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Lasting psychological problems from psychedelics

rickolasnice

rickolasnice

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Apr 19, 2007
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Anyone have any long lasting psychological problems from psychedelic use?

I've heard of things like depression and anxiety disorders popping up after a bad trip (or too frequent trips).. But obviously there are other, less easy to categorise issues that may present themself to the unfortuante tripper..

So, do (/did) you have any? Does (/did) your mate have any?
 
Before I got into psychedelics , well actually right at the beginning, I started being a very social person, loved to do things on a whim without much planning etc....

Now several years later I feel like I have much more day to day anxiety than I did when I first started tripping. But back then I was like 14 and 15 years old, now im 25 and the anxiety I think is more from growing up than it is from tripping, besides, its mostly healthy anxiety , you know, the kind that makes you feel anxious before doing something you shouldnt do ... lol
 
I was messed up enough before starting to take psychedelics that it is hard, nay, impossible to tell whether or not they've had any sort of significant impact one way or another.

I would hedge a bet that there are a lot of people out there in a similar situation.
 
eh, prior to psychedelics i'd say that i had average internal thoughts. after i started doing them heavily(ie a trip every week/every other week) i was a bit spacey. about a year and a half later these days im tripping maybe once every month at most. I'm a bit more anxious but i doubt its from that. It's more likely from life problems and such. I'd say im fairly short term as far as experience goes and I've been wondering the same thing. Either way, I honestly think the knowledge I've gained through psychedelics has SO FAR outweighed any(if there even are any) negatives.
 
Most negative consequences of psychedelic use are relatively acute, i.e. panic attack, anxiety, paranoia, etc. These tend to be fairly short lived during the trip, and rarely last for the full duration. Occasionally people will have some of these effects last after the trip, but this is quite rare. And there is HPPD (Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder), but it is rarer still. It is defined as lasting visual disturbances, but is often comorbid with things like de-personalization & de-realization and, in that respect is somewhat similar to PTSD.

I personally haven't really experienced any lasting negative effects from psychedelics, aside from spending too much time reading about them ;), and overall negative effects seem to be somewhat rare.
 
any major dude said:
Most negative consequences of psychedelic use are relatively acute, i.e. panic attack, anxiety, paranoia, etc. These tend to be fairly short lived during the trip, and rarely last for the full duration. Occasionally people will have some of these effects last after the trip, but this is quite rare. And there is HPPD (Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder), but it is rarer still. It is defined as lasting visual disturbances, but is often comorbid with things like de-personalization & de-realization and, in that respect is somewhat similar to PTSD.

I personally haven't really experienced any lasting negative effects from psychedelics, aside from spending too much time reading about them ;), and overall negative effects seem to be somewhat rare.
Click to expand...
QFT. The only thing psychedelics did was deepen my savage hunger for more knowledge and understanding.
 
any major dude said:
And there is HPPD (Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder), but it is rarer still. It is defined as lasting visual disturbances, but is often comorbid with things like de-personalization & de-realization and, in that respect is somewhat similar to PTSD.
Click to expand...

Interesting, I didn't think it was that rare. There are quite a few people on BL including myself who have it, to varying degrees. Plenty of threads on it around. I don't find it to be like PTSD at all but it does vary from person to person. Also once I learnt to accept it I find it has no impact on my life so I wouldn't consider at lasting problem (though it is for many).

I haven't noticed any other lasting problems in myself :)
 
Ever since my heavy MDMA bingeing and more specifically my BAD trip on mushrooms (5g of goldcaps, 2nd time ever doing mushrooms, 3rd time ever doing a psych) I have had horrendously bad anxiety. To the point where I actually have to take prescription meds because it is THAT bad.
 
No problems have arisen as a result of my use of psychedelics, as far as i know. It has generally made me a happier person and made me much more interested in science and academia in general.

I have used psychedelics quite frequently for about a year (tripping once a week, sometimes less often). I used them somewhat more sparingly for a long time before that.
 
I do think that my abuse of psychedelics when i was younger definitely contributed to many psychological problems later in life,but saying that,i did so many different drugs that it`s hard to say which one was the most damaging.

Heavy cannabis use over a period of 11yrs i believe did the most damage,i became insular,my view of the world became distorted as i became more reclusive,paranoia and anxiety dogged me from day to day in ordinary situations...Cannabis IME was the worst.

The predominantly LSD and mushroom use only caused mental problems through bad trips due to wrong set and setting,on the whole most trips were fantastic.

I abused many drugs that effect ones psychology at a time in life when i was just starting to develop,the teenage years are so important,hormones are changing,our view of the world is changing as we evolve from boy to man and i think throwing a load of mind altering drugs into the mix is going to hinder those natural changes in perception and evolvement,inevitabley throwing one of balance,the equlibrium is disturbed.

Are we ever the same after? No! I am just speaking from personal experience and cannot speak for everyone.

Due to becoming confused and scrambled through my abuse i found my oasis in the storm at the age of 19,that oasis was Heroin,the day i chased my first line was like being born again,all the shit,the paranoia,the anxiety,the fear of life vanished within seconds,i hadn`t realised how fucked i had become until that first lung full of smack...As the name Heroin suggests,it creates a HERO withIN.

I think i`ve been self medicating for years,well i know i have,my doctor often found it strange that i refused antidepressants but would self medicate with a whole host of other drugs.

So do i think Psychedelics cause lasting psychological problems? Yes to a point,in my experience.
 
Yeah. I started smoking weed when i was 13. Once I smoke a TON of weed and I got this weird pressure in my head. A somatic symptom I believed. It was terribly annoying and when i smoked i could move where i felt the pressure with my mind. Once I came down, it was still there. My doctors say it is related to anxiety. Alcohol and benzos completely got rid of it, so i guess it is true. I do have a lot of mental problems in my family. I myself have depression, bipolar disorder, mild ocd, and anxiety. I eventually grew to dislike weed as I would generally have bad experiences from it. I got into opiates, which so far seem harmful to me since I haven't gotten addicted. Doesn't seem to effect cognitive function at all.
 
The first drug I got high on was focalin, which was prescribed to me. I snorted the beads, since then I have abused a lot of medications. I haven't used any other psychedelic drugs though. Just cannabis.
 
A review of studies examining "acid heads" (spacey, flaky, unmotivated) by the authors of "Psychedelics Reconsidered" (Harvard psychiatrists) concluded that the traits the acid heads exhibit were innate and amplified far more by the permissive subculture they were a part of than LSD.

Certainly there's little to no direct organic damage from the "classics". The psychological fallout from a really bad trip is pretty much what you'd expect from a traumatic non-drug experience (instead of thinking "Charlie" is going to ambush you you re-experience the source of fear as it appeared in your trip i.e., its the memory and not physiological damage that's the source of the problems). Also, the spectrum of cognitive changes that occurs in schizophrenia tend to onset in people's late teens and twenties. Since most people use psychedelics during this time they assume the drugs rather then their genetics are centrally responsible. These same people are more likely to have traumatic experiences from psychedelics -- and are more likely to experience the PTSD symptoms that exacerbate the symptoms of schizophrenia or most any mental problem.

I've used psychedelics on average a little more than once a month for 14 years and I've never felt happier. I've had happy long term relationships, never had financial issues, graduated college and am currently in grad school. I have to imagine if they were doing me damage there would be evidence of accumulating impairment in at least one of these areas of life.

Opiates and monoamine releasers, however, do make me a bit apathetic and unmotivated for a few days after use. Certainly monoamine releasers can do serious and lasting damage. See the thread in ADD about the guy with autonomic nervous system dysfunction and serious temperature regulation issues after an MDMA, MDA, and meth overdose (user's name is Unlucky) .
 
Cannabis seems to have done irreparable damage to my memory, as I still have memory problems long after stopping my heavy use. I have only had positive effects from mushrooms and LSD, even after scary mushroom trips (never had a scary acid trip). I can't tell if ecstasy (only pills, not pure MDMA) has affected my emotional well being permanently, because I can't remember how emotionally stable I was before.

The worst lasting effects I've had are from DXM. If I can remember correctly I think I've had a panic attack every time I've done it (don't ask me why I've kept trying), not that I've had a terrible time each time using. After every use the dissociative effects have lasted into the next 2 days, tapering off. And if I smoked weed during those days I would start tripping again. But I've had several panic attacks since using it for the first time (about 2 1/2 years ago) and I'd never had them ever before.

My last time using was the worst, it was about 1 month ago. I was really hammered and thought it would be a good idea to eat acid and DXM. I was so fucked I had no idea was going on. One of my friends who had also done this terrible combo was drifting in and out of consciousness for a good 6 hours and I was afraid he would have brain damage and it was my fault because i suggested the idea. Anyways, he and my two other friends who had done it were pretty much fine after half a day the next day. I was fucked up the whole next day: I couldn't walk straight, sleep, or eat, and my eyes were super sensitive to light. These effects tapered off for the next two days. I didn't smoke for the next week in fear of tripping again.

After that I had my wisdom teeth taken out so whenever I smoked I was relaxed because of the hydrocodone, but since being off the vicodin I've only smoked three times, and each time has been super trippy. I've taken breaks from smoking before, so I know how it feels to smoke again with a super low tolerance, but this is completely different. I have patterns overlaying my vision (when high at night) and every emotion experienced is super intense. I don't know what this means, maybe I'm over reacting and just getting really high and not being used to it. Sorry for the long post.
 
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Phoenix, we have a very similar chain of events in our lives. I think many, many people in PD do actually.

Grains of salt are a valuable material when dealing with psychedelics :)
 
LSD has benefited me in every way possible, i am however quite a space cadet. i dont really mind it though. I have slowed down my LSD use to twice a week however, which i think will help out my spacey situation
 
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