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Mental Health Can you take psychoactive drugs with a mental illness?

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oady98

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Dec 20, 2015
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Suffered from a manic episode with psychotic symptoms in June, my first ever so may have been a one off triggered by specific stressful and emotional circumstances at the time or I may have a recurring mental illness...don't know yet but only time will tell. Anyway I am 100% recovered now, I am on Quetiapine (Seroquel) 300mg daily (lowest dose for anyone that doesn't know). Just wondering if it is highly recommended not to try weed? Never tried it before so just obviously as a 17 year old curious. Would try MDMA, LSD, Psilocybin mushrooms maybe later on but not now. Will taking weed or the other substances maybe trigger another episode? idk. Would appreciate answers backed by knowledge or experience in the matter. My psychiatrist said to me not to do any drugs but seemed pretty biased because my mum was in the room. would only be trying it anyway wouldnt be taking it all the time. Oh yeah and also DMT. Cheers.
 
The Seroquel will block most, if not all, of the psychedelic effects.

Sorry that's probably not what you wanted to hear, but that's Quetiapine for you.

Maybe try microdosing with mushrooms and see if you notice any improvements.
 
The drugs you listed are among the worst for anyone with a history of psychosis.
 
Thanks for your answer man :) only to stay on it for 1-2 years so I guess I'll just wait
 
I'm on seroquel too and it works smoking weed.
I wouldn't recommend it though if you have a MI.
I have bi polar and try not to smoke weed.
 
I have bipolar disorder as well and take Lamotrigine as a mood stabilizer and also Seroquel (300-400mg's) to help me as well. MDMA and Tryptamine psychedelics won't really work with Quetiapine. Well the MDMA may still cause some of the Amphetamine type effects depending on what dose you are on as Quetiapine is not a potent D2 antagonist and may only bind temporarily to the D2 receptor. But as Quetiapine is a fairly strong 5-HT2A antagonist it will block the effects of Tryptamines as the 5-HT2A receptor is where they get most of their Psychedelic effect from and as it blocks other Serotonin receptors as well you won't get any of the trippy or lovey dovey effects from MDMA and even at only 300mg's a day i would expect any stimulant effect to be severely blunted.

Over the years i have found out often the hard way which drugs are ok to take with Bipolar disorder and which ones are to be avoided like the plague for me atleast. I actually find Cannabis to have mood stabilizing properties and i smoke it everyday just about. Drugs like shrooms, LSD and Ketamine i have no trouble with either and if anything they seem to lift my mood. However drugs like alcohol, Cocaine (in Crack form and IVing powder) and to a lesser extent Dextroamphetamine can do anything from just throwing my mood off to inducing mania or mixed states to awful depression bordering on psychosis that can last for weeks.

MDMA and MDA can certainly trigger off a episode in people with bipolar and i personally would recommend staying away from it altogether. Granted in most places these days what your buying is not MDMA at all. A good roll always left me feeling bummed out for a few days after. One of the worst comedowns i have ever had was when i took a really good MDMA/MDA pill and shot up a gram of pretty damn good blow on the comedown. To say i was depressed afterwards would be abit of a understatement as i was suicidally depressed and semi psychotic for a good 2 weeks after. If i had not had a good friend to get through that i don't know if i would have to be honest. I would say the Coke played as much of a part there as anything really and that always gives me a bad comedown often with suicidal ideation. But the combination of the MDMA/MDA pill and the gram of IV Coke shot up on the comedown contributed to the absolute worst comedown of my life.

Really i would strongly suggest focusing on getting and staying better for awile before you go experimenting with drugs. I would suggest limiting your experimentation to Cannabis if your going to do anything as even Alcohol is a no no for people with bipolar. Not to mention mixing alcohol and Quetiapine together can cause very bad reactions. I know of 2 people who had seizures on Quetiapine when they where drinking even though they had no previous history of a seizure disorder. Quetiapine can lower your seizure threshold and so does Alcohol when it's leaving your system so it makes sense really.
 
If I were you I would just stay away from everything for awhile, your menal health and your mind is all you've got in this world, if I were you, just wait it out for a while, and ween your way into it with some weed daily, cuz if you just throw yourself at some LSD like I did you'll end up with 4 Months of Psychosis and GAD.
 
oady98 said:
Thanks for your answer man :) only to stay on it for 1-2 years so I guess I'll just wait
Click to expand...

Definitely agree with that last part, but I will qualify that a bit...

I myself have also been through psychosis and made the mistake of using drugs again after getting healthy.

I had a period of psychosis lasting 2 years triggered by drug use. After around 8 months of being off medication with no symptoms, I then started using drugs again. Within about 3-4 months of reasonably moderated use, I ended up with psychosis again. The drug which initiated it all the second time was cannabis... (we are currently playing a game of "wait and see" to see if I have an underlying condition or not)

The moral of that story is don't play with fire. As others have said, drugs are not at all conducive to mental health, particularly with regards to psychosis and mania. Even when you come off medication & cease to have symptoms you are likely to be in a delicate balance. As you said it's hard to know whether you have an underlying condition. All it could take is one use of drugs to tip you over again. Is it really worth it?

I can't preach too much. I know all too well the allure of drugs & it is only after making all the mistakes myself that I can see where I went wrong but at least I can do my best to make sure others don't make those mistakes too!

There's no real timetable to any of this. Just stay away from drugs for a while & be extremely cautious if you choose to start experimenting with drugs. I hope things work out for you whatever happens though, it's great you have made such good progress with meds. :)
 
The question here is why you want to take drugs? To enjoy yourself? If so you need to think about your lifestyle and getting enjoyment out of life. Don't fuck with drugs, they will destroy your mental health and ruin your life. Drug addiction starts with experimentation. If you have a predisposition towards addiction or have underlying issues you could go down a very long and bad road. Especially having a history of psychosis it's a big no no. These fools on here that say other wise are probably teenagers or in there twenties and don't have a clue, using technical terminology to justify a wrong choice. If your young you may think we'll I'm young I want to enjoy my youth. The fact is its too risky, a history of psychosis and drug use. Life is about choices, and this one is a no brainer.
 
Drugs draw out mental illness. If you have anything just under the surface drugs will exacerbate it. I had bipolar disorder and anxiety in my family and I didnt even know until drug use brought it out to a powerful extent. It may not seem serious to live with mental illnesd but it really can be debilitating. I dont recommend messing with drugs if you value your sanity and emotional control
 
It makes most drugs, especially psychedelics.. suck! If your on a daily dose of it you can take 30 hits on Zyprexa and it’ll block it. All you get on almost every different drug mdma, lsd, dmt.. all the same feeling. Your stimulated/uncomfortable and bummed. Who knows might be serotonin syndrome. If you wanna trip I think k will work.
 
I'm bipolar type 2; I only do psychoactive drugs, but I self-medicate aswell since the swedish mental health system can suck a dick.
 
I have a long history with mental illness (Bipolar I), ADHD, 2 episodes of psychosis and a variety of psychoactive drugs (mainly weed, psychedelics, MDMA, and amphetamines) as well as lots and lots of prescribed psychiatric drugs. Rather than an essay I’ll try with bullet points:

1. Teenage use of weed potentiated what was likely latent and genetically coded Bipolar Illness. Trauma a contributing factor.
2. Undiagnosed mental illness led to lots of self-medicating with stimulants and MDMA for years - life a total fucking roller coaster
3. Diagnosis and Rx pharmaceuticals brought stability, happiness and prosperity but lots and lots of negative side-effects
4. Periodically stopping Rx pharmaceuticals to stop side effects led to binging on stimulants and a lonely fucked up life
5. Psychological treatment rather than psychiatric medication gradually allowed me to safely stop Rx meds
6. Same psychological treatment allowed me to more safely take drugs without totally de-railing my life BUT
7. Also greatly reduced need/desire to get fucked up on drugs.

If I were very young and diagnosed with bipolar or another serious psychiatric illness, I would aim to be on psychiatric meds for maybe 4 years only while I undertook lots of therapy to learn about my own thoughts, behaviours, triggers etc etc. Then I would gradually wean myself off all psychiatric meds and see how I coped for a year or so. Only then would I think about getting into trying drugs for fun. A degree of mania and depression would be inevitable, so I’d mentally set some boundaries about what I would accept in terms of my feelings and behaviour changing before I (a) stopped fucking with drugs or (b) went back on my meds.

I’d also be wary of taking too much advice from people who put enjoying drugs at the top of their priorities if I was the kind of young person with career, family or other serious ambitions.
 
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