Well-being despite medication and drug history

[aokorn]

I am 63 years old and I would like to say that I feel well. This has not always been the case in the past. I tried pot for the first time when I was 21 and then again and again at longer intervals. I have not been a particularly big user, but I must record that at the age of 24 I had my first psychosis, which then recurred three more times in my life. I do not claim that my psychosis was the result of my weed use, but I do allow for the possibility. I have also been hospitalised three times since my psychosis. My personal psychiatrist never broached the subject of pot, even though she knew about it. Perhaps she deliberately did not want us to talk about it; the conversation was always about my other problems. Now I think that she also only ever tried pot and did not find my episodes problematic. She has been retired for about ten years now. I have been on my own since then. As I said before, I feel great (never like this).

In my medication history I have taken: Levomepromazine, Thioridazine hydrochloride, Promazine hydrochloride, Fluphenazine, Zyprexa, Seroquel and Risperidone. I am still taking the last two.

I think of it this way. Over the years I have felt very unwell at times. I have also sometimes come off medication, which has resulted in a drastic deterioration in my condition. My doctor at the time told me that I must never stop taking my medication. After all, are medicines there to help you? I now believe that this is the case. If only we give them a chance and do not disturb them by abandoning them or perhaps in some other way bringing unrest into our lives. I am of the opinion that grass also causes disturbance.

It is now fourteen months since I smoked pot. And it feels good never to have done so.

 

[DeathIndustrial88]

Yes it is well known that THC can aggravate schizophrenia & psychosis in some people.

 

[deficiT]

It sounds like you're making a lot of progress though. So that's great news. Weed can definitely exacerbate psychosis. After a long period of smoking it I've found that I can pretty much take it or leave it, I don't really go out of my way to use it at all, and I am kind of turned off by the paranoid aspects of it.

 

[aokorn]

Weed can definitely exacerbate psychosis.

In my case, the psychosis came on after about four years of taking it. I still remember well my first 'high'. I was seen as a nerdy guy among my friends, but eager for change, ready to experiment. So I almost 'forced' one of these friends, who I knew was in contact with drugs, to get me some weed.To skip: My first high really changed my life. I just laughed while I was high. It lasted for a week (that's how long we were going on), and after that nothing was the same as before. My attitude towards my friends changed. I saw people among them who wished me ill and so on. It's just all this persecution and stuff. I didn't know that before. I decided (I assumed it was the weed) not to smoke weed anymore and I threw myself wholeheartedly into my studies and the things I found productive (playing classical guitar). I completely broke off relations with the friends who were in the previous circle. I also successfully graduated in a short time. Now I don't think I would have done my degree if weed hadn't got me into such a productive phase of my life. It then took me about ten years to try weed again and then I smoked intermittently throughout my life. So, in my case, weed is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it has given me one of the most productive periods of my life, and on the other hand, the curse that all this psychiatric treatment and medication brings with it.

It is out of place to speculate what would have happened if I had not tried weed. That is the way it was.