TDS WTF is wrong with me?!

Alea iacta est

Greenlighter
Joined
May 12, 2013
Messages
15
Bienvendo

Dunno if i'm looking for advice, information or whether I just needed to put this all done and evaluate it (feel free to do just that =D)

I'm a frequent weed smoker (at most will only go 2/3 days without a toke) and would rarely take party drugs mostly MDMA, MDA ( or the delightful combo of both :D ) and cocaine (would go through phases of taking it twice/thrice a week albeit always below a gram then not touching it for a while). However every now and again, on the coke I would start and then not stop for 2 days, sometimes wondering if I've gone on for longer but my memory is appalling especially in such a drug fuelled state. However this hedonistic highway to hell, stopped 9 months when i was prescribed Zoloft. Although I continued with the 'erb i cut everything else out due to fear of sertonin syndrome.

Nevertheless, a few months a friend who is also on Zoloft informed me that coke actually feels BETTER on this particular AD and because coke acts primarily on dopaminergic pathways there's no adverse reaction. After a brief read, I found reports of similar reactions. However due to a huge increase in my workload (which has suffered in the past due to my party antics) and other prior commitments my coke use was kept to a low. Must admit my opinions of SSRI's have changed drastically. Despite being prescribed them when I was younger I never touched them as I knew a couple other kids on them and there was the geenral consensus that they "zombify" you and "fuck you up", etc. Anyway I took the plunge as my depression was getting increasingly worse and things were mostly great until last month when I was offered some MDMA at a party. Usually I would turn down such an offer (and had been consistently doing so for months) but being extremely drunk and having missed my daily dose (had only happened thrice in about 8 months) I stupidly reasoned it would be fine :|

BIG MISTAKE

Despite being on SSRI's for months there was definitely a muted yet indistinguable MD-esque feeling. In fact, i would say I preferred considering the set and setting. To make matters worse my old connect was there and he was offering an absolutely FANTASTIC deal on an 8th of MDMA (price discussion isn't allowed but believe me it was cheap) Although I didn't test it at the time, others praised the quality therefore I acquired and I confirm that it was MDMA (good stuff also) For the next 2 days i consumed about 2g. Despite taking so much, my mental comedown was virtually non-existent and I put down the whole experience down to a pothole on a long road.

Nevertheless since then my resistance to taking drugs has greatly reduced :(

Since then I spent 2 days on some extremely potent mephedrone. Proceeded to have an overnight stay in hospital

Alas!

For the last 5 days (with a break in between) I've been amphetamine base (the gooey stuff not crystal). Not sure how much I've taken to be fair as I just found good-sized stuff of the stuff in a very old jacket and stupidly gave it a try. I did manage to sleep 2 days into the binge but feeling very lethargic I decided to have a cheeky bump to give me a bit of energy and quite obviously this continued for another 2 days. I only stopped when I started getting visual disturbances (not proper hallucinations, like flashes of light and see stationary at my desk moving ever so slightly) and thinking I could hear people talking next door even though I know my neighbours are on holiday and that nobody is in. Decided enough was enough, smoked some dank-ass chronic, popped a valium and slept for around 10 hours.

To make matters worse, I haven't taken my Zoloft in the 5/6 days, is it safe to do so now? I'm having suicidal thoughts (won't act on em, had em before), feeling very impulsive and need to get back to normal ASAP (i'm self employed and i'm dreading checking my emails tomorrow) To make matters worse my time distortion has come back, I remember looking a the clock at 4pm, cannot remember a single thing until just after 2am when i was like "wtf" and checked the time :p

Anything else I should take to speed up this recovery?

Also, probably can't be answered defnitely but why the fuck do i keep descending into these destructive cycles? Whenever things are good (earned about a 1/3 of my years salary in 1.5 months due to a sound investment) I always seem to do something extremely reckless and set myself back at least 5 steps :(

Beginning the AD's masked the symptoms of my depression but the core is still there as these don't read like the actions of a happy man

Any advice please guys

(At best it can serve as remainder)

-----------------------------------------------------

Separate point but I speculate a relationship

Within the last year I think i've been displaying symptoms of schizophrenia. Not only does mental illness run in my mother's side of the family (mostly depression but an uncle with SEVERE schizophrenia and another close relative with bi-polar disorder) but some of my closest friends, family and even myself have noticed a change in me.

For example I find it increasingly hard to hold a conversation as not only can I not think of anything interesting to say or i'll meander about the point (which really pisses me off as I was known as very witty/funny as a teenager/young man) but sometimes I will go on off a loosely related tangent. Although I was still young when my uncle's schizophrenia started to take hold I distinctly remember him going off on unrelated tangents or only giving one word answers.

Also been getting plausible delusional thoughts (can't divulge or some people IRL will be able to identify me immediately)

Could be something else but the fear of getting schizophrenia seems to be paramount in my mind right now

Thank you for taking the time to read that rambling rhetoric x
 
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Hey alea.. thanks for the post.. very easy to read with its nice spacing:) welcome to BL.. I'm just going to throw out a possibility.. if in fact you have some bipolar tendencies then your use of the ssri's as well as your abuse of all the different stimulants could be causing you to cycle in and out of mania and hypomania, including the beginnings and possible the rite into psychoses.. claiming that you seem do do reckless things to set you back when you have money is certainly a indicator of hypomania. The stationary moving could be sleep deprivation or it could indicate psychoses or probably a combination of both. Would love to hear what happened with the mephedrone, did that involve psychosis/paranoia? The fact that you LOST ten hours, have no memory, could point to a complete psychotic break, but as you don't remember anything, was everything normal when you came back, i mean at your house, anything weird or amiss? Hearing the voices that were not there is sleep deprivation/psychosis.

That was just one possibility, but considering that the genetic factors you listed point to BP or schizophrenia, I would stop taking the stimulants as these can be really bad for both of them, especially with prolonged use without sleep.. because of the fact that you complain about depression yet have somewhat unusual reactions to the stimulants I would look into BP2 as a good place to start.

what ever the underlying cause you are pushing the limits on the stimulants, Once you have them turn on you they never come back and you can end up having a manic/psychotic episode of a really little amount..

look up the sighns and symtoms of BP2 and schitzophernia at this link and see what you think fits you the best if any. >Here< is a place to learn about some stimulant psycoses and >here is a thread<

let us know what you think.. If you plan on continuing to use the stimulants successfully then you will have to adopt a much better approach.. after all is there really any reason to consume them in the amounts and for the lengths you seem to do pretty often.. also if you are beginning to have trouble controlling your substance use you may wish to take an honest look at that. If your getting tied up into a nice stimulant addiction you can fall of a quick pretty fast, mix an addiction with easily brought on psychoses and you will find yourself in a place you never wanted to get to.. take a look at the info and share what you think..

if nothing else try not to string to many days together on the stimulants.. oh and bipolars can be really susceptible to stimulant addiction as when we feel down we want to get relief and feel better and when we feel good we are risk takers and want to live life on the edge and always want to feel a little better than great.

Best Wishes and hope this may help some:)
 
The mephedrone was alright actually, mild tripping but the kind you get on a MDMA comedown. I think the Zoloft has protected me against neuro-toxicity because i've barely had a comedown off any of these

After looking at those symptoms i do cross over but generally i used to be depressed with bouts of "mania" being few and far between. Also I know a number of people with bipolar, depression and schizophrenia and my personality is more akin to the latter two

Either way i'm staying off everything (besides the weed) until i'm off the Zoloft and even then i'll have to re-evaluate

reading both of those has put my foolhardy antics into perspective, not sure how much I appreciate it :)
 
Glad you are staying off everything but weed. Personally, only once was I on anti-depressants, and I was 12, so I was not yet experimenting w/ any stimulants. Yet I recall a close friend of mine really delving into a cocaine addiction while taking Zoloft; similarly, he remarked it made him enjoy the cocaine more. Ultimately, he got himself in decent trouble over his mood fluctuations and ever-escalating cocaine abuse.

In your case, I am guessing it is impossible to evaluate the efficacy of your Zoloft, due obviously to the stim abuse, but also b/c you probably were not on it w/o other drug interference long enough for your chemistry to adjust to it. I am definitely hazarding a guess here, but I assume Zoloft, like most other SSRIs needs a duration of time to set itself before it can be determined as effective or not. Simultaneously, I hate to say you probably wasted time taking it while on the stims, but it is also a relief you intuitively stopped the interference. Keep it up, and soon you will know if Zoloft is right for you, or another med or combo of meds is needed. The trial and error w/ SSRIs is notorious and very annoying, but apparently it is still the best method for determining meds (someone please tell me I am now wrong).

I assume you are a young man, and that is part of your concern over schizophrenia. Talk w/ your psych. if you've not already, as they are missing a large part of your treatment if you are correct.

Oh, and lastly, really try to examine why you abuse drugs as you do. Is there the perceived need to self-medicate b/c maybe you feel the SSRIs are bunk? Identifying the drivers behind your compulsions is the other part of all this. Good luck, man, and don't give up. You deserve to feel normal.
 
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