Health - Psychosis/Psychiatric problems

[lamda]

I've heard of and met LSD casualties but not ketamine casualties... Has anyone wound up on a psychiatric ward as a result of taking too much or indeed any amount of K?

I believe it physically damages the brains of rats... some say that the same is true for humans, others disagree... but what about psychological damage?

[smoggy32]

Any drug taking has the risk of psychologically hurting a person.

Tripping on Ketamine can be very pyschologically addictive and constantly using it can lead to problems with leading a normal life.

Ketamine is a powerfull drug and a person who predisposed to mental health problems may end up having difficulties if they use it. It may not matter what drug such a person uses tho.

Always be careful when using drugs.

[enquirewithin]

John Lilly is the most famous ketamine user/ abuser. I've mentioned him before. He wrote The Scientist and John Lilly, So Far in which he chronicles his adventures with massive amounts of ketamine. He was twice hospitalised with so-called paranoid psychosis, although this was really just extreme abuse of ketamine. When he came off it, he easily able to prove himself sane, although some people might argue that anyone who believes their destiny is controlled by ECCO (Earth Coincidence Control Centre) is a little eccentric. His story, and that of DW Turner and Marcia Moore, both of whom died as a result of their obsessions with ketamine, are cautionary tales

Others have become obsessed with ketamine, as smoggy32 says. I don't know of any research that shows that ketamine, unlike PCP, actually produces neurological damage.

[fastandbulbous]

It can make you think that the whole world is in someway linked to you as an important lynchpin (the sort of thing that in bad cases leads to a messiah complex). It's most probably to do with spending so much time in a world where everything is a creation of your own mind. Taking that sort of attitude/belief into the concensus reality we all share can come across as galloping megalomania in severe cases

[psychedelaholic]

Originally Posted by fastandbulbous

It can make you think that the whole world is in someway linked to you as an important lynchpin (the sort of thing that in bad cases leads to a messiah complex). It's most probably to do with spending so much time in a world where everything is a creation of your own mind. Taking that sort of attitude/belief into the concensus reality we all share can come across as galloping megalomania in severe cases

SWIM's kind of had this before. After a rave he did a lot of ketamine on the come down and reached the point where he thought everything he did had an influence on what everyone else in the room did. Was a very fun experience as SWIM recalls. When SWIM has ketamine in his possession he finds it near impossible not to do it everyday until it's gone, normally taking between 300 and 500mg a day but up to over a gram some days. Although he hardly ever does it during the day. When SWIM has no ketamine he feels completely fine though and never craves it. SWIM just finds it an extremely fun drug.