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Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

(www.psychiatrymargins.com)
262 points Anon84 | 9 comments | 28 Jun 25 21:22 UTC | HN request time: 0.687s | source | bottom
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suzzer99 ◴[28 Jun 25 22:20 UTC] No.44408657[source]▶
I've lost one of my best friends to what I think is schizophrenia. We don't know because she's cut off all contact with friends and family and refuses to see a doctor. It's definitely psychosis. She thinks she's in some kind of Truman show that she calls "the game". Since none of her friends or family are willing to admit to it, then we must be in on it.

We don't know her full family medical history because her dad was adopted. I do know that she was "microdosing" and macro-dosing hallucinogens for years. Mostly acid and shrooms as far as I know. She followed the band Phish around with a group of friends. I can't imagine most of those shows were sober.

We've also seen a few incidents of paranoia when she was under the influence of drugs/alcohol going back decades. So it feels like this was always there in some form, but maybe the estrogen was holding it back before menopause hit. I read an article about women who get schizophrenia after menopause that suggested this could be the case.

Anyway, whenever I see wellness healers and the like extolling the virtues of psilocybin, I want to point out that there could be a downside. We don't know that all of her hallucinogen use over the years contributed to this. But it's certainly a possibility.

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1. andai ◴[29 Jun 25 12:06 UTC] No.44412432[source]▶
Cannabis is also a potent psychedelic, and its association with psychosis is well established.

(Not to condemn psychedelics, I just think the pendulum has swung a bit too far in the "it's totally harmless" direction.)

Could you elaborate on The Game? What did she say about this?

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2. dsego ◴[29 Jun 25 12:21 UTC] No.44412511[source]▶
As someone who has a person with psychosis in my family, I don't think you can find any interesting insights from the details of their delusions. It's like dissecting dreams or AI slop, there is no hidden meaning behind it. Usually best not to discuss it.
3. kayodelycaon ◴[29 Jun 25 12:42 UTC] No.44412646[source]▶
As someone who has had psychotic breaks, you aren’t going to learn anything from what was going on in their head.
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4. dialup_sounds ◴[29 Jun 25 13:03 UTC] No.44412814[source]▶
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideas_and_delusions_of_referen...
5. suzzer99 ◴[29 Jun 25 18:12 UTC] No.44415102[source]▶
100% agree with this. It's not rational in any way. From the period of time when she was still talking to us at least, there's no reasoning with it.
6. mike_hearn ◴[29 Jun 25 18:35 UTC] No.44415270[source]▶
> Cannabis is also a potent psychedelic, and its association with psychosis is well established.

It's really fascinating to read this, because Alex Berenson has been beating this drum for a while now and he claims the psychosis risk has been downplayed or even denied. It's easy to find evidence supporting his take because if you just search Google for [cannabis legalization psychosis] you get a big pile of papers like this one:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36696111

"Abstract: Psychosis is a hypothesized consequence of cannabis use. Legalization of cannabis could therefore be associated with an increase in rates of health care utilization for psychosis [...] states with legalization policies experienced no statistically significant increase in rates of psychosis-related diagnoses"

That's from 2023. So apparently it's not that well established? Or if it's well established, there's a lot of researchers denying it.

7. greenaccountpun ◴[29 Jun 25 22:15 UTC] No.44417018[source]▶
I've used cannabis a handful of times. The first was a bong hit, and I felt a little funny. The second was a bong hit and I was seeing a light show half an hour later. The third was a bong hit and I got paranoia and dry mouth. The fourth was one square of THC chocolate and I felt a little funny and relaxed. The last time was two squares of chocolate. I was out for the evening with visual and auditory hallucinations.

I realize modern preparations are stronger, but the amount is too low, the dosage difference between relaxed and out there is too small, and after doing some research, it sounds like this is a sign I'm either more prone to schizophrenia, it could trigger it, or increase my likelihood of getting it, so the slightly relaxing high isn't worth it.

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8. rwyinuse ◴[30 Jun 25 16:32 UTC] No.44425174[source]▶
Yeah, it's not worth the risk. When I tried the stuff, I first felt absolutely nothing. Then I took some more, and a couple of minutes later I had a full-blown panic attack, probably some hallucinations too. My brain felt a bit weird/slow a day or two after that.

Only later I found out that a deceased close relative of mine had schizophrenia. That killed any remaining interest I might have had towards the substance.

9. dyauspitr ◴[01 Jul 25 04:15 UTC] No.44430541[source]▶
You can definitely get fried on cannabis but you have to do it a lot, like multiple times a week for a while. In my mid twenties I smoked all day everyday for years and in my case it definitely left me paranoid and agoraphobic. That was more than a decade ago and I haven’t really smoked much pot since then (maybe once a year) and you end up making a full recovery after about 6 months to a year of no usage.