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262 points Anon84 | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.423s | source
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suzzer99 ◴[] 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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winrid ◴[] No.44408738[source]
If you have a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia it's starting to seem like drugs that seem harmless like marijuana (specifically THC?) can definitely bring it out. At least, that's what seemed to happen to my mother and another friend.
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tony69 ◴[] No.44408778[source]
In Europe this (some rec drugs bring out latent schizophrenia) is taught in med school as a “known fact” (source: psychiatrist friend) so it’s well beyond “starting to seem”
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euranon96 ◴[] No.44412235[source]
Do you know what is considered as "latent schizophrenia"? Is it like in your 40's or 30's or just couple years after the mean?
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1. mystified5016 ◴[] No.44414590[source]
Schizophrenia is pretty interesting this way. It's rare for it to show up outside of a certain age range, somewhere around 20 to 35 iirc.

It's strongly correlated to genetics, and most people are totally asymptomatic, no idea they have it until one day they do.

The story of sudden-onset schizophrenia inducing a psychosis making the patient unwilling to consider treatment is depressingly common.

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2. ryanjshaw ◴[] No.44414806[source]
> It's strongly correlated to genetics, and most people are totally asymptomatic, no idea they have it until one day they do.

Depending on whose stats you go with, you can also argue that most people with schizophrenia never know they have it due to anosognosia.