I have a history of mental problems where genetics might have contributed (mother severely suffering, one half-brother father wise committed suicide at an early age due to unknown reasons - explosive mixture) as well as other factors. So I ran into our far-from-optimal psychiatric care system while knowing nothing at all about pharmacology or drugs, didn't even drink harder alcohol back then ... they tried various prescription meds on me which had profound effects but were mostly rather bad than good. Also as it seems to be unavoidable in such therapy settings, I've heard people talk about drugs and the effects they have. Being naturally curious and interested in how things work etc. I quickly became interested in these topics. It finally got me when I've tried DXM and experienced such an indescribable relief from that life-long depression (besides the usual trippy effects)
First of all, thank you very much for your detailed and intelligent response. I must say, I have been very surprised by the similarities in our personal stories. One key difference is that my interest in drugs predates the development of my own mental health problems - ever since I was twelve and got a grasp on what drugs actually were, even the very idea of them appealed to my natural curiosity and thrill-seeking tendencies, and this desire for experimentation thankfully came years before I had the resources or the like-minded social circle to begin my forary into experimentation with my consciousness. However, like you, I too developed mental health problems, although later than you - the mild symptoms began when I was 18 but my first full-blown episode didn't occur until I was 19 where I was diagnosed as Bipolar when I was was committed to a psychiatrist institution. If you don't mind me asking, although you weren't specific I'm guessing that you suffer from dysthymia or perhaps unipolar clinical depression? I too also have had primarily negative experiences with prescribed psychiatric medication - some just an unhelpful annoyance at best, and some completely awful;. Like you, the interest in psychiatrist medication that any sensible person would cultivate upon development of a mental illness was compounded by my interest in all psychoactive substances, until it bloomed from an interest into a total passion.
But as these topics aren't that liked to see in the general public, good information is rare and I had nobody to talk about with (this is still the case these days), well.. I made some of the usual mistakes. But with the internet all that exciting information is available to everyone interested in it - okay, if we forget about all this abstract-only paywall shit for now - I've managed to educate myself to some degree over the time.. which tends to make doctor consultations somewhat exhausting, as they usually don't like to get confronted with semi-educated self-taught hobby neuroscientists that have complicated disorders too.
On the other side, it got me around some really nasty things that could well have turned me really down (e.g. my strange adverse reactions to strong dopamine antagonists, aka neuroleptics), if I had just blindly trusted the professionals as usual.. and it's a truly interesting and intriguing matter after all.
Hahaha, this certainly hits home. No, in my experience they certainly are not too fond of patients who don't shut up and take what they're told to take. I don't know if I've just had bad luck with psychiatrists or if it's something about the profession - perhaps being made to deal with un co-operative patients who aren't in their right mind means that they naturally develop a lesser regard for a patient's own sense of agency and dealing with paranoia/lack of insight fosters their "I always know best" mentality.
I have had several debates with psychiatrists, one of the most recent ones that sticks in my mind is having a psychiatrist insist to me that neuroleptics cannot cause a dysphoric reaction, and the intensely negative, hopeless and depressed feeling of malaise that hits me every time I took the fucking poisonous shit was all in my mind. All it takes is a quick google search or even reading the leaflet that comes with the damn tablets to find out that what he was saying was patently untrue, but I digress. I think I am particularly sensitive to anti-psychotics as well, and I lost faith in the psychiatric system when I was locked in an institution for an entire Summer and despite the manic episode burning itself out a month or so in, being kept in there for a further two and a half months solely on the basis of my refusal to take neuroleptics ON TOP OF a mood stabilize with the justification being that my refusal to take them showed a "lack of insight", culminating in me being forcibly given a long-lasting depot injection against my will and all of this despite me taking the Depakote as prescribed and the fact that my manic episode had long ended. There are very few neuroleptics I haven't tried, and with varying degrees of severity they all do the same thing to me - leave me feeling permanently tired, sleeping 12-14 hours a day, feeling totally apathetic/numb at best and depressed & dysphoric at worst, draining all the personality and life out of me, anhedonia ranging from incredibly frustrating to so total as to make me feel suicidal with the bleak misery it inflicts on me and a slowing of my mind to the point of always feeling like a zombie. Horrible shit. When I was forced on haloperidol during my time in there, I even had severe and painful dystonia, where my neck and shoulder muscles would keep locking, and it mounted in severity to the point of total agony whilst I begged the nurses to help me when it became too painful to bear, and they ignored me for forty minutes, thinking that I was lying/exaggerating, so indeed, I share your distrust of the psychiatric system and your dislike of neuroleptics. Out of curiosity, what is it antipsychotics did to you that you found intolerable?
Learning the basics of chemistry and biology in evening high school (how do you call that? where adults can catch up their graduation) has filled many gaps but I finally need to read though more advanced textbooks.. and I would love to be allowed to university, be it for a related subject or something new.. but I'll have to do 2 more years of high school before that, and then I'll have a hard time to get a place at all and pharmacology / chemistry / etc will be out of question due to criminal record (fuckin' legislation).
Ahh, I see. Indeed, the consensus does appear to be that I need a good foundation in organic chemistry as my best bet to become more knowledgeable about psychopharmacology. By the by, I do plan on going to university myself, and am taking an Access to HE course next year as a kind of fast track towards that, but in the meanwhile want to do the same as you've done and teach myself as much as possible. The science in being able to understand the nuances of drug design and being able to have a reasonable idea of how a drug will work from looking at its structure is something that fascinates me, and it appears this somewhat specialist knowledge lies at the intersection of several subjects, but I feel like the answers in this thread have simplified the path ahead of me somewhat now. By the way, if you live in Europe or the UK, is there no chance your conviction will ever become spent? Here in the UK at least, most minor offences become spent and no longer have to be declared unless the institute you're applying for does a special, enhanced check, of which only a few institutions are authorized to do so, which are mainly just schools and groups working with vulnerable adults etc. A minor conviction should not prevent you from getting work in the field of chemistry or pharmacology, especially if it's something like simple possession. If you've been caught drug dealing or have a violent offence that will always be on your record, it might be a different story.
I truly think and believe that responsible and knowledge-/science-based drug use, therapeutical as well as recreational, is a very real possibility and it's much more about the circumstances, social environment, learning, educating, reflecting ... than 'the substances being dangerous' or 'too powerful' or 'bad', whatever prohibition shit.
Having said that, I've never been into any 'drug scene' or anything, I've always been the more or less lone researcher ... and while I made numerous mistakes too, I truly can't believe how incredibly reckless so many people / users act, some having varying degrees of knowledge but very few seem to know about the actual science or are even interested in it.. also I really hate being 'wasted' or 'fucked up'- what does a black out give me, really? This is something I don't understand. Altered states can be exciting and intriguing of course, but there are such and such ones ...
I totally agree with you here. It would take an enormous cultural change, and though it sometimes feels like one step forward and two steps back, I think there are positive signs, the legalization of cannabis that is sweeping through the USA being a HUGE step in the right direction. I think that all drugs should be legal on principle, and have never heard a compelling argument to the contrary. And yeah, many people are irresponsible with drugs, and though I think for as long as there are drugs there will be idiots misusing drugs, I think the statistics of deaths and injuries could drop vastly if in the context of legalization there was widespread education to try and dispel all the misinformation that surrounds drug use. And indeed, the amount of people who love to take drugs and will consume any pill, powder, drink or smoke offered to them but have zero interest in what it's actually doing in their body when it's inside. However, I think as the information becomes more easily accessible, there will hopefully be more and more educated and intelligent drug users. I also suspect that there may be more educated, intelligent drug users interested in the science behind drugs than there may appear - they may not mix with other users as much and may be forced to keep it somewhat hidden, and would have more to lose if the information did come out, whereas compared to the idiots who mix with other idiots and end up in the headlines for killing or injuring themselves doing idiotic things, the intelligent ones go through life unnoticed if that's what they choose. Also, as far as I can tell the quest to get as wasted/fucked up as possible & the pursuit of total oblivion is usually people looking for a complete escape from their lives, usually rooted in deep seated depression or discontent.
Didn't realize till I looked back this is an awfully long post! I'd love to hear your answers to the questions I posed but I realize it is very very long, so I'll understand if I don't get a response or not a timely one, but I hope I get one, you seem very intriguing and I feel like we hold similar viewpoints on quite a few topics. Thanks again for your reply
