Swapping psych meds for weed

I am a big fan of medical marijuana in states where it is legal. But I want to share my story and issue a warning to anyone thinking about dumping their psych meds for cannabis.

Several years ago, after my dad died and I briefly returned to the workplace, I decided to stop taking my anti-psychotic medication. I found a doctor who instead hooked me up with a medical marijuana card and benzodiazepines, namely Xanax, to manage my anxiety.

At the time, my diagnoses were bipolar I, anxiety, and PTSD. From my lived experience, I do not believe it is a good idea to ever abruptly stop an anti-psychotic like Risperdal, which I had been taking for 10 years.

Liberated by the plant ... at first

For a few months, being off the Risperdal felt wonderful. I immediately lost weight. I began to think clearer and my writing improved. My mood became elevated (no doubt I was ramping up to extreme mania without the Risperdal) and I got a lot of work done. But after a while, some dark symptoms began to appear which also haunted me years earlier in my thirties, although I never told anyone.

I began to hear voices. The voices would talk about criminal cases, political scandals … the sorts of things people like myself write about. After a while, I became very fearful because I felt I knew too much, even though much of what I knew came from the voices.

I became extremely paranoid and even began having visual hallucinations. When I thought some bad guys were at my dad’s assisted living facility, I screamed, “Call 911!” When police responded, it was me they dragged out of the building, threatening to TASR me if I continued to resist. This all went down right in front of my father who was in the late stages of dementia. I was then taken to jail, where I thought the cell filled with smoke, like I was being gassed.

Hallucinations became so common I lost touch with reality

In retrospect, I believe that was a psychotic hallucination. I had other hallucinations, too (at least I think they were hallucinations) of being loaded onto an airplane and being pushed through a tunnel at the airport in my small Illinois town. Of course, both the “gassing” incident and the tunnel incident do not seem realistic. I recognize that and can now concede I likely was hallucinating.

I was not on any drugs other than marijuana and my prescribed benzodiazepines. I also had successfully stopped drinking. I was off my anti-psychotic medication, however.

For the next few months, my mental health continued to deteriorate. I thought my neighbors were after me. When the neighbor across the street put up a motion detector light that would shine on my house every time someone pulled into my driveway, I became even more paranoid. It was a combination of traumatic things happening to me that were real mixed with hallucinations that were not. I ultimately no longer knew the difference between reality and perception.

Rash decision costs me tens of thousands of dollars

In a moment of panic, I sold my house for almost nothing and moved to Denver. Within months, I was homeless on the street. I was repeatedly thrown into jail and mental hospitals but would be released back to the street. This continued for about a year. I refused anti-psychotic medication.

Finally, I was severely beaten by police one day and charged with assault on a peace officer. I was declared “incompetent to proceed” in court and was transferred to the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo. There, I was forced to take the anti-psychotics. Within months, the voices stopped, The paranoia subsided. The PTSD and trauma remained, but I was on my way to becoming healthy again.

Eventually I ended up in permanent supportive housing, where I still reside. A former psychiatrist here recognized that marijuana helps me immensely, so long as I stay on my prescription meds. She was so convinced the cannabis was an important supplement to my treatment that she even drove me to a marijuana doctor herself to get my medical card.

New study: Weed doesn’t help with mental illness

I smoke marijuana every day and it helps me a great deal. That said, I would never go off my anti-psychotic medications, even though they cause massive weight gain, brain fog, lethargy, tardive dyskinesia and other negative side effects too numerous to mention.

A medical study published this week in The Lancet took an exhaustive look at previous research on marijuana and its use to treat anxiety and other mental health disorders as well as substance use disorder. It concluded there is no evidence to show that marijuana helps with these conditions. When I stopped taking my antipsyhotic medication and switched to marijuana, my anxiety actually worsened, especially when I smoked certain sativa strains.

The Lancet study concluded, “Given the scarcity of evidence, the routine use of cannabinoids for the treatment of mental disorders and substance use disorders is currently rarely justified.” My personal experience proves otherwise. I used cannabis to wean me off of alcohol after years of being a heavy drinker. I have been sober from alcohol since 2014. Also, I now have diagnoses of schizoaffective disorder and PTSD. Marijuana helps tremendously with my mood control.

This is not a pro-marijuana or anti-marijuana article. I simply want to share my experience so others may avoid the trauma of psychosis and homelessness. For me, marijuana and prescription medication together have kept me stable for several years now.