Marijuana - permanent anxiety?

Guest · Guest

this sounds similar to me. when i first got high i had a very sevear panic attack. but the next time i smoked i was fine and had a great high. i feel in love with the drug and started doing it more and morei smoked daily for probobly 2 or three years and last year, probobly smoked several times a day. about four months ago i started having little mini panic attacks that would last for about 15 minitus or so, i just figured these it was no big deal. then three weeks ago, while dealing with a particularly stressful event, i had a major anxiety attack, and since then, it seems like my entier mental out look has changed. i havent been smoking for thoes three weeks, and i still feel like my whole life is an anxiety attack. my chest is tight and often hurts, and ive been having trouble eating and sleeping. i really wanna get back to normal but i dont know how. ive tried reasoning through it and thinking things through, but nothing seems to work. im not sure what i should do. im not even sure if it was my habitual smoking that contributed or if its something separate. i would be considerate of any advice

Guest · Guest

Im really glad i found this forum. I was just google searching and i came across it. A lot of what everyone on here is talking about I can relate to 110%. I feel like i owe it to everyone to tell my experience and how i got over this.

I started smoking when I was about 16-17. The first time i tried it i didnt get high (who does?) then the next few times when i smoked i fell in love with it. It was an awesome euphoric feeling and made everything look and sound so much more intense. Things like listening to music were amplified and the coolest thing ever. Not worth it though in the end. Then randomly i would start to get almost a feeling of a "bad trip" when i was high. I would start to notice my heart beating faster and feeling like i was gonna have a heart attack. I always got the mental urge of "i dont want to be high anymore..i want to come down..panic panic panic..feeling gets worse" So i would immediately eat a ton of food (because we all know smoking gives you the munches and it makes you come down).
This started happening everytime i smoked. I hated it and decided to throw in the towel. I saved a lot more money, and became a lot more productive after i quit. Everything was going great until about a week after i quit. One night i just all of a sudden felt incredibly tired and had a weird almost dizzy like feeling in my brain. I wasnt physically dizzy i just felt so WEIRD and i had never experienced anything like this so i freaked out and thought maybe i was just really over tired. So i came home and took some excedrin and tried to go to sleep. I woke up the next morning and immediately felt even weirder. I started to question whether anything was actually "real". Like are the things in my room and house real? Why do they look kind of weird? or do they look weird or am i just going crazy?
This feeling got worse over the next few days and people started to look as if they were 2 dimensional. It kind of felt like i was high..even though i hadnt smoked in over like two weeks at this point. The feeling got so bad that i couldnt sleep. I would wake up with sweats and chills and nightmares. I would wake up and turn on the light in my room to try and calm down and everything looked fuzzy and distorted. It was almost like hallucinations..but not the crazy stuff you usually associate with hallucinations..like seeing people or hearing weird voices. I knew i needed help and i needed it asap. So i went to see a pshyciatrist. He explained what was happening to me and that it happens to a lot of people. The THC in marijuana stays in your system for up to 30 days in some people. The reason being is it attatches to your fat cells and you sweat it out. I also forgot to mention that i had the worst panic attacks at random times..and i was also afraid to go places or drive because i was afraid i would have to pull over and deal with the crazy attack. The doctor gave me a medicatin called xanax. Its a tranquilizer that abused a lot as a street drug. But in my case it really helped my panic attacks. After a few weeks the panic attacks went away forever and i havent had one since. He also gave me an antidepressant to help with the anxiety and derealization i was experiencing. After a few months and some therapy i started to feel completely normal again...or close enough.

Its a hard road to deal with..especially since most times this anxiety and panic attacks hit you when you arent even expecting it..or even know whats happening to your body. The best thing i can offer is to go see a professional pshychiatrist. They deal with tons of people who go through stuff like this and they will most likely be able to offer a medication to help. Sure some of the medications have side effects. But I would rather deal with the occasional headache or nausea then to deal with the panic attacks and anxiety anyday.

Hang in there guys. Theres a light at the end of your tunnel..just look for it.

Guest · Guest

ive been smoking since i was 14 now i am 25. i never use to have a problem with anxiety untill i reached a ruff part in my life and started useing other drugs and very hevily started useing coke which later turned into me using rock (crack became much easier to find). once i got to my lowest point in life i met a girl who i can say rescued me in a way. she kept me busy lol and i soon changed everything i my life that revolved around coke in any form.within weeks of quitting the harsh shit i started having crazy anxiety attacks and felt like i was dying, my heart would pound so hard that my chest would bruise to a point. i got put on meds for a good 2 years and they did seem to help but only to an extent. instead of haveing 8 hours worth of anxiety a day id only have a few attacks a day. during all of this time i still smoked a hell of a lot of pot. my beliefes in legalizing this stuff has made me not want to ever give it up for good and i probably never will. i very rarely have anxiety now but when i do its always when im high. ive been clean from the other shit now for 4 years (as long as ive been with my girl) and have not been on med for a year and a half. i know this may not work for most people but now if i start getting anxiety from weed i just stop smoking for a month and i will do this at least twice a year. when i go back to smokeing i never smoke more then a pinner and its like the first time doing it. i get so baked and eat cookies all day lol like i said this will not work for everyone but this is what i do to controll my attacks and still get the enjoyment of smoking pot.

MAN MADE BEER, GOD MADE POT.....................WHO DO YOU TRUST?

Guest · Guest

I used be a pothead and I guess I still am a little, but I realized lately that my tolerance is super low due to the fact that I get anxiety attacks. The first time I had an anxiety attack was one night when I was stressing over school and losing weight. I couldn't go to sleep and found myself thinking that my heart rate was way too high and I might be having a heart attack. Weird right... but none the less the symptoms were so convincing I was calling my boyfriend trying to ask him advice to see if I really needed to go to the doctor.

Actually, when I think about it I have probably had bits of anxiety and depression since high school and I always seemed to think they were just normal phases of life.

With the way society is structured today and all the demands on our intelligent and physical activities to meet standards it is no wonder that millions of people suffer from anxiety. We are not living peacefully or close to the earth as we used to be. We are eating tons of processed foods that are putting all sorts of mind altering drugs into our bodies. We are running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to impress people and make more money. We all know that 4% of the population own all of the worlds money, but for some reason we think that someday we will be happier if we get even just a little slice of the pie. So we conform, go into debit and let others contol our land and our lives. And the subconcious is quite aware that we are not supposed to live this way as human beings.

We are AFRAID of being different from these standards and therefore the battle between right and wrong, real and not real and create a type of reaction commonly called schezophrenia ... usually induced by an overload of anxiety. Anxiety, I think, is something that can only be controled in a higher level of conciousness. If we can come to terms with the things we wish to change in our lives and make a way to manifest these changes in order to make ourselves truely content I believe we can rid ourselves from anxiety. I believe our manifestations must first be within and then work their way out. You will notice that wealthy people are either completely evil or insane, or they are the most peaceful giving people you have ever met. I would rather be the later WITHOUT anxiety.

We all agree on the simple principals of a peaceful life, but the problem is if you're peaceful you can't minipulate people to get what you want. Therfore you can not force your own fortune or control the minds of others. You can not produce anxiety in the minds of people and you cannot use agression as a form of political and economic control. This is why we will never see world peace, because there is a growing population of people who are greedy enough to force their standards on you in order force a subconcious anxiety about your own existance ( whether is is your weight, clothing, financial status, knowledge, health, spirituality, etc.) in order create a pyramid where they are in control and everyone dreams of getting to the top (which is made inaccessable).

Most of us consider anxiety a problem. A bad gene or a malfunction in the brain. When in fact anxiety ( i.e. fear) is the only mechanism that relates us as humans. We all fear things. Most of us fear the same things and some of us fear more things than others. If you wish to let go of a fear you have to come to terms with why you really fear them and get down to the bottom of what the problem is. With Drugs this can often be difficult because we tend to believe that psychoactive drugs are controling us and we cannot alter there affects on us.

Your mind is stronger than you think. Think about how many times you woke up from a bad dream and thought... "it's just a dream, it's not real."
Or a time when you something tramautic happened and you kept your calm. You were contolling your anxiety. This can be applied to anything, especially drugs.

Now let's first get on the subject of marijuana.

Marijuana doesn't stimulate the brain to release dopamine like ectasy or meth.

It clings to cells in the brain that control memory, pain, and movement. Here's a quote form one of the many online articles about marijuana.

"THC is absorbed by receptors in the brain that interact with the element, causing the body and mind to react in various ways.There are two types of receptors in the brain that play a role in the effects of marijuana.
CB1, CB2 and anandamide, a substance naturally produced by the body that acts at the cannabinoid receptor and has effects similar to those of THC"

Also, I would like to bring up the fact that many of my elders who used to smoke mounds of weed say the substance has changed since the 60's and that there are a lot of people adding things to the plants, or changing them in order to create different effects. This is why weed strain has gotton to be somewhat like wine... you will never know all the different types and some of them you might not like. If you want a clean high go to Jamaica and get some home grown outdoor buds, grow your own with care or get a medical marijuana card and choose a clinic that seems legit. I think some of these clinics are doing a little bit of experimenting themselves, because I ate a banana bread from one of them and I freaked out. I was only supposed to eat half, but it didn't exactly say that on the package. Here's a quote from the same article...

"The main difference between medicinal marijuana and recreational marijuana is the quality of the drug. ( Cool

Purchasing recreational marijuana can subject the user to various side effects due to the purity of the product. Because marijuana is an illegal drug, products sold outside government regulation are subjected to various types of additives to just for profit. These additives can cause serious side-effect in the brain. Because much research on marijuana and the effects of THC on the brain have been conducted, medicinal marijuana is provided in a controlled environment and the product given is of the highest quality. The controlled environment includes careful monitoring of the substance."

Now. I don't ever advise anyone to try those synthetic marijuana pills... A report I read a while ago said that the only time any one ever died from something with supposed THC in it was when taking too many of those crazy pills. Remeber... pharmaseutical drugs are often experiments that are worse for you and just having whatever you got. Like if you have high cholestoral.... the statin drugs they give you actually kill your liver and you usually die more painfully than having a heart attack.... that's why if you have High Cholesterol use natural products from Bios Life and Cinnamon pills and you will see a dramatic decrease in your bad cholesteral and improvement in your good cholesterol.

Anyway, my personal observations are that people who exercise a lot tend to have a VERY high tolerance for weed because they often feel good about themselves, have less toxins in their body to react with THC, and generally have more mental endurance and focus ( wich helps them be anxiety free ). I notice one thing that helps me when I smoke pot and start to feel an onset of an anxiety attack is to analyze the situation I am in and why I might be feeling this way. Usually it goes something like this ... " well, I am alone in a room with my boyfriend's friend who decided to smoke me out because they let and the situation seems awkward. I am probably having anxiety because I don't know what to say and am a little embarrassed about the fact I don't have any to share and may be I am even anxious about the fact that it is possible I might have an anxiety attack. In all reality none of this matters and whatever he thinks about me doesn't matter." Then after I think things through a little I initiate a conversation and focus on something else.... and guess what. The symptoms go away.

I have never had any withdrawal symptoms from THC and I have always had a kind of take it or leave it attitude toward it. I have only ever bought it when I had a little extra cash and don't really have a hard time passing on it. I have had extremely intellectual converstations while using the drug and met some amazing people. I think phsychoactive open a portal for which we can see the world differently and some people are simply afraid of that difference or too uncomfortable with themselves to let those fears go. With me, I think I have been personally disgusted with my own conforming to society and my loss of physical health because of it and there for have begun to doubt my own self-esteem wich is causing a mental state similar to phases I have experienced before in life only the use of marijuana sometimes magnifies these thoughts in my head and brings them to the fore front for me to solve them. Just like your body warns you of things that are unhealthy, your mind warns you of thoughts that are unhealthy and it your choice to overcome them.

My suggestion,

get healthy, love yourself, love your life, and then try a little bit of marijuana again and see what happens. Try to work through your subconcious issues and you will be a happier person. Get a medical marijuana card, grow your own buds and reward yourself with a relaxing brownie once a week.

You can also try marijuana substitutes too. We have one here on the islands ( hawaii) that never fails to give you a nice calm mellow mood, but doesn't feel at all like marijuana. I like it... it's not addictive at all.

Guest · Guest

This might sound strange but personally when I'm high on weed, my anxiety disappears. I become talkative and talk to other people I normally would never talk to. It got rid of my shyness, which made me more confident about myself. In the past I would become extremely nervous on presentations and start fidgeting but when I'm high I can do presentations, exams, sporting events with ease.

However there was a period when I would start thinking about stupid things but I realized that if I just chill out and act normally there was nothing to worry about. I've been smoking weed for about 4 years now, not everyday (only during the summer). I think if you just do a good amount of exercise for at least an hour you'll be fine and the key is not to overdo it. Cannabis/marijuana addiction is a psychological one similarly to someone being addicted to watching TV or becoming a shopaholic.

I'm an athletic type of person so when I smoke a .4 joint I get ripped, usually when I'm smoking with friends I try to stop halfway on the blunt or else I start zoning out, but due to peer pressure I tend to finish the whole blunt and zone out sometimes Laughing

Guest · Guest

So maybe 4-5 days ago I smoked I had a MAYJOR panic attack and then another one the next night I vomited about 5 times between both nights ( only one night of smoking) I took maybe 3-5 hits.

Anyways ever since I am afraid i will have another panic attack but I also i have not felt right in my head i can not really explain it even typing this my head feels funny like a heavy feeling like my brain was shaken and will not stay on right.... what could this mean? what should I do?

Simma · Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2008 Posts: 36

I had the same thing, it started as an anxiety attack once in a while when I smoked, my friends would say that it happened to the also, so I didn't think it was a big deal, then they started happening every other time I would smoke, I started being paranoid of smoking, I already was waiting for that nasty feeling to come as soon as I got high and it wood. That was the reason I quit, and even when I quit I would have the attacks, only now it's been 4 month and they went away. So see what u wana do for your self, it might b a lond road, but u will b fine in the end and enjoy ur life, not b a paranoid freak. Weed used to b good to me and I enjoyed it but it was time to say good bye after 5 years of smoking. Life is brighter without it! Good luck!

Guest · Guest

I love weed and i was a heavy smoker i'd say but prior to bein a heavy smoker i had panic attacks anyway. I started havin more panic attacks recently and smoked my way through them, now iv stopped smokin it because i got depersonalisation i'm recovering from that and l;et me tell you recovering from it is simple. Dont blame weed for it or any other factors Depersonalisation comes from one thing Anxiety. And if you could smoke weed and not be anxios before then you can do it again. Right now i'm not touching weed quite simply because no matter how strong my mind is i am not fully recoverd to be stronng enough to controle all my thoughts. So whilst i may think that if i smoke weed now i'll be depersonalised again, i know really its not the weed but my anxious association i have with weed that will make me think that. I don't know if that makes sence but i hope it helps also, anyone who thinks they are feeling depersonalised and out of sorts go to

http://www.anxietynomore.co.uk/depersonalisation_and_derealisation.html

it will help you loads and remember. Your fine! I take st johns wort becuasxe what i thought i had was depression they work for me but again it may all just be because im sorting my head out. For a time i couldnt look in the mirror because i didnt know I'm all for weed, and my gap from it is not down to the fact its harmfull but down to the fact that my mind is weak at the moment and untstrength back anything that can trigger my own anxietys. I went to a job interview feeling depersonalised and managed to get a job and keep it i didnt even register that i was employed because nothing was real. But i know its all an emotional thing becuase you can feel fine during the day and feel back to normal and thats why i never blame weed. No matter how out of sorts you feel, your you. And you've always beeen you and you always will be rember that. peace. x

stubby2211 · Newbie Joined: 09 Mar 2008 Posts: 63 Location: Nauvoo, AL

I really think that you are going a little overboard on the permanent anxiety deal. I am a recovering opiate addict, who got into shooting up everyday, breaking into houses, and all of the other horrible things junkies such as myself do. I started out smoking weed, and I guess I smoked pretty much everyday for about five years. So, I have a good bit of real world experience in this area. And through all the crazy things I have done, I dont have any permanent anxiety. I dont think that youre gonna have all these crazy things you talked about from smoking weed. I dont have any medical evidence to back up my claim, of course, and I could very well be dead wrong. But as I stated earlier, I attended the school of hard knocks, so I know a pretty good bit on this subject matter. But I also want you to know that I am not trying to down you or anything like that (because I sure dont know everything), but I think you just need to stop worrying about this whole weed-anxiety situation and go have some fun with some chicks or something.

Sincerely,
Nick

P.S. Stay clean and dont let drugs spoil everything you have going for you. You seem like you are pretty intelligent, so dont waste it like I did.

Guest · Guest

I am not a big smoker. I only tried weed last year at an age of 27. I find/found the experience to be 99% relaxing and sleepy.
I have had the exact same symptoms as the first poster. I think weed heightens your senses and two times I have been in pain. The second time I calmed myself by meditating and saying the pain was only imaginary. It kinda worked. The next morning I had my heart racing and I felt like I was having a panic attack. I hardly ever drink coffee but this day I have. So maybe caffeine can provoke the panic attack.
On the same day I was in stitches watching family guy and american dad and I was definitely analyzing why things were funny!

Its a relaxing thing for me but after this experience, I think all weed does is enhance the current feelings and make you look stupid Smile

lol

Marijuana - permanent anxiety?

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