Marijuana - permanent anxiety?

IM JUST POSTING AGAIN WHAT SOMEONE SAID EARLYER



i am 23 years old and delt with anxiety at a young age around 10-12 years old. i never did any drugs during that time. i started smoking regularly when i turned about 17. at around when i hit 19 or 20, i started getting severe panic attacks every time i smoked. so i just only took a few hits when i smoked and just would get a mild high, and it brought my tolerance way down eventually so that mild high became more like a medium high. since i have had anxiety in the past and treated it with medication, i decided to see a psychiatrist. he prescribed me to zoloft. started at a very low dose and gradually built up to eventually 200mgs the highest for my weight (140lbs). at first their were minor side effects but they went away. it took almost a month for the zoloft to work but it works great. i never get anxiety anymore, even when i smoke. it feels so good to be able to smoke larger amounts again. i consider myself an addict and i NEVER tried to recover and never will. i have the will power to quit when i need to. withdrawls are very minor mostly psychological. i have quit for weeks for drug testing for new jobs without a problem. the only reason i consider myself an addict is because i smoke usually several times a day and i crave when i dont. but i can withstand waiting whenever i want. their is a difference between addiction and dependence.

Ive smoked for about 6 months and completely stopped because of the panic attacks. Its been about a month now and I have been feeling very different since..almost like withdrawal symptoms. I was wondering if anyone has experienced this and if it will go away. Its the worst feeling when you feel you are not the same as you used to be. I just cant sleep at night, i cannot eat as much, i have straaange dreams...and just get paranoid and confused. If someone can help, it would be very great. I cant get over this and it feels like it is permanent.
Thanks in Advance.

your fine nothings wrong with you just have to retrain your thinking again when ever you start to feel paranoid again really tell it to give it all its got at you!! because really there's nothing a panic attack can do to you its just your thoughts!!!!!!!


trust me ..

Take some DMT to get rid of your demons

I've been feeling the same way for a while. I've been smoking for 2 years but for one of those years I bought a quarter of haze every three days... (shoulda thought ahead and gotten an ounce every few weeks... Wait nah that would still be smoked in 3 days).

Either way, I've always had anxiety attacks but never identified them as such in my life. While weed sometimes makes me more focused on this anxiety, it also gives me a reason to change what I'm anxious about, and go in depth with it.

I don't think weed causes anxiety. I think weed causes you to pay attention to your anxiety a little more. I mean think about it, EVERYBODY is anxious of something. Weed sometimes makes you notice that thought and it and it holds greater weight than other times. So in the end, it's up to you. Fight it, give in to it, or stop smoking and hope it goes away. but once you've noticed what you're anxious of, it's hard to stop thinking about it.

Anxiety always seems to come to me in a loop, and when it happens I google my symptoms (like I just did) find websites like these, and read every response and worry more (like I was about to do).

Lately I've been feeling good though, I've been seeing what I'm anxious of and trying to change (I know I'll have days where I'll be panicked near death though). I've added a REAL stress to my life, a job, and now weed seems more like freedom from stress again.

So I broke the loop and decided to post this.

This is gonna sound really mean to whoever reads this, and I'm sorry, I don't mean it in a mean way, but:

Stop reading this site and "learning" the same tired stuff you've found on other sites like this... It'll just lead you into that cycle of worry and confusion and fear, which will just lead to A N X I E T Y. :O

And believe me, there are times I wouldn't be able to type something like this. I'd be worrying about finding the right words to say and my message would be confusing and silly. Now I'm feeling gooooood.

Yo are there any girls on this site who are like-minded to me? If so, hit me up.
^
See what I mean? I was able to type that without feeling silly about it. No anxiety tonight (and I'm still fighthing (and winning))!

I'm serious though. My name here is the same as my AIM name. ;P

I'm 19 years old and I started smoking (first time) in October 08. I honestly smoked probably every day until January 09. I go to college and I lived and hung out with stoners so I ended becoming like them... Except while I was high I wouldn't be lazy(the typical "stoner" stereotype). Quite the contrary, I would be on the move and doing things that I knew was right; helping people out, talking to people, pretty soon I was smoking weed everyday and didn't notice ANYthing different in my life(except the smoking).

I would go to class on time, I would exercise just fine, everything was okay. I even had an excellent diet and people were noticing i was becoming less angry, more of a friendly person etc. Weed was a part of me. Then my roomy bought a Vaporizer just so we could be sure that we were smoking "the right way." So we smoked out of the vape about everyday. Except one day when I was smoking out of the vape I could literally feel something in the back of my head almost "click." I was with my friends and all of a sudden I said "uh oh, and i headed to the gym and started to work out like crazy... It wasn't healthy because it was the third time I had been to the gym that day...

My body was tired but my brain was saying "go go go go go go." It was a panic Attack, I wasn't sure what to do. Anyways, that was a little more than a week ago and I realized that my wisdom teeth were coming in. I've recently discovered that I've become a sufferer of Vertigo. (according to a doctor who didn't know that i smoked for those 4~ months. Since that scary day, I've been clean fearing what would happen to me (death etc.). However, I'm around weed all the time, I even pack the vape for my friends because I like to know my friends are having a good time, and I even can have a good time with them. I've been the same "up beat person" and been able to do everything like nothing has ever happened, however I still have that "high"

The sensation that I had just smoked or something. I know it's only been a week and that I'm probably rambling now, but I want to make sure....... will this effect wear off? I mean, I've been clean, why am I still feeling like this? I feel high all the time almost. however I haven't smoked any weed. My head hurts... probably because of my wisdom teeth Can anyone relate to this? I really need someone to reply to me. Please Let me know if this is NORMAL!!!!! Thanks to all

I love to smoke pot. I have been smoking for 20 some years. I used to use it only when I drank and for social occasions. I started smoking everyday in the past five years due to a high level of personal stress. The more I smoked the more I panicked. I was having the worst panic attacks when I was high. These panic attacks were happening when I wasn't high. My last panic attack while stoned was so scary that I vowed to quit smoking. I'm almost 30 days pot free. The first week or so I had a constant headache, night sweats, sick to my stomach feeling and still panic attacks! But as the days go by I am feeling much better. Did I mention I love to smoke pot? Maybe I could use again in moderation....but I think I'll stick to my no smoking plan for a long while. It just might change my life :-)

I very rarely smoke pot because I also experience the crazy, manic/panic highs, looping thoughts of utter blackness and heavenly euphoria...The "everything fits" or "the world is ending" syndrome. I do this mostly to open my mind to write and paint. The best work I have ever done has been done while smoking and it's not just "How do I know the color blue to you is the color blue to me" BS. It's insight of a higher consciousness. Since I also suffer from severe depression, social phobia, etc. it's a catch 22 because I need my art to function at all, hold a job, etc. It's driving me crazy trying to overcome and find a "natural high" to help me vent. I rarely have extreme palpatations and severe panic that I cannot eventually control, but I know it can only get worse. Meditation has been suggested of course to tap into higher dimensions, but I can't get to that place without some substance. I just can't. I'm in agony with this sober as a judge solution everyone is suggesting. I guess I'll have to give something up and suffer this mundane, miserable reality somehow.

I have smoked pot heavily for about 6 years. taking a couple breaks in between. but if you go to your doc, tell him you have bad anxiety. get a prescription to clonazepam. it will totally offset the attacks and i didn't find it addictive in the slightest.

I've been a daily user for 25 years and hit on a problem patch a couple of years ago with anxiety attacks on use. I followed the advice here and have not had any since.

Cannabis & Anxiety
The causes of cannabis anxiety and paranoia are both mental and chemical.

Changes in blood sugar levels can be responsible for pretty extreme effects (both good and bad) when you're high, so you have to pay real attention to it if you want to get, and keep, a good high. Too much blood sugar, from eating a lot of candy for example, and you get a rush as the cannabis high and the sugar high combine – but the sugar high is short-lived, and will make you want to fall asleep as soon as your system burns off the excess insulin that all the sugar has forced the release of. Too little blood sugar, and things go from uncomfortable to extremely unpleasant very quickly. As you first start to get high, your metabolism may hike up a notch and cause a sudden dip in blood sugar. That's no problem if you've just eaten, but if you're already on the edge of being hungry without realising it, that first toke can make you feel pretty nasty in less than ten minutes. Never take the chance of getting high when you're somewhere without access to the right kinds of food and drink, just in case. If you have the added 'pleasure' of being a borderline diabetic and you don't know it, you could get into quite a state from just that one first high, if you're not careful.

Many regular cannabis users begin their day's session in the late afternoon as work is winding down, and maybe an hour or two before their evening meal – just at the very time when their blood sugar is already on the wane. If this is you, you'll more than likely feel a lot of the symptoms below within ten minutes or so of getting high. Eat! Better still, make sure that you've eaten well in advance of getting high. Look out for any of the following as indicators of low blood sugar:

Sweating, shaking, anxiety, hunger, dizziness, faintness, pounding heart, personality changes, confused thinking, impatience, numbness of lips and tongue, headache, nausea, blurred vision, slurred or slow speech, convulsions, coldness, white hands and face. Eventually, if it is not attended to, it can lead to unconsciousness.

Adrenaline & Cannabis
A second cause of dope-anxiety is something I term here the 'Adrenaline Cascade'; really a mild form of 'shock'. After any event that has made you anxious, the anxiety causes your system to dump adrenaline (also called epinephrine) into your blood-stream, creating a rapid heart-beat, a growing demand on your BSL, and thus deeper and deeper feelings of anxiety as your BSL levels drop. Of course, you'll usually find these effects uncomfortable or worrying, thus causing the release of even more adrenaline and a worsening of symptoms. This vicious circle of adrenaline release will be increasingly hard to overcome, and the deeper it gets the more likely it is to lead to a 'white-out' due to its depressive effects on your blood sugar.

Many things trigger the release of adrenaline:

Apprehension about potentially bad highs
Stress
Anxiety
Fatigue
Stimulants, such as alcohol, caffeine, cocaine, and heroin.
Bright lights
Loud noises
Exercise
Sugar sensitivity
Abnormal glucose metabolism

Again, do not underestimate the mental effects that adrenaline can cause by itself - irregular heart-beat, palpitations, abnormal behaviour, anxiety and headaches - even before it starts reducing our BSL to a point where it can no longer support full brain function (about 60% of our blood sugar is used by our brains).

Unfortunately, there's very little you can do to remove excess adrenaline from your system once it's in there, and it can only really be counteracted by 'nor-adrenaline', something that usually only our bodies can provide. It can be burned off by exercise, but if adrenaline has caused a very deep dip in your BSL then that may not be a viable option. The only things you can truly do are: eat to get rid of some of the more unpleasant symptoms; or, simply wait it out, knowing that it is a brief physiological effect.

I've seen a number of people offering advice to 'just suck it up and it'll go away' on this particular kind of anxiety and, to some extent that is helpful, as relaxing and trying to be calm will help break the cycle of adrenaline release. On the other hand, if someone is having an intense version of this then relaxing is far easier said than done and, if you should experience the above yourself, then you need to treat yourself as you would for low BSL and remove yourself from any strong stimuli - lights, noises, etc. - that might help promote the effects of the high and further adrenaline release.

If we look at the actions of adrenaline in this respect then the mechanism that prevents this rise becomes obvious (remember that this same effect will be present in anyone who has a burst of adrenaline in their systems, not just diabetics): adrenaline prepares the body for 'fight or flight' in an emergency by increasing the supply of glucose and oxygen to the brain and muscles, whilst at the same time suppressing other less-important processes, digestion in particular. This means that the initial elevation in blood-sugar (through increased catabolism) may be short-lived, and whether it then leads to a later dip and anxiety is dependent on the amount of adrenaline present in the blood at the time. Not only does it reduce the bodies ability to take in new blood sugar to redress the balance, but it increases speedier depletion of stored blood sugar, preventing restoration.

Some people, particularly those with bad diets or who are subjected regularly to stress, may have semi-permanent hypoglycemia (a deficiency of glucose in the blood), resulting in adverse reactions to cannabis through their bodies inability to control adrenaline and/or cortisol through 'adrenal fatigue'.

The Answer
In light of the above, those who know they're already at risk from fluctuating BSL will find that their symptoms of anxiety during cannabis use will be significantly reduced if they can pay full attention not only to those levels before use, but also setting and mood.

Excerpted from 'Cannabis & Meditation – An Explorer's Guide', by Simon Jackson.

When you say conscious intervention what do you mean, try to block he thought?



Also should one maybe continue to smoke marijuana and do this conscious intervention while "high" and i mean a moderate dose? could it actually maybe aid you to get rid of the thought as much as it aided u tog et these thoughts?

I'm 21 and I smoked pot once in a while for about 6 months and then started smoking every night straight for about 4 months at school with my room mates. Smoking at the time really seemed like no big deal until I decided to quit cold turkey one day during my winter break. While I was at home I wasn't really doing much and was completely ignorant to how dysfunctional I had become. I was sleeping 10 -11 hours a night, not eating right at all and not exercising. It wasn't until I completely failed at an interview I had lined up during the break that I realized my mind just was not working! I went back to school for the spring semester only to find I had completely lost my ability to concentrate, became very forgetful and SEVERE anxiety set in to the point I was having panic attacks and suicidal thoughts. I was hospitalized for depression and I ended up withdrawing from all my classes and now I'm at home getting counseling and seeing a psychiatrist . I feel like I've had an identity crisis and my anxiety is keeping me from really caring about or doing anything. I have a wonderful girlfriend who has been supportive the whole way, a loving mom, sister and great friends who all have been doing their best to help me. However, even after almost 3 months I really have no hope that these feelings will ever go away....and still have thoughts of suicide. I just feel like I screwed up so bad I don't even deserve to live anymore... Any encouraging words would be greatly appreciated. THANK YOU!!!Code:

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Yes, well I know exactly how everyone here feels. except for the fact that I just turned 17. I started smoking marijuana when I was 13. Up until I was 15. After that, I tried some shrooms. (not a good trip may I add) and then ecstasy. After that, every time I got high, I had major panic and anxiety attacks. Well 2 years later and I still have them up to this day. I don`t believe in taking medication, cause on the first trip to the emergency (yes I said first, I`ve been there a few times) the doctor advised me not to.

So yes I know its hard to be going through something this unpleasant, but you just gotta keep in mind that it passes. Ever since then, yeah I have had un-usual thoughts every now and then about life. And from having an anxiety disorder from my drug abuse I`ve felt "dis-connected" from one self, but its just part of the disorder (I guess you can call it) but you just have to be strong and keep in mind that its only temporary. Cause eventually the feelings sub-side and you can get on with your life =]

Other than that. Basically just meditation, good herbal tea and exercise are really good and help well. So best of luck to you all. Hope you find the comfort you need. And remember, SUICIDE is not the answer. Cause trust me I`ve been there and thought about it. But everyone goes through times. Cause whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. But! You should definitely embrace the journey life brings you, cause death may be boring . <3

Well, I have read a lot here and I have a lot of experience with marijuana use....I have smoked for about 20 years. If you are having panic attacks, high anxiety, depression, thoughts of suicide, etc. STOP DOING DRUGS!!!!!! It is the only solution. Your brain is a very sensitive organ and can't be treated like a punching bag. Eventually you punch it enough and it will go down for the count. Everybody's brain is different and might take mare or less for a longer or shorter period of time (Kind of like a boxer....some might only be able to take one of M-Ali's punches, where somebody else can take twenty) but eventually you take the blow that knocks the senses out of you.....Get what I am saying.....God Speed.....

i have the EXACT same problem. except i smoked it 2 times, out of a huge bong, got panic attacks right away both times. almost 2 years later, i dont go to school, (im in grade 8) i dont go outside, and i really hope somebody replys with a simple answer of if its PERMANENT. Cuz i can't handle these panic attacks anymore