Those who are curious, mine was not drug or cannabis induced, I’ve never taken any drugs in my life but I don’t think it matters. Here is why, I 100% believe that cannabis is just an external factor that contributes to the internal process that triggers Depersonalization/Derealization. It is a trigger and trigger in many cases isn’t really important. Trigger and cause are two very different terms. Trigger is what starts the process and cause is what’s really happening during the process that causes all of your symptoms. Prior to all of this happening to me, I had two small episodes of DP/DR which were triggered by fluorescent light, I’ve always had issues with fluorescent light. When I went to my psychiatrist who specializes in dissociation, he said that fluorescent light is just an external trigger, there must be an internal factor that allows the external trigger to start the process, main thing is stress.
Many drugs are considered dissociative drugs and I’m not sure if cannabis is one of them but I believe cannabis should be one of them. It’s no surprise that dissociative drugs induce dissociation. Under normal circumstance, the effects of dissociation wears out when the drug leaves your system, no internal factor in this case. If cannabis can induce permanent DP/DR then everyone who has taken it would have suffered from this condition.
But then there is the “bad trip”, from my readings at least from the book, “bad trip” tends to happen more during stressful period. As you can see, there is always that internal factor which in many cases of bad trips is again stress. So the question is why DP/DR becomes chronic after a “bad trip”? My theory is that the drug has triggered the protection mechanism of the brain which your brain is already prone to during stressful period. This is why people can take cannabis for years and not have a bad trip and suddenly one day, a small dose triggers chronic DP/DR. You can find many examples of this on forums. The research book I bought “Depersonalization : A New Look at a Neglected Syndrome” has a whole chapter about drug induced DP/DR and the interesting fact is that virtually they found no difference between drug-induced and non-drug induced.
Anyways, the point that I’m trying to get through is that whether your DP/DR was caused by drug or other triggers, it’s not as important as you think. Like how my psychiatrist says it, the why sometimes is not always clear or important. But of course, we’re not talking about physical causes that can cause symptoms of DP/DR. Either way, we are looking for the same treatment and try to get better.
A good analogy to understand this is to take a simple allergy as an example. Let say you develop skin rashes from drinking alcohol or certain juices. Alcohol and juice are triggers and immune system reaction is the cause of skin rash. The treatment would be the same, you would take some kind of antihistamines to reduce the reaction.
The reason why I’m writing this blog is there have been hot discussions of drug related DP/DR and non-drug related DP/DR. My advice to everyone is DO NOT take drugs, it is not worth it. I understand sometimes there is peer pressure but your life is much more valuable.
Stay strong people!
Brain Defect - Battle against mental illness. 