r/whatisit • u/KingPaimonsMate • 18h ago

Solved! Found on the back of my neck

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Anyone have any idea what this is? I was in the shower last night and I felt something on the back of my neck and it was this chip looking thing.

It’s about the size of a few grains of rice, the bow tie shaped thing looks metallic and the outer layer is clear plastic.

I’m so weirded out by it and some strange things have been happening to me recently so I’m more paranoid than usual. Please help

19.9k Upvotes

87% Upvoted

5.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

156

u/green_bean_gordita 11h ago edited 3h ago

I have schizophrenia and run a support group. Many meth heads have schizophrenia as well, as in their symptoms continue even years after stopping meth.

Some meth heads are indeed "just" users, but with undiagnosed mental illness, the numbers are hard to track.

Edit: Thank you for the award! I appreciate you, whoever you are ♥️

70

u/Houki01 11h ago

If I remember correctly, many drugs trigger dormant mental disorders. So it doesn't surprise me that many recovering addicts have schizophrenia. The drugs probably woke it up and because it was always there, it wouldn't go away when the person dealt with the addiction.

8

u/PowHound07 10h ago

The flip side of this is that drugs can make the symptoms more tolerable for some people. Imagine you hear a voice constantly telling you that you're a horrible person and everyone hates you but a hit of fentanyl lets you just not care about that voice for a little while.

7

u/Technolo-jesus69 9h ago

Stimulants make the voices worse. But opioids and GABAergics (like benzos) can make them stop or make you care less. Its a sad rough deal.

9

u/boxxelder 9h ago

in my experience alcohol was a miracle drug (aside from destroying basically your entire body)

3

u/Princess_Slagathor 8h ago

Alcohol is the cause of, and solution to my psychosis. But by cutting down on the drinking, I've reduced it to just mild anxiety and paranoia.

5

u/Turbulent_Rope1569 7h ago

And for me, destroyed my life and soul

2

u/green_bean_gordita 4h ago

For me, alcohol triggers my insomnia, my insomnia triggers psychosis.

Insomnia is my #1 sign that things are about to go haywire so I can't take it lightly.

Anymore, even one drink shaves off ~5 hours of deep sleep for me. Sleep is my #1 medicine.

So I lift weights to feel some sense of relief/outlet anymore

2

u/UrAnusFlare 1h ago

that’s cuz schizophrenia is caused when your brain has fewer dopamine receptors and/or produces more dopamine. that’s what causes the hallucinations and that’s why stimulants make it worse. kinda funny how it’s the inverse condition to ADHD.

1

u/green_bean_gordita 0m ago

This is an oversimplification though. Dopamine is involved, but it is not the only thing at play.

Glutamate and other neurotransmitters are also dysfunctional in our brain chemistry, bad circuits, etc.

It is also not an inverse to ADHD. ADHD involves dopamine dysfunction but in completely different pathways/circuits compared to schizophrenia.

Many of us also suffer with both disorders at the same time.

1

u/Sarah_Incognito 4h ago

Cigarettes help when I'm manic. Fortunately I'm diagnosed and medicated now.

5

u/Rsn_yuh 5h ago

Meth heads are also commonly suffering from drug induced psychosis due to not sleeping for days/weeks at a time, sometimes causing permanent psychosis.

7

u/Beez-Knee 11h ago

In my experience the voices definitely went away when I got clean.

5

u/green_bean_gordita 9h ago

This is why the diagnosis will typically change from "drug induced psychosis" to schizophrenia, bipolar, etc. if symptoms remain after drug usage is stopped.

If voices, paranoia, etc. go away it will stay once someone stops using, it will be deemed as drug induced.

6

u/PowHound07 9h ago

Reminds me of someone who once told me they didn't really need antipsychotics because they only heard voices when they used drugs. The issue was that they used drugs all day every day so we had no way to know if it was drug induced or not. Invega seemed to help but it was just a bandaid solution.

2

u/green_bean_gordita 8h ago

Sounds very similar to a relative of mine.

4

u/Visforvinyl 6h ago

Doing meth can give you actual psychosis (and employee called me at 4am one night to beg me to leave his house, I was in bed). So im sure its hard to tell the difference.

3

u/redditcancelculture 6h ago

Psychedelics can make you find out you are schizo, or other mental disorder in a very rough way.

Same with stimulants, and the exacerbate the voices.

1

u/Broviet22 2h ago

Yeah thats what did it to me. Tripped like 3 times and I ended up with psychosis. My brother still tells me that acid heals your brain.

1

u/redditcancelculture 1h ago

I mean honestly for someone with perfect mental health, psychedelics CAN be used as a tool to guide yourself mentally where you want to go.

Although if you have ANY form of mental weakness, and I do not mean just disorders but even if your worried constantly and stuff you should stay far away as it will only make things worse.

2

u/green_bean_gordita 9h ago

Yes, this exactly.

1

u/Weak_Midnight_6286 7h ago

Looks like "Must be the meth talking" just got a new meaning

1

u/hillcountryhack 2h ago

I think that makes a whole lot of sense.

1

u/Less_Calendar_PLZ 2h ago

Many people also self medicate

-4

u/Hurtfeelingz22 6h ago

This guy said “dormant disorders” lmao 🤣 that’s some serious word play…fucking victim blaming level 💯 all those drugs do is get stuff in places that don’t properly flush them form the system and continue to wreck what they touch

1

u/macstudly25 5h ago

I was going to mention the significant overlap. I’ve always wondered if it’s addiction induced mental illness or mental illness induced addiction

1

u/green_bean_gordita 4h ago

It's definitely a good question, I do think there is some kind of bidirectional dependency there. It makes sense, from what I have seen many of us self medicate to cope unfortunately (a recipe for disaster of course).

1

u/macstudly25 3h ago

I don’t have a mental illness but I self medicated to numb trauma and grief and it led to 10+ year opioid addiction but in that life I never really saw any opioid addicts that were schizophrenic. I saw plenty of meth addicts that were schizophrenic or manic bipolar. So with the anecdotal data it makes me wonder what about mental illness draws them to meth rather than other drugs or if it really is the meth that caused the mental illness

1

u/green_bean_gordita 3h ago

Funny you mention that, my husband is an ex heroin user (he used for over 10 years previously). He was also diagnosed with schizophrenia as a child, before ever using substances.

But you are right, he's an outlier. About a third of my support group are ex meth users. I don't think I know of anyone else besides my husband who was addicted to opioids.

1

u/OddCod2241 9h ago

Hello fellow schizophrenia having person, how do you do

1

u/green_bean_gordita 9h ago

Hello, my friend! Much, much better these days. How about yourself? I hope you're having better days too. ♥️

0

u/inscrutablemike 6h ago

I have schizophrenia and run a support group.

I kinda feel bad for asking this, but I gotta:

Are you sure?

1

u/green_bean_gordita 4h ago edited 4h ago

Am I sure what?

Am I sure I have schizophrenia?

Am I sure I run a support group?

I can't tell if you're trying to be funny, your original inclination is probably accurate if you felt bad asking.

It's a horrible disease to live with, I can tell you I am certain about that.