Harry - Interview 03

Brief Outline:

Harry, a student, said that he started to do drugs aged thirteen. He started off mainly with cannabis and then skunk just 'out of curiosity'. He then went on to try ecstasy, mephedrone, MDMA, etc. He was diagnosed with psychosis age nineteen. He doesn't use drugs anymore.

Background:

Full-time student, single. White British. Harry is on treatment and recovering from psychosis. He blames cannabis/skunk for his illness. He said that his parents have been very supportive throughout this episode.

More about me...

Harry, a student, started to do drugs at thirteen, mainly cannabis and then skunk just ‘out of curiosity’. He doesn’t think that peer pressure had anything to do with it. When in school, he remembers that out of all his friends, he and his best friend were the only ones experimenting with illegal substances. His best friend stopped and became anti-drugs, but Harry continued experimenting with different types of substances.

 

Harry thinks that music has a big effect on the type of drugs people take. He gave the example of dubstep which he associated with ketamine more than other substances He thinks that ecstasy or cocaine are part of the more upbeat club nights. From the age of fifteen he started going to clubs and using class A drugs. On reflection, he regrets using drugs so young because he said his brain was still developing.

 

At the age of 17 he started to have paranoid episodes but initially he saw those as just a phase he was going through and thought that he would be fine. Eventually he stopped smoking weed and skunk but continue doing ecstasy and MDMA.

 

Harry’s social life at the time was spent going to raves. There was lots of dancing, chatting and pill taking and very little sleep. Around the same time he was kicked out of boarding school and had to find a college to continue his education.

 

Harry began to notice that the ‘come downs’ from the effects of drugs took longer and longer and he was becoming more emotionally affected by the whole process. He was experiencing low self esteem, a sense of helplessness, paranoia. By the end of sixth form he became ‘locked’ in such a mindset. Plus he broke up with his girlfriend. It was not until the summer that he talked to his parents. He said that his parents have been very supportive throughout his mental illness experience.

 

Diagnosis and treatment were easy to obtain. He went to see his GP and was referred to a psychiatrist who diagnosed him with psychosis. He was put on antipsychotic medication; Aripiprazole. He described his treatment as ‘rebuilding his mind’ but it took a while to kick in. He was put on antidepressants (Venlafaxine) but felt numb and unable to communicate with others. As his symptoms began to improve he went to university to start an Art degree and continue seeing the psychiatrist. In university he relapsed and started doing drugs again until he went on holidays and realised that he was on a self-destructive course and that he had to stop for good. Harry is still on treatment and will continue for another two more years. His psychiatrist told him that as long as he doesn’t do any more drugs he will be fine.

 

The first time Harry and his best friend used cannabis, they smoked too much of it and experience...

And how did you feel the first time you took it?

 

I thought it was great just totally out sort of laughing like giggling, giggling away and then like sort of take it a bit too far and would we’d just like it’s called whiting, a different name across the whole country, when you smoke too much and then you’re just a like bit incapacitated and a bit like all a bit too much and it’s all like sort of not paranoid thoughts but sort of it’s like being really drunk almost. but the equivalent of that but with smoking cannabis and yes but then that wasn’t paranoid though, you’d get the odd bit of like oh God like we’re walking past a police car or whatever or we’re in front of a teacher but it wouldn’t be in this massive, it would be sort of cheeky paranoia but it wouldn’t be like... self analytical paranoia. 

Harry thinks that his emotional problems were due to a combination of doing ecstasy and smoking cannabis.

And but it’s that, it’s that feeling but like I say but for months and months and months and it’s, what I think it’s more to do it’s like I think it’s the combination of taking like loads of ecstasy and MDMA which are very like sort of related and it’s that weakening of your mind and like and because the more you, the weakening your mind and then when you smoke cannabis you don’t look at the world in that happy light and you don’t look at analysing things and think creative thoughts it’s like the thoughts turn very much inwardly and like you’re, you’re sort of think like it turns around like flip side of everything it’s like there is a negative aspect of everything even if like I don’t know like well you think the worst of every single aspect of your life. But it’s that that brings it out it’s the combination of the two it’s not one or the other.

 

And over a period of time, I mean?

 

Over a period of time just completely smashing out drugs like in general but mainly ecstasy that’s the main thing that ruins, that ruined me at the stage in my life and then the final straw was the cannabis 

 

Harry has come to the conclusion that the euphoric feelings on ecstasy are not worth it because...

What do you think when people say well ecstasy is the party sort of kind of pill that makes people feel happy...?

 

Only while you’re on it though and then, and then till about, some people would say like I don’t know until about well what I’ve experienced when I was enjoying taking it, there’d be a down side, you’d be quite numb the next day you wouldn’t be thinking many thoughts it would be the day after that I would say like Monday when you’d be back at school and you’d be, it would be until maybe about Thursday that you’d be thinking “Oh God what am I doing with myself this is really crap” and I’m thinking like “I’m failing in my course I’m doing this”. And it seems bizarre that it would be worth the buzz and it isn’t after a while, it really isn’t and it kind of because that comedown maybe like when you first start taking it, it kind of like lasts a day or two, or a day and then it gets to like I say to Thursday and then it gets longer and longer and longer the more you take it so after a while that buzz of feeling so euphoric and having like the time of your life yeah but it’s not real though it’s not real happiness like it’s just so synthetic and it’s yes it’s, it’s pretty fake really.

 

And then you have to…?

 

It’s covering up its just complete escapism like all drugs  

Harry thinks that different music scenes go with different types of illegal drugs.

What motivated you to keep, to keep at it and to experiment and to take other drugs?

 

Just curiosity.

 

Just curiosity?

 

And music.

 

Music, okay.

 

I was at an age where I suppose when I was 15 I started taking pills then because I’d started going raving then. I started going to clubs and I didn’t go to clubs before I couldn’t have got into before 15 I could only just about get into them at that age. But I was going to like listen to drum base or whatever kind of music it was that we were going to listen to

 

I think especially with my generation drugs are like so, so frequently used like with all different types of classes with different kind of races, backgrounds and I think I think it, a lot of it depends as I‘ve got older I’ve noticed it depends on the music you listen to. Music has a massive effect on the type of drug you take like with say for example like dubstep like is a relatively new type of music and I always associate with dubstep like ketamine and but then also like other drugs as well but mainly ketamine because of the, the, because ketamine the way it makes you feel is very like, it slows down life and it’s a tranquiliser so it makes you like almost certainly it’s like escapism and dub step the music you sort of bounce along to it and it’s sort of, it’s the way you dance to it and things it effects what you use, that’s just my opinion but.

 

And then with with as I say like different types of dance music obviously like pills, coke, different like sort of party drugs because it’s a lot more upbeat and people that use it are staying up all night like they do with dubstep but like in a different way, they’re more like sort of going out dancing, chatting and being…

 

Do you mean like ecstasy?

 

Yes sorry I wasn’t being clear yes ecstasy, different types of like amphetamines or whatever.

 

Like going out raving and it’s, it depends on what music you listen to like I say like if you go to like an R&B club like a Rhythm & Blues and Hip Hop and stuff like that it’s a different kind of drug or none at all. Sort of smoking weed or not at all really and maybe like some I guess like some clubs like which are a bit more upmarket maybe you’ll find like cocaine in them and stuff like that. But it’s more the dance music it’s just purely drugs; everyone in there is just on drugs.

 

Dancing, okay.

 

Like thousands there’d be a like a thousand people or whatever and everyone’s just, everyone’s doing drugs.  

Harry was diagnosed with cannabis-induced psychosis and put on medication. At times he felt so bad that he thought about suicide.

I was feeling like I couldn’t cope with being like talking to people I mean I’d walk along a corridor like in halls and say if there was someone walking towards you or towards me I mean, normally it would just be okay there’s a person walking towards me I’d say, smile or be hello if I knew them or like just stop and chat if I knew them like a bit better and that’ll be it, but in that state of mind I was as they were getting closer and closer to me I’d be dreading the conversation that I was about to have with them and I’d think please don’t talk to me, please don’t talk to me and going from like so sociable like always being like really like involved in like sort of going out and chatting and meeting new people  to suddenly like not be able to communicate almost forgetting how to talk to people and being so nervous. I’d, like still so paranoid and just like all this built up, built up, built up and then like I say my mind was just racing constantly like thoughts flying around like daming thoughts about myself or sort of thinking like what have I done and that’s the only point in my life where I thought “Okay this is it, you’ve completely done it, you’ve completely ruined yourself like what have you done” and like and this was like quite sad to say like why, this was the only time I actually thought about like sort of, sort of topping myself and it had like got to that stage where I was like I can’t live the rest of my life like this, this I can’t actually like go through the rest of my life and I can’t see a way out of it.

Harry's comedowns from ecstasy became longer and were more emotionally charged. He started to...

The come down as I found like as time went on like I was at first I would take it with a pinch of salt because naturally like I found I could, I’m a very confident person but drugs bring out such a weakness in me they especially like with mainly pills as in ecstasy and I suppose like doing cocaine to a certain extent, that brings out more anxiety but pills because they reduce your serotonin just like making you feel so unhappy and like looking at life in such a different way like whereas normally I say we were chatting like in a normal conversation I’d just be chatting to you how I am now also in a different light because we wouldn’t be doing this but like I mean I would be chatting to you normally and I’d be listening to what you’ve got to say. But the more, it’s almost like pick out the paranoia and like you have such low self esteem when you’re chatting to people and you’re sort of worrying like “Oh God how am I being perceived” and in a slightly different way than when, when you smoke skunk.

 

A year of doing like a lot of like MDMA pills and stuff and then it came to, one night in the summer the end of at the end of that sixth form year I went out and I started feeling really horrible like sort of like the first like the comedowns took longer and longer I mean like the way I was feeling I was thinking more inwardly thinking very depressed thoughts and it was such a new thing for me because when I was younger I’d view depression as such a weakness and I’d go, I would just view it as like “Well you’re depressed really well so fix up like what’s wrong with you?” And it’s only until like you start feeling those thoughts you’re actually like “Oh this is what it feels like” and...

 

Harry has three main reasons for not taking drugs anymore: health, a sense of personal achievement and the public’s negative attitude to drugs.

Well when people ask me like why I don’t take drugs, I say like three main topics. The first one like the foremost is my wellbeing like you just said like sort of like just my health I’ll just go downhill like I won’t be able to succeed in life. 

 

And also the second one is if I start doing drugs now then I would, even just a line of cocaine or whatever, I wouldn’t have progressed I would have gone back on myself, I’ve been through that sort of stage in life and I won’t, I don’t want to go back to that and I would have felt I’d gone back on myself and reverted on myself. 

 

And the third one is like no one will ever have anything over me in life like in society or workplace or if I don’t take drugs not because, although even though I have like a sort of a with me personally I it’s sort of I’m quite sort of anti drugs on a personal level but I don’t judge other people for them taking drugs but a lot of other people are not like that.

 

Harry‘s experience of 'rebuilding' himself again after his relapse was exhausting and that’s why he’d never do drugs again.

… to keep it in a nut shell I had to go on that treatment for about like talking one pill a day until like for two, for two and a half years. And then I stopped taking it, the psychiatrist said you’re fine now you can, you can find it, you’ll be okay as long as you don’t take drugs or whatever and I’d almost lied to him like saying like no I haven’t I like I tried it the other day or whatever there wasn’t any, I wasn’t helping myself by saying to the [name] Centre like no I’m doing this I’ve got a problem, I can’t actually start like getting out of this mindset of like being so complacent about drugs but I knew I was being like sort of cheating myself almost and gambling with my own right mind.

 

It was very frustrating to see like I’m not sure what would be the case because now I have to take it (medication) for another two years from now. Because I started going back, I started doing counselling yes for like a little bit with a psychologist and she was helping me with like sort of confidence techniques and yes just like sort of ways, ways to deal with paranoia like dealing with your own mind like installing confidence in me and I ended up with, it doesn’t work for everyone and it sometimes it doesn’t like sound very appealing and some of my friends I would like say to them like about it and some were really interested and think “oh I could definitely benefit from that” and others are like “really I don’t know, I can deal with my own problems” sort of thing and some people, it’s either one way or the other you’re either open minded to it or really not. But with me I was much more accepting of it and really did help and I managed to sort of deal with it like to a certain extent and then it came to the stage were I couldn’t actually like deal with it anymore just on my own. I had to go back on medication, I had to go to my psychiatrist and say “Look I’ve tried and although I’ve stopped taking drugs and I won’t ever do it again it’s  coming to the stage now where I don’t, I don’t want to risk trying to be like risking my pride” whereas I could go on like sort of keeping like no I can deal with this on my own and I’ve actually know you’re going to need  actual medication I don’t want to risk you going even more delving into that mindset. And it’s taken me a very long time like to feel normal again

 

Before he got treatment, Harry's mind was racing all the time, he felt completely helpless and didn’t know what was real.

But it was something a lot more serious than that and as, and as time, though they sort of they referred me to like my local GP and then they were really supportive of me actually like they understood that something serious, there was something seriously wrong with me and then I went to see a psychiatrist and he like diagnosed me with psychosis after a few visits. 

 

And but at that point he prescribed me a few pills to take like every day like a few different ones, one was for like the anxiety and like collecting my thoughts and sort of almost like rebuilding your mind just like sort of taking things to sort of like getting more on a level and getting rid of all the paranoia and stuff like that but it took like a month to kick in. So it was like another month and I was feeling these thoughts and I had to start Art School then and had to go into hall and it was like literally, I remember like my parents and my aunty dropped me off at hall and feeling literally the worst I’ve ever felt in my life just like, my mind was racing constantly. Because at this point like I’d been like I say like with that feeling of like paranoia and helplessness and it had been going on for months and I after a while you just can’t, you can’t rationalise, you don’t know what’s sort of real, what’s not and your minds just slowly going crazy just a bit. Just like going literally losing the plot it’s all I can describe it as just the ultimate paranoia like there’s so much paranoid I could feel and I never want to feel like that again. but he gave me some pills that are like some, what’s that sort of sedative pills that if I was feeling really anxious and because I had to go through this year and I had to like I was sort of thrown in at the deep end like having started like a new, a new group of friends, not I still have all my friends from my school and all the friends that I’d made up until that age, I was still really close to them they were really, really supportive of me, you know, they were going out sort of partying and still doing drugs and obviously it was strangely still quite tempting though to still take drugs at that, at that point in time.

 

Harry has gained weight from drinking heavily, he worries about what his liver might be like when he is older.

 

Drinking like binge drinking then you’re not as in control, your liver later on in life, that’s just going to like just going to be ruined the fact that people like, I personally don’t find that when I drink I get aggressive but it’s not me that I have to worry about it’s other people that are around me drinking who get aggressive and want to fight me or want to fight other people who want to fight the world I don’t know, but it’s a bit like that with like with binge drinking and there’s like definitely a worry but it’s more the health, with me personally it’s more like later on in life what’s my body going to be like. And the weight you put on is the immediate affect like you can see oh look how much you’re putting on, how much weight you’re putting on from drinking that much so you notice the effect almost like in the next week or like whatever well with me personally. But it’s the later on effect that worries me more my actual inside organs are going to be ruined.

 

Some of Harry's friends are in denial about their drug dependence and the risk of mental health...

It’s the same with my best friends now sort of there’s a massive group who are like so into drugs it’s unreal like more than most people I’ve ever met. And they’re such party animals and but they have their own problems individually well they’re still, some of them are in denial about it and stuff, don’t like to admit that there’s drugs that’s actually having this affect on them. They just think if they have like a little break from it then they’ll be fine and find I have conversations with some of them and like some of them, one of them in particular, he’s having massive problems at the moment, he’s having similar problems that I had. And I try and warn him but the thing is I don’t know him as well as my other friends we’re very familiar with each other and we know who each other are, we have like fun when we go out. But I don’t really know him on a personal level so I can’t be too I feel like I’m almost being a bit intrusive even though I really want to say to him “Look” and I do like I do open up and I say “Look mate if you, you don’t want to end up like how I felt like when I was like younger and then like a few years ago because that’s this is the start of it this is the start of paranoia and this is the start of something serious” and then one of my other friends I remember the other day like who was with us at that point when I said that who is so pro drugs it’s unreal, he would he’d just butt in and go “No, no don’t be so don’t be so like up in the air about it like it’s not that bad” and you need to what’s the name, “You need to have a break, just have a break and then you’ll be fine and you can get back into it” or whatever but, he’s a he’s not seeing he’s in denial himself with his own, but he doesn’t want to admit that there is a massive like connection with their problems there and that he needs to knock it on the head and this is something more serious than it actually is.

Harry got expelled from school for being 'stoned the whole time'.

Now you said that you were expelled from boarding school?

 

Yes.

 

When you were how old?

 

17.

 

Why, did drugs have anything to do with it?

 

Yes. Just.

 

Can you tell me more about it?

 

Yes just never doing any work due to just being stoned the whole time on cannabis getting caught they always suspected me but they never, I don’t think they, no they never actually caught me with anything on me. Whereas they drug tested a load of my friends and knew that I was friend with them obviously and they could tell by the look in my eyes but then after a while like we’ve got these little eye drops to cover that up so, you know, I’m not sure that they, I think they’re for hay fever. To stop the redness in your eyes and then we take them and like even though we would be so aware that we are looking so stoned and we‘re chatting to a teacher they, we thought they wouldn’t be able to tell but we were sort of fooling ourselves really, they know the score they’re not stupid. 

Harry says that the whole experience brought him closer to his parents who have been very...

I think with my parents. They’ve been unbelievably understanding. 

 

They’ve completely… not, they’ve taken the stance were even though like it’s something that I’ve done to myself and it’s not something that I don’t know like say if I had an accident or whatever like and I was sort something happened and something was inflicted on me then somehow my mum, most parents would obviously be like well they want to look after their children and they want to sort of care for them. But some parents if it’s to do with drugs and if it’s to do with self inflicted things than some parents won’t have really that same time for their children. I mean like some of my have friends that they can’t; they can’t talk to their parents in the same way that I can talk to mine. I’ve been so lucky to be able to have such understanding parents and they haven’t like come down hard on me and sort of giving me a bollocking about this and that or what are you doing like you’re a shame and things like that, they’ve understood that, that it, the drugs are everywhere and although like it’s not ideal the situation and it’s really bad, they’ve been very supportive and they‘ve just tried to help me through it.

 

So you are close to them….

 

It’s brought me closer definitely.

 

Harry says that ketamine is very addictive and describes what happens when someone takes too much and goes into the ‘k-hole’.

Dependent on drugs? yes, definitely at times.

 

Okay.

 

If I’d be in a certain mindset I think with ketamine especially, ketamine’s a very addictive drug.

 

But it seems now like for me out of all the drugs I think cannabis and and ketamine; I can’t really remember why I used to like them. They just, just seems very strange when I see people out who are sort of, I don’t know, sort of smoking like weed and stuff who are still doing it now and then people who are really into ketamine and just like a complete mess on the floor it just seems it’s not a good look, it’s not for me I don’t know why I got into that but that’s just like I said earlier it’s just escapism. 

 

It’s just very much your own self destruct mode, what else can I like how much else can I like how much like can I get it out of my system like it’s like sort of agressional whatever, it is that’s on your mind and then ketamine is that, is definitely that drug. Because like I said a little bit earlier like it’s almost like your dreaming like while you’re awake and sort of detaches your like because your part almost like you can’t really move that or speak that much and like you’re dreaming you’re having all these visual thoughts and it’s like, it’s like very much it’s a very like weird kind of drug and it’s very hard to explain unless you’ve actually taken it. But it’s from an outside perspective looking at someone who’s on it, it looks disgusting because you’re just like you’re just a mess but like the person what they’re seeing is like a dream like the visuals that are going in front of them and like they’re almost like I don’t know I’ve taken that drug and I’ve thought I was on holiday and stuff like that it’s just bizarre like it’s a very weird drug but... And it’s a different drug if you take a tiny bit than if you take a massive amount of it because if you only take a massive amount of it you go into this k hole state and that’s when you’re sort of like dreaming while you’re awake whereas if you take a tiny bit it’s just like bubbly sort of drug and your…….

 

Okay so it’s sort of the quantity?

 

Yes people like do it on the corner of their credit cards when they’re out or they do lines round a house they do a little corner and then it picks them up and sort of like bit wobbly a bit but not all not like dreaming like not hallucinating that much.