(comforting message) This is for everyone who's going through the bad side effects after smoking weed. I went through it and I am fine. :) So you will be too.

In the beginning of the month (October 2013), a couple of friends and myself decided to smoke weed. 10 minutes after the last puff, I started to just blanked out and for the past five to ten minutes, I couldn't remember what my friends and I were doing (funny because I remember a day after lol). And I remember I just started laughing because I couldn't believe it. I really felt like I had short-term memories or something haha We were supposed to go to a pub and at that moment, I freaked out and had a panic attack. I was scared of people (because I am an introvert) and more importantly, I couldn't control my thoughts, which made me extremely scared. Couldn't remember anything and I thought it was permanent) At the time, my friends had to pull into a parking lot and calm me down, which really didn't help. I only remembered them laughing and trying to get into my mind. I'm going to be honest, I felt dead. I felt like I wasn't going to ever see my family and friends ever again and that was the day I was going to die. I even remembered I felt like i had an outer body experience. I really felt like there was heaven and hell and i was going to hell, along with the laughing devil (little did I know it was my friends laughing lol). They drove me home and I couldn't remember or grasp what I was doing still. It lasted for 2 hours. I slept it off once I got home. Once the high was gone, I didn't feel the same. I felt like a different person. It felt like something was missing and something is off. That night I went to sleep early and was just telling myself that these feelings will go away in the morning. In the morning, I woke up around 6am. Thought I was back to normal and I even exercised. Went out for a jog. I came home and my friends were off going to work. I still didn't feel the same. I looked in the mirror and was just confused as to who I am and why I couldn't remember clearly about any experience I had that made me who I am. I tried to sleep it off again and what felt like hours, were just 30 minutes of sleeping. I ate eggs, apples, drank lots of water. So much water, I never drank that much in a day. The reason to why was because I felt like there was something in me and i had to get it out by peeing it out. So I woke up, and i was just feeling unmotivated and uninterested in school, which made it even worse because I love school. I go to school for fashion and I just felt like I wasn't interested in it no more. I had no motivation for anything. I just felt depressed because I thought it was going to be permanent. So I started research stuff about the side effects I was having and this very site gave me lots of information, which kind of backfired because it made my anxiety and paranoia even worse. I researched stuff for 5 hours! I just wanted to get back to normal. I just wanted to be who I am before the experience. I kept thinking I was normal before this and now it screwed me up. I will never be normal and I will never remember things before the day I smoked weed (that's false). Later in the evening, my friends were all saying how weird that it made me felt like that. They were normal. It made me feel even worse because I was freaking out about the fact that they're normal and I'm not. I was jealous of people who was even laughing because I really felt like they were normal and I wasn't (but it's normal because I'm gay so I go through that feeling regularly. It's just at the time, anxiety, paranoia and depression got to me) They rented movies and ordered pizza and i could barely eat. Not only that, they rented horror flicks lol made me feel like I had to puke. So I went home and tried to sleep it off wishing it will all go away. It didn't. I woke up at 5am crying because I couldn't go back to sleep. I had school in 3 hours. I didn't care. I woke up and started asking my roommate to bring me to the hospital. It was crazy because thinking back to that morning, I was a little crazy. She had work in 4 hours. I had class in 3. We were half way down the road to the hospital and I just went into depressed mode. I wouldn't answer any question. My face went blank even though my insides were screaming for help desperately. We never made it to the hospital because what can they do? It's not something they can take out of me (that's what I felt. Felt like something was in me) We came back home and we just talked, but it wasn't helping. I was unmotivated and no expression was showing. I just wanted to stare at the wall. Although, she did push me to go to school. So around 8am, I got ready and went to school. Felt so shitty. I'm usually a bubbly person and all my classmates and professors sees it and knows it. It was making the situation worse how they all were asking what's wrong with me. They were telling me I was different. Had a panic attack again and ran to the school doctors who were comforting only for that moment. They had to sign me up to see a counselor who was going to be my psychologist because once I left, I was anxious and paranoid again. Three days after smoking, I wasn't normal, though I was getting better. I started to eat healthy and drank naked juice because I really felt like my brain need to be nourish. I can kind of remember things, but it felt foggy. It was like you can remember it, but not so clearly (but you need to know, that it makes you notice things you never noticed before. Every little move and action you make, you'll try to remember it and see if you can remember it later. Reason why I did this was because when I was high, I was trying to do that). Later on, I went to go sleepover at my cousin's place because she was going to take care of me. We went out to eat, and chitchatted for hours (thats what this drug does too. It makes you talk for days!) I felt like I was back to normal that night and was soooo excited because I really felt like it was over. It wasn't. For the past week, I'd wake up at 5am. And that frustrated me because my body would be tired, but my mind would be running. My cousin taught me how to meditate and that's what I did to put me back to sleep (keep in mind that I have school everyday so it was narrow hours before class). I woke up and didn't know who I am again. I was discouraged again because the night before I felt normal and here i am now feeling normal and depressed again. I went to my first class and after that class, I went to go see my psychologist that the doctor set up for me. And at that moment, recovery was getting better. She spoke to me about what this drug does and how I can ease my my anxiety, depression and paranoia. It really helped a lot to just talk for hours with her about my situation. Although the one thing she made me realize why I was freaking out so much was because I felt like I really let down my family. I kept crying every time I was mentioned of my family, so it was definitely guilt. After a good cry, my session was over. I walked out of there refreshed and ready to conquer the world again and my confidence level boosted. Breathing exercise helped also. Day by day, I returned back to normal. My friends saw the transformation of how I came from this defeated, damaged person to the high confident, bubbly person I am. That's when I knew I was back to normal. I went to go visit my family and everything was falling back into place. Eat healthy, sleeping early, family and friends who were supportive, it brought me back to normal. My brain was playing a game of memory. I would look at something and remember anything that it affiliated with any memory before the experience. I went back to school confident and ready to take it down. There was A LOT of thinking in the process. A lot of tears and talking in the process. My advice to you is to just embrace that abnormality you're feeling. Day by day you'll get better. I recovered in about a week and depending on how much you smoked and how long you've smoked, it could take a little longer than a week to recover, but it will go away. Just think back to the first day after smoking and how you felt, compare it to today on what you're feeling. That's how I made myself realize I was feeling better. I had to keep reminding myself and play scene by scene to look at the situation in the face and tell it that it's not going to defeat me. The first day compare to the 5th day, I was getting better. I was only getting better. This substance, it plays a lot of tricks on your psychological being and that's what you need to remember. Things will get better. So if you feel like you're experiencing brain fog, schizoprenzia, memory loss, you're not and it's not going to be permanent. Just go with the flow, stay positive and take positive actions. Eating healthy and exercising helped me. Reading a book. Watching funny movies. Decorating your room. I am a creative person so you can imagine what I had to do to make me feel sane again. With all of that, it's just time. Give it time. To this day (3-4 weeks after), I still experience mini panic attacks, anxiety and paranoia, but it's not bad at all. This substance is good at making you feel the feelings you had before and reliving it, replaying it in your head. I wanted to write this to just get my words out there because I remember about researching, all it did was make things worse because there weren't any comforting messages at all. There was just so much questions and no solid answers for me. So I wrote this to comfort those who are experiencing what I went through. ( Guess I'm a baby huh? hahaha) But just hang tight. It'll go away soon. Stop researching. Stop counting down days. Take it day by day and make goals for yourself and tackle it. I don't know what else t tell you, but you will be back to normal and soon it'll just be like a bad nightmare.

 

Stay strong and positive, 

Niceperson