Psychosis..Have you had one?

[CatherineR]

Hi I'm wondering are there any people out there that suffered a drug or Alcohol induced psychosis.

I had one last year when I was in Thailand, I had been in Cambodia before this and was smoking weed that may have contained either opium or cocaine.

During my psychosis I believed that goggle earth was watching my every move and that God was somehow speaking to me through different signs. Everything that I read appeared different to me, for example I was reading a book and it was telling me my future, what was going to happen over the next few days.

My friends that were with me at the time treated me horribly as they did not understand what was going on with me or how serious it was. They were playing mind tricks on me and making me feel worse then I was. I haven't spoken to them since due to what they did, however I was talking to one other person who had psychosis and he was very parnoid about his friends involvement in his psychosis experience as well so I'm not sure if I made this up in my head.

I would love to hear from anyone that has suffered a psychosis so they could tell me what happened to them. It might help me make sense of what happened to me.

Thank you

[adore79]

Hi Catherine

I have schizoaffective disorder so I have experienced psychosis a few times when I wasn't on my meds. My beliefs were similar to yours: that people were watching me from spy satellites, following me wherever I went, that there were tiny cameras in my room and car, everyone around me was in some big consipracy against me. It got to where everything and everyone I saw had some significance to me, that they were reading my mind and sending me signals, telling me what to do etc...

The people around me did not know what was going on either and they did not behave in ways that would have helped me, because they couldn't really, I thought they were against me. It took me going to the police station multiple times and complaining about the constant harrassment from everyone for them to finally have me committed to the psych ward and I was stabilized on meds.

Hope this helped and I hope you stay away from drugs/alcohol cause it could happen again if you are not careful.

[Cleansing]

I was diagnosed with Major Depression disorder with psychotic features for about 2 years (2006-2008).

Basically, I never really believe I was psychotic, because all I used to do was hallucinate, and that was when I would go days drinking and not doing anything else. Ate seldomy, no real excercise, just drinking.

But after feeling suicidal and telling my therapist about it, I ended up in the psych ward. Now I hadn't use any drugs or alcohol in about 2 weeks prior to this placement in an institution. But I had to anger outbreaks in that psych ward, and the next thing I know im diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Basically they said something about my violent outburst, my sucidal ideation, and depression was a form of schizophrenia.

So, have I had psychotic breaks? Yes and no. I have heard things and seen things only after drinking so much.

but I never felt paranoid or thought about things that didn't exist. Even though I would see things and hear things, I lways felt stable.

Btw, before I went into the psych ward that time, I had just done a 10 day bid in the same ward AFTER using too much drugs and becoming very homicidal and suicidal. They let me out, and I remained clean for 2 weeks., but somehow ended back up in the ward, that's when I was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

So with two weeks clean, I go from mdd with psychotic features, to schizophrenic. Not sure if it was the drugs or not.

But apparently there have been psychotic breaks.

But to me, anyone is liable to hallucinate. It's just how often and how sever each episode is that counts.

I bought the mdd with psychotic features, but I don't believe Im schizophrenic. Doesn't matter because u treat both with the same type of meds.

[spittake]

I have lost touch with reality for periods, not being able to make rational decisions, being very impulsive and unable to sit still or sleep or eat. (but no manic euphoria ) I don't have paranoid delusions, though this last time I did think there might be demons or ghosts in my house and I was very frightened. So frightened that I prayed to Jesus like I used to when I was a kid and terrified of the same things.

So no, I haven't experienced psychosis, but I have been unable to sort out what is reality and what is my disorder.

Having dealt with persons who have dementia with paranoid features, I think it likely that the feeling your friends were playing tricks on you is part of the delusions you had. All I know is my grandma regularly thinks her family is plotting against her and she refuses to believe us when we tell her otherwise. I can hardly imagine the hell that would be...