Input?

You're probably going to look at this and think "no way I'm reading all that", but if you have a mental illness, I really think I might be able to help you in some way if you'd just give me 5 minutes of your time.

I'm going to try and describe my situation as best as possible. Rewind about 5 months ago - I'm a completely normal 17 year old kid. Plenty of friends, pretty popular, always gotten good grades without really having to try. I had a lot of friends that were girls, but they seemed to always stay in the friend category, and I was getting tired of it. I was looking around online for information on how to attract women, when I found something that really made since. Women like confidence. Just like any other species, they want someone that's going to provide for them, the alpha male if you will. So just like that, overnight, I started acting with a new found sense of confidence. And it worked. Girls were even commenting on how I had "confidence" using the word exactly. Girls I hardly knew would cling to me. The girls I'd dreamed of having talked about how sexy I was. One of the prettiest girls I'd every seen asked me if I'd go to a dance with her, and it was the first night I'd ever met her. Every morning I'd wake up with a big smile on my face, looking forward to the day. A few of my friends said I was starting to act like an asshole sometimes, but I was able to brush it off for the most part. Then, the strangest thing happened to me. I was sitting in class one day, and (this sounds awful looking back on it but we've all done it) I had one of those "I'm awesome" moments where I got chills thinking about the success I had recently. Right when I got the chills, the girl in front of me twitched a little and moved her legs around. Keep in mind she was looking forward, so this wasn't a reaction to me staring at her funny or anything. This spurred some curiosity, so I tried to do it again. Sure enough, she shifted around. I did a little research and found an article on pheromones. Evidence that human pheromones exist supposedly has never been found, but I know for a fact they do. So now, during school, I would spend the majority of my time trying to get these chills and watching girls reactions. It was fascinating and scary at the same time. I learned that it was affecting not only girls in my class, but guys as well. It was like clockwork, I'd get chills and people would scratch their heads or look at me and look away. Eventually, I was addicted to it. It made me feel high anytime I'd do it, so I couldn't stop. I only told a couple close friends because I was afraid that if I told everyone, they'd think I was crazy or they'd realize it was true and I'd lose my "advantage" if you will. I kept getting better at it and eventually, I felt like I was high all the time. I started having trouble holding conversations because all I'd think about was whether or not I had the feeling. I was either in a state of euphoria or worrying because I felt like I was intimidating my friends in a way. They acted scared when I got the chills, but I couldn't stop.
Here's where it gets bad. I've always been an average drug user, nothing heavy like heroin or coke or anything, but a weekend stoner and drinker, and I've always had an interest in psychadelics and pills and whatnot, as long as I did my research beforehand and knew I was being safe. Well, one weekend I was able to get ahold of some LSD for the first time. A buddy and I dropped a hit each of what was supposed to be some pretty strong stuff. It was extremely enjoyable, and I spent most of the time being more open about my situation than I had been, talking about how confidence gets you places and other deep things, such as why we do drugs. All my explanations seemed to make perfect sense. Anyway, I woke up the next day feeling a little tired, but alright. I went out to hang with friends that night and for some reason, I had this intense anxiety. As I had discovered, no one seems to want to hang out with someone who's nervous about hanging out with them, and I was panicky because I couldn't get the feeling with the chills like I usually did. These are my close friends, and they were treating me like I was dumb the whole time because my words had no confidence. All I could think about was panicking. This is when I made the worst mistake of my life. I've done salvia many times, and had some crazy trips, some a little scary, but nothing I couldn't handle, and we always had something to talk about afterwards, so when my friends suggested we get this new "dark matter" salvia, the highest potency salvia I've ever seen, I agreed. I smoked a bowl before it was my turn. I took a massive bong hit and felt my heartbeat pound rapidly. I began to panic and was soon on my trip, which was the most terrifying event in my entire life. I vividly hallucinated that I had become "retarted", that I was insane due to drugs and all my friends and family were surrounding me saying how it was such a shame, and all I could do was mumble. Every fear manifested itself in my mind and even after the effects wore off, I kept saying I didn't feel right for the next 2 hours and all my friends did was tell me to shut up the entire time. I was terrified I had gone insane. This is when I started having intense anxiety about nothing. I was either panicking or doing just the opposite, which is sort of being pissed off I guess. I had the feeling of being high, only it wasn't a good feeling anymore, just felt better than panicking. It felt like more of an intense headache. I couldn't concentrate on anything, and I was too nervous to go back to school, so I stayed home for two weeks lying on my couch, sleeping or staring into space. I began showing symptoms of schizophrenia, having mild hallucinations and occasionally hearing voices, but the strange thing was I could control it to an extent, just by thinking about it as I had done whenever I got the chills. I couldn't stop, however, because it was addicting and I didn't want to be nervous. I developed shingles, which is pretty unusual for someone my age. I was in and out of the neurologists office, who gave me a spinal tap among other annoying tests to see what was causing my "headaches". They didn't find anything, and I was put on and off many different medications, including several migraine medications, valtrex for the shingles, and antidepressants. They seemed to take the edge off, but gave me intense anxiety, so I stopped taking them. I eventually got the courage to return to school, which was pretty rough for a while. My friends all thought I had gone crazy. Some days I seemed to have full blown schizophrenia with every symptom, while others I was just acting a little weird. A couple months have passed since then, and I'm doing a better job with controlling it. It's strange because the only time I seem to have the illness is when I'm thinking about it, while the only time I have anxiety or a panic attack is when I'm thinking about it. I made a multitude of discoveries throughout this time, mostly due to my racing thoughts, a lot of them dealing with the way the universe works and a lot of them dealing with how schizophrenia and similar disorders work, what causes them, etc. But of course, if I am truly schizophrenic, then all these thoughts would never be accepted as real ideas, but would be dismissed as delusions, even if they are correct. I fully understand some of the delusions of schizophrenia now, such as the ability to project thoughts and thinking that one has special "powers", because in a sense, they do, but non-schizophrenics would simply dismiss these ideas as crazy. I have so much else I'd like to talk about, but seeing that I've already typed half a book, I'm going to stop and see if anyone even cares to read this entire thing. If you do, thanks, and please ask or tell me anything, because I truly am interested.

It took me 5 minutes 50 seconds to read your post, in fact, and not 5 minutes (you lied... )

Two big points I want to make in relation to your post are: 1) Schizophrenia commonly 'starts' in a person in their 20s; and 2) Drugs have been heavily linked to inducing schizophrenia. On point two, I've both seen it happen first-hand and heard many stories about it. I don't know what els to say about this really because you seem to have things under control right now. granted, things aren't ideal, but at least you don't sound as if you're going out each night getting stoned and sleeping rough (like others I have heard about). I guess right now you should look forward to the rest of yor life and be thankful of the experiences you had in your past. Why should you be thankful? - Because you've learned from them and now have vast wisdom, wisdom which you can impart to others who find themselves in similar situations and who are struggling.

Describe this pheromone thing though. i have heard about it but I do'nt have a clue what this 'chill' thing you mentioned is. please explain it further.

Kevin

I think with the chills that may just be a coincidence. Maybe you saw something you were looking for.

As for the hallucinations I if start to feel panic or really zoned out I will start to hallucinate, but the hallucinations are not really sounds, they feel more like parts of my mind. It is almost like if I look for the hallucinations then I start to hear them, but they are without substance (actual sound). So in that way I am able to control them as well. eg. if I relax they usually go away.

Ecco, what you said about the hallucinations, I can honestly say it's the exact same way for me. It's almost like I can make myself hallucinate only if I'm in the right mindset - that is, thinking about it. If I take my mind off it and focus on something else, it goes away. My main issue at this point is having arguments in my head. I suppose it's what some people would consider "voices" but they still feel like thoughts, just racing ones that seem to contradict themselves. Whenever someone makes a point, myself included, I think of the complete opposite and contradict the point exactly. This makes it extremely hard to focus on anything because I'm always disproving whatever I'm trying to focus on, and makes it hard to enjoy talking with friends because friends agree on things, and how can I agree with someone if I can't even agree with myself? But trust me on this one - I might be partially schizophrenic, but I'm NOT crazy, and even if I was, I made this discovery before anything at all was going on. It seems like something a crazy person would supposedly "discover", which is why it worried me so much initially.

I'll try and describe the pheromone thing as best I can. All species - at least mammals, have a social structure. Let's pretend we have a pack of wolves, or some other animal that lives in groups. There's always a dominant male that makes most of the decisions, mates with the most females, leads the pack, etc. you get the idea. He might be the biggest or smartest, or he might not be. So what makes him dominant? He believes he is superior to the rest of them, and they might not like to admit it, but the rest of the pack know they are inferior to him. They would like to be in his position, but there is something they see in him that they know they don't have - maybe it's strength, good looks, who knows. But really, it's the mentality, which alters brain chemistry and hormones. I really believe that dopamine is the primary chemical that establishes dominance. Cocaine raises dopamine levels. If you think about it, how does someone act when they're on coke? Like they're better than you. Schizophrenics have elevated dopamine levels, and they believe they have special powers no one else has, thus they are superior to others. Basically they believe themselves so much that it drives them insane, if that makes any sense. I think why it's so hard for schizophrenics to be cured naturally is because dopamine is addicting, and thus they follow the strange habits that give them the most dopamine. Have you noticed that some people have a certain presence when they walk in a room? Almost like you're forced to look at them. Or when you see someone that's really cocky doing something to show off. You might think "what a douchebag", but for some reason, you can't stop looking at them. It's the same situation. They feel like they're cool and feel good, and your brain tells you to look at them to see what they're doing so you can feel good too.
What I was talking about when I said chills are essentially goosebumps. It's been said that goosebumps lost their function somewhere along the lines of evolution - I don't believe that. I think your pores are widening to release an abundance of pheromones. There's also an organ in your nose called the VNO which is said to be vestigal, yet in other organisms, its what senses pheromones. This is where I believe the "projecting thoughts" part of schizophrenia comes in. I've noticed when I'm listening to someone and my thoughts drift and I have one of my "dopamine headaches", if you will, I feel irritated and don't feel like listening, and the person starts talking faster and acting nervous, like whatever they're saying is no longer important. I've made sure it's not my facial expression changing to look irritated. It's almost like they sense I don't want them to talk anymore, thus projecting my thoughts. Once again, pheromones. And once again, I've typed a novel, so I'm going to stop, although there's a few more points that go much deeper that would help link all this together I could bring up, if you still think I'm sane after everything I just said haha.

Oh and by the way, I'm sure your right, if I had never done drugs there's a good chance I would have never been in this situation. But such is life. And I had been getting stoned every night, but I quit about a week ago and have been exercising and trying to eat right, and it's really helping.