Mental Health Psychotic symptoms / hallucination type discussion. (post use)

[LordOfTabs]

Hello, this is my first thread, so if there are any red flags, inappropriate use of terminology, or any other issue, please inform me.

Anyway, I made this thread to discuss psychological symptoms from a personal perspective. Its best to talk to a psychiatrist about these issues, but alot of times the doctors can treat you, but not tell you exactly how you came about to be a little different

This includes Withdrawal symptoms (hallucinations, anxiety, ect) Pre existing disorders worsened by substance use, and the behaviorally induced symptoms of a mental disorder ( staying up too late from insomnia and hallucinating)

----------- Please only tell your story. The more detailed the better. ----------------

My story starts out at 15.

Around freshman year in highschool I started getting mild anxiety. Things that trigger it were deadlines, unrealisticlly blown out of proportion fears, and being manipulated by my fighting parents. And yelling.
So, my mom decides I needed to be on xanax, and no I wasn't diagnosed in person. Apparently my mom discussed it with her doctor and whalla. 1mg 3x a day.
Fast-forward about a year.
-- I start to begin to notice visual distortions when I start at something. An example was I would wake up from bed, and after about 5 minutes of consciousness, I would notice the world would very subtlety spin. As if drunk. Now I had starting smoking marijuana about a year prior and have done it daily since. So I thought I could have HPPD.
As I started seeing my own doctor I told her about this. Strangely, these symptoms subsided within 20 minutes of taking alprazolam. Not noting a connection there, I moved to think it was my anxiety. My dose changed from once a day to 3x a day every day. Still in the back of my head thinking HPPD.
Now I am 20. The symptoms have increased steadily with age. And never increased in diversity.
After an addiction to xanax, I had quit. My symptoms slowly faded but never left completely. After discovering my love for new drugs both recreational and medical, I have found some drugs alter my symptoms.

The detailed symptoms are - Visual distortions (peripheral vision spins, especially in low light)
Hypersensitivity - (easily flinch, can feel vitals occasionally, crawling skin but not itchy)
Attention issues (no thought at all, spacing out)
Depression (worsens with symptoms and vise versa)
Mood issues (trouble managing mood unless its negative)
Submissiveness, and increased appetite.

Drugs that effect them are
Xanax- cures all. 90% of vision
Amphetamine - masks all, 100% vision
Alcohol - worsens vision and anxiety
Nicotine - worsens all temporarily
Geodon - treats Vision and behavior issues (60%)

Any similar stories?

 

[oliveoyl]

Geodon sounds so fuckt, and xannax is.....

 

[herbavore]

I can't believe that your mother got a prescription for you from her doctor without ever having you yourself go to a doctor or more aptly, a psychologist, to discuss your feelings of anxiety and what to do to manage them.

Are you living away from home now? It sounds to me like your anxiety made sense--you were a kid living in a dsyfunctional family. Why would you not have been anxious?! I hope you will give yourself and your life the gift of trying to work some things out with good old talk therapy. The physical symptoms you have can have multiple causes--and some may not be symptoms at all but just your nature (like spaciness) but taking a variety of drugs will only obscure things. My sister has had what would be diagnosed as HPPD if it were drug related for all of her life--no doctor has been able to tell her much about it but of course now as an adult it doesn't scare her as it did when she was little.

Sometimes it is important not to see everything as a symptom but rather as normal human life. We all experience depressions, anxiety, lack of focus to varying degrees. The only thing that is relevant is managing our emotions and moods, whether or not they are pathological. I have always been a spacy person--diagnosed ADD--but to me, this is my nature. It has benefits as well as problems. I don't need to medicate this part of myself, I need to work with it; sometimes that means acceptance and sometimes it means management and sometimes it even means trying to force a change (like a new habit).