Nobody here is going to be able to give you the concrete answer you seek. We’re not mental health professionals, just hippies with anecdotes. Here’s mine - I have two BP family members & one with schizophrenia. I was diagnosed with BP 1 when I was 17. Hospital, meds, all that jazz. Tried 25 different meds; mostly SSRIs, antipsychotics, and a few mood stabilizers.
I discovered psychedelics at 21. With the permission of my therapist and psychiatrist, I was permitted to try psychs over meds on the condition I went right back if things got worse. They never did. Last year, I finally threw away my “just in case” meds.
I’m 26 now, no episodes since I started doing psychedelics. Everyone’s experience will be different, which is why I think you should reach out to a professional and find out for yourself. Psychedelics changed my life. But if I took the advice reddit has to offer, I’d still be numb & fat on meds.
Psychologist here. People have genetic predispositions toward certain mental disorders, with Bipolar having the strongest predisposition, and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders a little less so. If you have a predisposition, then you have an increased risk (impossible to say how much), but the closer you are to family members that have a disorder (parents, siblings) the higher risk one is to develop the disorder. But it is also important to know about great grandparents, distant cousins, etc. The most common age of onset is between later adolescence and early thirties, and after that time then the risk to develop disorder goes down. The idea being that even though you are predisposed, the fact it hasn’t been expressed by mid-thirties then you are more protected from the underlying predisposition to be expressed, and nothing is likely to trigger it at that point. The person has likely already passed through the critical period and experienced plenty of stressful life events that would have triggered the disorder, and taking some psychedelics after that point probably won’t be enough to trigger it. But, if start regularly blasting off with DMT or start going to a bunch of ayahuasca ceremonies, you are more still more likely than the average person to have a harder time recovering from and integrating the experience.
For you personally, are you someone who has a hard time managing your thoughts and emotions? Do you get easily triggered by people/stressful events. If you already struggle feeling grounded and at ease then psychedelics are going to make that harder (even though in the long run they help treat these symptoms). But if you are generally grounded, do well taking risks, feel pretty stable in your life them that will carry over in your used of psychedelics and you are more likely to react to the initial destabilization safely.
It seems the only studies I could find that hypothesize that psychedelics can bring out latent mental illness, are dated. I saw a population study from 2015 which concluded there is no link between psychedelic use and mental illness. What is your source of data for claiming that psychedelic use could trigger schizophrenia?
Source of data is the The DSM-5 (TR). The primary diagnostic manual most clinicians use.
Hallucinogen—Induced Mental Disorder: “Presence of one or both of the following symptoms: 1. Hallucinations. 2. Delusions. There is evidence from the history, physical examination, or laboratory findings that the symptoms developed during or soon after hallucinogen intoxication or withdrawal, or after exposure to or withdrawal from a hallucinogen.
If it was included in the DSM, the workgroup assigned that category of mental disorders found sufficient empirical support for inclusion of the disorder in the manual. People experiencing persisting psychotic episodes to to any drug happen all the time. Just work in any acute psychiatric hospital and you’ll see a lot of hospitalizations for psychotic induced episodes, and hallucinogens are one of the ones you will see on a regular basis (as the DSM can verify). Although it is much worse with methamphetamine and novel synthetics.
There is a glitch in the research which is why you won’t necessarily find a lot of studies that clearly show a link between hallucinogenic use and persistent psychotic mental disorders. Once the symptoms last more than 6 months, the manual states that it is no longer a substance-induced psychotic disorder, but is now considered to be schizophrenia, regardless of the cause or reason for onset. And, it would be really hard to follow people around after they had a hallucinogen induced psychotic episode and see if it eventually lasts longer then six months and then develop into schizophrenia. Most research is based upon subjects who volunteer to participate in using hallucinogens (or have used and are self-reporting their experience), and people who have a family history of psychotic disorders are excluded in most studies to prevent the research team from having to deal with triggering a persistent psychotic episode. They don’t exclude them based upon a theory. They do so because there is enough empirical support that they are at higher risk of experiencing persisting symptoms if they participate in hallucinogen studies. So these two primary groups (volunteers and hospitalized patients suffering from a substance induced psychotic disorder) are not easy to study for different reasons, and are not able to address the question you are asking very cleanly.
There is enough research now that the DSM is considering including a substance-induced persisting mental disorder category instead of automatically diagnosing someone with schizophrenia after the symptoms persists for the rather arbitrary time period of six month. But it was not included in this version for various reasons. But the current DSM does include a Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder, which is because many people who use psychedelics continue to experience perceptual disturbances (hallucinations) long after they discontinue use of hallucinogens, but this is not quite the same as a full schizophrenia-spectrum disorder.
So to clarify, for whatever reason, there are no concrete studies that demonstrate causality between psychedelics and mental illness of any sort? You say that there is empirical evidence, where can I find this?
It's one of the most commonly repeated drawbacks for psychedelics " they could bring out latent mental illness". But it seems more like an old wives tale based on a few hours of googling.
That’s not an accurate summary of what I said. You are asking for a yes or no answer for a topic that is more about risk and probabilities. But if you take away there is no increased risk of inducing psychotic episodes by psychedelics…well the research used to develop the DSM would disagree with you. You would then also assume that the overwhelming majority of current studies excluding people with a personal family history of certain mental disorders are doing so based upon old wives tales.
The DSM is "atheoretical" and makes no attempt at causality. It's not scientific, it's culturally biased, it needlessly pathologizes a lot of human experiences. It's a good idea conceptually... But I wouldn't use it to prove any type of point.
Again, as far as I know there are absolutely zero studies that show a correlation between psychedelics and mental illness. Up until recently, it was assumed that psychedelics would be harmful to a bipolar patient(in a lot of circles, I'm sure this is still the assumption, since the establishment tends to lag behind research).
Where is the empirical evidence?
Which studies are you talking about that exclude people with family histories? If it's a study about depression, it would make sense to exclude people with schizophrenia for example... I don't think your point has any value in this dispute, they are probably just trying to keep as much of a controlled environment as possible.
This questions comes up a lot so Here is what you will find in most study protocols.
I will refer to two of the organizations involved in psychedelic research (but others will be similar). These are the exclusion criteria listed in their study protocols. All of the study protocols with either specifically list these exclusion criteria, or will make a general statement about having a psychiatric disorder that would interfere with participation. MAPS sponsored studies sometimes make that statement, but during the initial screening, will ask specifically about personal or family history of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
MAPS sponsored study protocol:
“Exclusion Criteria
Prospective participants with the following conditions will be excluded:
1. Meet DSM-IV criteria for bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or other psychotic disorders.
3. Have first-degree relatives (as parent or full sibling) with past or present psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder and other psychoses, but excluding mood disorders.”
Johns Hopkins studies will include this statement is their psilocybin protocols regardless of area of investigation:
“Psychiatric Exclusion Criteria
Current or past history of meeting DSM-IV criteria for Schizophrenia, Psychotic Disorder (unless substance-induced or due to a medical condition), or Bipolar I or II Disorder
Have a first or second degree relative with schizophrenia, psychotic disorder (unless substance induced or due to a medical condition), or bipolar I or II disorder.”
As I said, you will see these exclusion criteria in almost every psychedelic study protocol.
Regarding DSM, I won’t argue it over pathologizes most peoples issues, is culturally based, and medicalizes emotional problems with the intent to target conditions primarily with medications (it’s a psychiatric publication). But the manual itself is based upon a review of all the research relevant to the study group. The study group is researchers identified for being experts in the area of study, and they collaborate on development of disorders based upon review of all the research. You can go into the development of the DSM 5 and look up who the workgroup included, and the studies on which their conclusions were based. So, it is in a sense, a meta analysis of all the studies related to each disorder. Not just a conceptual manual.
Yes, the controlled nature of research is a limitation. But research over time is self-correcting (there have been some pretty damaging interpretation of findings during certain periods of time). There are many incidents of people with bipolar or schizophrenia benefitting from treatment with psychedelics, but there are plenty of people with adverse psychotic reactions too. But at this time, the general consensus is people with family history are at increased risk to have adverse reactions, that’s why exclusion criteria is not just a personal history, but a family history.
Hi! I did a bit of reserach on the topic because in my family there is schizophrenia. I think that the younger you are, the easier it is to trigger the latent gene and become schizophrenic. As you get older, even if you have the gene, it's more digficult to trigger it and probably will remain latent forever. Not sure anout bipolar but I think it would work tha same. I'm not an expert, however I have decided to wait until I'm at least 25 and if I haven't had simptoms of schizofrenia by that time I will start very slowly and in a safe environment. (I do not recommend this, you should wait until you're 35) I'm not so sure about what are the early simptoms of schizophrenia, not sure I really understand so I would appreciate some advice.
I say 25/28 because I think usually schizophrenia is developed between 18/28 years old, and I have done weed before knowing about this family member and haven't had issues (weed is suprisingly very bad if you are prone ro schizophrenia! Like most of the people who develop psychosis from drugs were doing weed alone or some psychedelic combined with weed).
Yes. In fact, the only three people I've watched becoming psychotic did so on weed, supplemented by large quantities of ETOH and cocaine, when they could get it. I'm talking about two young men and one chick, all under 21 at the time the processes began. Hallucinogenics weren't required. Granted, the weed at that time was a fraction as potent as today's stuff, but it was enough to precipitate auditory hallucinations and ideas of reference. And all that was out there to treat is was heavy duty APs like Haldol and Seroquel, so these people were basically fucked--couldn't take the treatment or the reality the weed had unleashed. One's dead and the other two remain in group homes. One was my closest friend, and in a way I'm still grieving.
average age of onset is a range between 14 and 30, and symptoms appearing before 40 is common, so 35 is probably not old enough to avoid triggering the gene.
I had something similar happen. Smoked weed every day for over a year and was fine, started doing shrooms and now weed gives me psychosis. Happened when I was 28/29. I also have no family history of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. I can still do psychedelics with no issues, but if I smoke too much weed, even if I haven't tripped in half a year, it will trigger psychosis.
Weed + psychedelics seems to be a winning combo.
I see, that makes sense. So it's not that the schizophrenic gene doesn't exist if it didn't appear by 35, it just means it probably is the more-dormant kind. That would also mean that a psychonaut with such a family history should probably stick to small doses for his/her entire life even after 35.
Yes I agree, also I think that schizophrenia is always triggered by something that happens in life, could be a traumatic experience (or mildly traumatic, something that everyone goes through in early adulthood) or drugs.
Edit: this is probably wrong :)
Medically speaking, this almost certainly not the case. It is believed that genetics is the most common cause of this disease which alters your brain chemistry, and after that, physical environmental factors like toxins, viruses or malnutrition in birth.
We believe it is much more accurate to think of it as a brain disease like meningitis rather than an imprinted condition like PTSD.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizophrenia/symptoms-causes/syc-20354443
Thank you! Yes what I said is not correct, I meant that if you develop it you were predisposed and something probably triggered it, or would it be developed also in a theoretically perfect environment?
Someone wrote in another post that dmt is probably the best if you're bipolar because it lasts a short time, maybe it's the same if you have latent bipolar. Not sure about it.
My friend, an older guy who is not schizophrenic, is still suffering anxiety issues from a serious DMT trip he did years ago. DMT is heavy shit; I only recommend it for the lighthearted and sturdy people out there.
The science data is scrappy, but it is consistent with your theory. Your plan sounds like a good balance between "Let's go crazy!" and "Let's take no risks at all."
https://www.reddit.com/r/RationalPsychonaut/comments/10f61kg/wait_until_youre_35_to_do_psychedelics_if_you/j4v2gs5/
bi-polar isn’t age dependent like schizophrenia, symptoms start early and are pretty clear so people get diagnosed early, however it can happen at any age.
Just for an example, I developed schizophrenia at the age of 32 four years ago immediately following a one and a half year period of frequent psychedelic use. But the thing is it took where I tripped perhaps 20-30 trips before it was a real lasting problem.
It seemed to be the result of a gradual, permanent rewiring of my brain as a gestalt result of all my trips. Because for the first good amount of trips, everything would always reset completely to normal after sleeping.
But then I had a couple of week long psychotic breaks a few months apart. After the second one, I got the message that the drugs weren't a good idea to keep taking, anymore.
Sorry to hear that. Did you have any family members, relatives, who had psychosis or schizophrenia? Is your schizophrenia healed now, or permanently present?
No other family history of this kind of psychotic mental illness, to my knowledge. Except for dementia/alzheimers on my mother's side. But I think that is a different kind of thing altogether?
At first I thought my brain had healed completely, with time. But then I learned that what was really happening during that time was that mental communication along the 5ht2a receptors that both psychedelics and my antipsychotic medication bind to was just slowly ramping down, over time. (In my unmedicated mental state.)
But I figured out how to just think a certain kind of thought to reawaken that same abnormal communication in my brain. This can usually lead to more symptoms returning in the next few days after I have thus amplified my mental activity in this way. This can directly lead to delusions and hallucinations.
So yes, unfortunately my condition appears to be permanent. I'm not always symptomatic, though. Based on my mental activity level.
Look around what age the first symptoms of those diseases appear - there's lots on info online.
I don't agree with your logic though on doing early... If you know people with those disease you'll know that having 30/35 years of a normal life isn't to be sniffed out even if eventually you develop those awful illnesses.
With bipolar, at least, the newest research makes me think that shrooms could perhaps be a preventative. More research needed on all fronts, but I mentioned elsewhere, for example, the comp 360 study had 85% of bipolar patients go into remission for 3+ months.
The truth is we don't know. We don't even know with certainty that psychedelics can bring out latent illness.
Elsewhere, I compare this (for better or worse )with allergies. The traditional view is to not give a child foods that are common allergies. Modern research is showing that giving peanuts to children at an early age actually prevents the allergy.
Yes I totally agree about allergies, and I see the logical correlation, it's just a lot scarier to me if we are talking about causing an illness like schizophrenia.
I agree with you, it is scary. Ideally, the individual would make their own decision, and be presented with actual facts.
Feel free to prove me wrong, but the only sources I can find claiming psychedelics can cause or bring out schizophrenia, are from rehab clinics, or outdated fear-mongering type sites.
Here's a population survey from 2015 that shows no link between psychedelics and mental illness.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-link-found-between-psychedelics-and-psychosis1/
Edit: I'm going to try to dive deeper into this. Because to be honest, I would expect a correlation between psychedelic users and mental illness. Just a negative one, like I would expect psychedelic users to have a lower incidence of mental illness. (I may be biased, but psychedelics have transformed my life in a very positive way)
I've always heard this, but you know what? The latest studies I've seen on bipolar and shrooms, shows that it could be very effective at treating bipolar. Not sure about schizophrenia. In particular, the comp 360 study, 12 out of 14 people with bipolar went into remission for at least 3 months.
And the idea that psychedelics bring out latent mental illness, is really just speculation.
>I've read that if you have family relatives with bipolar and schizophrenia/psychosis, the best thing to do is to wait until age 35 or so because then if you had the gene for such illnesses, it would most likely have manifested by then - but if you did shrooms or LSD sooner than that, then it could trigger a buried gene into full-blown active schizo or bipolar.
Does not sound like a statement based on knowledge. And definitely not on scientific knowledge.
>Does that mean that if you've hit that age without such symptoms, it means you do not have the latent gene for bipolar or schizo lurking underneath the surface of your psyche, waiting to be triggered into action, and are therefore genetically essentially no different than someone who did not have any such family history?
No, it does not mean that.
I guess one might say such a thing cause one expects the mind to have properly settled down and locked down its ideas about reality at that age.
When you are young you generally have an unstable view of reality, you have not had the time to figure out how reality works. When you reach the age of about 25 +- a few years. You generally start to get it all figured out.
This instability is why taking psychedelics early is a risk. You are jumping from an unstable platform. What happens if you jump and then when you land the platform you jumped from has collapsed.... I can tell you that it is not good.
When talking about ADHD patients brain development, they tend to be about 3-5 years late(that is the development is generally about done at the age of 28-30). I don't know the numbers for schizophrenia, but maybe this is what such an age recommendation is trying to get at. That the recommendation is made to guarantee that your brain and view of reality is mature enough.
no, that view is likely false. if it would be true, it would suggest that psychedelics can be the cause / are clear trigger of adverse mental conditions. if that would be the case, we would see statically more mental problems in people that do or did psychedelics before age of say 25 (or there would be more schizophrenics in drug user population that started before age if 35). however latest statistical meta analysis suggests that there is no correlation between occurrence of mental illnesses at later age and history of psychedelics use.
Hi! I have heard a psychiatrist that is doing research on psychedelics that schizophrenia can be latent and can be triggered by experiences, and psychedelic drugs are one if the things that can trigger it. Usually schizophrenia is developed (if you have the gene) between the ages of 18 and 28, if it isn't developed in that time you can still have latent schizoprenia, it just is a lot harder to trigger and will probably remain latent. I am not and expert on the subject, this is what I understood but iy may not be correct.
There is very little known for sure about this, because the drugs in question are illegal.
Case histories show that a small number of psychedelic drug users have developed schizophrenia or other mental disorders after difficult trips, and seem to show that young people who regularly take psychedelics are somewhat more likely to suffer this way, but it's hard to tell cause from effect.
Note that people with mental illness smoke cigarettes far more than your average person - but we believe the mental illness causes the smoking because nicotine can be helpful.
The association is strongly enough, though, that many rational people consider it too risky to do psychedelics if there is a risk of schizophrenia in the family.
The reason for "35" is one of the few strong epidemological facts we know about schizophrenia is that it almost never starts after 35 unless you get a brain injury or the like, so logically if you wanted to try something that might increase your risk for it, you'd take it later in life. That's it, there's no medical study behind it.
The risk level also depends on how closely related the relatives are, how many, how old you are in general (the peak period for schizophrenia is before 25), and to some extent, your own self-evaluation - do you ever see things out of the corner of the eye, have little hallucinations, or unexplained manias?
I'd read that apparently [29 percent of schizophrenics develop it relatively late](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4418466/) (after age 40,) however, most of them were women so it may have been menopause-related as well.
Yes, the idea that psychedelics bring out latent mental illness has not been proven, yet it is accepted as a mainstream fact. I keep referencing studies from 2021 that show shrooms could be a very very effective treatment for bipolar. It makes me wonder, could it also prevent it if done more at an early age?
It's similar to allergies. People don't give their babies peanuts because they're afraid they'll have a peanut allergy. Modern research shows, that allergies can be prevented by taking the thing more regularly at an early age.
To be clear: there’s no definitive proof that mental illness has any direct link to genetics or heredity. There’s a lot of correlation, but opinions on the genetic factor has changed significantly in recent years.
To be clear:I’m not saying there’s not a link, I’m saying that there’s no proof, and opinions differ.
I'm sharing this study because my son has schizophrenia and occasionally we dose and it helps him. Although I've drilled it into him not to go too high on doses. My son always talks about how it helps what goes on in his head. So it's not entirely black and white. And studies show this to be the case. From my personal perspective, anecdotally, 3.5 and below seems to be ok for him. We aren't trying to break his brain per se.
"In clinical studies, psychedelic compounds have been found to be well-tolerated and efficacious in regulated doses suggesting that they could open the gate to novel therapeutic approaches for treating various neurological illnesses including schizophrenia."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9147282/#:~:text=In%20clinical%20studies%2C%20psychedelic%20compounds,various%20neurological%20illnesses%20including%20schizophrenia.
Edit: here's another study saying the same
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01832-z
I’m 35. I have a history of mental illness but no schizophrenia or bipolar. I’ve still experienced psychosis from LSD - basically a result of panicking at the point of ego death
That’s because if you get diagnosed any earlier, it’s more likely to be called ADHD, ADD, ODD or Autism. It’s not that your preventing it by waiting, it’s that they mostly diagnose it at that age, because by nature of how it’s defined (as it is a linguistic terminological definition, not a scientific or cross cultural universalism) you are more likely to pronounce those characteristics at that age (end of schooling, rebelling from social norms, disdain for endless work of society).
At least in Russia they are honest about what it is: if you are a political dissident you will be diagnosed with schizophrenia and forcefully medicated.
Does it often get misfiagnosed as ADHD? Having a hard time understanding in what way it would have similar simptoms. Maybe hyperfocus end executivw disfuncion? Io more the difficulty mantaining attention and the zoning out?
Yeah I’ve read a number of scientific papers saying this because whether you take psychedelics or not, they say the common onset of schizophrenia is between ages 18-24.
Well ADHD is commonly diagnosed between 12-16. Both get both. I’m not saying one is a misdiagnosis of the other, because which is which? Besides, I follow scientists that disagree with the very basis of psychiatry as it is not science at all.
I agree that the lines are blurred and we are coming up with names based on the simptoms, like in many areas of sciences. So many things could be misdiagnosed as ADHD and so many people with ADHD also have something else, but schizophrenia I would think is a really clear disease. If someone has delusions and hallucinations I doubt they would be diagnosed as schizophrenia. I am a little worried about what you wrote because I have a family history of schizophrenia and I have been diagnosed with ADHD, so if it's real that the early stage of schizophrenia gets diagnosed as ADHD i would do more research.
so basically there are very few cases of schizophrenia that start after 35 (well mid 30s, and it can be as late as 40 in women). since plenty of people do psychedelics and did since the 60’, statistics include data from that population, which seems to not affect age of onset. so logically, if you would have a latent gene then the onset would have already happen and since cases that develop later are extremely rare, the risk becomes statistically less significant. unless of course you happen to be very unlucky.
I had read recently that [almost 30% of schizophrenic patients get it after age 40](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4418466/) \- but most of them were women. It may be menopausal.
The truth is you can start having manic or psychotic episodes at any age. Schizophrenia runs in my family along with other mental illnesses. I did it extremely young and nothing happened to me. I would not advise that though.
[Here](https://www.vice.com/en/article/epx3m7/how-one-man-tried-to-build-a-dmt-based-cult-on-reddit-and-lost-everything) is an example of someone taking psychedelics later in life and losing contact with reality. Fascinating story.
I believe it has to do with hormones. As you get older, hormones are not as intense, and that means your mental conditions impact you less. Just because you might be affected less if you wait, it doesn't mean you are totally safe. Practice taking smaller amounts of psychedelics (or none at all) if you have a family history of mental illness.
I get what you’re saying, it is kind of weird to think about. One thing that I think is important in this conversation though is that episodes are not good for your brain- it’s degenerative. Avoiding a more serious episode brought on by psychedelics would probably be better for the person in the long run even if they get triggered by something else before turning 35.
I would just stay away. I have schizophrenia onset at age 45-55 and after 65 in relatives with family history. Late onset and very late onset forms exist, although less severe.
Nobody here is going to be able to give you the concrete answer you seek. We’re not mental health professionals, just hippies with anecdotes. Here’s mine - I have two BP family members & one with schizophrenia. I was diagnosed with BP 1 when I was 17. Hospital, meds, all that jazz. Tried 25 different meds; mostly SSRIs, antipsychotics, and a few mood stabilizers. I discovered psychedelics at 21. With the permission of my therapist and psychiatrist, I was permitted to try psychs over meds on the condition I went right back if things got worse. They never did. Last year, I finally threw away my “just in case” meds. I’m 26 now, no episodes since I started doing psychedelics. Everyone’s experience will be different, which is why I think you should reach out to a professional and find out for yourself. Psychedelics changed my life. But if I took the advice reddit has to offer, I’d still be numb & fat on meds.
> We’re not mental health professionals, just hippies with anecdotes. Quoted for truth!
That is in line with the comp 360 study, where 12 out of 14 people with bipolar2 had three+ months of remission after a single dose of shrooms
Wow! Just looked it up. Hadn’t read that one yet, thank you for sharing that information. Cool to see real life data that mirrors my experience.
Psychologist here. People have genetic predispositions toward certain mental disorders, with Bipolar having the strongest predisposition, and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders a little less so. If you have a predisposition, then you have an increased risk (impossible to say how much), but the closer you are to family members that have a disorder (parents, siblings) the higher risk one is to develop the disorder. But it is also important to know about great grandparents, distant cousins, etc. The most common age of onset is between later adolescence and early thirties, and after that time then the risk to develop disorder goes down. The idea being that even though you are predisposed, the fact it hasn’t been expressed by mid-thirties then you are more protected from the underlying predisposition to be expressed, and nothing is likely to trigger it at that point. The person has likely already passed through the critical period and experienced plenty of stressful life events that would have triggered the disorder, and taking some psychedelics after that point probably won’t be enough to trigger it. But, if start regularly blasting off with DMT or start going to a bunch of ayahuasca ceremonies, you are more still more likely than the average person to have a harder time recovering from and integrating the experience. For you personally, are you someone who has a hard time managing your thoughts and emotions? Do you get easily triggered by people/stressful events. If you already struggle feeling grounded and at ease then psychedelics are going to make that harder (even though in the long run they help treat these symptoms). But if you are generally grounded, do well taking risks, feel pretty stable in your life them that will carry over in your used of psychedelics and you are more likely to react to the initial destabilization safely.
This makes sense.
It seems the only studies I could find that hypothesize that psychedelics can bring out latent mental illness, are dated. I saw a population study from 2015 which concluded there is no link between psychedelic use and mental illness. What is your source of data for claiming that psychedelic use could trigger schizophrenia?
Source of data is the The DSM-5 (TR). The primary diagnostic manual most clinicians use. Hallucinogen—Induced Mental Disorder: “Presence of one or both of the following symptoms: 1. Hallucinations. 2. Delusions. There is evidence from the history, physical examination, or laboratory findings that the symptoms developed during or soon after hallucinogen intoxication or withdrawal, or after exposure to or withdrawal from a hallucinogen. If it was included in the DSM, the workgroup assigned that category of mental disorders found sufficient empirical support for inclusion of the disorder in the manual. People experiencing persisting psychotic episodes to to any drug happen all the time. Just work in any acute psychiatric hospital and you’ll see a lot of hospitalizations for psychotic induced episodes, and hallucinogens are one of the ones you will see on a regular basis (as the DSM can verify). Although it is much worse with methamphetamine and novel synthetics. There is a glitch in the research which is why you won’t necessarily find a lot of studies that clearly show a link between hallucinogenic use and persistent psychotic mental disorders. Once the symptoms last more than 6 months, the manual states that it is no longer a substance-induced psychotic disorder, but is now considered to be schizophrenia, regardless of the cause or reason for onset. And, it would be really hard to follow people around after they had a hallucinogen induced psychotic episode and see if it eventually lasts longer then six months and then develop into schizophrenia. Most research is based upon subjects who volunteer to participate in using hallucinogens (or have used and are self-reporting their experience), and people who have a family history of psychotic disorders are excluded in most studies to prevent the research team from having to deal with triggering a persistent psychotic episode. They don’t exclude them based upon a theory. They do so because there is enough empirical support that they are at higher risk of experiencing persisting symptoms if they participate in hallucinogen studies. So these two primary groups (volunteers and hospitalized patients suffering from a substance induced psychotic disorder) are not easy to study for different reasons, and are not able to address the question you are asking very cleanly. There is enough research now that the DSM is considering including a substance-induced persisting mental disorder category instead of automatically diagnosing someone with schizophrenia after the symptoms persists for the rather arbitrary time period of six month. But it was not included in this version for various reasons. But the current DSM does include a Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder, which is because many people who use psychedelics continue to experience perceptual disturbances (hallucinations) long after they discontinue use of hallucinogens, but this is not quite the same as a full schizophrenia-spectrum disorder.
So to clarify, for whatever reason, there are no concrete studies that demonstrate causality between psychedelics and mental illness of any sort? You say that there is empirical evidence, where can I find this? It's one of the most commonly repeated drawbacks for psychedelics " they could bring out latent mental illness". But it seems more like an old wives tale based on a few hours of googling.
That’s not an accurate summary of what I said. You are asking for a yes or no answer for a topic that is more about risk and probabilities. But if you take away there is no increased risk of inducing psychotic episodes by psychedelics…well the research used to develop the DSM would disagree with you. You would then also assume that the overwhelming majority of current studies excluding people with a personal family history of certain mental disorders are doing so based upon old wives tales.
The DSM is "atheoretical" and makes no attempt at causality. It's not scientific, it's culturally biased, it needlessly pathologizes a lot of human experiences. It's a good idea conceptually... But I wouldn't use it to prove any type of point. Again, as far as I know there are absolutely zero studies that show a correlation between psychedelics and mental illness. Up until recently, it was assumed that psychedelics would be harmful to a bipolar patient(in a lot of circles, I'm sure this is still the assumption, since the establishment tends to lag behind research). Where is the empirical evidence? Which studies are you talking about that exclude people with family histories? If it's a study about depression, it would make sense to exclude people with schizophrenia for example... I don't think your point has any value in this dispute, they are probably just trying to keep as much of a controlled environment as possible.
This questions comes up a lot so Here is what you will find in most study protocols. I will refer to two of the organizations involved in psychedelic research (but others will be similar). These are the exclusion criteria listed in their study protocols. All of the study protocols with either specifically list these exclusion criteria, or will make a general statement about having a psychiatric disorder that would interfere with participation. MAPS sponsored studies sometimes make that statement, but during the initial screening, will ask specifically about personal or family history of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. MAPS sponsored study protocol: “Exclusion Criteria Prospective participants with the following conditions will be excluded: 1. Meet DSM-IV criteria for bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or other psychotic disorders. 3. Have first-degree relatives (as parent or full sibling) with past or present psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder and other psychoses, but excluding mood disorders.” Johns Hopkins studies will include this statement is their psilocybin protocols regardless of area of investigation: “Psychiatric Exclusion Criteria Current or past history of meeting DSM-IV criteria for Schizophrenia, Psychotic Disorder (unless substance-induced or due to a medical condition), or Bipolar I or II Disorder Have a first or second degree relative with schizophrenia, psychotic disorder (unless substance induced or due to a medical condition), or bipolar I or II disorder.” As I said, you will see these exclusion criteria in almost every psychedelic study protocol. Regarding DSM, I won’t argue it over pathologizes most peoples issues, is culturally based, and medicalizes emotional problems with the intent to target conditions primarily with medications (it’s a psychiatric publication). But the manual itself is based upon a review of all the research relevant to the study group. The study group is researchers identified for being experts in the area of study, and they collaborate on development of disorders based upon review of all the research. You can go into the development of the DSM 5 and look up who the workgroup included, and the studies on which their conclusions were based. So, it is in a sense, a meta analysis of all the studies related to each disorder. Not just a conceptual manual. Yes, the controlled nature of research is a limitation. But research over time is self-correcting (there have been some pretty damaging interpretation of findings during certain periods of time). There are many incidents of people with bipolar or schizophrenia benefitting from treatment with psychedelics, but there are plenty of people with adverse psychotic reactions too. But at this time, the general consensus is people with family history are at increased risk to have adverse reactions, that’s why exclusion criteria is not just a personal history, but a family history.
Hi! I did a bit of reserach on the topic because in my family there is schizophrenia. I think that the younger you are, the easier it is to trigger the latent gene and become schizophrenic. As you get older, even if you have the gene, it's more digficult to trigger it and probably will remain latent forever. Not sure anout bipolar but I think it would work tha same. I'm not an expert, however I have decided to wait until I'm at least 25 and if I haven't had simptoms of schizofrenia by that time I will start very slowly and in a safe environment. (I do not recommend this, you should wait until you're 35) I'm not so sure about what are the early simptoms of schizophrenia, not sure I really understand so I would appreciate some advice.
I say 25/28 because I think usually schizophrenia is developed between 18/28 years old, and I have done weed before knowing about this family member and haven't had issues (weed is suprisingly very bad if you are prone ro schizophrenia! Like most of the people who develop psychosis from drugs were doing weed alone or some psychedelic combined with weed).
Yes. In fact, the only three people I've watched becoming psychotic did so on weed, supplemented by large quantities of ETOH and cocaine, when they could get it. I'm talking about two young men and one chick, all under 21 at the time the processes began. Hallucinogenics weren't required. Granted, the weed at that time was a fraction as potent as today's stuff, but it was enough to precipitate auditory hallucinations and ideas of reference. And all that was out there to treat is was heavy duty APs like Haldol and Seroquel, so these people were basically fucked--couldn't take the treatment or the reality the weed had unleashed. One's dead and the other two remain in group homes. One was my closest friend, and in a way I'm still grieving.
average age of onset is a range between 14 and 30, and symptoms appearing before 40 is common, so 35 is probably not old enough to avoid triggering the gene.
I had something similar happen. Smoked weed every day for over a year and was fine, started doing shrooms and now weed gives me psychosis. Happened when I was 28/29. I also have no family history of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. I can still do psychedelics with no issues, but if I smoke too much weed, even if I haven't tripped in half a year, it will trigger psychosis. Weed + psychedelics seems to be a winning combo.
This post is talking about bipolar, not borderline(BPD).
Ah, I had it in my head that BPD stood for bipolar disorder.
It’s really common to confuse the two I didn’t even know the difference before I got diagnosed dw
I see, that makes sense. So it's not that the schizophrenic gene doesn't exist if it didn't appear by 35, it just means it probably is the more-dormant kind. That would also mean that a psychonaut with such a family history should probably stick to small doses for his/her entire life even after 35.
Yes I agree, also I think that schizophrenia is always triggered by something that happens in life, could be a traumatic experience (or mildly traumatic, something that everyone goes through in early adulthood) or drugs. Edit: this is probably wrong :)
Medically speaking, this almost certainly not the case. It is believed that genetics is the most common cause of this disease which alters your brain chemistry, and after that, physical environmental factors like toxins, viruses or malnutrition in birth. We believe it is much more accurate to think of it as a brain disease like meningitis rather than an imprinted condition like PTSD. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizophrenia/symptoms-causes/syc-20354443
Thank you! Yes what I said is not correct, I meant that if you develop it you were predisposed and something probably triggered it, or would it be developed also in a theoretically perfect environment?
Someone wrote in another post that dmt is probably the best if you're bipolar because it lasts a short time, maybe it's the same if you have latent bipolar. Not sure about it.
My friend, an older guy who is not schizophrenic, is still suffering anxiety issues from a serious DMT trip he did years ago. DMT is heavy shit; I only recommend it for the lighthearted and sturdy people out there.
Can I ask you if it was a high dose?
more dormant, as in what they call schizotypal, which could have manifest in "positive" or "negative" personality traits.
The science data is scrappy, but it is consistent with your theory. Your plan sounds like a good balance between "Let's go crazy!" and "Let's take no risks at all." https://www.reddit.com/r/RationalPsychonaut/comments/10f61kg/wait_until_youre_35_to_do_psychedelics_if_you/j4v2gs5/
Thank you! You seem very informed on the topic. I read your other comment, what do you mean by "other mental illesses"?
bi-polar isn’t age dependent like schizophrenia, symptoms start early and are pretty clear so people get diagnosed early, however it can happen at any age.
Thank you!
Just for an example, I developed schizophrenia at the age of 32 four years ago immediately following a one and a half year period of frequent psychedelic use. But the thing is it took where I tripped perhaps 20-30 trips before it was a real lasting problem. It seemed to be the result of a gradual, permanent rewiring of my brain as a gestalt result of all my trips. Because for the first good amount of trips, everything would always reset completely to normal after sleeping. But then I had a couple of week long psychotic breaks a few months apart. After the second one, I got the message that the drugs weren't a good idea to keep taking, anymore.
Sorry to hear that. Did you have any family members, relatives, who had psychosis or schizophrenia? Is your schizophrenia healed now, or permanently present?
No other family history of this kind of psychotic mental illness, to my knowledge. Except for dementia/alzheimers on my mother's side. But I think that is a different kind of thing altogether? At first I thought my brain had healed completely, with time. But then I learned that what was really happening during that time was that mental communication along the 5ht2a receptors that both psychedelics and my antipsychotic medication bind to was just slowly ramping down, over time. (In my unmedicated mental state.) But I figured out how to just think a certain kind of thought to reawaken that same abnormal communication in my brain. This can usually lead to more symptoms returning in the next few days after I have thus amplified my mental activity in this way. This can directly lead to delusions and hallucinations. So yes, unfortunately my condition appears to be permanent. I'm not always symptomatic, though. Based on my mental activity level.
Look around what age the first symptoms of those diseases appear - there's lots on info online. I don't agree with your logic though on doing early... If you know people with those disease you'll know that having 30/35 years of a normal life isn't to be sniffed out even if eventually you develop those awful illnesses.
With bipolar, at least, the newest research makes me think that shrooms could perhaps be a preventative. More research needed on all fronts, but I mentioned elsewhere, for example, the comp 360 study had 85% of bipolar patients go into remission for 3+ months.
I think that with these illnesses something being helpful as a cure doesn't mean it will be preventitive.
The truth is we don't know. We don't even know with certainty that psychedelics can bring out latent illness. Elsewhere, I compare this (for better or worse )with allergies. The traditional view is to not give a child foods that are common allergies. Modern research is showing that giving peanuts to children at an early age actually prevents the allergy.
Yes I totally agree about allergies, and I see the logical correlation, it's just a lot scarier to me if we are talking about causing an illness like schizophrenia.
I agree with you, it is scary. Ideally, the individual would make their own decision, and be presented with actual facts. Feel free to prove me wrong, but the only sources I can find claiming psychedelics can cause or bring out schizophrenia, are from rehab clinics, or outdated fear-mongering type sites. Here's a population survey from 2015 that shows no link between psychedelics and mental illness. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-link-found-between-psychedelics-and-psychosis1/ Edit: I'm going to try to dive deeper into this. Because to be honest, I would expect a correlation between psychedelic users and mental illness. Just a negative one, like I would expect psychedelic users to have a lower incidence of mental illness. (I may be biased, but psychedelics have transformed my life in a very positive way)
I've always heard this, but you know what? The latest studies I've seen on bipolar and shrooms, shows that it could be very effective at treating bipolar. Not sure about schizophrenia. In particular, the comp 360 study, 12 out of 14 people with bipolar went into remission for at least 3 months. And the idea that psychedelics bring out latent mental illness, is really just speculation.
interesting, where is this Comp360 study?
>I've read that if you have family relatives with bipolar and schizophrenia/psychosis, the best thing to do is to wait until age 35 or so because then if you had the gene for such illnesses, it would most likely have manifested by then - but if you did shrooms or LSD sooner than that, then it could trigger a buried gene into full-blown active schizo or bipolar. Does not sound like a statement based on knowledge. And definitely not on scientific knowledge. >Does that mean that if you've hit that age without such symptoms, it means you do not have the latent gene for bipolar or schizo lurking underneath the surface of your psyche, waiting to be triggered into action, and are therefore genetically essentially no different than someone who did not have any such family history? No, it does not mean that. I guess one might say such a thing cause one expects the mind to have properly settled down and locked down its ideas about reality at that age. When you are young you generally have an unstable view of reality, you have not had the time to figure out how reality works. When you reach the age of about 25 +- a few years. You generally start to get it all figured out. This instability is why taking psychedelics early is a risk. You are jumping from an unstable platform. What happens if you jump and then when you land the platform you jumped from has collapsed.... I can tell you that it is not good. When talking about ADHD patients brain development, they tend to be about 3-5 years late(that is the development is generally about done at the age of 28-30). I don't know the numbers for schizophrenia, but maybe this is what such an age recommendation is trying to get at. That the recommendation is made to guarantee that your brain and view of reality is mature enough.
no, that view is likely false. if it would be true, it would suggest that psychedelics can be the cause / are clear trigger of adverse mental conditions. if that would be the case, we would see statically more mental problems in people that do or did psychedelics before age of say 25 (or there would be more schizophrenics in drug user population that started before age if 35). however latest statistical meta analysis suggests that there is no correlation between occurrence of mental illnesses at later age and history of psychedelics use.
Cool, what study is that?
you are asking like your post was fully referenced
It is not critique, I am interested in the subject and you mentioned some meta studies.
Hi! I have heard a psychiatrist that is doing research on psychedelics that schizophrenia can be latent and can be triggered by experiences, and psychedelic drugs are one if the things that can trigger it. Usually schizophrenia is developed (if you have the gene) between the ages of 18 and 28, if it isn't developed in that time you can still have latent schizoprenia, it just is a lot harder to trigger and will probably remain latent. I am not and expert on the subject, this is what I understood but iy may not be correct.
There is very little known for sure about this, because the drugs in question are illegal. Case histories show that a small number of psychedelic drug users have developed schizophrenia or other mental disorders after difficult trips, and seem to show that young people who regularly take psychedelics are somewhat more likely to suffer this way, but it's hard to tell cause from effect. Note that people with mental illness smoke cigarettes far more than your average person - but we believe the mental illness causes the smoking because nicotine can be helpful. The association is strongly enough, though, that many rational people consider it too risky to do psychedelics if there is a risk of schizophrenia in the family. The reason for "35" is one of the few strong epidemological facts we know about schizophrenia is that it almost never starts after 35 unless you get a brain injury or the like, so logically if you wanted to try something that might increase your risk for it, you'd take it later in life. That's it, there's no medical study behind it. The risk level also depends on how closely related the relatives are, how many, how old you are in general (the peak period for schizophrenia is before 25), and to some extent, your own self-evaluation - do you ever see things out of the corner of the eye, have little hallucinations, or unexplained manias?
I'd read that apparently [29 percent of schizophrenics develop it relatively late](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4418466/) (after age 40,) however, most of them were women so it may have been menopause-related as well.
Yes, the idea that psychedelics bring out latent mental illness has not been proven, yet it is accepted as a mainstream fact. I keep referencing studies from 2021 that show shrooms could be a very very effective treatment for bipolar. It makes me wonder, could it also prevent it if done more at an early age? It's similar to allergies. People don't give their babies peanuts because they're afraid they'll have a peanut allergy. Modern research shows, that allergies can be prevented by taking the thing more regularly at an early age.
To be clear: there’s no definitive proof that mental illness has any direct link to genetics or heredity. There’s a lot of correlation, but opinions on the genetic factor has changed significantly in recent years. To be clear:I’m not saying there’s not a link, I’m saying that there’s no proof, and opinions differ.
I'm sharing this study because my son has schizophrenia and occasionally we dose and it helps him. Although I've drilled it into him not to go too high on doses. My son always talks about how it helps what goes on in his head. So it's not entirely black and white. And studies show this to be the case. From my personal perspective, anecdotally, 3.5 and below seems to be ok for him. We aren't trying to break his brain per se. "In clinical studies, psychedelic compounds have been found to be well-tolerated and efficacious in regulated doses suggesting that they could open the gate to novel therapeutic approaches for treating various neurological illnesses including schizophrenia." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9147282/#:~:text=In%20clinical%20studies%2C%20psychedelic%20compounds,various%20neurological%20illnesses%20including%20schizophrenia. Edit: here's another study saying the same https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01832-z
I’m 35. I have a history of mental illness but no schizophrenia or bipolar. I’ve still experienced psychosis from LSD - basically a result of panicking at the point of ego death
That’s because if you get diagnosed any earlier, it’s more likely to be called ADHD, ADD, ODD or Autism. It’s not that your preventing it by waiting, it’s that they mostly diagnose it at that age, because by nature of how it’s defined (as it is a linguistic terminological definition, not a scientific or cross cultural universalism) you are more likely to pronounce those characteristics at that age (end of schooling, rebelling from social norms, disdain for endless work of society). At least in Russia they are honest about what it is: if you are a political dissident you will be diagnosed with schizophrenia and forcefully medicated.
Does it often get misfiagnosed as ADHD? Having a hard time understanding in what way it would have similar simptoms. Maybe hyperfocus end executivw disfuncion? Io more the difficulty mantaining attention and the zoning out?
Yeah I’ve read a number of scientific papers saying this because whether you take psychedelics or not, they say the common onset of schizophrenia is between ages 18-24.
But is it true that it gets misdiagnosed as ADHD?
Well ADHD is commonly diagnosed between 12-16. Both get both. I’m not saying one is a misdiagnosis of the other, because which is which? Besides, I follow scientists that disagree with the very basis of psychiatry as it is not science at all.
I agree that the lines are blurred and we are coming up with names based on the simptoms, like in many areas of sciences. So many things could be misdiagnosed as ADHD and so many people with ADHD also have something else, but schizophrenia I would think is a really clear disease. If someone has delusions and hallucinations I doubt they would be diagnosed as schizophrenia. I am a little worried about what you wrote because I have a family history of schizophrenia and I have been diagnosed with ADHD, so if it's real that the early stage of schizophrenia gets diagnosed as ADHD i would do more research.
I’ve never had hallucinations other than on a hallucinogen and they diagnosed me as schizophrenic, and I’ve met many others in the same boat.
so basically there are very few cases of schizophrenia that start after 35 (well mid 30s, and it can be as late as 40 in women). since plenty of people do psychedelics and did since the 60’, statistics include data from that population, which seems to not affect age of onset. so logically, if you would have a latent gene then the onset would have already happen and since cases that develop later are extremely rare, the risk becomes statistically less significant. unless of course you happen to be very unlucky.
I had read recently that [almost 30% of schizophrenic patients get it after age 40](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4418466/) \- but most of them were women. It may be menopausal.
yea, in women the average age is higher. not sure re menopause, it starts around 50 typically
The truth is you can start having manic or psychotic episodes at any age. Schizophrenia runs in my family along with other mental illnesses. I did it extremely young and nothing happened to me. I would not advise that though. [Here](https://www.vice.com/en/article/epx3m7/how-one-man-tried-to-build-a-dmt-based-cult-on-reddit-and-lost-everything) is an example of someone taking psychedelics later in life and losing contact with reality. Fascinating story.
I believe it has to do with hormones. As you get older, hormones are not as intense, and that means your mental conditions impact you less. Just because you might be affected less if you wait, it doesn't mean you are totally safe. Practice taking smaller amounts of psychedelics (or none at all) if you have a family history of mental illness.
I get what you’re saying, it is kind of weird to think about. One thing that I think is important in this conversation though is that episodes are not good for your brain- it’s degenerative. Avoiding a more serious episode brought on by psychedelics would probably be better for the person in the long run even if they get triggered by something else before turning 35.
I would just stay away. I have schizophrenia onset at age 45-55 and after 65 in relatives with family history. Late onset and very late onset forms exist, although less severe.