I recently stopped smoking marijuana because I feel it was to blame for my delusional and paranoid behavior. I was also becoming socially anxious. All of this would happen even if I hadn't been smoking. It was so scary. Everybody was testing me and I couldn't trust anyone anymore. Everybody was setting me up and everything anyone said always had a double meaning and the tv was talking to me in a way. There were secret video cameras set up and following me around all the time filming for some tv show. I mean, it was bad. I had a moment of clarity and realized it was all in my head. When I stopped smoking theses symptoms lasted a while before fading out almost entirely. Sometimes it still happens, but not often at all. Is this just the pot or was ite start of something worse? Like a mental illness?
Update:I've just never heard of such intense paranoia coming from smoking.
Answers & Comments
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Oh ya! It isn't the marijuana which CAUSES the mental illness - YOU have the mental illness - but marijuana can sure make it worse.
On the other hand, marijuana might also help in some cases because it might allow you to see the illness from another angle. But you're quite paranoid from what you say - or you have the potential. So probably best to leave the marijuana alone. There's lots of us who can't smoke dope.
Marijuana can cause alot of anxiety and panic attacks. I knew a guy who tried marijuana for the first time and had a severe panic attack, he thought he was going to die and went to the emergency room. While marijuana is kinda safer than most drugs it affects mainly your mind. It can cause psychosis in heavy users and people become dependant on it. If you have anxiety or panic attacks already marijuana will just make it worse. It can also make symptoms worse if you have bi polar or are a shizo. Though this isn't true with everyone just a minority. If you smoke it everyday for most of the day it can leave you very unmotivated to do anything. And eating marijuana or smoking 'wax' are the worst way to use the drug. If smoking marijuana gives you anxiety or paranoia it's best not to smoke it. But smoking real marijuana is way better than smoking synthetic marijuana cuz that stuff is super addictive and is more likely to cause anxiety or panic attacks.
It's possible that marijuana can induce a mental illness in those who are prone but seeing as it's fading I wouldn't worry about it. When something like psychosis (your symptoms are psychotic symptoms) is approaching everything gets worse as time goes on, not better.
I've seen this type of thing happen to people before. I've even become slightly paranoid from very high caffeine intake.
You can go to a doctor if you want just to be safe but one thing you must do is never smoke marijuana again. Some people have a strange reaction to it. I like to think of it as being allergic.
There is a link between marijuana use and schizophrenia. It is unsure whether smoking marijuana causes schizophrenia or schizophrenics just happen to smoke marijuana more, or maybe neither! Remember, causation does NOT equal correlation. Just because studies show that ice cream sales and murder rates are both positively correlated, doesn't mean that ice cream is the cause of murder. It's probably the heat!
Long term use of marijuana changes the pleasure pathways of the brain, so that you can have difficulty experiencing pleasure from other, non drug sources, and this can take a considerable time to recover from, even partially, and it can permanently affect short term memory adversely, and shrink the emotional centres of the brain, affecting the ability to form lasting relationships.
It may permanently destroy the ability to perform higher mental functions, such as theoretical physics, or mathematics. The new strains of super potent marijuana are bred to have high TetraHydro Cannabinol levels, but it is at the expense of the levels of the stabilising cannabidiol, which are reduced accordingly.
Paranoid thinking often occurs, such as you describe. It is associated with an increase in the expression of schizophrenia in those with a genetic predisposition to it. "A study from the Orygen Research Centre in Melbourne suggests that omega-3 fatty acids could also help delay or prevent the onset of schizophrenia.
The researchers enlisted 81 'high risk' young people aged 13 to 24 who had previously suffered brief hallucinations or delusions and gave half of them capsules of fish oil while the other half received fish-tasting dummy subtitute. One year on, only three percent of those on fish oil had developed schizophrenia compared to 28 percent from those on the substitute, but the result has not yet been published in a peer reviewed journal.[13]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_oil
http://www.oilofpisces.com/depression.html#depress...
Take at least 4 Omega 3 fish oil supplements, or the recommended dose of a high quality of fish oil daily, like Carlsons, or Melrose: (certified free of mercury) it is best if consumed with an antioxidant, such as an orange, or its FRESHLY SQUEEZED juice. If vitamin E is added, it should be certified as being 100% from natural sources, or it may be synthetic: avoid it! Females may benefit by balancing the DHA, & EPA versions of Omega 3 in fish, or krill* oil with ALA flaxseed oil Omega 3, or at least one heaped tablespoonful of ground flaxseed, daily. Vegetarians: Google: "Omega 3; algae; supplies" and use with flaxseed. Use the www.mercola.com * SEARCHBAR.
Smoking marijuana has been shown to cause a psychosis to develop in people - including schizophrenia. And, if the person is genetically predisposed to developing a psychosis, it will occur earlier in life than it otherwise would have.
Refer to:
http://www.schizophrenia.com/prevention/streetdrug...
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: partisans on either camp tend to obscure the issue, but experience shows the short answer to be accurate.
My mom has been smoking it for years and she ended up schizophrenic.
in some cases I think it can cure mental illness