Marijuana and Anxiety

[Dieselj28]

About 2 months ago I smoked weed for the first time and I had a dose that was too high for me. I then had a bad reaction to it along with panic attacks and it took me a while to calm down from the whole thing. Ever since then I've been running what if scenarios through my head and have alot of issues like 'what if it screwed up my brain or permanently messed up my perception' (I have been experiencing alot of derealization lately) or issues that I'll never be the same. Time has also been an issue lately I've felt like its slow at times and I link it to how I felt the night I had my reaction, the weed caused my perceptoin of time to be slow and I worry that it permanently effected my perception of time but I think its just my mind playing tricks on me.

I'm just wondering as to why I'm worried so much now I've been crying alot lately I'm just so tired of the anxiety and how the way I'm feeling is linked to the marijuanna? Or if anyone has any similar experiences theyd like to share.

Thanks for your time

[Magpie]

Hi Diesel, sorry to hear you're having a bad time at the moment.

The good news is that the marijuana has not permanently affected your brain; extensive research has been done on this type of thing, and suggests that this can happen, but only with long-term heavy use.

You're not entirely wrong to think it has affected your perception though; the enhanced perception of anxiety and panic symptoms you had whilst high has probably resulted in you now noticing feelings you weren't so aware of before. Your anxiety about the unpleasant experience you had and your fears that it might have some lasting effect will no doubt be making things worse. This happens to many people who have a bad experience with mind-altering substances; I speak from extensive experience!

Hopefully this will have reassured you a bit, a lot of people on here seem to have had times where worry about their symptoms has exacerbated or even been the main cause of the symptoms, so you're not alone. If you can try to go with the flow a little and let the symptoms pass without worrying too much about them, you should start to recover automatically.

Feel free to pm me if you like, I hope you feel better.

[Lindalou64]

hi diesel and welcome,
yes pot can give you anxiety and everything that magpie says ,your gonna be just fine hang in there, wish ya the best,take care....Linda

[Debs8a]

Hi Diesel,
I am trying everything at the moment to cure my anxiety and panic attacks and one of the things i have stopped is smoking pot. I have been a regular user for the past few years and i felt that perhaps pot had an effect on my thoughts and feelings. I haven't used any in about 6 weeks and i feel better but i don't know if that is psychological. I doubt very much that a one time smoke would have a great effect on you. Its just the classic "something else to beat yourself up about". I know when i have done something i am not proud of of feel is not good for me, i worry excessively about what damage i have done which in turns make me anxious and panic.

Pot is like any other drug, if you are in the 'right' frame of mind, you will have a blast but if you are feeling even the slightest bit rubbish it will give you a bad trip.

Good luck and i hope you feel better soon. x

[Dieselj28]

Thanks guys I feel alot better after reading your replies. I've been wondering as to whether or not it was a substance-induced anxiety disorder because everything felt fine before I smoked pot, just a bit of Obsessive compulsive disorder. It just boggles my mind as to why I'm feeling this way after smoking weed. Usually people have fun with it I guess I just had too much than I could handle for the first time.

[mico]

Hi Diesel

This really has very little to do with marijuana other than your fear of it. When you do smoke it, your mind has a tendancy to hyperfocus and you get involved in the intricate details of whatever occupies your mind at the time. If you're feeling anxious you may well find yourself focusing deeply on your own anxious thoughts, which can trigger some form of panic attack.

The thing that really has a lot of authority over your well being, is the panic attack. A panic attack can be such an overwhelming experience that, once it's over, it becomes extremely difficult to push it to one side and forget about it. You're left with that 'woah, what was THAT???' feeling. Then you worry about it happening again or continuing. It's exactly that that becomes deeply ingrained into your memory, not the marijuana. The marijuana only contributed as an initial trigger to a panic which may well have been inevitable anyway.

What you're talking about is more likely something that has been building over time and awaiting a trigger to release it. You can forget about the marijuana, it has no effect over you now, no matter how much you smoked. The thing that's gripping you now is the fear you experienced and the fear that you will continue to experience it. Make sense? All of which is generally brought on by a raised level of general anxiety.

Best thing for you to do now is rationalise this whole situation and to also work on reducing your levels of general anxiety, which you can do through relaxation and other techniques which you'll find around here.

Good luck.

[Debs8a]

You know something, its strange how a bad trip can make someone feel so rubbish. I read a wee while back about the chap who created LSD and how it was first developed as a drug to be used for certain mental illnesses. Supposedly the first trials showed that used in the correct doses in the correct environment, the patients felt 'at one' with nature and themselves......almost as if the cleaner had been in and given their head a good tidy up.
I frankly am a bit terrified of hallucinigenics but if i was administered by a responsible psychiatrist, i would be willing to give it a go to see what happens.
Has anyone tried anything as extreme?

[mico]

LSD is something very different, but as it happens it is actually currently being studied in its effectiveness for treating mental health dissorders.

Sure, it's been tested in the same way before but was largely abandoned after the archaic trials of the 50s and 60s.

[Under~The~Stars]

Hi Diesel,

Sorry to hear about how you are feeling at the moment :hugs:

I think all of these replies are helpful, and lots of support given. I have to say that I agree with Mico on the fact that it's the fact that you had a panic attack that is causing your general anxiety state now, rather than the weed.

Were you anxious before taking the weed? I don't mean seconds before it, I mean months or weeks before it? As it sounds like the weed has just been a trigger, and you could have been anxious anyway, even without taking it? However, yes weed can make us anxious.

I used to smoke it when I was at school, and I remember panicking once after I had a smoke, and thinking that I was dying. I think it was more likely the fact that my thoughts were all jumbled due to it, and it made me think I was going to die, rather than the fact I was dying. I'm not sure if that makes sense? Basically, I was always an anxious person, so anything I did that I thought was the slightest bit wrong could trigger off anxiety.

Take care, and I hope you feel better soon :flowers:

Lou xxx

[Dieselj28]

Yes I was an anxious person before I had smoked, but no where to the degree as I am at now. I've had 1 panic attack before that and they dont usually frighten me as I know whats going with them. I have had derealization which I know marijuana can induce, and hopefully that will go away as well. Anyway the posts have helped me a lot and I'm going to try my best to do things as normally as I once did.

[Under~The~Stars]

You say you were anxious before smoking it, so sounds like it has been a trigger for something that has been there anyway. I remember my first sort of really bad panic attack, and it was very frightening. Probably because you have only ever had one before the one after smoking weed, you have not been aware at the time that it has been that? They are very scary. Panic and anxiety can bring on so many symptoms. I hope you feel better soon :hugs:

Take care,

Lou xxx

[Magpie]

You know something, its strange how a bad trip can make someone feel so rubbish. I read a wee while back about the chap who created LSD and how it was first developed as a drug to be used for certain mental illnesses. Supposedly the first trials showed that used in the correct doses in the correct environment, the patients felt 'at one' with nature and themselves......almost as if the cleaner had been in and given their head a good tidy up.
I frankly am a bit terrified of hallucinigenics but if i was administered by a responsible psychiatrist, i would be willing to give it a go to see what happens.
Has anyone tried anything as extreme?

Yup, used to eat acid like it was popcorn. Okay, slight exaggeration; I tripped probably an average of two-three times a month for about three years. I definitely found that a good trip lightened my mood and made me feel more grounded and happy, on one occasion the effect lasted for months. However, the reverse is also true - a bad trip could throw me into a screaming fit of depression.

Rather than let that put me off, I just resolved to knock my mood the other way by taking more acid. It worked pretty well, I had a lot of fun and I don't regret a single thing. However, I don't trip anymore because I can't risk the sort of major destabilisation that can come with a bad trip - I have to work now, whereas at school or college I could take a few days off to try and get a grip if necessary.

I reckon it's not been used more in psychiatric treatment because there's nothing a practitioner could really do to make sure it has the intended effect - a really complex combination of mood, surroundings, thought processes and interpersonal factors determine what the trip will be like, and that's not really possible to control.

Interesting idea though, isn't it?

[celestial]

Hi Debs

I would strongly suggest staying off the stuff, because Cannabis is one of those drugs that's very much 'under-estimated' in terms of its potency. I only found this to my cost when I tried eating the stuff in hash brownies (often seen as a very minor drug dalliance) and suffered two days of what was essentially a 'bad trip' and I now know was cannabis psychosis, and not something I'd wish on anyone.

I still don't know if what happened to me has increased my anxiety, but it's only since then that I had full-on panic attacks, and they do in fact feel very similar to how this drug made me feel. So I would never even smoke it again now.

It's unlikely that from a small amount of smoking you'll have done any real harm, but it is important to remember that the stuff can be a lot more powerful than you might expect due to its reputation as a 'soft' drug. This is all changing, and in mental health circles it is now viewed very seriously.

[dane]

Hi All,

My first post so i hope it's acceptable. I haven't smoked any pot for a number of years now but have been considering giving it a try instead of the Xanax XR that I am taking. I hate this stuff. It works OK, but the addiction and withdrawl syndrome are hell.

Anyway, I have read and would ask members what their opinion is about the relationship between the strain of marijuana used and it's effect on anxiety. I understand if one is very selective in the strain, it can help mitigate panic and anxiety.

For example, it is reported tht an an indica dominant strain can do wonders for anxiety, but a sativa dominant strain will "send you over the edge" as far as panic is concerned.

Of course the only way to really control the strain used is to grow your own which can be very risky in itself and cause paranoia depending on your country of residence.

TIA for your valued inputs and comments.

dane