Schizophrenia Awareness

Off-Topic
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maybe try drinking a big glass of squash more often (like juice that you dilute with water).
also make sure to eat something before evening like a banana or a bag of mixed fruit and nut.
Did you say you were vegan before? Maybe try adding fish to your diet.

dehyration, hunger, too much caffeine…the wrong type of foods? sweets and chocolate with high energy boost, then that kind of sugar comedown/tiredness?

if you drink a lot of high strength caffeine drinks make sure to drink watery drinks as well

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U sure we mean the same “schizophrenia”? I’m talking about (and suffering from…) the mental disease, that will force a strongly malformed and congested mind with paranoia, delusion and illusions onto a person and slowly or quickly eradicates the sane elements of the mind. It is very strong suffering, it can lead some people to harm or kill themselves and sometimes also others. You can be as strong as you like, the psychosis with its delusion will just bypass and blind yourself if it really wants to put you somewhere… It is basically just mental torture and blinding.

I have the shit since 20 year or so now. It totally destroyed my life, and cast me heavily disabled. I live like my mind is tied into a wheelchair, that is almost uncontrollable and rocket propelled to cause destruction, and my family has to wipe my ass and care for me, else I’d probably die homeless…

Yeah but sure, you can also grow upon such suffering. Maybe that is the sole reason and use of all the suffering, to sculpt wisdom into the suffering hearts. Buddha and Jesus knew and also suffered and thought to teach methods to overcome sufferings by dying into them. Meditation with a strongly psychotic mind is however very painful and insanely difficult and can also become dangerous if you get lost or blinded in the illusion. I do anyways - at least I can sometimes detach partially myself from the torture this way, and try to strengthen the mind so I don’t have to kill others or myself in the course of the hell unfolding inside my head.

Sometimes it can let people see a bit beyond the limits, then it might become a culture thing. But I feel it is not worth it, being forced into having no more peace of mind and not being free anymore for useless knowledge (most of it can only be used for malady, hurting yourself and others…) and some illusion (just watch tv instead and stay sane) is not a fair deal.

But yeah, culture. Not sure what you mean with the “pop” kind of thing, I feel in mainstream culture psychosis is a dark taboo, not normal cultural element… Psychosis hits 1% of population, so psychotics are everywhere, in any culture or sub culture. I see that cultures with negative ideals like disrespecting the weak and disabled and glorifying violence and the survival of the fittest, would probably not be a good ground to become psychotic in. You’d have to hide from your “friends” or be outcast from them, you cannot expect help or understanding from such people. Also the negative culture it is taking place in most probably sports very unhealthy cultural or even spiritual elements that will weaken the protections against the psychosis and fuel the paranoia in sick ways. Lucky is the man, who becomes psychotic amid a bunch of flower power love hippies, such who would respect and care for the sick one.

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Didn’t follow the thread, but are you in therapy?

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Yes I am in therapy since the conditions startet to show itself many years ago. There is medication, that eases things a bit for me. I just had bad luck - in my case the medication is only partially effective and has bad side effect - and the doctors have nothing else in their arsenal. Maybe a psychotherapy could help me in coping with all the terror, I’ll see in future how it will develop.

Big thanks for the “islamic” wishes of peace, I will for sure study the book you mentioned with an open mind, once I find some time and peace to consider what is written in there. Yes peace, especially peace of mind, is the greatest among all gifts one can attain in this place, I know now. The monotheistic (and also buddhist…) ways of spirituality seems to have a strong base in trying to understand and put into practice the respect for certain laws that reality is thought to be bound to. I do believe that trying to understand and put into practice the respect for such laws of reality can bring big benefit and stability, also in my very special situation…though I would not consider myself a strong believer or practitioner of such teachings.

And maybe you’re right, and the hippies are not such a good place for someone with a blown mind - there might not be aggression but acceptance of the condition, but also lots of folly into unhealthy illusions, and probably some fool would try to drop the shizo a blotter instead of something that clears the mind…

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Yeah well. I have always been under a different impression. I.e. that the hippie thing was mainly about freedom, freedom to choose and build up an own culture that is inspired by how people like to live, rather than traditional values that deprived people of certain things and making many people unhappy. Like the peace, love and happieness thing - that is the spirit that made the movement positive at times, not the drugs and spiritual mayhem… And withing the new awareness of freedom came ideas that leaked from the hippie culture to the mainstream western culture, making it just that tad more liberal and easier to live in…

I do agree though that the freedom was at times exploited too much, leading people into unhealthy practices and making them and others unhappy. I.e. the drugs thing, the spiritual follies, and trying to impose very promiscuous sexuality on people who were rather inclined by nature to treat it in a more restrained way… People made their own culture, and they experimented in the course, and experimentations can always fail in one regard or another.

Anyways, those flower power people have changed western culture in a strong and as I think positive way, and I am glad to live after that period rather than before. Actually I believe that in an conservative world people like myself would not be able to live at all - I’d probably have been downed in a military style, forced to do stupidifying labor and sick disciplinations, unable to reach ressources to learn from or communicate interesting ideas, maybe I would have even been sectioned or killed in my youth when came appearent that I do like to have my own mind, and refuse to obey to people who don’t like to give proper account and moral justification to the ways that they want to impose on me. If it weren’t for the hippie culture, I would probably already be dead or destroyed, instead of being able to fool around the net and try to make beautiful music…

As you name LSD, which was one of their “fuels”, I also have some words to say. I never done it though I was often tempted, and am glad that I have never given in. Especially after my psychotic experiences - I now know that the mind can have very sick and painful states, and I think that stuff like LSD brings great risk to trigger such unhealthy, tormenting states that are just not good to experience… I knew people who did LSD (and other hallucinogens), and they all got shot in the head by that stuff in one or another manner. Some were straight psychotic at times, and didn’t notice, nor did their friends around them. Really, it entice you to want to feel something very special, but in the course you cannot choose what you have to see and it might eat away at your soul here and there, leaving some users unhappy and deprived of what has made them happy before.

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Please no paranoid talk about psychiatric meds. Sometimes they are the only thing that is able to prevent big pain and death.

They have serious side effects, and don’t always work as expected, but they saved my life many times I believe. They make the unbearable bearable, at least for me. If I wouldn’t have such meds, I’d probably already be insane or dead.

In the psychiatry scene it is customary that once in a while some people decide that the “the meds are bad™” and it would be better not to take them any more and somehow “manage” or “overcome” the psychosis. Well once in a while somebody actually makes it through somehow if the psychosis is of the not too severe kind, that is to be respected ofc. But in most cases the people just become big time insane, and their life or even that of others might then be destroyed in the cause of further actions. Because if the Psychosis is severe, and it can have different levels of strength from case to case, it can make the psychotic one belive everything, also the most atrocious things, people might even kill themselves or totally innocent, believing it is the only thing that is left for them to do to save themselves or others. You read about such stories in the newspapers once in a while - normally it is psychotics who were not diagnosed yet, or such that stopped taking their meds and drink alcohol and smoke weed and snort pep instead.

So, please respect psychotics but please don’t tell them lies about their psychosis or the medication. You might kill them or other innocent people with it. This is no joke, and no exaggeration!

There are however often ways for psychotic people to manage Psychosis with less meds, or if the psychosis is weak then some might manage to get off the meds in a soft way, with support etc. But still that would often mean for many people that it is only possible in a safe and stress-free environment, with proper backing from experienced people and the right therapeutic techniques.

Life is possible and actually very good, even with chronic psychosis and a crapload of those meds. I have chronic psychosis, and I do high dosage antipsychotics. I have to do, else I’d be gone from this world. And I still have hallucinations and altered modes of thinking, which are very painful. Yet with the meds the effects of the psychosis are much more gentle.

And still it is a good life to life - and I am glad that the meds could turn the most atrocious mindrape soulcripple death shit into something that I am halfway able to live with. I suffer, and wouldn’t even wish my worst enemy the fate that struck me, but still I can live and do one thing or another with my life. Yes I tried to get off the meds in the past, but it was too much for me, usually after a week without sleep, being strung out and drowned in hallucinations I had to start taking them again. I had to accept, that my psychosis isn’t managable without the medication. My hopes are that in future there might be better substances, with less side effects and stronger liberation of the mind. Because that is what those meds can bring sometimes: liberation of the mind, to one extent or another.

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I completely agree. Psychiatric medicine is often subjects of lot of fantasies.

I know that because my brother has a serious psychiatric handicap (OCD). Until today he is unable to work… but we have found a good doctor and after YEARS of trying different medicines, finaly found a treatment that make him really less suffering his sickness.

Ha… We have listened many times peoples said that perhaps all this medicines are nasty…

Then today he can now play again classical guitare, and we (familly and doctors) are planning to search with him a job that can suit with his handicap. So this is really not bad at all.

I’m also not against natural healing, and I even like natural healing methodes for me, but this is not contradictory with medicine.

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Totally agree my uncle was in a similar position but one must be hospitalized for some time to have better results.

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It is not true about hospitalization being nessecary or bringing “better results” in general. It might be often required, in case the person is so sick that it has to be kept from doing unwise things, or if the person is too mentally challenged to care for himself properly because of the psychosis. But if you are aware of your condition, have people in your surroundings who can watch for you a little, and still manage the basics of daily life, you can as well just go to a psychiatrist and start trying the medication from home. Here in germany that is quite usual…in the hospital there are mostly people who became obtrusive by psychotic/dangerous behaviour. It is usual however, that many people with severe Psychosis loose touch to reality to a high degree, and then become apparent in public and (forced…) hospitalized because of such weird and harmful behaviour.

@Kaao I don’t really understand what exactly you mean with “anti-schizophrenic”. I hope you just mean glorification of paranoid ideas and conspiracy theories, that is happening in certain (mostly dark) cultures. But that has nothing to do with schizophrenia/psychosis as I am talking about in this thread. I am talking about a certain mental/medical condition, not just some fad or behaviour by free will. People suffering from it will often have paranoia and get tangled up in it, yet not because it would be their free will, but but because the mind is altered and forcing the people into believing all that crap. So please consider that in your concepts…that there are 2 things that can be named “schizoprenic”, cultural behaviour but also a medical condition, and you risk your concept being understood as discrimination of sick and mentally disabled people. You don’t want to propagate that, unless you are an asshole who wishes to bully the weak.

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has anyone experienced the “Games”, “World Phone” or “MILABS”?

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You ever hear similar stories about psychosis and the experienced. Sometimes people experience only fragements of what is possible, or get stuck in some specific paranoia.

I in general try to refuse to try to take part in anything I experience and am able to recognise as additional perception. This keeps the quality and intensity of perceptions low…I try to just let go all the shit. While it seems to be a way to deal with it unfolding stories and succesively more intense additional perceptions, it changed the perception into some kind of weird mental learning program, dealing much pain to me without appearant reasons, always trying to drive me into unhealthy thoughts and deeds.

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Someone dear to me just got hospitalized with a psychosis again. He’s on Zyprexa and a life long Marihuana addict, he can’t handle the Marihuana anymore because once he starts smoking it replaces his medicine and he get completely crazy imagining things and made up conversations, it is heartbreaking… what an impossible situation.

I wish everyone who suffers from this the best.

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Yeah the ganja is quite some topic for many people suffering from psychosis. Sad to hear about the dude. Let’s hope he learns at some time what the stuff triggers in him…

I also smoked a lot as a teen, and loved it, it made me understand myself and other people at all, and expanded my imagination and gave me a more open, tolerant mind set… but as the psychosis creeped in, I started feeling unwell and feeling distress when I had smoked. Then paranoia, then delusions and hallucinations. I had to learn that I could not continue smoking the weed like I used before. I can now only take very low dosages, and only feel half way okay when the strain of cannabis is a particularly mild one. Else it might make my painful experiences much stronger and more intense, and trigger hallucinations. It kind of “wakes up” the self perception at the same time… but the stronger delusions and unwellness make the state of mind rather undesirable.

But I must say that I myself have been, and people also are, sometimes crazy in how they dose strong cannabis. Oh boy, people take the heavy hits so they get numb and spaced out, and then with the stuff bred so strong that it cannot really be dosed low. I see this like you could drink a beer or two, but people drink half bottle of strong spirit at once! Maybe some people are just tough and their system accepts the stuff well. But most people will not feel well in that state, especially with aggressive strains.

Generally if you feel distress when smoking weed, or paranoia, feel unwell often, have strong memory impairment when high even on medium to low dosage… Then you might have to take care, take a break from smoking. Chances are, if you go on with hitting it hard, it might trigger psychosis at some later stage. Read up about psychosis, stay away from the strong stuff, and try to do something strengthening to your mind and soul by living healthy. It might prevent a real tough trip through hell…

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Thanks that was interesting. Unfortunately I fear he will not learn, he loves smoking and like any other addict it begins with him saying I can handle one joint a day, then a month later he is smoking 5 joints and then this time I think he smoked like 20 really strong joints a day before we had to have him hospitalized as he became aggressive, was shouting all day, his face was hanging and talking about things that never happened or what happened 20 years ago like it was yesterday, he once tried kill himself because of the voices he is hearing.

This time I believe he told me that he smokes because of the voices but I think it is more because he stopped taking the antipsychotic medicine after smoking, it’s like the weed replace the medicine for him in his mind, so it feels like an evil loop, you have to break it for him and have him hospitalized against his will unfortunately, hopefully he’ll get back to normal as they’ll make him quit smoking and back on the medicine, but since this is his fourth time at psychiatric hospital I think he’ll start the “I can handle one joint a day” again.

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Have you heard of the study that suggests “a single dose of CBD can reduce symptoms of psychosis by “resetting” activity in three brain areas”?

One could ponder whether Marijuana contain chemicals that goes both ways to maintain balance and once you take out the THC you may benefit from the good chemicals??

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Yes I know about CBD and already experimented with it. It kind of made my mind very sober and conscious in a very good way, most clean and intense when the CBD was pure (no other cannabinoids…) and administered in high dosages. It is just that I cannot afford buying it myself as permanent treatment. Studies are running, stuff might one day be valid for prescription - I am waiting for that day… There are different studies that already happened and found its effectivity similar to current antipsychotic medication with less side effects, and some studies are currently running where it is tested as a treatment in real life conditions.

CBD in weed also makes the effects of THC less devastating. To put short, if there is a lot of CBD in the weed, the THC will fuck the mind in a less intense way. Most weed from the black market has only little or no CBD in it. I personally believe though, how aggressive the stuff is also depends on other substances from the plant, and those are different for every strain of cannabis.

There is also CBD weed that has very little THC but as replacement lots of CBD. It does not get you high, but only relaxes the mind. Its kind of like alcohol free beer.

That the THC stuff is so dangerous for psychotic people, is probably not just because of addiction and the hallucinations. I believe the psychotic person has something lacking in the brain that the stuff activates. Also the usual medication has heavy mental and physical side effects, that thc can relief in certain ways.