cocaine psychosis... How to tell what's real and what's not?

[tablehead]

After having a pretty cazy psychotic episode from staying up for 4 days on meth, and experiencing full on hallucinations, I now can easily start having dellusions after doing a fairly large shot of cocaine. Usually will start hearing people talk after just doing 2 shots in a binge.

I have like 6 roomates and sometimesw I think I can hear some of them talking about me, but I cant be sure if its real or not, so how can I differentiate? One thing I noticed is that If I know its an autditory hallucination I can control what the "people are saying and kinda have fun with it, so thats one way to tell...

 

[amapola]

Hey tablehead,

This isn't a good fit with Other Drugs so I'm going to send it over to PD. I doubt they handle coke that often but I think it's appropriate.

OD >> PD

 

[rickolasnice]

If you're high, assume it's a hallucination.. cos it probably is..

Also, if you can't hear the conversation properly.. ie.. you hear: "mumble mumble *your name* mumble mumble mumble wanker".. it's also probably all in your head.

 

[Darkmatter77]

You hear only fractions of what they say, but your brain puts the pieces together using your creative imagination. It's basically a normal function of the brain, we usually only perceive parts of reality and the rest is put together by the brain. But in your case it's a little too creative, it seems. Maybe you should stop doing drugs for a while, unless you don't mind that it gets worse over time. Generally you shouldn't ask whether it's real or not. If you have to ask, then tell yourself "No. It's not real."

 

[Solipsis]

I agree that in moderation this is normal, but if it prompts you to make a thread and call it psychosis then it most probably is not 'normal' anymore i.e. within healthy boundaries, you should definitely stop using it. The good feeling or rush that you might wanna do more for is not going to make this go away at all. So don't think you can overcome it by something other than stopping for a while.
Then look after yourself and eat and sleep well. Depending on what your rate of use is you may be proud of yourself if you treat yourself well for like 4 days - I've been there with other drugs thinking wow thats good: 4 whole days! - not saying you are though.

But if you are experiencing these symptoms then you have either used far too much of the stuff, have mental instability or both.
So: stop and take care of yourself for a much longer time than a couple of days - really return to baseline and deal with being there. TRUST that things will gradually get better. How much better would depend on how much you have used exactly and how unstable you are, if after a while you do not feel like you are doing good seek help - either with detoxing from the coke and meth, with psychiatric assistance or something in between or that combines these.

To be clear:
It seems to me that you are suffering from stimulant psychosis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulant_psychosis

Cocaine is known to induce psychosis as well, and more than half of cocaine abusers report having experienced at least some psychotic symptoms at some point. Typical symptoms of sufferers include paranoid delusions that they are being followed, and that their drug use is being watched, often with hallucinations to match. Delusional parasitosis with formication ("cocaine bugs") is also fairly common. Cocaine-induced psychosis shows sensitization in that psychosis tends to become more severe and occur more rapidly with repeated use of the drug

With excessive or prolonged use, the drug can cause itching, tachycardia, hallucinations, and paranoid delusions. Overdoses cause tachyarrhythmias and a marked elevation of blood pressure. These can be life-threatening, especially if the user has existing cardiac problems.

I think the poster above is taking this too lightly, it doesn't seem like you are able to do a very good job of differentiating and those symptoms may be called paranoid delusions indeed.
A major rule of thumb is that something is not a disorder if you or your surroudings do not have a problem with it. If you are bothered by what you describe and cannot control it then it is a problem. Not a disorder in this case, but a mental issue.

Now you know what to do. This should be a warning sign to you not to go farther. Consider this a breaking point or rather: a turning point. It shows you that it is time to stop and recover. Then do some serious thinking if you want to go back here again.

I may be overdramatizing this a little, these terms sound very hardcore and your symptoms may arise with moderately strong use already. But still, it has to be obvious that it will become a problem if you continue in this direction. And the way you describe your habit does not indicate that this is anything just to shrug over.

Hopefully this is helpful to you.