sleeping because I couldn't imagine doing anything else.
Eventually after a couple of days it felt like my mind was starting to come back. I felt like myself again and the paranoid delusions were gone.
My friends wanted to see me so i met them and went for a walk but for some reason the paranoia was still deep in my mind somewhere and for some reason my opinion of my friends had changed and I didn't feel like I could completely trust them.
They said they were so happy to see that I was fine again and I asked what happened because I blanked out. They said I was just rambling on making no sense and even talking to walls, which really scared the shit out of me to hear that.
As the days went on I got increasingly better and convinced myself that it was a one time thing because I had absolutely no idea wdf happened and this is where the problem got worse.
I convinced myself that I was fine and decided that I could start using again but the same thing happened again. I completely blanked out this time and all I could remember was the drug kicking in and that's it. The next day I struggled with the same paranoia and then after a few days I got better again.
This cycle went on for a few months where I would use at the weekend, lose my mind and then look for it during the week, find a small portion of my mind and then use again. It eventually got to the point where I lost touch with reality and the period of recovery I had relied on had disappeared.
I would take the drug and would still be extremely paranoid and anxious during the week. I completely withdrew myself. I isolated myself from my friends, my family tried to get me help, I was extremely depressed to the point where I wouldn't sleep for days and when I did wake up I would be angry that I didn't die in my sleep. i eventually jumped off a bridge. But I survived... Or I wouldn't be writing this now.
I ended up breaking both my wrists, fractured 2 vertebraes in my back and my pelvis in 2 places. I had to undergo a lot of surgery and ended up staying in hospital for 3 weeks to recover.
During this time I had a lot of psyche tests done and I was told that I was just dealing with drug/alcohol withdrawal and that I will be fine despite feeling the complete opposite.
During my early days in hospital I believed I was in a mental ward and I would be there for the rest of my life and because of these delusions that's why I didn't believe the doctors when they told me I would be fine.
I thought they were shepherding me from the truth so that I would try to relax but I couldn't relax I was restless. I was allowed to go home after the 3 weeks and I was fully committed to staying completely sober.
I have been completely sober for 9 months and I would say I have gotten slightly better but I have reached a point where I am not going any further. I feel like I am in purgatory.
I have completely cut myself off from the outside world again. I do everything in my power to avoid any sort of social situation and I avoid all contact with my friends.
Occasionally I will check Facebook just to see if there's any messages and there's usually messages from my friends saying they miss me and they want to see me but I can never bring myself to reply.
Whenever I do have to go somewhere and I'm in the car with my family and if I drive past any of my friends my mind almost brings itself back to the extremely terrifying experiences I went through and the irrational and paranoid/delusional thinking returns.
At this stage I have completely convinced myself that I am permanently insane and that through my own stupidity I am now dealing with a drug induced psychosis that I will never recover from.
I have typed every word of this straight from my heart without thinking too much so I might not have covered everything or explained everything that well but I would really appreciate your opinion on what you think is going on with me and any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read this, it really means a lot!!!!
