r/Psychosis

I just want to let this out and somehow find some relief (if there's any) for all the years I've spent exhausted, fighting my fiancée's anxiety, depression, and overall mental health issues. I'll try my best to give the important details on how things wrapped up for our 5+ year relationship.

To cut a long story short, she got bullied at work on a daily basis. People gossiping about her, making dirty jokes using her name, stuff like that. Until one day it got into her head, started to creep in, and completely took over her life. The bullying went on for 4 years and I had no idea because she seemed completely normal, until a friend of the bullies actually confessed to me about what was happening. I'll skip the other parts of the story, but I completely lost it at the office when I found out (we worked in the same office). But HR was bullshit, they did absolutely nothing. I went to the police station to file a blotter and was looking to file a case for unjust vexation because it had a severe effect on my fiancée. Her boss even told me that sometimes they'd see her just talking to herself in front of her monitor, and NO ONE EVEN BOTHERED to tell me! Not until I investigated it myself after that confession. Fucking fake friends.

So in the end, we forced her to resign, which she eventually did. I thought that would be the end of the problem, but it turned out it was only the beginning.

She's been on a remote job since she resigned. Zero problems with money or anything else so no other cause of stress, except that she kept mentally going back to what happened inside that office.

One time, I celebrated my birthday and invited a lot of people. The day went by normally and ended on a happy note (or so I thought). On that very day, she had her first severe outburst. We were driving, looking for a resto for dinner because some of my cousins and friends (who were with us in the car) wanted to eat again. We were all shocked by what she did. She was sitting in the front passenger seat, and she suddenly turned to the people in the back and shouted something like, "You're all like that! It's more important for you to believe the gossip! *curse*!"

Bro. WE ALL FROZE. It was dead silent while she sobbed like a child.

I asked everyone to get out of the car and the two of us went home. In the parking lot, I was so confused. I asked her, "What was that? Why did you scream at them?" That's when I discovered something was deeply wrong with her perception because of the severe trauma. She told me that during the drive to my birthday venue, everyone we passed, from the buses, was talking about her. Calling her names and using nasty words against her. I didn't know how to react, and my biggest mistake was getting angry out of sheer confusion at the time. It was my birthday and I had no idea what was going on. It was just question after question, and I don't even remember how that conversation ended that night.

After that night, I looked up a bunch of articles to learn how to deal with it and how to help her. I was pretty confident since I have a pre-med background. I even asked my classmates who are now doctors. They said it was an obvious case of paranoia.

I tried to convince her to get checked (which turned out to be the wrong first move, and I realized it too late). I told her family about what I discovered, but guess what? Her family told me she acts completely normal at home, and that she only gets like that when she's with me. I ended up being the one told not to cause her stress. But what they didn't know was that my fiancée would always confide in me, saying she felt there were cameras installed in their light bulbs and in every corner of their house. It was the same with my room, which is why whenever we were together, she always wanted us under the blanket, or no one was allowed to take their clothes off in my room, even if we were just changing. Just imagine how that affected our intimacy, too. It reached a point where if kids were playing outside her house, which is naturally noisy, right? She felt they were doing it on purpose to annoy her. And if someone cursed outside, she would curse back because she assumed it was directed at her. Even the usual neighborhood gossips, she felt she was the topic of their conversations. There were even instances where she felt her phone and their internet were hacked, and that all our conversations were being leaked and laughed at. She bought a Starlink to replace their ISP, bought a new laptop, a new phone, spent money on antiviruses, consulted with IT professionals, etc. But still, nothing changed about how she felt towards her surroundings. And all this went on for years.

Until one day, her sibling's live-in partner moved into their house. She claimed the partner was a conspirator of her former officemates and was influencing her sibling to hate her too. She always told me these things, but of course, I didn't validate it, nor did I shoot it down, because neither would help. But to be honest, I can't even remember what I told her because I genuinely had no idea how to handle it. This was when she started blaming people, right after her claims about the internet hacking fell apart. The worst experience for her was when she confronted everyone in their house about the live-in partner being a conspirator, and they straight-up told her it wasn't true, that it was just in her head. Which I guess made things worse. Just a massive facepalm.

But she said that was okay, manageable, so to speak. She said she was fine and had adjusted to it, that the world could judge her as long as we were okay and I wasn't siding with them. So of course, I reassured her that if anyone dared badmouth her in front of me, I'd smack them right away. I thought that worked until recently, she started doubting me, too.

She started connecting every little thing back to that trauma. She'd say it was exactly what the people at her office used to do annoy her and gang up on her. She said she couldn't explain it, but she was 100% sure someone was talking to me, directly or indirectly, until I agreed to join them in tormenting her. Something as simple as me accidentally stepping on her foot she'd say I did it on purpose. Brushing against her glass of water, done on purpose. All of this drove me insane. I literally thought, "Damn, this is endless," because she had absolutely no trust in me anymore. We had a series of calm talks, fights, and even shouting matches. Until one day, I just got really tired. I couldn't take it anymore. Four years have passed since that day, that birthday celebration, and we are still here and she hasn't moved on.

I told her, if you really can't trust me anymore, and based on everything you're saying you're 100% sure I'm the enemy just give the ring back. Because I am exhausted. I also said a lot of things in that same conversation to reassure her: that I'm not her enemy, that I would never wish her harm, etc. But still, she left the ring on my workstation.

Until now, I haven't touched the ring. I've just been crying nonstop. I don't know what to do. Almost a decade of being together, and it's all gone because of these bullies and traumas. I want to hurt them badly. The people who caused all of this. But it won't help. All I want is to save her from drowning, but she refuses to be saved. And I'm dying inside.

P.S. Sorry, I'm not good at telling stories. I'm an introvert myself. But as you can see, I am struggling so much. To anyone who has been in a similar situation, please help me recover from this. Or maybe there's still a way to save our relationship. I need help. And she needs help more than anyone else.

Hello, before you read, I want to say that Ive talked to professionals, my psychiatrist and therapist and they both had different answers so I decided to ask here.

This whole thing started like 3 weeks to a month ago. I finished my final and me and my psychiatrist decided it's time I taper of my medication. Ive been on 10mg olanzapine for a year and a half after my psychotic episode. Now im at 5mg.

The doctors at the mental hospital said it's probably a one time drug induced thing. I didn't take any psychoactive substances since then except alcohol occasionally. The loss of control and fallout after my episode were very traumatic and I never want to go through it again.

I had insomnia after lowering the dose. My doctor said it could be a sign of schizophrenia, my therapist said it very unlikely, since 5mg of olanzapine wouldn't help if I had schizophrenia.

I get anxiety almost every day. Im terrified of my thoughts. Sometimes I can't tell if im in a state of anxiety or if something is actually happening.

I thought a lot about how I let the algorithm control me and program me. I became a lot more insecure from doomscrolling. It's stealing my soul. I think these thoughts are reasonable, but it's a fine line between recognizing a problem and becoming paranoid.

My mental state is terrible now. I feel depressed all the time and can't find joy in things. Maybe it's because of the anxiety building up, or rebound from lowering my olanzapine dosage. Ive heard some people get depressed when coming off of this medication.

Any advice is appreciated.

Im seeing a psychiatrist tomorrow and I'm terrified. I was diagnosed before with bipolar 1 with psychotic features when I was in hospital. 6 years ago. But they never medicated me and after looking at my records from a previous inpatient stay they told me "no its DID" which fit more with what I was experiencing. I didnt have any episode really until last year and I'm on medications that are supposed to trigger mania in bipolar patients. Ptsd with osychotic features is what most of my providers agree on. I have had a TBI and I also have narcolepsy. Last year I was on a new medication for the narcolepsy and I lost my marbles. Ive never experienced anything like that and got arrested (charges were dropped) and spent a week in the hospital but no one really talked to me about what happened. As far as the psychosis.

I was still experiencing psychosis for months afterwards but I was aware that my thoughts made no sense so I dont think it was obvious to anyone else. It was also post traumatic...so I had all those symptoms but now I think it might have actually been mania.

Im just really scared. I dont want to get in trouble and I'm embarrassed to talk about what my delusions were and I don't want to lie but I also dont know how to explain so much of it.

I guess I just wanted to tell someone because I dont have many people in my life I can talk to about this.

Whenever I sleep less, my symptoms come back and I experience paranoia and hallucinations. So I wanted to ask: does lack of sleep cause your symptoms to return and make them worse, or is this something that only happens to me?

This whole weekend really. The fireworks are awful. The stalkers are going hard this weekend, finding every nook and cranny on the internet I go to. Watching me shower (Edit: there are cameras in there, I cant find them) . I really hope they stop some day. I get how it sounds. But every time they engage the more I am sure its real. I am getting help. I only have meds for anxiety right now, which help a little. I don't know if that will change. I am not diagnosed with anything but anxiety and depression. No one believes this stuff is happening. I just wanted to vent a little, its really lonely.

—Believed I was possessed by the devil

—I was convinced that earth is a matrix and evil reptilian shapeshifters are trapping us on earth.

—Tried communicating with my comsic higher self.

—Was convinced that I switched universes by losing weight—I was doing daily workouts 😭

—Thought the world was ending when I was 10. I was preparing myself extensively for judgement day.

—Thought I was transcending reality and embracing my true self. My family members were being indoctrinated by the matrix.

—I was convinced that if I slept something evil would take over my body. Didn't sleep for 2 days after that—heard some voices.

—I thought I was dead being punished in purgatory.

im on vacation and still technically inpatient for psychosis/paranoid schizophrenia. im on xeplion injections and the days are so hard. the stress and change in environment + heat is making me do worse and im counting down the days until i go back home. im not alone and my parents know, so im able to and allowed to take it easy but my body is constantly in fight/flight/freeze and i feel unable to do anything yet i feel the need to do something at all times. what do i do? im doing not so great and have valium for when i feel extra uneasy but im going towards the end of this last injection. i can talk to the ward when i want and i have a couple of times already but the rest of the time i feel so out of it. help

honestly, i remember being in the middle of jail for 2 weeks a highly stressful part in my life that i obviously won't tell the internet about i was 17 years old. Now 18 i remember being very social with my friends.

it was last year about late august. a late night in august and i went to jail. so i thought it would be easy 3 meals a day to get out to contact your Family members (i did not have a good home life where i used to be at im at a much better place now wasn't fed enough to be normal weight back with my old parents left by myself)that was easy to me in my own mind.

and i was not let out for a whole week to make a phone call until i changed my hair into curtains which was strange. they only fed me twice a day with a small sandwich in-between they were doing this to teenagers in the cell block they weren't feeding us. i was a dumbass and i told my case and essentially threatened by people in jail the classic i would never do that.(I don't remember their names at all and completely forgot all of their faces so i cannot tell you who they are.)

they were throwing piss and shit peoples doors sometimes one part of the cell block was on and the other one wasn't. we usually weren't let out usually do to alot of fights happening. people would kick on the door for hours. i had an allergic reaction with the wool in the covers. i had to sleep on the ground so i didn't feel hungry. a nightmare essentially😂

i had some people talk about drinking water to be full a big horror show since at that age you need to be NORMAL WEIGHT.

and you need to be fed a lot of food. to live a normal life but essentially in this generation i did not see that growing up (not sure why a lot of issues with parents not wanting to feed their kids even though you have them in the first place just put them up for adoption give them to your parents or anything else besides you. YOUR KIDS SHOULD NOT STARVE.

2 Weeks in

I started to talk to myself and in my mind wandered out to God and Satan and apparently i had a conversation about this with a person in my own head in my own mind talking to myself. it felt like i was talking to a higher power than me that easily get me out of any situation possible and i blindly trusted it. but essentially 'God' he didn't tell me to say anything to anybody there or speak to anyone. so i went to talking to myself immediately. and since all this stuff was happening outside of the cell

Then i went to devereux georgia A lot of people know about this place i usually see them lurking nearby along with psychiatric facilities with vans. when i was outside i was there for 2 months. thank god for my therapist and all the Higher ups and staffs giving me advice about how to get out of there. It's just the way they handle the students there is weird it leaves a lot of room for bullying. thank god i have a strong head on my shoulders and was not affected by that at all and responded accordingly. i had a close friend in there for a brief time period. but the rest of the time they bullied each other making fun of each other. essentially not the best enviroment for mental health. when you stay quiet in those circles and actually follow instructions the people in your age group don't look at your some bigger person so they try to tear you down. of course the head school principal always had suspicion of me for no reason. usully what happens when you read to deeply into someone who does nothing. i got out after 2 months in that hellhole😂😂😂.

I went up north essentially but i was still talking to god. however a lady upstairs has not fed her kids and usually reminds me of my home life back at home ive tried calling cps but i don't see that much progress being made. ive heard her decline food from her children, abuse animals(which my mother had more respect for dogs and cats than me). of course I've tried everything but i have to let cps handle it because that is not my job. it was so horrible in Dec-Feb

My social life tanked because of my conscience speaking to myself and i am strong so i put up with it however i have to draw the line somewhere and say enough is enough and hold myself accountable because im not about to just listen to some stupid person i made up in my head in jail that goes away the moment i call it out.

technically ive speaking to myself asking myself why questions. (not voices or hallucinations but recently) pure bs since about mid sep 2025 to july 2026 nothing usually happens nearby and people usually approach people in the south so being up here seeing noone approach people in school was weird not gonna lie. but i have to be open to therapy but usually i lose my appetite and i start to lose all this weight and i don't want to mess with my weight or my puberty because im so behind due to me having scarily low weights like 5'10 110 pounds i remember being around like 5'7 90 pounds yet the doctors would weirdly trust my mom instead of saying this kid is afraid to speak up thank god i learn how to do that as an adult and i spoke up for myself in the end.

TLDR:Wondering if this is some illness i developed in jail. being strong.

I had been hearing voices for 6 years. Finally, for the last 3 months, I haven't heard them. The voices were constant, from morning till night. I only stopped hearing them when I was asleep. Throughout the day, 8-10 different voices would speak to me. They would say the same words. They would form sentences of one or two words. For the first 2 years, I didn't tell anyone. I was scared. I thought I was being followed by the CIA. My heart ached, my ears ached. I won't go into too much detail, these are typical symptoms of an illness. After 2 years, I researched it and realized that such a disease existed. I went to the doctor. I took a lot of medication over 4 years. Of the medications, only haloperidol relatively reduced the voices. 3 months ago, the doctor told me to stop all the medication and prescribed a 10-day course of Cortexin injections and changed the antidepressant to Venlafaxine. The voices stopped on the second day of the injection. I only used the injection for 10 days. Now I'm using 300 mg of Venlafaxine. I always tried to believe that I would recover from this illness and I trusted in God. Everything comes from God, both good things and bad things.

basically i feel like im 0% paranoid now ,no delusions,no spiders crawling on my body , and no suicidal ideation my psychiatrist will stop the meds soon that's what he told me last time, i mean yes im still unhappy but i feel like i no longer suffer from psychotic depression , im leaving this shit behind my back , maybe im not 100% healed yet especially from depression but at some point of my life i thought i would never make it through all of this ,but here we are , yall keep it together, you'll hopefully make it like i did and say goodbye to psychosis !

I don’t know what kind of trigger warning to potentially put here so: proceed with caution? Alcoholism? And I apologize for my ignorance in this topic.

My husband has two memories of watching videos of either Asmongold or Tim Pool where they covered news of two violent 💀 incidents as a part of current events.

He is an active alcoholic.

i have always chalked his memory pov being so “people are out to get me” to the alcohol, but figured the events were at least real and he was altered at the time. Think: worse case interpretations of interactions. Sometimes, not all the time.

But in the last year- while heavily intoxicated -he remembers watching videos about two topics covered by A or TP but he can’t find them again and he genuinely believes they were taken off of YouTube, his Watch History, and his internet browsing history. Like they’ve been scrubbed.

i’ve looked up the incidents of the videos he describes: they don’t exist anywhere. If they did they would be huge stories because of the potential for political sensation.

He won’t listen to me when I tried to point that out, and said I was worried for him and thought he should consider they might not exist.

Is this psychosis? Has anyone had similar experiences? Was there anything in particular that helped you get help?

Thanks for your help and time. Sorry again if I’m in the wrong place. This seems like a very supportive community and I genuinely hope you all find what you’re looking for and can live feeling safe.

I mean, when i was diagnosed everything made more sense. I now know our brains are very powerful to produce many things, including hallucinations.

But are you sure the voices aren't real? Like an ancient trick people learned with magic or special forces or high technology?

I am very supportive of treatment and to not get dilusional over hallucinations, specially my auditory hallucinations which tends to be very strong.

But today after a crisis i was very thoughtful about that.

Ps: it's important taking your medications, you guys. Everything will be alright. It's just your brain working irregularly.

I’ve literally just been diagnosed with bipolar 2 but I can’t get over this episode of hypomania (?) I had a couple months ago because I feel like it fucked me up and I wanna get an idea of what the hell happened. I remember being a lil off as my perception and vision was very dysphoric like it literally felt like I was on some crazy drug, I mainly remember everything being static and vibrant nothing looked right and I became obsessed with human evolution during it. I never mentioned this thought to anyone (besides people I knew.. I was always in disbelief when they weren’t agreeing as much as I would) for reasons but

I researched this and thought about it 24/7 to the point I felt like it was going too far as I started questioning if humans were bypassing their biology or something and we weren’t ever meant to get this far and that we’re all living wrong and that basically nothing is real it’s all a concept it’s just not real I didn’t want to touch anything I didn’t want to do anything because I believed we’re nothing but monsters at this point and I didn’t want to “contribute”… i remember always trying to tell people about my findings and when they didn’t care it made me feel like they were “braindead” as if they’re being programmed and I “woke up from it” I ended up even trying to commit over it and other things I had done during the time which was an awful situation. I also remember feeling like I was under constant surveillance and had to act “normal”. I also kept freaking out over the fact I’m “hurting” my animals by keeping them in captivity because of the above.. 😭

But for the evolutionary thing I don’t think it was fully a delusion as I still believe in what I used to think but nowadays only to a certain extent but that makes me question what was really going on cus that was very out of character for me.. someone brought up to me that it sounded like a mild form of psychosis which brought me here although I don’t really fully understand what psychosis is

im just depressed that I lost my mind last year and now no one fks with me, imagine losing touch with reality, interacting with what it felt like was this secret reality within our reality like the "invisible world ".. it was like I took a red pill and was just thrown into a matrix state where only certain individuals can tap into is the best analogy I can use ran by probably the occult or some sorta spiritual thing im not sure and now when u get ur mind back u realize ur completely alone bc u were crashing out on social media and everyone saw your weird strange behavior ...it genuinely sucks. I still truly believe it was a spiritual realm where many has walked in. I had so many wild synchronicities/signs and a very heightened intuition where when I would listen to the voices it actually took me to meaningful places where id come across very specific msgs that felt direct to me or interesting ppl that I had to meet almost like I was in a game and there was all these quests to do, I came across so many things that were deeply personal in my mind and somehow it was being reflected back to me from my external reality through either certain ppl id come across or signs/artwork that would just appear to me. It genuinely felt like something higher was orchestrating things to happen in my reality like it was all connected. I also felt this feeling of like im special and an important piece of the puzzle in the future and also felt connected to a 'soulmate/twinflame' like he was sending me coded msgs through songs and other things like I just felt him. I unfortunately was posting so much strange thoughts, visions and being more sexually suggestive on social media that it led to a lot of my friends ive known for years to just stop talking with me, its been 11 months of being isolated and only meeting ppl through raves/parties but it not rlly leading to any meaningful friendships. I miss my more grounded friends ive had for so long. what made me lose my shit and expressing lots of anger on social media was vividly remembering when my dad SA me when I was a kid it just randomly came up very intensely and my sister had a psychosis accusing him of the same thing not too long ago, she went to the police to report it but it led nowhere as there was no evidence and she ended up in a mental intuition bc it spiraled rlly bad for her, ik a few ppl like cousins that has accused him of this as well so when adding it up logically it rlly fked with me, it made me question if this is the reason im gay? bc seeing what happened to my sister I decided to keep this to myself and deal with it alone which was extremely hard and the main cause of acting out in rlly bizarre ways. I reached out to a few friends and they were nice but they def became distant compared to before when they would msg me way more often before the episode. I didnt want to share to them this dark topic as ik it might be too heavy for some ppl to hear. I did reach out to my ex but he said he was taken and showed no concern, ive been single for 3 years which has been sad for me I miss being in love and feeling like im loved back its the most beautiful feeling ive experienced. during a time like this where im recovering it would have been really nice to have familiar friends just check in on me here and there and make me feel less alone and still valued. this entire experience just fked my life over in a way ive never dealt with before, I turned 26 the other day and just lost, I wake up depressed and feeling so alone in this world now wondering why dafuq did any of that even happened why me, does anyone have advice for me on moving forward in life? Will things get better? Did anyone else go through something similar? anyways have a good day

UPDATE MORE TO MY STORY: one thing that was significant for me was when I came across what it felt like was my archetype "brendan the navigator" which he was born in 484AD and its basically a story about how Brendan ventures out across dangerous seas in search of paradise and had full faith that god would protect him and bc my name is Brendan and I came across this story so randomly during that time (before everything took off) it felt very significant for me like a metaphor to my current life, still in a way feel like im navigating all these waves I just rlly hope I can find my "paradise" at the end

It's like life before this didn't exist or that the me before has been deleted. I can't handle it .

My psychosis symptoms begun around the time i tried to quit porn for good. (which was ~3 years ago) i was 22 at the time and had been addicted to porn (daily porn consumption) for at least 10 years. I am thinking that my porn withdrawal happened around the same time where my psychosis symptoms begun. We all know that psychosis is heavily related to dopamine and porn is also obviously related to dopamine. I also have aspergers if that plays a role. I have been told by a guy who has a special interest in studying psychology/biology that my childhood manhandling and trauma due to aspergers might have damaged my brain in the way it creates and uses dopamine and porn made everything worse. I would like to hear your thoughts.

I don’t know if asking for advice on this is allowed here, but anyways:

I’ve been dealing with very very bad paranoia since I was a kid, I always freaked out when having to get dressed because I thought the government put cameras in my clothes. I thought people were in my room watching me. I would only sit in one safe corner where I thought no one could see. Stuff like that. I also dealt with hallucinations that my schizophrenic mom would actively encourage and would tell me to try and communicate and talk to them, which only made them worse.

I was doing better with it in my early teens, and I could rationalize that things were not real, and no one was out to get me. Now, I’m an adult and with all this shit with the flock cameras (I’m in the USA) it’s only getting worse. I’m convinced my phone is listening and I get way into conspiracy theories. It sucks because I really do like being aware and talking about politics, but I end up spiraling and freaking out. I get worked up the more I go into it, but I don’t want to become stupid or unaware. What’s happening in this country is awful. My biggest concern is that the only thing that helps me is to drink or smoke. I’ve never been a big drinker (my dad was an alcoholic) and my family is full of big stoners, so I always made sure to be careful about my intake. Now, I’m drinking 2 beers almost every night and taking a bunch of pills to sleep. Tonight, I managed to resist and tried doing skills I learned in therapy—drawing, meditation, fixing shit, but I got too in my head and almost broke my phone and tore my room apart looking for microphones and cameras. Some days I’m too scared to even go outside or talk to people. I’ve lost multiple friends because I blocked them due to thinking they’re spies or fake people. I know it’s not true but I can’t stop it. I’m so sick of this and I don’t know what to do. I thought maybe the issue was my caffeine intake (I took caffeine pills and drank nearly 6 cups of coffee a day), so I slowed down a little. I was using ❄️ for a bit to cope and as much as I love it, it does make it worse. Even when I do take breaks, this shit still happens. I’ve tried therapy for years and multiple medications but since I don’t have anything actually wrong with me I just keep getting handed SSRI’s.

If anyone else is/has gone through this please help, besides just saying ‘go to therapy’. I know that’s a goal and I should go back, but it’s not an option right now.

So i'm gonna share my experience with weed and a bit of psychosis. I'm posting because i really want to know your guys opinion on how cooked i may or may not be. I'm hoping maybe a psychiatrist or psychologist could chime in and give their opinion (i will schedule an appointment with one but my anxiety would love multiple opinions).

TLDR will be at the bottom

Timeline:
Septemberish 2023 (Age:21) First semester of University after transferring from hometown. Smoked for the 2nd time ever. Was super giggly. Was also paranoid that the dorm security would get us in trouble from smelling weed on us while we checked back in after our "walk". That same night i was still super giggly but id say 30-45 minutes later i started seeing faint geometric shapes overlayed over my vision while also hearing noises. not voices but more like machinery beeps. I was able to maintain insight throughout the entire experience and even recorded myself explaining what it was i was seeing and hearing because i wanted sober me to review and analyze it. even while intoxicated i knew what i was seeing was out of the ordinary. in the video i even say "i know it sounds crazy but this is actually what im seeing/experiencing". All whilst having the high giggles lol.

I should preface that im also extremely sensitive to stimulants. i remember as a teenager having a mild panic attack off of just one of those starbucks glass bottle drinks. preworkout would give me anxiety for years and still does on an empty stomach. shit, even having a can of coke a few hours before bed time always keep me awake for hours.

the rest of the year (2023) my friends and i would get high off edibles periodically (typically the standard 10mg gummies. all bought from dispensaries). i'd get the standard cotton mouth and munchies and overall have a good time.

There was however a time in October of that year when an international student friend gave me his edibles. they were 35mg edibles of what i thought was regular cannabis. i was wrong. my roommates and i split it into 1/4ths and each took one cube. i remember the high taking forever to kick in. but when it did, it slowly got stronger and stronger. after about an hour and a half the high from this edible blew past what i would call 100% of a normal edible high and got me the highest i have ever been to this day. well turns out they were smokeshop TreHouse brand edibles containing (HHC, THC-P, and DELTA-8). That night i got so high i began to text my friend that i was high asf. i was laying in my bed in my room, pitch black apart from the light coming from my phone. as we texted i told him how i felt extremely connected to him and how i believed we were 4th dimensional beings in 3-dimensional bodies. he then told me about his dmt or shroom trip where he encountered an owl and as soon as he mentioned owls i had an insane visual of being at the center of a spherical room made of yellow owls all looking inward at me. that's all i remember from the rest of that night apart from going to bed wanting the high to be over. when i woke up the next day both my roommates and i were still in a weird kind of lingering high though my visuals were gone (they didn't have any visuals but did agree it was the weirdest high they've had) best way i could describe it is a synthetic high hangover. we felt like this the rest of that second day and for me it was into about noon of the day AFTER that. In retrospect it's absolutely stupid of me to ever even want to have any psychoactive substance after that. but as you may have already guessed, i did.

we would proceed to get high off regular edibles the rest of the school year. Until right about May of 2024. up until than when we would get high it would be more of an "event" for us. as in "we're gonna get high this weekend". But that May we found an infinite preroll glitch at our go-to dispensary where you would get a 1gram preroll (9%-11% thc) for every hygiene supply you dropped off for their event. we found a way to average out each preroll to less than a dollar. because of this, we started smoking daily. it became almost a ritual. we'd go to work, come home, and have our end of the day sesh. this went on for 21 months. after the first month or two we graduated to 20-30% thc weed(most days i would average .5g to maybe even over a gram). for the most part it was the standard high i was used to though there were 1 or 2 occasions i would see the geometric shapes again. slowly i could feel myself getting cognitively slower but i also want mention a pornography addiction and depression that predates the weed that was already slowing down my cognition. and what i mean by that is i was not as sharp as i was in high school. i could go deeper if needed but, moving on...

*** READ ME***
If you're scrolling to the TLDR i'd advise you come back and read this part. it is here that I speak of the ideas of reference.

Towards the ending months (let's say 3-6months as i can't pinpoint exactly when it started) i began to develop these ideas of reference. but the important part is that these ideas of reference were not happening strictly during an intoxicated state. they would also happen while sober (but still during the final months of my 21 month stint of daily high thc cannabis use) but anyways for context, i was chronically in my head a majority of the day during this time. ive honestly always been like this but during that period its like my inner voice got a microphone and a party speaker. but back to the ideas of reference, think of it like this... it started by me noticing that quite often, when i would think of something that could be answered with a yes or no, some type of external stimuli would not so coincidentally answer it. for example, i'd think "how bad would it be for my gym gains if i just skipped the gym" and the youtube video i happened to have playing about a stock analysis/prediction happened to say "... would be catastrophic for growth..." right as im thinking that. things like this as well as similar other things would happen often for months before i quit smoking cold turkey. another example is: for months i was debating whether to move back home or stay in the city i was about to graduate Uni from. well one day when i was thinking to myself wondering if the fact that my place of employment closing down was a sign from God to go back home, i saw a hummingbird which i took as Divine. i don't remember where i heard that hummingbirds are kind of spiritual in christianity. but i kind of took that as a very strong possibility that that was a divine response.
one last example, during this time, i developed periodic muscle twitches or spasms that would happen on my legs and arms. i knew it was likely a health problem of some sort but my imagination drew up the very convincing possibility that it could be my guardian angel. Why? Because much like the youtube video or music lyrics or license plate (ex: 7YES982, 8YEE026, 9NOR476) that i would notice right after the thought i was having, the muscular twitches would happen right after those internal thoughts would occur. and slowly those coincidences began feeling less and less like coincidences.

this happened so many times within those months that i started to entertain the idea that it's possible that i was different/unique/chosen and that would explain why i always felt different growing up and why i was significantly more self aware then others.

i do want to point out that though these feelings were veryyy strong, i never lost insight, i was still "tethered" to reality. like i never acted out on any of those ideas of reference. i didn't move back home, i didn't try and preach to people that i was the chosen one, and i still was able to kind of question this. like "all of this feels real or like it could be true but am i really sure this is what's actually happening?". I never broke and had a psychotic episode. was never hospitalized. was never fired or kicked out of school or anything.

I'm now almost 5 months sober and the ideas of reference are practically nonexistent. there are still times where those weird coincidences happen but i don't spend more then a few seconds thinking about it. i'm sort of able to smack myself mentally and say "no. that doesn't mean anything". or for the most part completely ignore it.

Ultimately the reason i'm posting this is because i want to know if anyone else had a similar experience and fully recovered from it. I also want to know if despite the substantial improvement from those ideas of reference, am i sitting on a ticking time bomb before schizophrenia manifests itself.

TLDR: Smoked (20-30% thc flower) for 21 months straight, had ideas of reference towards the last few months but was still tethered to reality. am now almost 5 months sober, ideas of reference are practically nonexistent now. just want to know if im sitting on a ticking time bomb of schizophrenia despite the drastic improvement of ideas of reference.