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Comment by kayodelycaon | Hacker News Reader

Psychosis can do a lot of damage. I had a 4-month-long psychotic break that eventually led to me being diagnosed bipolar.

It several years to recover from but I think some of the damage is permanent. I feel like I've lost a lot of memory function but I can't remember what things were like before. And it's difficult to separate that out from medication side-effects at this point.

What I do know is caffeine gives me panic attacks now (even decaf coffee is too much) and I can't function well enough to hold a job without medication.

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I had an approx 2 month long psychotic episode (its hard to note when it ended as, at least in my case, it kinda winds down so its not binary). Regarding memory, there's MS, autism, and schizophrenia in my family, and I've become older (the episode is now 10+ years ago). There are certain coffee blends which I really dislike, but I can still drink coffee, though not in the evening (insomnia).

During pregnancy (common), but continuing after birth of our first child (rare?), my wife no longer could handle with coffee with caffeine. She tried, but no it does not work.

I'm skipping on alcohol however, I quit that, it makes me too damn tired. Even one dosage has that effect. I cannot stand it anymore. And its not that I dislike the effect. On the contrary, though I limited usage before. Furthermore, I'm prone to addiction/obsessive behavior, it runs in the family somewhat (as part of hyperfocus of autism, I suspect). Nowadays, I can feel a bonbon with alcohol, or tiramisu with alcohol. I really ought to say no to such, too.

Long story short I cannot summarize all of this but I do have a remaining question: I'm curious how you're dealing with alcohol usage.

I don’t drink alcohol anymore because it mixes badly with my medication.

A single, tiny sip of scotch hits me fast. I immediately start feeling depressed and irritable. Even a couple sips of 2% beer has a noticeable effect for half an hour. It’s incredibly unpleasant.

It’s no great loss because I didn’t drink much before. I do miss scotch though.

Yeah, similar (Fluoxetine, which greatly helps me against irritability), but even before medication I was sensitive to it (though I'd like to think I was best dealing with it around age of 20-25?). I tried dealing with it by taking small sips, but even one glass of beer in an evening is too strong, and moreover: it costs a me a couple of hours of sleep. So the day after, I'm wasted. On Saturday morning I do sports, so I couldn't use that, so it would end up drinking approx once a week on Saturday evening. But it would waste a large part of my Sunday.

First person that I read about also having a problem with coffee and even with decaf. For me it started inducing anxiety like effects and gives me insomnia now if I accidentally eat a tiramisu or something containing a bit of it. Haven’t found anything that one can get an acquired caffeine sensitivity, but I guess there is not much research. I didn’t have an episode, but it did start during some more mentally challenging times.

Same

> What I do know is caffeine gives me panic attacks now (even decaf coffee is too much)

Coffee makes me jittery, but green tea gives me focused attention. I just don't enjoy the taste of green tea that much, so I drink coffee and take L-theanine (extract of green tea) pills to calm me down a bit.

L-theanine seems to be pretty good for a lot of people. :)

My experiment with it went pretty badly as it took out my mood stabilizer. (Oops.) That took me for a wild ride for the next 3 weeks after I stopped it.

After I mentioned this to my psychiatrist, she was rather insistent about not self-medicating. This included vitamins. A great number of things interact poorly with my medication mix. (e.i. Magnesium can interfere with absorption.)

At this point, I treat anything available over the counter the same way I treat prescription medications. I do research and clear anything potentially psychoactive with my psychiatrist. I do use natural things like melatonin. I just need to make sure are safe to take.

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