Messed with my brain?

[AmZ]

So, I've never told anyone whether it be a psychiatrist or my sister Etc.

5 years ago, I was at my friends house who were heavy marijuana smokers.

I went there and they'd made 'space cookies'. They said it was just hash, hash cakes. I ate some of it, not so much at all. Nothing happened to me until I went home a couple of hours later and I started having hallucinations and really badly tripping out. Seeing all colours swirling around, the room tilting upwards in front of me, my heart racing, feeling I was going to be sick and pass out. Then for the next several hours, until the morning I was hallucinating that there were green neon spiders running about on the floor. I spent several hours with a shoe in my hand smacking the "spiders" on the floor.

I remember the next day, I was totally messed up. I couldn't talk and it was like my head was on backwards. I remember for even a week or two, having my heart racing and feeling very abnormal. Kind of difficult to explain.

Could this have affected my brain long-term? I used to also smoke a lot of marijuana (from the age if 15-20) and on several times passing out because I'd smoked too much. Then coming to a few hours later. The same with alcohol too. Several times I had alcohol poisoning and woke up in a pile of sick (sorry I know that's not nice).

Not the most proudest of moments in my life.

Could this be part of why I have these 'mental problems' now?

BTW I really don't think that was just hash in those cakes. I think it was something quite stronger.

I also, on several occasions done solvent abuse. I won't go in to detail what I did here but my throat closed up on me several times and I was close to stopping breathing.

 

[Retired]

I don't know the answer to your question, but is this kind of destructive behaviour behind you now?

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Why have you withheld this information from your psychiatrist and other mental health practitioners? Don't you think this is important information for them to know?

 

[AmZ]

I don't know the answer to your question, but is this kind of destructive behaviour behind you now?

Not 100% no.

I self-medicated a couple of weeks ago by taking 3 x 2mg Clonazepam. I know it's not toiling with my life but on the other hand, it's still a very unhealthy thing to do and can cause damage.

With alcohol. Well, several weeks ago when I was at my sister's for the weekend I had 2/3 a full bottle of Amaretto. I just kept drinking and drinking. Until it caused so much anxiety that I needed to excuse myself from the dinner table. Before my hospitalisation I was also renowned for my Amaretto drinking. On the way back from difficult therapy session, I'd often buy a bottle. Drink enough until I either collapse in bed of I'm sick. Going way over my limits. In the first 8 months of my breakdown, before hospitalisation, I was sometimes drinking several times a week. Out of control. Ended up once calling an ambulance because I was being sick and felt extremely weak and faint. They gave me an IV for fluids and I slept there until the late morning.

With marijuana, just before my hospitalisation I got some from a girl that I used to work with. Have to be honest, if I had friends and wasn't a loser and they had weed, I'd probably be smoking it. My dad doesn't set a good example for this! He smoked for years when just him and I lived together and I'd hate it. He had 2 mental breakdowns in to depression. Once because he had a traffic accident which ended up in him getting a slipped disk in his back. It stopped him from being active and he was always in pain. He first of all said that he smoked it just for pain relief and to help him sleep but it was obvious it was more than that. He did it for a few years then. Then when his mother passed away he went back to heavily smoking it. He'd either be sobbing his eyes out in bed because of his loss or he'd be in the living room totally stoned out of his face going crazy laughing. It was difficult to see him in both states. And confusing.

I still self-harm which is a self-destructive act.

I can't say that I care much for my body. Since my breakdown and being in hospital for 14 months, I put on a lot of weight and became very unfit. I used to do sports a few times a week when I was 11-15 years old. Used to eat healthy and be very strong but not now.

From the age of 15, these have always been ways in order to disconnect myself from reality for a short-period. Escapism big time. Anything I could get my hands on, I'd do it. With the things I listed above. I was a troubled teenager before I even started with these self-destructive acts. The first time I self-harmed was when I was 13 years old. Then at the age of 15, I was extremely confused with life, to which I still am today. Always trying to start a new page and start my life from afresh. But struggled in school and the home environment wasn't so healthy as when I was at the age of 15, my mother was caught in our house with a family friend. Me and my sister were there, upstairs. My dad and mum were downstairs with this couple A and C, they were family friends. My mum was in the dining room with the man and they were caught kissing. All hell went down, physical fights, yelling and screaming. Then my dad was so badly broken down from this, he went abroad for a month, leaving me and my sister with our mum. She didn't give a damn about us. She was just constantly with her toy boy boyfriend all the time staying over on weekends and disappearing a lot. During this time, the drug use was very high as we weren't in a stable or good situation with our mum. There's a lot to it. Ending up in abandonment issues when our dad got back from abroad and she moved out to be with him and our relationship has been rocky since then. Sometimes not speaking for months at a time. Then she'd appear and say about s*itface (that's what me and my sister used to call him, sorry). Come and collect me and go out in his red sports car which she always wanted. And a cottage in the countryside. But she forgot about her children in the meantime. Then after that, it was 5 years of heavily using drugs and alcohol. And when I'd get upset, I'd escape to my room and do the solvent abuse and not care that it gave me an instant awful headache, nauseousness and faint feeling. There wasn't anything good about it. It was just like self-harming, damaging my body and risking my life.

I still try to find ways to escape now because I'm so upset with life. Everything is a void, missing friends, a career, dreams, wishes, aspirations, anything full stop. I just feel like an empty shell of a person.

And I still think about how I can escape and sometimes escape completely and not live my life. Be done with it and end the turmoil.

Sorry. Went off on one.

---------- Post Merged at 12:20 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 12:10 AM ----------

Why have you withheld this information from your psychiatrist and other mental health practitioners? Don't you think this is important information for them to know?

I used to tell my private therapist before my hospitalisation who I was with for 8 months, every time I would drink, or self-harm or whatnot. And told her that I used to drink, smoke and do solvent abuse.

Then the self-harming in the hospital I always told the nurses about.

I don't think we've gotten there so far with my psychologist in the rehab program and with my psychologist here in the hospital, I maybe mentioned it but didn't tell her everything.

When I was first hospitalised, I was asked about drugs and alcohol and I said yes. But this time around, the nurse filled out the forms in front of me and ticked all the boxes herself without asking me. Thinking I am a goody two shoes she ticked no alcohol or drugs.

I'll bring it up with my psychologist in the rehab program. He knows I've had a troubled past but not the entire story like about this stuff I've been talking about here.

I don't know if it was especially important to tell my psychologists, etc. I just classed it as escapism that I am doing a hell of a lot less these days. But I don't feel in complete control, I admit. Very impulsive.

---------- Post Merged at 12:41 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 12:10 AM ----------

BTW. A couple of weeks before my hospitalisation first time around I was in a terrible state of anxiety at home in my studio apartment and I "saw" thousands of ants running towards me on the floor and coming up on to my body on the sofa. I could "feel" them and everything. But it was a hallucination. I hadnt been drinking or smoking or anything. That's the only time I've had a hallucination like that asides from the one with the neon spiders which was drug induced.

 

[rdw]

I am sure that your health care team should be made aware of this information. It can only help them to assist you with recovery.

 

[AmZ]

Thx. It's going to be a bit difficult to come out with all of this. Kinda embarrassing. And I imagine that they won't really say much in return. But that's me just guessing.

I don't know what they'll do with this information.

I am worried that it's affected me badly and that's why i have these mental health problems but already in my genes I wasn't doing so hot. My dad, mum and grandmother all experiencing depression and anxiety for all of their lives (asides from my dad)

 

[rdw]

It is always a good idea to give your mental health team all of the information whether you believe it is embarrassing or worthy of mention. Everyone always believes that their story is the worst or most despicable but I don't believe our stories are that unique. All of us who have lost our way in our lives share similar stories with a slightly different twist. The difference lies in being honest and using that honesty to work at rebuilding our lives.

 

[AmZ]

Thanks. Yeah. You're right.

I'll start off by speaking about it with my therapist in the hospital. She doesn't know to which extent my usage was.

 

[GDPR]

Why have you withheld this information from your psychiatrist and other mental health practitioners? Don't you think this is important information for them to know?

Just curious...why would that be considered 'important' information?

 

[AmZ]

Just curious...why would that be considered 'important' information?

I'm not saying that I disagree but would also like to know why it would be considered as important to tell them about this.

 

[Banned]

IMO any kind of addictive or self-destructive behaviour is crucial information to a therapist. Especially with mood and personality disorders as impulsive and destructive behaviours can be considered as part of the diagnostic criteria.

From a therapeutic perspective, I'd say its hard for your therapist to fully help you if he doesn't know the scope, length, and extent of such behaviours, be they past or present.

 

[AmZ]

IMO any kind of addictive or self-destructive behaviour is crucial information to a therapist. Especially with mood and personality disorders as impulsive and destructive behaviours can be considered as part of the diagnostic criteria.

From a therapeutic perspective, I'd say its hard for your therapist to fully help you if he doesn't know the scope, length, and extent of such behaviours, be they past or present.

Gotcha. And for me I think it's very important. Even though I self harmed at the age of 13, things really got bad for me from the age of 15-20. And this was once I started the self destructive acts and drugs and alcohol.

I don't maybe realise how much what my mum did affected me. Then a couple of other tough things to deal with in life such as the loss of a loved one in bad circumstances. And stuff like that.

I however don't think of my life as being much harder than the next person in most respects. Maybe I'm just extra fragile and sensitive.

This whole 2 years (and to a larger degree, 12 years) is still like a bad dream or something. Totally lost in life and can't find my way.

There have been no cases of suicide in my family (just giving up and refusing chemo treatment) but I do wonder if I will break this. I feel it very strongly.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Because the use of certain drugs can sometimes either trigger the onset of certain mental disorders or create enduring symptoms similar to certain mental disorders. Thus, any significant substance abuse history can be critical to accurate differential diagnosis and effective treatment.

If you withhold that information from your doctors, they may not be able to correctly diagnose your symptoms and it may hamper their ability to devise the best treatment strategy for you.