11 ms·

I have schizoaffective disorder, induced by a bad trip from marijuana. It was like the 3rd time I had tried weed, and I naively took too much. For me psychosis

I have schizoaffective disorder, induced by a bad trip from marijuana. It was like the 3rd time I had tried weed, and I naively took too much. For me psychosis feels like pattern matching going on extreme overdrive, while at the same time memory goes to shit. It's truly an awful illness, and what's worse is that the current medical treatments are bad. I've been fortunate enough where I can get by on a low dose olanzapine, but for many people they simply don't work at all. Even though I'm doing well enough to function normally and hold down a good, well paying job, it's impossible to find a partner. If I were to have kids, I would have to go through one of the embryo prescreening services. I am strongly in support of these screening services - the disease is truly horrible. There has been little progress on treatments for schizophrenia, the mechanism of action of these drugs has remained the same for decades. The side effects are almost as bad as the disease, which is why so many schizophrenic stop taking them. The only novel medication recently released is Cobenfy, which I have not tried yet. Personally I am holding out hope that schizophrenia has some basis as an autoimmune disease. There was a cancer patient who had a bone marrow transplant and ended up being cured: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/opinion/sunday/schizophrenia-psychiatric-disorders-immune-system.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/opinion/sunday/schizophre...

ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
I have family with that. The most striking thing, is the absolute certainty of the thinking. They feel as if their thinking is crystal-clear, and that they are the only one that "sees the patterns." Currently, they're doing well. I know of others, that are not so fortunate. It seems that pot is about the worst thing that a schizoaffective/schizophrenic person can use. They are better off chewing tabs of acid. I've not used it in about 45 years, and I've heard that today's pot is a heck of a lot stronger than what I remember.
- pfannkuchen 1y ago
  Can I ask how you are sure they haven’t had some novel insight that you just don’t currently understand? Like maybe they are bad at explaining but whatever pattern they noticed is valid? I’m not defending them as I don’t know any details, I’m just curious how you came to be certain about your assessment.
  - Avicebron 1y ago
    I wonder about this as well...like maybe there's some comfort in automatically "diagnosing" someone when they might see patterns or think in ways that challenge your priors.. EDIT: Imagine being powerful and wealthy and assured in your position in the Catholic Church and someone comes along and questions geocentricity and says you're wrong. It's a pretty easy leap to huffily say well, they are "mentally ill, crazy, delusional, paranoid"
    - throw18376 1y ago
      all kinds of authoritarian regimes and movements certainly do this. that said... you just have to have a conversation with someone experiencing psychosis. it's a totally altered state of consciousness, they are sensing and understanding the world in a radically different way. it's never just an otherwise normal person with a nonconformist belief.
  - marcher 1y ago
    I can't speak for the above person, but what the OP of this comment thread said also tracks with my own experience of schizoaffective disorder: when I'm psychotic, the pattern matching part of my brain goes into overdrive and not only does my brain erroneously fill in the blanks in sensory input (causing hallucinations), it does the same thing on an abstract or logical level with ideas and people. It's easy to fall into the trap of paranoid delusion when you feel like you're seeing connections between so many otherwise benign, disconnected things and events. I think what really gets me is that despite my constant vigilance and skepticism toward my own thoughts, I simply cannot talk myself out of how truly real those delusions feel when they happen. I can even acknowledge how absurd they are, even in the moment, but I can never shake the feeling that they're still very, very real. It's so maddening. The best I can do is to just not act on those thoughts. Maybe the above person's family is actually unearthing valid insights, but if they're prone to psychosis, in that state they'll be prone to finding connections, associations, patterns, and so on between things in a way that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It'll feel very real to them in the moment, but when they exit that state (if they do) they'll likely be on the same page as others in thinking those ideas were a stretch.
- mandmandam 1y ago
  > It seems that pot is about the worst thing that a schizoaffective/schizophrenic person can use. This isn't entirely true, and it's a dangerous misconception. High THC, low CBD cannabis wouldn't be recommended, but that's exactly what making cannabis illegal selects for. High CBD, low/zero THC cannabis, on the other hand, will probably be one of the paths to treatment if we ever get over our Reefer Madness and pharmaceutical obsession.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
    Eh, maybe. I can certainly say that I have "skin in the game." Someone very dear to me suffers from it, and it's difficult to hear theories from folks that don't have as much of a stake. That's one reason that I have compassion for parents of autistic children, that are vehemently anti-vax. I completely disagree with their stance, but I know what they are dealing with, and the very real fears and stresses that they are under.
    - mandmandam 1y ago
      > it's difficult to hear theories from folks that don't have as much of a stake. It's not a theory that CBD has anti-psychotic properties. It certainly does, we just don't fully understand why. My theory is that it will someday be part of treatment plans; and as someone with skin in the game I would hope that you care enough to learn a bit more about it. The comparison to anti-vaxxers with autism in the family is not appropriate here.
      - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
        > is not appropriate here Actually, if the agenda of pushing CBD therapy applies, then it is. I know a number of folks that have autistic children, of various levels, from "nerd," to "wheelchair-bound." Their parents are usually absolute saints, regardless of their political views, or misinformation diets, and live in constant pain; making daily sacrifices that I don't think many folks here, can even comprehend. We were discussing a serious mental illness, and, as someone that is a caregiver for someone like that, I think that my experience is relevant; just as someone who believes that their child's condition was caused by something that is really a red herring. The real villains, here, are the people that have secondary agendas (like legalizing drugs, or pushing political agendas), and look at people like us, with very real pain, as nothing but pawns, to be used to push their agenda (Think of the children!). CBD, like Blockchain, probably has some valid application, but, because it was so unexplored, scientifically, it is currently about 75% snake-oil. We'll find out what it's good for, over time. The same can be said for other drugs, like MDMA, microdose LSD, or psilocybin.
- bryanrasmussen 1y ago
  >It seems that pot is about the worst thing that a schizoaffective/schizophrenic person can use. They are better off chewing tabs of acid. from the guys I knew who chewed the tabs of acid and had evident schizophrenic problems, I don't think so.
- accidentallfact 1y ago
  Exactly. This well matches my hypothesis about how the brain works. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44347211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44347211
ashoeafoot 1y ago
It also makes you near unemployable as stress triggers the paranoia/psychosis.
- sandspar 1y ago
  Not for everyone. Many schizophrenics find their work calming and grounding.
  - dyauspitr 1y ago
    Depends on the work. If it’s solitary work then yes, if it’s fast paced, social and stressful (like most high paying roles are) then no.
    - sandspar 1y ago
      Sorry, it depends on the person. Elyn Saks is a law professor at USC who gives speeches to international audiences when she's not writing books - and she has schizophrenia. Her fame gives her a unique position: many people write letters to her. She's said that she's surprised by how many highly successful people confide in her that they have schizophrenia. There are schizophrenic CEO's, lawyers, doctors, founders. You just don't hear about them because they don't publicize their condition. Possibly because they fear judgment. Possibly because they want success on their own terms, to be simply a "successful person", not a "successful person with schizophrenia".
      - dyauspitr 1y ago
        How do you know there are schizophrenic professionals?
wycy 1y ago
Why do you need to do embryo pre-screening for something that’s not genetic? Or do you think it still is genetic despite also thinking you know the specific trigger in your case? Edit: are you thinking it’s genetic, but exacerbated by weed?
- jjallen 1y ago
  Everything is at least partially genetic. We have a friend whose sister has it and she went to genetics counselors before having kids. They told her that because her sister has it that her kids had a 20% likelihood of developing it. Obviously 20% is way higher than normal.
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    Be sure you understand what this means. 20% higher chance (of a 1% baseline) is vastly different from a 20% chance.
    - jajko 1y ago
      I think its pretty clear which case is being discussed. 20% increase in chance is not something to generally worry about.
    - jjallen 1y ago
      This is through the grapevine. I thought they said 20% likelihood, not 20% higher likelihood. But this isn’t me and I don’t know the numbers well. I do know that this woman chose to not use her own eggs for their child. And you would think that going from 1-1.2% would not make you do that. Perhaps there is another variable involved that I am unaware of. Her sister developed it after their parents divorce in her 30s fwiw.
  - lazyasciiart 1y ago
    That is much, much higher than I am aware of - and my mother's sister has schizophrenia so I did look this up a while ago. And the outcome so far is 0 cases in 25 nieces and nephews, all of us in our mid twenties or older.
robocat 1y ago
> I am holding out hope that schizophrenia has some basis as an autoimmune disease From article: Increasingly, researchers consider schizophrenia to be a “meta-syndrome,” encompassing multiple symptom dimensions/clusters and arising from intersections of diverse underlying mechanisms So while autoimmune might be the cause for some people, other people have other causes? As humans we look for a simple A therefore B story. Even then most people in my experience are either (a) poor at spotting cause and effect or (b) go into denial e.g. many political arguments > kids, I would have to go through one of the embryo prescreening services Have to? Do you mean you would want to? Or is there some compulsory force where you are?
FollowingTheDao 1y ago
I have schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type as well. And man when I have anything with THC in it I’m a basket case. Worst psychosis in my life. He might be interested in looking up THC, glutamate and schizoaffective disorder. Here’s a good start. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-019-0374-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-019-0374-8
petra 1y ago
Interesting link, thank you!. One other possible immune system link is the relationahip between the parasite toximoplasis gondii to schizophrenia. If I'm not mistaken that's the paper about that: https://dbc.wroc.pl/Content/39095/PDF/1031.pdf https://dbc.wroc.pl/Content/39095/PDF/1031.pdf
andoando 1y ago
Interesting, I had some really bad experiences with weed and the pattern matching thing strikes out to me as on these trips I experienced a ton of visual geomteric shapes and came to believe our intelligence is based on pattern recognition and spent 5 years, not to much avail, thinking about them.
_xtrimsky 1y ago
This post convinced me to never try marijuana again. I've tried 3 times, last time was a bad trip, I went into a very cold state (was shaking) and I was seeing random visual images every second. It felt like my brain was telling chat gpt to generate a random image on the fly none stop. Anyways I was fine the next day, but I'm not trying it ever again if there is some risks associated with it. I took a low dose (half gummy).
- thenaturalist 1y ago
  Cannabis is not to be trifled with. While other stimulant substances when used might also lead to psychosis, it is cannabis which stands out with the highest risk of a psychosis becoming chronic and developing on into schizophrenia. Sources: [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulant_psychosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulant_psychosis [1]: https://www.psychiatrist.com/jcp/substance-induced-psychoses-converting-schizophrenia/ https://www.psychiatrist.com/jcp/substance-induced-psychoses...
robocat 1y ago
Interesting article: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/some-unintuitive-properties-of-polygenic?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/some-unintuitive-properties...

ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago

I have family with that. The most striking thing, is the absolute certainty of the thinking. They feel as if their thinking is crystal-clear, and that they are the only one that "sees the patterns." Currently, they're doing well. I know of others, that are not so fortunate. It seems that pot is about the worst thing that a schizoaffective/schizophrenic person can use. They are better off chewing tabs of acid. I've not used it in about 45 years, and I've heard that today's pot is a heck of a lot stronger than what I remember.

pfannkuchen 1y ago
Can I ask how you are sure they haven’t had some novel insight that you just don’t currently understand? Like maybe they are bad at explaining but whatever pattern they noticed is valid? I’m not defending them as I don’t know any details, I’m just curious how you came to be certain about your assessment.
- Avicebron 1y ago
  I wonder about this as well...like maybe there's some comfort in automatically "diagnosing" someone when they might see patterns or think in ways that challenge your priors.. EDIT: Imagine being powerful and wealthy and assured in your position in the Catholic Church and someone comes along and questions geocentricity and says you're wrong. It's a pretty easy leap to huffily say well, they are "mentally ill, crazy, delusional, paranoid"
  - throw18376 1y ago
    all kinds of authoritarian regimes and movements certainly do this. that said... you just have to have a conversation with someone experiencing psychosis. it's a totally altered state of consciousness, they are sensing and understanding the world in a radically different way. it's never just an otherwise normal person with a nonconformist belief.
- marcher 1y ago
  I can't speak for the above person, but what the OP of this comment thread said also tracks with my own experience of schizoaffective disorder: when I'm psychotic, the pattern matching part of my brain goes into overdrive and not only does my brain erroneously fill in the blanks in sensory input (causing hallucinations), it does the same thing on an abstract or logical level with ideas and people. It's easy to fall into the trap of paranoid delusion when you feel like you're seeing connections between so many otherwise benign, disconnected things and events. I think what really gets me is that despite my constant vigilance and skepticism toward my own thoughts, I simply cannot talk myself out of how truly real those delusions feel when they happen. I can even acknowledge how absurd they are, even in the moment, but I can never shake the feeling that they're still very, very real. It's so maddening. The best I can do is to just not act on those thoughts. Maybe the above person's family is actually unearthing valid insights, but if they're prone to psychosis, in that state they'll be prone to finding connections, associations, patterns, and so on between things in a way that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It'll feel very real to them in the moment, but when they exit that state (if they do) they'll likely be on the same page as others in thinking those ideas were a stretch.
mandmandam 1y ago
> It seems that pot is about the worst thing that a schizoaffective/schizophrenic person can use. This isn't entirely true, and it's a dangerous misconception. High THC, low CBD cannabis wouldn't be recommended, but that's exactly what making cannabis illegal selects for. High CBD, low/zero THC cannabis, on the other hand, will probably be one of the paths to treatment if we ever get over our Reefer Madness and pharmaceutical obsession.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
  Eh, maybe. I can certainly say that I have "skin in the game." Someone very dear to me suffers from it, and it's difficult to hear theories from folks that don't have as much of a stake. That's one reason that I have compassion for parents of autistic children, that are vehemently anti-vax. I completely disagree with their stance, but I know what they are dealing with, and the very real fears and stresses that they are under.
  - mandmandam 1y ago
    > it's difficult to hear theories from folks that don't have as much of a stake. It's not a theory that CBD has anti-psychotic properties. It certainly does, we just don't fully understand why. My theory is that it will someday be part of treatment plans; and as someone with skin in the game I would hope that you care enough to learn a bit more about it. The comparison to anti-vaxxers with autism in the family is not appropriate here.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
      > is not appropriate here Actually, if the agenda of pushing CBD therapy applies, then it is. I know a number of folks that have autistic children, of various levels, from "nerd," to "wheelchair-bound." Their parents are usually absolute saints, regardless of their political views, or misinformation diets, and live in constant pain; making daily sacrifices that I don't think many folks here, can even comprehend. We were discussing a serious mental illness, and, as someone that is a caregiver for someone like that, I think that my experience is relevant; just as someone who believes that their child's condition was caused by something that is really a red herring. The real villains, here, are the people that have secondary agendas (like legalizing drugs, or pushing political agendas), and look at people like us, with very real pain, as nothing but pawns, to be used to push their agenda (Think of the children!). CBD, like Blockchain, probably has some valid application, but, because it was so unexplored, scientifically, it is currently about 75% snake-oil. We'll find out what it's good for, over time. The same can be said for other drugs, like MDMA, microdose LSD, or psilocybin.
bryanrasmussen 1y ago
>It seems that pot is about the worst thing that a schizoaffective/schizophrenic person can use. They are better off chewing tabs of acid. from the guys I knew who chewed the tabs of acid and had evident schizophrenic problems, I don't think so.
accidentallfact 1y ago
Exactly. This well matches my hypothesis about how the brain works. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44347211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44347211

ashoeafoot 1y ago

It also makes you near unemployable as stress triggers the paranoia/psychosis.

sandspar 1y ago
Not for everyone. Many schizophrenics find their work calming and grounding.
- dyauspitr 1y ago
  Depends on the work. If it’s solitary work then yes, if it’s fast paced, social and stressful (like most high paying roles are) then no.
  - sandspar 1y ago
    Sorry, it depends on the person. Elyn Saks is a law professor at USC who gives speeches to international audiences when she's not writing books - and she has schizophrenia. Her fame gives her a unique position: many people write letters to her. She's said that she's surprised by how many highly successful people confide in her that they have schizophrenia. There are schizophrenic CEO's, lawyers, doctors, founders. You just don't hear about them because they don't publicize their condition. Possibly because they fear judgment. Possibly because they want success on their own terms, to be simply a "successful person", not a "successful person with schizophrenia".
    - dyauspitr 1y ago
      How do you know there are schizophrenic professionals?

wycy 1y ago

Why do you need to do embryo pre-screening for something that’s not genetic? Or do you think it still is genetic despite also thinking you know the specific trigger in your case? Edit: are you thinking it’s genetic, but exacerbated by weed?

jjallen 1y ago
Everything is at least partially genetic. We have a friend whose sister has it and she went to genetics counselors before having kids. They told her that because her sister has it that her kids had a 20% likelihood of developing it. Obviously 20% is way higher than normal.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Be sure you understand what this means. 20% higher chance (of a 1% baseline) is vastly different from a 20% chance.
  - jajko 1y ago
    I think its pretty clear which case is being discussed. 20% increase in chance is not something to generally worry about.
  - jjallen 1y ago
    This is through the grapevine. I thought they said 20% likelihood, not 20% higher likelihood. But this isn’t me and I don’t know the numbers well. I do know that this woman chose to not use her own eggs for their child. And you would think that going from 1-1.2% would not make you do that. Perhaps there is another variable involved that I am unaware of. Her sister developed it after their parents divorce in her 30s fwiw.
- lazyasciiart 1y ago
  That is much, much higher than I am aware of - and my mother's sister has schizophrenia so I did look this up a while ago. And the outcome so far is 0 cases in 25 nieces and nephews, all of us in our mid twenties or older.

robocat 1y ago

> I am holding out hope that schizophrenia has some basis as an autoimmune disease From article: Increasingly, researchers consider schizophrenia to be a “meta-syndrome,” encompassing multiple symptom dimensions/clusters and arising from intersections of diverse underlying mechanisms So while autoimmune might be the cause for some people, other people have other causes? As humans we look for a simple A therefore B story. Even then most people in my experience are either (a) poor at spotting cause and effect or (b) go into denial e.g. many political arguments > kids, I would have to go through one of the embryo prescreening services Have to? Do you mean you would want to? Or is there some compulsory force where you are?

FollowingTheDao 1y ago

I have schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type as well. And man when I have anything with THC in it I’m a basket case. Worst psychosis in my life. He might be interested in looking up THC, glutamate and schizoaffective disorder. Here’s a good start. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-019-0374-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-019-0374-8

petra 1y ago

Interesting link, thank you!. One other possible immune system link is the relationahip between the parasite toximoplasis gondii to schizophrenia. If I'm not mistaken that's the paper about that: https://dbc.wroc.pl/Content/39095/PDF/1031.pdf https://dbc.wroc.pl/Content/39095/PDF/1031.pdf

andoando 1y ago

Interesting, I had some really bad experiences with weed and the pattern matching thing strikes out to me as on these trips I experienced a ton of visual geomteric shapes and came to believe our intelligence is based on pattern recognition and spent 5 years, not to much avail, thinking about them.

_xtrimsky 1y ago

This post convinced me to never try marijuana again. I've tried 3 times, last time was a bad trip, I went into a very cold state (was shaking) and I was seeing random visual images every second. It felt like my brain was telling chat gpt to generate a random image on the fly none stop. Anyways I was fine the next day, but I'm not trying it ever again if there is some risks associated with it. I took a low dose (half gummy).

thenaturalist 1y ago
Cannabis is not to be trifled with. While other stimulant substances when used might also lead to psychosis, it is cannabis which stands out with the highest risk of a psychosis becoming chronic and developing on into schizophrenia. Sources: [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulant_psychosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulant_psychosis [1]: https://www.psychiatrist.com/jcp/substance-induced-psychoses-converting-schizophrenia/ https://www.psychiatrist.com/jcp/substance-induced-psychoses...

robocat 1y ago

Interesting article: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/some-unintuitive-properties-of-polygenic?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/some-unintuitive-properties...