- Hi everyone, in today's video, I'm going to be sharing
about the time that I tried mushrooms.
(upbeat music)
Hi, and welcome back
to the Living Well with Schizophrenia channel.
If you're new here, my name is Lauren and I make videos
about what it's like to live
with Schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia.
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So I just wanna start off by sharing a little disclaimer
that I tried mushrooms long before we had a baby
and before I became pregnant, long before I became pregnant.
There were no children around
and we did it in a very safe environment.
So there has been a recent renaissance
of psychedelic science in the last decade or so
with hallucinatory drugs such as LSD or psilocybin
being considered in the treatment of depression
and post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.
This increased consideration of psychedelics
has also reignited interest
in the similarities of drug induced experiences
with those experiences in psychiatric contexts,
such as in people with schizophrenia spectrum illnesses.
The effects of hallucinogenic drugs
resemble some of the core symptoms of schizophrenia.
So one study sought to compare and contrast
hallucinations in schizophrenia spectrum illnesses
and under psychedelics.
The common features that they found
were that both experiences included
a reduced stability of functional networks,
both experiences also involved
a strong metaphysical meaning.
Now the differences found
were that psychedelics over engage primary sensory cortices
whereas hallucinations in schizophrenia
are mostly related to the over-activation
of associative networks.
Also, drug-induced psychosis for the most part
encompasses more visual hallucinations,
often kind of geometric with higher levels of insight
whereas schizophrenia is primarily characterized
by more auditory hallucinations, mostly voices
and poor insight or understanding of reality.
So to give a bit of a brief
and kind of or simplified summary of all that,
drug induced psychosis
as well as schizophrenia induced psychosis
has similarities but they are different.
So now I wanna get into sharing more
about my experience trying it out.
So, I had read throughout my mental health journey.
I had read articles about
how mushrooms are being increasingly used
to treat depression
or that there was increasing evidence
that mushrooms could be used to treat depression.
Also things like post traumatic stress disorder.
And so that piqued my interest
because I was primarily dealing with depressive symptoms
when my mental health journey started out.
That seemed like something I was interested in trying
because my depression
had been very treatment resistant up to that point.
I know that is because I was being treated
for the wrong disorder,
but anyway, I was interested in trying
alternative methods of treatments
such as hallucinogenics.
And this kind of interest
in trying out these other methods of treatment
has come with me throughout my journey.
And it may seem a little weird that I'll be interested
in trying out a hallucinogenic substance
when hallucinations are a primary symptom
of Schizoaffective disorder which I have,
but there's a lot of evidence about the therapeutic benefits
of these kinds of hallucinogenic substances.
And so it was something that I wanted to give a try.
I had really experimented
too much with drugs before this.
I had tried marijuana, weed.
We did actually a separate video
about my experience with marijuana
that you can check out a link to in the description below.
But basically what happened with that
was it wasn't a very good experience
and so I was interested in trying something
that might provide a different result.
And so Rob and I started talking about trying mushrooms.
And so I'm not gonna get into details
about how we obtained said mushrooms
because that is a little bit on the illegal side,
but we obtained mushrooms and we decided to give it a try.
And the first time we tried it, we really...
Neither of us experienced really anything.
And so we were kind of hesitant to try it again,
but we decided why not?
Let's give it a try again.
And the second time we tried it,
holy smokes, it was an amazing experience.
I'm not even sure how to describe
what the experience was like,
but everything was just kind of amplified,
colors were more vivid,
the world was more beautiful.
we went on a walk around our neighborhood outside
and it was kind of the most mind blowing walk
I've ever experienced.
So, the first time we tried it,
it was really, really good.
And I would say that, yeah,
there were therapeutic benefits to it.
It was mind expanding,
it was really internally reflective
and it was just a really good overall experience.
So, we were like, "Hey, let's do that again."
And we tried it again.
And so this third time trying it,
I started to have a bit of a harder time.
It wasn't like the second time that we tried it
where it was amazing and whatnot.
I think it actually triggered a bit of psychosis in me
and the hallucinations and whatnot
were a little bit more difficult to manage
and there was more anxiety happening.
So we reflected on this and we're like,
"Well, the first time things happened,
for the second time we tried it, it was really good,
and the third time, not so much.
Maybe let's try it again and maybe it'll be amazing again."
And so the fourth time that we tried it,
it was really, really, really not okay for me.
So this is where my experience
really diverged from that of Rob
who is for all intensive purposes neuro-typical
and does not have Schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia.
And what I experienced this time
was like complete, complete psychosis.
And it started with just being really, really anxious
about what was happening and what I was experiencing
and I was having the typical drug induced hallucinations
of like geometric shapes and whatnot
and more the visual hallucinations,
but I was also then having
the more schizophrenia related hallucinations
that were more auditory
and I completely lacked insight into what was going on.
This time, I forgot who I was,
I felt like I couldn't speak,
I couldn't communicate with Rob who is with me.
It was really, really intense
and for all intents and purposes, a pretty bad trip.
So, this may seem really dumb and counter-intuitive,
but we decided to try it another time after this,
thinking that again, this was just a bad trip
and maybe it will be great again.
So we tried it for a fifth and final time
and again, it was very, very, very, very bad.
My psychosis was completely triggered,
I completely forgot who I was, I forgot my whole life,
I couldn't communicate with Rob again,
I couldn't speak or anything and it was weird.
I remember that I have schizophrenia
or Schizoaffective disorder
and I became a little fixated on the fact that
this was what a schizophrenia episode was,
this was a symptom of my schizophrenia.
I fell into that, that was all I could think of
and I had like basically
the memory and attention span of a goldfish.
I just kept like bringing this up with Rob.
And it was awful, like really, really awful.
I never wanna be in the state again.
It was truly, truly awful.
It got to the point where I forgot my name.
I couldn't remember what my name was.
So Rob wrote it out on a piece of paper on a clipboard
and would just hold it up to me every time I forgot.
I think it said, "Your name is Lauren, we did mushrooms."
And I couldn't wrap my head around that.
I would be like, "Okay yeah, my name is Lauren
and this is schizophrenia."
I kept going back to that and I really got fixated on that.
And it was so mind tripping
and just not a good experience.
So I have a hard time putting into words
what this experience was like,
but it was very, very hard forgetting who I was
and forgetting my life.
And it just felt like
I had no means of orientating myself
in that moment.
The trip lasted,
I don't know, six to eight hours
or however long it lasts, about that.
And throughout that,
like I said, I had a memory of a goldfish
and I would ask Rob something to try to orientate myself
and then I would forget
and he started asking me,
"Does it seem like I can read your mind?"
And I would be like,
"Yes, yes, it does."
'Cause he would know when I was gonna ask
because I kept asking it,
because I kept forgetting the answer and asking it again.
So he would say,
"You just gave me the answer before I asked it."
And then it would seem like you're reading my mind
which was no further initiating
the paranoia involved in my psychosis
and further driving home the feeling
that this was all a simulation,
that everyone was kind of watching me
and knew what I was thinking
without me really knowing what I was thinking
or without me knowing what was going on.
And so the idea of a simulation
was something that I really hung onto
and this went on after the trip ended too.
And I think it was this weird mixture
of having drug-induced psychosis
but the stress of a bad trip with a drug induced psychosis
kind of triggering my schizophrenia spectrum psychosis.
And so it was this awful conglomeration
of psychotic symptoms that culminated
in a really terrible experience.
And the particularly hard part about this experience
was that the psychosis kind of lingered for weeks after.
And I was really fixated on what was real
and what wasn't real
and I couldn't really decipher what was real.
And so this is where the poor insight
of schizophrenia spectrum illnesses
and psychosis comes into play
where I didn't have insight into what I was experiencing
and I was questioning reality
and I was questioning everything.
And I thought that we were living in a simulation
and I fell into this for a few weeks
after the last time I tried mushrooms.
I understand why people experiment with this.
And it was fun in the beginning, but because of my illness,
because I have Schizoaffective disorder,
it became kind of dangerous
to be trying out these substances.
And so, I just kind of want to give a word of caution
to anyone with a psychotic disorder
that playing with mind altering substances
is particularly dangerous for us
because we are very susceptible to falling into psychosis
and a lot of these things can trigger psychosis.
And so, I've shared my experience with this
and I'm grateful for this experience.
It was mind expensive in some regards,
but also I learned more about myself,
but it was also really, really terrible
and scary and difficult.
I just want to share this in an effort
to kind of caution people
when they're trying out substances or if they're thinking
about trying out substances like this
especially if you have a psychotic disorder.
So we're in kind of a period right now
where there is a lot of exploration
being done scientifically around the therapeutic benefits
of hallucinogenic substances
such as magic mushrooms or LSD and that kind of thing.
And there is evidence that it is useful
in the treatment of disorders such as depression and PTSD.
However, there's still a lot of exploration to be done
in terms of the therapeutic benefits or methods of treatment
of using these substances
for other disorders such as schizophrenia.
Based on my experiences, I'm going to guess that
it's never going to be used in a large dosing
where it can trigger psychosis,
but there may come some benefits
in terms of micro-dosing or things like that.
And that is just something that's being explored a lot more
in the scientific community right now.
So that wraps up me detailing my experience
with experimenting with magic mushrooms.
I hope this video was helpful in some way.
If you wanna see more videos from us,
make sure to subscribe to our channel,
and just again, if you wanna help us
with supporting the creation of videos like this,
make sure to check out the link to our Patreon page.
Thank you so much again for watching
and as always wishing you and your loved ones good health.
We'll see you in the next video, bye.