Smoking may have made my brother bi-polar!!

[GhostFace2K]

Ok, so this happened a while ago, but i'm starting to suspect this from a lot of people on this forum... about 2 years ago my brother went completely NUTS, and was doing all kinds of crazy shit. He was eventually arrested and institutionalized for a short time while they put him on lithium and some anti-psychotic. He literally thought he was Jesus and had these manic depressent phases (exact opposite of being depressed) and then he would slip into a depressed phase. He switched moods very often, and was pretty damn crazy (thought he was the Messiah, thought he could not be hurt etc..) so anyway... the psychologist (psychiatrist?) told him that there was a high probability that his heavy usage of marijuana may have caused his bipolar disorder. They said the prolonged use of marijuana effected a delicate balance of chemicals in his brain and eventually made him bi-polar due to the imbalance. My question is, how many of you are or know somebody that is bi-polar (or some kind of mental disorder) and smoked a lot of weed prior to this?

[LIP]

I havnt been sober for 3 years and im fine...

[friendowl]

im pretty sure i got that
never been to a doctor though

[Reefer Rogue]

Ok, so this happened a while ago, but i'm starting to suspect this from a lot of people on this forum... about 2 years ago my brother went completely NUTS, and was doing all kinds of crazy shit. He was eventually arrested and institutionalized for a short time while they put him on lithium and some anti-psychotic. He literally thought he was Jesus and had these manic depressent phases (exact opposite of being depressed) and then he would slip into a depressed phase. He switched moods very often, and was pretty damn crazy (thought he was the Messiah, thought he could not be hurt etc..) so anyway... the psychologist (psychiatrist?) told him that there was a high probability that his heavy usage of marijuana may have caused his bipolar disorder. They said the prolonged use of marijuana effected a delicate balance of chemicals in his brain and eventually made him bi-polar due to the imbalance. My question is, how many of you are or know somebody that is bi-polar (or some kind of mental disorder) and smoked a lot of weed prior to this?

Sounds like the weed to me :rolleyes:

[Big Calhoun]

Well, I start out with I've been smoking for 10+ years and am no where near bi-polar or any other medical condition. I have a short temper and am moody, but I was born that way. :D

On the flipside, my brother has something going on, not quite sure what it is or what meds the doctors have him on. But basically, before he left for college, everything was fine. While there, he started smoking. Now, he went to college in Kansas and we were in New Jersey; according to him, all he smoked was weed. But he came back one semester and was wierd. I mean, he would just start talking out of nowhere or laugh to himself for no reason. Ended up he tried to kill himself and that's when my mother started aggresively seeking help for him. It's been years and he's on meds, but he's almost back to 'normal'. But the question remains was it the weed that brought it on, did he get hold of bad shit, or was it some other factor.

[GhostFace2K]

Well, I start out with I've been smoking for 10+ years and am no where near bi-polar or any other medical condition. I have a short temper and am moody, but I was born that way. :D

On the flipside, my brother has something going on, not quite sure what it is or what meds the doctors have him on. But basically, before he left for college, everything was fine. While there, he started smoking. Now, he went to college in Kansas and we were in New Jersey; according to him, all he smoked was weed. But he came back one semester and was wierd. I mean, he would just start talking out of nowhere or laugh to himself for no reason. Ended up he tried to kill himself and that's when my mother started aggresively seeking help for him. It's been years and he's on meds, but he's almost back to 'normal'. But the question remains was it the weed that brought it on, did he get hold of bad shit, or was it some other factor.

the story about your brother is basically the same as mine... he went to college, made it through 3.5 years and in the last semester right before he was about to graduate he flipped out and went nuts, stopped going to class, started spending tons of money he didn't have on credit cards, and then threw out the credit card bills and said he didn't hafta pay them because he was the Messiah. LOL i started to notice the difference my freshmen year, i had been recruited to play football at the same school, and i made it through my freshmen year fine. He was a senior and basically at our annual spring football banquet is when he started to go crazy... i don't even like my brother anymore really just because he's such an asshole all the time and he uses his "bi-polarness" as an excuse to be a dickhead to everyone...

[Big Calhoun]

Yeah, I can definately feel your pain. Before my brother was in treatment, we got into some terrible fights. I mean, man to man fist fights. Even during the begining of treatment, he would call and ask for money and then I'd find out he was smoking it up or drinking it away. Thank God he seems to have stablized these last few years.

I know from alot of the research I and my mother did in trying to help him, we learned that alot of mental illnesses will onset usually between 18 - 24 years of age...my brother was about 20 when all this started happening. That and sometimes alot of stress can cause mental illness. So in the case of our brother, we're surmissing that the weed, a possible predisposition to mental illness on his fathers side of the family, and stress of being away from home is what brought it all on. He's never really told us EVERYTHING that went on when he was away so that is our best guess based on what we do know.

The best thing you can do is research, research, research. My mother and I were able to find resource groups, doctors, and alot of other information to help him out. It was rough in the begining, but it's now to the point where he can do most things for himself and is largely responsbile. It's a tough thing to go through. Hang in there.

[Garden Knowm]

I have witnessed several people who's minds become so loud when they smoke that they inturn trry to compete with their own inner voice.. making them seem CRAZY...

or be crazy.. what ever you wish to call it..

Weed does that.. it can male whatever you focus on that much more initense..

you focus n your mind and it becomes noisy..

you focus on the frisbee and you can catch anything throw in your direction..

A noisy mind is a scary mind.. for those who belive they are their mind
ILOVEYOU

[1234abcd]

Well if weed turned me bipolar, then Im using it to help that :thumbsup: :rasta: :stoned: :stoned: :stoned: :stoned: :stoned:

[harmonicminor]

sounds like propaganda, theres plenty of other shit we ingest on a daily basis that they put in our food and water and breathe from the air that could change your brain chemistry. even natural foods change the bodies chemistry depending on the ph of the food itself. I would think it would be more likely a genetic factor. I hear studies have shown that mj actually helps people with bipolar.
and for your brothers, sorry to hear that
maybe they were mentally scarred from thier college initiations???

[Hempamasta]

Ok, so this happened a while ago, but i'm starting to suspect this from a lot of people on this forum... about 2 years ago my brother went completely NUTS, and was doing all kinds of crazy shit. He was eventually arrested and institutionalized for a short time while they put him on lithium and some anti-psychotic. He literally thought he was Jesus and had these manic depressent phases (exact opposite of being depressed) and then he would slip into a depressed phase. He switched moods very often, and was pretty damn crazy (thought he was the Messiah, thought he could not be hurt etc..) so anyway... the psychologist (psychiatrist?) told him that there was a high probability that his heavy usage of marijuana may have caused his bipolar disorder. They said the prolonged use of marijuana effected a delicate balance of chemicals in his brain and eventually made him bi-polar due to the imbalance. My question is, how many of you are or know somebody that is bi-polar (or some kind of mental disorder) and smoked a lot of weed prior to this?

A few things...

1. Marijuana cannot make you bipolar. Nor can marijuana make you schizophrenic. But what marijuana CAN do is that if a person already has a genetic disposition towards getting the mental illness, marijuana or other drugs can help to set it off.

2. Manic Depressive Disorder and bipolar disorder are the same thing. You have periods of extreme dark depression that may result in suicide attempts, etc... and mania, which is the polar opposite of depression characterized by extreme feelings of happiness and extreme energy. Imagine a kid with ADD on speed, that's basically what mania is.

3. Thinking you are jesus is a hallucination or a delusion. That's not an aspect of Manic depressive disorder. Sounds like your brother may have some other underlying psychological problems, perhaps even the waking hallucinations could be from paranoid schizophrenia. I would certainly hope not for your brother's sake, I'm just saying.

4. A psychologist is a person with a medical license that can proscribe pharmaceuticals. A clinical psychiatrist will usually deal with listening to the patient and attempting to figure out what the root of the problem is.

5. I know someone who is bipolar, and he has smoked marijuana for about 3 or 4 years before he was clinically marked as having the disorder. It is difficult to say if he would have still been bipolar if he had or had not consumed marijuana recreationally for so many years prior to the emergence of his mental condition.

Best of luck.

[JunkYard]

I have witnessed several people who's minds become so loud when they smoke that they inturn trry to compete with their own inner voice.. making them seem CRAZY...

or be crazy.. what ever you wish to call it..

Weed does that.. it can male whatever you focus on that much more initense..

you focus n your mind and it becomes noisy..

you focus on the frisbee and you can catch anything throw in your direction..

A noisy mind is a scary mind.. for those who belive they are their mind
ILOVEYOU

Alright, you nailed me, lol! :dance:

Btw, I AM bi-polar!

I found out when I was 23, but it makes things interesting. The mania is great, and I too have had delusions of grandure, but I'll never admit that I thought I was Jesus for a few months, lol! :D

Psychotic episodes are such a trip, man! (I'm lucky to be alive)

I'll never blame it on the weed, though! I'm just a unique individual with unique brain functions.

Call me Crazy if you must, but I think I like it this way!

[beachguy in thongs]

DO NOT BLAME BIPOLAR ON MARIJUANA.

Cannabinoids promote embryonic and adult
hippocampus neurogenesis and produce
anxiolytic- and antidepressant-like effects

Wen Jiang, Yun Zhang, Lan Xiao, Jamie Van Cleemput,
Shao-Ping Ji, Guang Bai, and Xia Zhang

-1 Neuropsychiatry Research Unit, Department of Psychiatry, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

-2 Department of Neurology, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xiâ??an, Peopleâ??s Republic of China.

-3 Department of Biomedical Sciences, Dental School, Program in Neuroscience, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

http://www.jci.org/cgi/reprint/115/11/3104.pdf

[WaKeNvAp]

They said the prolonged use of marijuana effected a delicate balance of chemicals in his brain and eventually made him bi-polar due to the imbalance.

Find me some scientific data on this. some shhrinks know what they are doing, some dont. u only talked to one shrink by the sound of it. let me ask you and everyone here, if you were to have taken the first advice given to you about cannabis and never looked back, 1/2 or more of us probably 90% of us wouldnt use cannabis! get a second, third, 4th opinion etc. do some research on herb.:thumbsup:

[Swizzy89304]

Ok, so this happened a while ago, but i'm starting to suspect this from a lot of people on this forum... about 2 years ago my brother went completely NUTS, and was doing all kinds of crazy shit. He was eventually arrested and institutionalized for a short time while they put him on lithium and some anti-psychotic. He literally thought he was Jesus and had these manic depressent phases (exact opposite of being depressed) and then he would slip into a depressed phase. He switched moods very often, and was pretty damn crazy (thought he was the Messiah, thought he could not be hurt etc..) so anyway... the psychologist (psychiatrist?) told him that there was a high probability that his heavy usage of marijuana may have caused his bipolar disorder. They said the prolonged use of marijuana effected a delicate balance of chemicals in his brain and eventually made him bi-polar due to the imbalance. My question is, how many of you are or know somebody that is bi-polar (or some kind of mental disorder) and smoked a lot of weed prior to this?

Well Im 18 now, and smoke maybe an eighth a month. Sometimes Ill go out and buy a quarter and smoke it all over a few days, but thats a rarity. Ive been diagnosed with severe depression 2 years ago, and also bipolar. Although the docs cant quite work out whether I had bipolar or something called 'psyclothemia' (think its spelt like that) which is basically bipolar but with much more rapid mood swings. With bipolar you can go from feeling like youre on E, to feeling suicidal in 30 mins. With psyclothemia you can go from feeling like yer on E to suicidal in 10 seconds.
I used to smoke Herb quite often - about a quarter a week, but after my 'incident' Ive cut down a helluva lot. Oh, this is the 'incident'...
I sat down one evening and started talking to my mum about religion. I talked to her for about 2 hours, and said that 'I think the greatest sin is to take your own life'. It was the deepest conversation Id ever had. After this, I said is it OK if I cook a chicken tikka masala and take it to my room. She said it was fine, so I say goodnight, go upstairs and eat. Afterwards, I write a note and say a prayer, before finally loading a pellet into my rifle and shooting myself under the chin. The doctors said that I only survived because the pellet deflected on a tooth, and my mum said that she had no idea I was feeling suicidal.
Anyway, from MY EXPERIENCE ONLY, I say yes - with people who have mental disorders, smoking Herb WILL bring them out sooner or make the conditon more intense. However, now I only smoke a couple of times a month, I feel fine. My interest in sex has come back, I have a girlfriend, Im going out and looking for jobs, and Im thinking about what I want to study at college in September.
With regulation, it can be the best medicine. Oh and if youre wondering, Im on medication - Sodium Valproate x2 (mood stabiliser) and Lofepramine x1 (anti-depressant).

[prplchknz]

I doubt its the Weed it may have sped it up but I think something would have happened regardless.

[thcbongman]

The ironic thing is there was a guy in my inner circle who did the least amount of drugs in general, went totally schitzophrenic, now homeless and struggling to battle his mental and emotional demons. This guy didn't smoke a lot of weed, maybe did other drugs a total of 3 times.

I witnessed his decay slowly through a 2 year period. The changes were subtle, until one day, you realized he was talking to himself, making strange noises constantly, you notice his anxiety, and see the anger inside of him. As much as I care about this kat, I can't stand to be around him for more than 1/2 an hour because he's that crazy, and I'm kinda afraid he would swing at me randomly.

Bi-Polar varies to degrees, but it sounds like it's the only issue your brother has. A lot of these personality traits cross each other. I know my share of bi-polar people (trust me, I attract the weirdest people,) and all of them had it before they even smoked weed, life-long issue.

Get a 2nd opinion. With these psychatrists, most of them are wrong. You have to talk to at least 5 different ones before you can get a glimpse of your personality disorders.

[stars stars stars]

I've got the childhood case of BP..."mood disorder". Treated almost the same as BP in adults. My exgirlfriend had BP, my best friend is BP. We all smoke but we all use other drugs as well.

We're all a little crazy, it just depends on how you notice it..nothing CAUSES a mental illness, that's all bullshit in my mind.

[GhostFace2K]

i bet you if a statician studied marijuana with psychological disorders, there would be a fairly strong correlation between marijuana and and those disorders. That is to say, there is probably a larger distribution of mental disorders in cannabis users then there is in non-cannabis users. I wouldn't be shocked if i heard that this is the case. Of course, this is only a hyptothesis, and i neither have the time, willpower, or resources to run a regression analysis (although, i do know how to run regression analyses)

[smokin dope]

i wouldnt blame that on smokin dope, id blame that on either a fucked up childhood and or use of some crazy drugs. some people just snap man, sorry but its the truth, but please dont blame this on weed. i havent been sober in years and im fine!