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

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.

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.

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”

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?

if you are a man and make it past age of 29 without starting to hear voices, you can breathe a sigh of relief (I did)

We dont even know what constitutes a mental voice. Hell, a huge percentage of people cant hear their own voices in their heads

I wonder if there are any schizophrenics with dissociative identity disorder. We're not schizophrenic but we have voices (we don't hear them as from outside though)

I have met a few people online who told me they were diagnosed with both.

Schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) and DID can apparently co-occur.

From [0] (2016): > One study showed that in a sample of patients diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) 74.3% also met diagnostic criteria of a SSD, 49.5% met diagnostic criteria for schizoaffective disorder, and 18.7% met diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia.

The study cited in [0] is dated from 1996, however(!), so it was done not long after the change from changing the name MPD to DID. Not sure how much weight to put on a study that old.

From [1] (2022): > Numerous studies have shown that up to 50% of patients with schizophrenia meet the diagnostic criteria for dissociative personality disorder.

The two linked studies cited in [1] are dated in 1998 and 2004. So also, still old, but not quite as much.

It seems well-known that the two conditions co-occur. I don't have access to the linked studies, however, and am not willing to pay the subscription or single-paper fees.

I do have DID but SSDs have been thoroughly ruled out for me (I was checked for both, as well as other potential conditions). My assessment seemed quite thorough.

[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5216848/ [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8885543/

I'd be willing to try institutional academic accounts if you ever have some paywalls article you want to read. Just shoot me an email at partner_privacy@proton.me

Also, my partner likely has DID and is struggling with it somewhat. If you have advice or are willing to answer some questions, I'd appreciate talking about it. But I know it's a big ask, respectfully, so I understand if not.