I am not a drug and alcohol expert, but I know that both drugs and alcohol have played a part in my mental health journey.
I will first talk about my experiences with drugs (prescription and recreational).
I started taking recreational drugs shortly after my stay at Hollywood clinic for my eating disorder back in 2001. I had begun my recovery journey from anorexia, and was starting to live life again. Because I had missed out on over two years of my life I didn’t have many boundaries in terms of my behavior. Friends that I connected with at the time were in that experimental phase and I just jumped on board as I was very curious and experimental myself. I went to a lot of raves and took ecstasy, speed and dexamphetamine. There were some fun times over the course of 2001 and 2002 but the drug use came to a halt quite quickly at the end of 2002 because things were starting to go pear shaped. I started experiencing bouts of depression and panic; I felt very anxious in social situations and really began to lose my sense of self. I felt as if I was a bit disconnected from reality.
It was easy to see that the root cause of all these dreadful symptoms was the illicit drug use. I have no doubt that if I had not have gone down that particular path, I would have been ok. But at the same time, I don’t regret my actions as I feel that everything… absolutely everything, happens the way it is meant to.
Although my psychosis and schizophrenia didn’t manifest until many years later in 2009, I believe that the seed of these disorders were planted back when I was taking these illicit drugs. In other words, I believe I was predisposed to develop schizophrenia, but the drug use uncovered this vulnerability.
Again, you may ask me the question of “do I regret it all”.
In a way I do but more than anything else I believe I was meant to have these experiences because they led to greater amounts of learning about myself and greater amounts of insight and inner-strength.
I think at this stage back at the end of 2002, I needed to really address what was going on for me mentally – and I didn’t because I found it very difficult to articulate the symptoms I was experiencing. My psychiatrist saw the symptoms of anxiety and depression, and treated me with psychotropic medication to address this. When I took these prescription meds however I felt even worse. Essentially, I believe I should have been treated with anti-psychotics to bring myself back down to earth and really address the root cause of the problem… not just the more superficial apparent symptoms.
It was anti psychotics that saved my life in the end and continue to, to this day. Trying to fix what was going on in my head with antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds just exacerbated the underlying problem – which was a seed of psychosis and seed of mania I believe.
The lesson here really, is that recreational drug use causes mental illness, most of the time anyway. There might be few who aren’t affected in a negative way but I believe that the majority are affected, in varying degrees. For me, I was on the more chronic end of the spectrum. I was affected very quickly, and affected in a way that was irreversible (until I eventually took my antipsychotics anyway). I now strongly advocate for reducing drug use in society…particularly amongst youth… as I know what havoc it can create for people. Just remember, sometimes the damage is irreversible, particularly in the case of meth-amphetamine which is highly used today. Say no to drugs because the link to mental illness is very real and undeniable.
I will talk a little bit about alcohol, which hasn’t been as much of a problem in my recovery journey but it still plays a part in things. For a long time (from around the ages of 18 to 22) I used alcohol to escape the harsh reality I was living in (after the drug use period). Most of the time it was social, with friends, but not always. It was a coping mechanism and a very unhealthy one…. But I suppose it got me through some challenging times. I never became addicted, nor did it ever get in the way of work or uni. But I did become slightly dependent on it – after work I would need a drink to (as I said) escape my reality and my feelings of being really stuck in my life.
Eventually as I got older things got a bit easier and drinking was less of an issue, I drank more moderately and I was feeling healthier and valued my health a lot more. Then I went through the psychosis and developed schizophrenia and I didn’t drink during this time (I just didn’t really feel the need and I wasn’t socializing much anyway). When I did start to socialize (6 months before I turned 28) I found alcohol to be a helpful sidekick, once again. I would drink socially to increase my levels of confidence (I had very little normally). Now that I have found my confidence in life (more often than not), I don’t need to drink for that same purpose. It has been a learning curve trying to find moderation when It comes to drinking… I still tend to lean towards it when things are tough but I am learning different strategies now to deal with tough times. I am much more health focused now and I really do recognize the importance of all things in moderation.
One last thing I will say in regard to alcohol is that you must remember it is a depressant. If you are experiencing bouts of depression, even just in a slight way, please avoid drinking alcohol because it just catapults the feelings of depression to another level. I don’t experience depression very often but last year I did have a small period of severe depression and I used drinking to cope with my feelings. I realized very quickly what a bad idea that was and swore off drinking for a while – and particularly swore off drinking alone. Depression is scary when it hits so making it worse can be very dangerous.
Now I only drink when I socialize and keep it to a maximum of 2 drinks most of the time. I much prefer to live this way now because I feel healthier. And when I feel healthier in a physical sense, I feel healthier mentally. And that is my main priority in life now… my mental health is so important, because without it, I wouldn’t have much else. So again, I would say if you are working with someone with mental health issues, stress the importance of moderation when it comes to drinking; and stress the importance of saying a big no… to any recreational drug use.
Kate's Niche 