Trips causing mental issues

[Tryptamite]

I was always under the impression that most of the horror stories of people freaking out on psychedelics were fabricated as a means of anti-drug propaganda.

However, lately I've seen a minor freakout and a major freakout on psyches (the guy is still un-contactable as far as I know), and I've heard of another trip go very wrong recently.

So this has got me thinking about trips inducing mental illnesses. I'm not saying that any of the people above have developed any as a result of their bad trips, but I'm wondering how exactly trips cause these issues?

Is it only a bad trip that will cause schizophrenia or the like? Or an overwhelming trip? Or?

I know that it is generally people who have a history of problems in their family who are at risk, but does anyone know of any perfectly healthy people from families with no mental issues lose it from psyches?

I always like to have benzos on hand when I trip. That way if I start to get very anxious or the trip starts to go a bit pear shaped I can stop it or at least minimise the damage. Often knowing that I have the pills there to bring myself down is enough. If mental issues are caused by bad trips could a benzo save a person from developing problems?

 

[Solipsis]

I think there is no direct cause of mental illness in the sense you might suspect, but trips can bring latent disorders to the surface. Schizophrenia for one thing is something that can't come out of the blue, but I think mild trips can push someone who kind of latently has it, though it is almost evident, over the edge... and the most extreme kind of trip could push someone who only has a little genetic predisposition over the edge, so it all depends and it's a combination of factors.
Someone who is mentally perfectly healthy or close to it since it probably doesn't actually exist... would have more to fear from something like PTSD or HPPD.

It's a weird subject because on one hand I don't believe that psychedelics can be the one and only reason to produce an illness like schizophrenia, but on the other hand perfect health doesn't exist meaning that if the instigator is strong enough and acts at the exact time of your weakness even the strongest minds can crumble until the individual falls into the abyss.

In my experience the strongest of minds are actually often also very flexible and in an acute way they can get very very lost, but intelligence can help process experiences faster and more adequate, thereby recovering much better. But intelligence, if going berserk all over the place can make the mind unhinge faster as well, it's a two edged sword.
It's not like intelligent minds have an initial advantage, but the speed of all mental processes is just higher and therefore more efficient per unit of time. I think they are more flexible and heal faster, but also have a greater chance of going crazy, since there is a fine line between crazy and genius. At the same time there is a limiting factor because on the way to craziness and genius there will also be a good self-reflection and correction of course.
I would imagine it like a land of limited surface area with vehicles racing over it. Intelligent minds can go faster and steer better, but there is a risk of going so fast as to go over the edge. But it can also race back from the edge and steer well to compensate. Other minds, if boosted, may not steer so well even though they go slower.
I'm saying this because I think it can make a difference in the process this discussion is about.

 

[Tryptamite]

Its something that I think a lot of people who eat psyches (myself included) tend to forget. The mind isn't invincible. The mind isn't invincible. I can almost see in a way how a bad trip could cause these kind of problems.

 

[BTrips]

it may not be because of the trip... but the drug itself.
i took too many ug's the first time i took Lsd and for the following couple of weeks me and my friend showed minor signs of disorganized schizophrenia
but during that night both me and my friend had a horrible trip so... yea.

 

[AfterGlow]

I don't know if there is science to back this up... but I always thought that it's more of a PTSD kind of thing than it is any kind of physiological brain damage.

A trip can be so traumatic, frightening and profound that the memory of the experience can haunt you forever, much like war vets who have experienced horror in combat.

I know a woman whose personality changed dramatically after her daughter was killed by a drunk driver. She changed from being a happy outgoing woman to a quiet and timid shell of her former self. Bad experiences can have devastating effects on the mind.

A psychedelic experience can alter your fundamental beliefs in reality in such a way that you become unable to resume thinking and functioning in the same way as you did before the trip. It's not something to be taken lightly. You need to be mentally prepared and expect to integrate what you experience back into your mind and your life.

 

[dread]

I don't believe a trip itself or the drug itself can cause mental illness. The mental problems must be there beforehand. The trip amplifies/uncovers them, and then if you can't deal with the issues while tripping they will develop into more serious problems or mental illnesses.

 

[Solipsis]

I had a particularly horrible trip in the woods with a true mosquito plague and nowhere to hide... once it got dark and cool most of them went away but I ended up eating a spoiled shrimp meal salad and became very ill and weak. I barely had the energy to leave the hut the next day.
After that I'm slightly more neurotic in some respects.
Apart from that I built up anxiety problems that are OK at the moment but they are mostly from chronic drug use in general, probably the least detrimental would be the psychedelics.

I have become overobsessed with philosophy and mysticism in good part because of doing acid too often, I have an innate tendency to overintellectualize and overanalyse though I do a decent job and develop in it. For years it could have easily be called an existential crisis, and I wouldn't say it ended too long ago.
All those questions upon questions... if I wouldn't have the capacity to think about them and even get some answered I might ve been a desintegrated loon right now. Or would I have come up with so little questions that there wouldn't be any crisis at all?

I consider it all a gift and a curse at the same time, life is intense and hard if you keep opening your mind like that, but I can really say I have been feeling so alive and there is soo much, more than enough for me honestly!
The world is not enough? You must be the most depressed person on earth then...

Oh and AfterGlow: if your post had been about flashbacks then I would have very much agreed. But physiological damage is I think not really the issue with many mental illnesses. Dysfunction is not necessarily the same.

 

[Tryptamite]

I don't know if there is science to back this up... but I always thought that it's more of a PTSD kind of thing than it is any kind of physiological brain damage.

A trip can be so traumatic, frightening and profound that the memory of the experience can haunt you forever, much like war vets who have experienced horror in combat.

I know a woman whose personality changed dramatically after her daughter was killed by a drunk driver. She changed from being a happy outgoing woman to a quiet and timid shell of her former self. Bad experiences can have devastating effects on the mind.

A psychedelic experience can alter your fundamental beliefs in reality in such a way that you become unable to resume thinking and functioning in the same way as you did before the trip. It's not something to be taken lightly. You need to be mentally prepared and expect to integrate what you experience back into your mind and your life.

This is almost exactly how I imagine it happening, you've expressed better than I could have at the moment.

I had an awful trip on HBW seeds and lots of hash when I was young. I convinced myself that I had some sort of disease and I was going to die. i believe that if my mind had've been weaker I would have lost it.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Trips don't cause mental issues - you have mental issues that are "uncovered" in a sense, through tripping or other intense experiences in life that don't necessarily involve drugs.

 

[AfterGlow]

I don't believe that you can categorically state with confidence that any sane person who experiences insanity under the influence of a powerful hallucinogen will always come out of it without any mental difficulties. You make it sound like only mental defectives can get fucked up from tripping.

There is no magic "line" that separates those who will suffer negative consequences and those that will not. Every man has his breaking point. Mental stability is more like a shade of gray than it is black and white.

Psychedelic experiences can be unpredictable, even for the most experienced of us. Nobody is immune to mental issues caused by psychedelic drugs. That being said... I still find the mind expanding benefits of psychedelics worth the risk and I exercise caution about dosing, set and setting to minimize risk.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Is it only a bad trip that will cause schizophrenia or the like? Or an overwhelming trip? Or?

I know that it is generally people who have a history of problems in their family who are at risk, but does anyone know of any perfectly healthy people from families with no mental issues lose it from psyches?

Schizophrenia, along with sociopathy and alcoholism are the three most genetic based mental diseases. So no, I don't know of anyone who came from a mentally healthy family and ended up "losing it" on psychedelics.

People have what are called underlying personality traits that may resemble a mental illness, but may not be triggered until an intense, undesirable experience happens to them (for example but not limited to - a bad trip). In these cases, it is safe to say that the individual was already battling mental disease. However, having an overwhelming experience in life can easily trigger a full fledged episode or condition. This is due to the idea that people that go through trauma (ie people with PTSD) are sometimes changed mentally as a result, and life becomes rather hard to live in comparison to beforehand. Often it is not an instantaneous offset - PTSD often occurs many months after trauma has happened.

I always like to have benzos on hand when I trip. That way if I start to get very anxious or the trip starts to go a bit pear shaped I can stop it or at least minimise the damage. Often knowing that I have the pills there to bring myself down is enough. If mental issues are caused by bad trips could a benzo save a person from developing problems?

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what the mental problem they are battling/are about to have (if the idea is the person's mental problems were preexisting and were triggered).

I don't believe that you can categorically state with confidence that any sane person who experiences insanity under the influence of a powerful hallucinogen will always come out of it without any mental difficulties. You make it sound like only mental defectives can get fucked up from tripping.

There is no magic "line" that separates those who will suffer negative consequences and those that will not. Every man has his breaking point. Mental stability is more like a shade of gray than it is black and white.

Psychedelic experiences can be unpredictable, even for the most experienced of us. Nobody is immune to mental issues caused by psychedelic drugs. That being said... I still find the mind expanding benefits of psychedelics worth the risk and I exercise caution about dosing, set and setting to minimize risk.

"Sane" and "insane" are strictly legal terms.

As you said, mental stability is like shades of gray; not black or white.

There are people that have no influence for mental issues, no family history, etc, and they ended up developing them.

Mental disorders are largely an environmental phenomenon, besides for the few that are strongly linked to genes (schizophrenia, sociopathy, alcoholism).

I don't think people are "immune" from mental disorders, however not everyone who uses psychedelics will go on to develop them. I know I don't have any mental issues that have arisen from psychedelic usage. If I wasn't mentally stable, I wouldn't be tripping though. A lot of people who aren't mentally stable go on to try tripping, which is to a greater or lesser extent, a mistake.

 

[AfterGlow]

Captain.... I think we are pretty much in agreement. I just didn't want the OP going away thinking that because he's never had to visit a psychiatrist or had a nervous breakdown that it means it's "safe" to trip and not have to worry about potential mental consequences.

Most people endure certain amounts of stress and anxiety that would not be categorized as mental illness. They've learned over time how to handle them and function normally. Many people successfully suppress emotions and thoughts that they would otherwise find disturbing if they obsessed over them. But when magnified to extremes by powerful psychedelics, those fears and concerns that you are accustomed to dealing with every day can become overwhelming and cause mental distress that can last for quite a while after the physiological effects of the drug have worn off. I'm not saying that happens to everyone, but anybody considering using psychedelics should be prepared for that possibility.

 

[jackie jones]

Hallucinogens can cause temporary Substance Induced Mood Disorders, or trigger pre-existing disorders, but cannot cause permanent disorders as a direct result.

 

[Tryptamite]

Captain.... I think we are pretty much in agreement. I just didn't want the OP going away thinking that because he's never had to visit a psychiatrist or had a nervous breakdown that it means it's "safe" to trip and not have to worry about potential mental consequences.

I didn't start this thread just to feel more secure about my own psychedelic use, more to discuss the situation and get a better idea of how psychedelic drugs could cause mental issues.

I should have worded the original post a lot better but I was stoned and I find my grammar skills tend to go out the window when I'm like that.

 

[B9]

I don't believe a trip itself or the drug itself can cause mental illness. The mental problems must be there beforehand. The trip amplifies/uncovers them, and then if you can't deal with the issues while tripping they will develop into more serious problems or mental illnesses.

So effectively ot'd be similar logic to suggest that if one smokes & contracts lung cancer it's because of a genetic predisposition & not because one smoked ??????


Tryptamite IME you can never be certain you won't be completely overwhelmed. Being completely overwhelmed can be terrifying as well as liberating, I'd suggest most likely thing to affect that would be set & setting.

 

[BTrips]

I don't believe a trip itself or the drug itself can cause mental illness. The mental problems must be there beforehand. The trip amplifies/uncovers them, and then if you can't deal with the issues while tripping they will develop into more serious problems or mental illnesses.

well if you take too many ug's of acid the first time
it messes up your brain

 

[Shambles]

Or maybe fixes it

Too much is a deeply subjective thing.

I favour the set and setting idea primarily, although I don't doubt genetics and a quadrillion other things also play a role.

 

[swilow]

Its a tough one; I had a drug taking-hippy-circus-person friend with schizophrenia; very bad- he ended up killing himself - who's brother took tonnes more drugs and of all "species" who is perfectly fine and mentally healthy. However, his mother, greatly affected by her son's suicide ten herself developed a form of paranoid delusion (I am unsure how she is going as haven't seen her for a long wile). Both the illnesses are clearly linked, yet we have both drug-use (consistent, but not obscene) wit scizophrenia, and then grief perhaps unlocking a similar condition. It does appear that trauma of sorts is the case here and coupled with genetics.

The psychotic experiences I've had have been somewat enlightening; I've learned a lot about how I react in different areas of space/time and have developed a much healthier wariness towards drugs.

Freakouts are shocking both to experience but worse to watch; but they are, sadly, an inherent but inconsistent aspect of taking psychedelics, and mind-altering drugs in gereal. The fact that we often talk about the positive aspects of psyches, we must admit there is a nfew negatives that are quite real, and must always be considered- spiritual happiness isn't found in overwhelming anxiety or paranoia.

Other then that, I think tripping withtin whatever amount you find appropriate is fine and very healthy in the realms of spirit and mind. Still, you can't expect everything just from the drugs- it takes a lot of external work too...

 

[bonsaikitten]

I think there is no direct cause of mental illness in the sense you might suspect, but trips can bring latent disorders to the surface. Schizophrenia for one thing is something that can't come out of the blue, but I think mild trips can push someone who kind of latently has it, though it is almost evident, over the edge... and the most extreme kind of trip could push someone who only has a little genetic predisposition over the edge, so it all depends and it's a combination of factors.
Someone who is mentally perfectly healthy or close to it since it probably doesn't actually exist... would have more to fear from something like PTSD or HPPD.

It's a weird subject because on one hand I don't believe that psychedelics can be the one and only reason to produce an illness like schizophrenia, but on the other hand perfect health doesn't exist meaning that if the instigator is strong enough and acts at the exact time of your weakness even the strongest minds can crumble until the individual falls into the abyss.

In my experience the strongest of minds are actually often also very flexible and in an acute way they can get very very lost, but intelligence can help process experiences faster and more adequate, thereby recovering much better. But intelligence, if going berserk all over the place can make the mind unhinge faster as well, it's a two edged sword.
It's not like intelligent minds have an initial advantage, but the speed of all mental processes is just higher and therefore more efficient per unit of time. I think they are more flexible and heal faster, but also have a greater chance of going crazy, since there is a fine line between crazy and genius. At the same time there is a limiting factor because on the way to craziness and genius there will also be a good self-reflection and correction of course.
I would imagine it like a land of limited surface area with vehicles racing over it. Intelligent minds can go faster and steer better, but there is a risk of going so fast as to go over the edge. But it can also race back from the edge and steer well to compensate. Other minds, if boosted, may not steer so well even though they go slower.
I'm saying this because I think it can make a difference in the process this discussion is about.

What, by your definition, qualifies as 'mentally strong'? What part does intelligence play in comprehending, interpreting and digesting a trip - particularly if the aforementioned trip is emotionally difficult or psychologically challenging?

Sorry, but I find intelligence to be such a broad and non-specific term here. Are you referring to mathematical intelligence, or can you be a History professor and still meet the criteria of intelligent? Are we talking IQ? Maybe I am not completely understanding what you are trying to say here; I agree, however, about it, perhaps, being easier for those who think more deeply/philosophically to feel overwhelmed (because they have more to process) during a trip. Although I was under the impression that psychedelics produced similar effects in most people, and that you didn't need to be an Einstein to have profound revelations similar in nature to person A. Though I am probably wrong about that.

However, I think that the mindset you have prior to tripping and your intent would be obvious contributing factors to the trip itself and the way you felt and processed the experiences you gained both during and afterwards. I assume that it would be harder to digest if you were unaware of the drug's potential effects or in a bad setting? I thought this would matter more than one's intelligence (though I wager that the more 'intelligent' you are, the more likely you are to use psychedelics in a quiet setting for the purpose of introspective thought, as opposed to 'seeing mickey mouse'... but I feel that this is less to do with intelligence and more to do with maturity).