- 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. If you would like to
see more videos from us, make sure to subscribe to our channel, and also if you would like
to help support the creation of videos like this one, make sure to check out our Patreon page. There's a very good chance
that videos such as this one are going to be demonetized by YouTube. And so, we're basically
running off of the donations from our Patreons which we
are so, so grateful for. Also, if you join Patreon, you have access to our
private Discord server where we offer peer support
through text channels as well as voice and video groups. So if that interests you, make sure to check out our Patreon page. 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.
