Two years ago I went through 8 months of psychosis brought on by marijuana and dealt with this paranoia. I would sometimes spend an hour a day or longer typing belligerent messages to the CIA and NSA in my browser bar and hitting enter, cause I figured the resulting search was being stored and watched. And then I'd go to my closet to make sure the people who could see through my walls wouldn't be able to watch and laugh at me, and cry myself to sleep. The flipside to your comment is that I feel a little more vindicated and sane. If I was a real schizophrenic, my reaction might be the spiral you describe. But I feel that a lot of conspiracy theorists might be a little relieved to have their fears confirmed on some level.
This is frightening white, I had a slight sigh of relief reading that it was two years ago and I hope you're not experiencing that anymore.Two years ago I went through 8 months of psychosis brought on by marijuana
Just to be clear, you mean that you struggled with psychosis in the past and use of marijuana triggered it again?
Nope, I had never struggled with psychosis prior to that event and I haven't really struggled with it since, aside from the fact that I still believe the delusions I was experiencing. Or rather, I attribute it to gaslighting which is terrifying itself. Google gaslighting and read some of the stuff people post about it on forums. It's a fucking AWFUL way to experience life. I do feel part of it was PTSD and reintegration into civilian life. Some of my most humiliating moments happened during it all, like going door to door in my apartment complex and asking people if they were talking about me. Being outside for a cigarette when I heard a neighbor and his friend playing with the gun he had bought that day. He was on the third floor, so I stood at ground level beneath his balcony and yelled up at him for 30 minutes. Stuff like "YOU THINK YOU'RE TOUGH BECAUSE YOU HAVE A GUN?" and "NOBODY IS AFRAID OF YOU!" A bunch of the neighbors came out to talk to me because wtf was happening, and I just told them "it's just a little confrontation..." nonchalantly. Truthfully, I was trying to get him to step outside and shoot me. Equally embarrassing was apologizing to the guy the next day, but he would always nod with respect whenever I saw him after that because I told him I was in the military and that it was PTSD that set me off. The brain is fucking terrifying when it gets out of whack.
I'm sorry to hear that man, I think we've had this conversation before but you only foster more respect from me when you talk about this, even though obviously you're talking about seriously scary challenges in your life. Anyway, I'm glad it's in the past tense and thank you for talking about it. This whole realm of psychosis, paranoia etc. is becoming really interesting to me but I don't want to listen to what a jaded, arrogant doctorate in psychology has to say about how entire groups of people work, think, and feel when he himself has experienced none of it. Good to learn from experience, relating it all back to the army :)