GF had extremely terrifying experience. Would like some input

[BlueBull]

GF had terrifying experience. Would like some input

Hey guys

I'm going to give you as much background as I can so this could be a bit of a long post. Thank you for bearing with me in advance

So I've been together with my gf for about 3-4 months now. She is completely drug-naïve, never even smoked a spliff. Only thing she does is drink on occasion that's it. She weighs about 50kg

Now she has been saying she would like to try spacecake for some time now, from before she met me. I've always been apprehensive but thought that if she really wanted to I would guide her a bit since it was going to be her first drug experience. She was staying over for 3 days so it was the perfect opportunity since we had a small trip to the Netherlands right before. I bought 2 pieces of cake which contain half a gram each of very low quality weed, so not the strongest cake in the world. I have had that particular cake dozens of times myself and always end up eating 3-4 pieces for a nice buzz. I decided to give her a little less than half of a piece, so about 0.2g and wait. She ate it and after 2 hours or something still nothing. I decided not to give her more in case she was still going to come up (best idea I've had in ages!!! I am so fucking happy I didn't give her more, because she asked for a bit more but I declined). After about 2-2.5 hours right after we showered all of the sudden she says she feels weird, that she has this weird sensation in her head of being calm but her mind was starting to wander. She also had a dry mouth and mild amnesia. I concluded that it was starting, after 2.5h, which is weird in itself

We were sitting on the bed side by side brushing our teeth when I noticed something was wrong. She looked as pale as a ghost (she is of African descent so this is saying something). She was brushing her teeth like a madman, with a joker-like grin on her face and spreading toothpaste all over her mouth. I turned to her and asked her 'are you alright?'. That's when she started mumbling random stuf like "home home home home home", "mommy mommy", "where am I what is this, where am I what is this", "[my name], [my name], [my name], [my name]" over and over and over again. She also had this stare in her eyes like she was looking right through me at something else behind me or something. And a look of TOTAL panic in her eyes

This is when it really got out of hand, she started to give the impression of hallucinating and she was talking absolute gibberish, sometimes to people that weren't there. I held her and tried to calm her down because she was really out of it and getting wilder and wilder. All of the sudden she started struggling so hard I thought she was having a fit, she started saying "no, no, NO, NOOO, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" and at the end was screaming at the top of her lungs, I didn't even expect her to be able to scream so loud. She didn't recognise me anymore, she didn't know where she was, she didn't even know her own name anymore. She was also switching between sobbing and laughing rapidly. At one time she went from violently struggling to completely still not even breathing in half a second, staring right through me like she was in another universe. She later told me that at that moment she was convinced she had died. I repeated to her "you are with [my name], in [my city], you're in a safe room, I am with you and I will protect you, nothing can happen honey". I also asked her a few times who I was, who she was, where she was and if she knew that she was safe there, which after repeating it for a few times she remembered. This calmed her down periodically a bit but she continued having these mini-breakdowns. She also continued repeating the same things over and over again and explained to me she kept getting caught in thought loops and she thought she was going to die. During these loops she was completely out of it, talking absolute nonsense like "call the president, I need help" or "will my mom come to my funeral?" or "could we go walk the dog now?" (it was the middle of the night, 3am or something). She also said she was hallucinating though she was really vague about this so I'm not sure she was actually seeing shit that wasn't there. A few times she mentioned though, with eyes open, she could see her going back in time through her life and she saw herself when she was younger

I was trying my best to remain calm for her sake but in my mind I was freaking out, I have never seen anything like this except for a hallucinogenic bad trip. What worries me even more is that 14 hours later, she was still having moments of being out of it, she even started repeating the same thing over and over again once or twice, remarkably every time right after I gave her a long kiss. And now two days later she still doesn't feel 100% though she is back to reality completely she says something about the world still looks and feels off

The only thing I have ever seen that came close was a psychotic break one of my friends had, also triggered by smoking a spliff (but with a history of serious drug abuse) or a serious overdose and subsequent bad trip on a hallucinogenic drug

Has anyone ever witnessed something like this before? Was it a psychotic episode (she doesn't have a history of it nor family that has it)? A panic attack (unlikely, I know how that looks, this was much worse I think? She is obviously never going to do weed again but should I be worried about this having triggered some underlying mental disorder or something? I have seen people pass out because of weed, having serious panic attacks because of weed, even saw someone having a fit once, but this scared me more than anything. I find it alarming too that this happened on just 0.2g of low quality weed and about 2.5-3 hours after ingestion

I would really appreciate some feedback, thank you in advance!

BB

 

[BlueBull]

Little extra pieces of info: When she was brushing her teeth together with me she explained afterwards she first started mirroring me. And because I was brushing pretty fast she started brushing faster and at that point a voice in her mind told her "faster, faster, faster, FASTER" and she listened to it. That's why she was brushing like crazy and that's also when it all started, before that she felt good. It started about 30 minutes after the first effects so she was enjoying herself for a while and it didn't seem all that intense even

Also she mentioned a few times (and this was really disturbing to her) that she heard her own voice in her head and was talking to herself in her head. She even mentioned this a few times during that episode "I'm talking to myself, I never do that, why am I talking to myself?" and when I said I didn't hear anything she said "no no, in my own head, I can hear my own voice"

More things that happened regularely: she asked for the time about 50 times in the space of an hour. She said she was thirsty and wanted water about 20 times over the space of that same hour as well, not remembering she just asked for the time or for water. She also mentioned that the reason why she kept getting caught in thought loops was because she had almost total amnesia, at times she couldn't even remember how to breathe properly. She was alternating between a bit coherent and conscious to completely out of it and talking gibberish rapidly and together with that her heartrate was going up and down fast between about 80bpm and 180bpm. Periods where she was out of it her breathing intensified tenfold, like she was running. And she was trembling so violently it felt like she had parkinson's, not just shaking, it was almost like she was twitching rapidly and violently

In the moments she was out of it she was also moving her legs back and forth very fast, sliding her feet over the matras while also lying down and sitting back up regularly like she couldn't decide which one she liked most, like someone that had a bit too much MDMA does. She also mentioned this felt good in her legs

All in all it looked like an OD on some pretty strong hallucinogenic drug or temporary psychosis, not a low dose of cannabis. I know weed can be psychedelic in high doses but this was miles away from a high dose

 

[Papa_John]

I had an awful experience from a brownie before that was like this. I am no stranger to weed at all, but I have gotten very sick from wax and edibles. I took the brownie (approximately 1g of weed, reasonable for the amount I smoke) and the effects hit me after almost 2 hours. I started sweating, getting trapped in scary thought loops, and my face was pale beyond belief. I couldn't speak, I was shaking, and (as you can imagine) I was panicking because I was not prepared for such an experience. The difference here is that before I got to the point of where your girlfriend was, I began vomiting. I threw up the entire contents of my stomach within an hour. I honestly think that saved me from going fucking berserk. Anyways, I was dizzy and nauseous for days after until I finally felt normal after almost a week.
I'm not saying she should try weed again if she is completely traumatized, but I love smoking regular old weed and have never had another experience like that time I had a brownie.
Hope this brings some comfort.
--Papa John

 

[thujone]

good call not letting her eat more, edibles in general i don't think i would ever recommend for first-timers. CNS side-effects (high BPM, spasms) are characteristic of pretty high doses so the possibility that makes the most sense to me is that she had food, supplement or medicine in the hours before dosing that affected liver enzymes, potentiating the dose.

look:

Hydroxylation of THC at C(9) by the hepatic CYP 450 enzyme system leads to production of the equipotent metabolite 11-OH-THC [89][90], originally thought by early investigators to be the true psychoactive analyte [64]. CYP 450 2C9, 2C19, and 3A4 are involved in the oxidation of THC [90].

source

and see here for a table of food, medications and supplements and how they affect liver enzymes.

with MDMA there are similar concerns mixing it with MAOI inhibitors, and in general cannabis users like potentiating any dose but for someone who has no prior experience with cannabis it would have felt like being tossed into the deep end

 

[theGirlWithBlueHair]

These strong dissociation reactions often give people the impression they have consumed laced marijuana. kudos to her for not thinking that, at least. I'm sorry for her difficult experience. She should have tried a more cannabidiol friendly form THC, though.

The oral route can be a little too psychotomimetic. Don't let it dissuade her from such a pleasant thing, though!

It sounded like an OD. It's very easy and possible to overdose on THC, especially without correct amounts of cannabidiol and cannbinol and the person is cannbinoid naive with a full CB1 receptor density.

 

[Thomas Davie]

What others have said about the effects is true; I'll throw in something about the 2-2 1/2 hours it took to kick in.

When I was younger and healthier, it would always take 3 hours +/- 5-10 minutes to take effect. So, 2 hours 50 minutes to 3 hours 10 minutes. Always. Full stomach or empty. Edible or just eating hash/weed.

I'm older, less healthy and my diet has changed. Overall GI transit time has also changed. Edibles now take 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 hours. In other words, a lot more variability.

Body fat %, weight, etc are all potential variables. Also, whether or not she was in the middle of a period. I' pretty sure that hormonal variation might effect things too.

The analogy that I gave an ex GF was that 20 years ago, consuming an edible was like playing Russian roulette with 6 loaded chambers (for me). Now, it's like playing with 1/6 chambers loaded. Predictable before, not so much now.

Tom

 

[BlueBull]

I'm going to have a look at those potentiating lists later on. I can't imagine it having been something else, apart from perhaps a seriously misdosed piece of cake or hypersensitivity to cannabinoids. If the person baking the cake didn't make some colossal mistake the piece I gave her should have contained about 0.2g of low quality weed processed into butter. That is not nearly enough to cause an OD, not even for someone completely drug-naïve. Also I consumed the other half plus an entire second piece and felt only a very small buzz. I do smoke very regularly though so that's not really relevant here

Glad to gather from your replies that I shouldn't be worried about some underlying mental disorder or something. I talked with her yesterday, she was still pretty shaken up but after a good conversation I think she has started to accept the experience a bit more. Also because I remember everything and I filled in a lot of blanks for her. She's completely back to her normal cheerful self, no after-effects or anything so that's good. She's still thinking about it a lot but that's normal after such an experience

I know edibles are generally not advised for a first time, that's why I was so careful with dosage, in all honesty I didn't expect her to feel much from the piece I gave her but decided to start as low as possible. Thing is she doesn't smoke and I don't have a vaporiser. Because she really doesn't like smoke, she wanted to try spacecake. Bad idea in hindsight but yeah...

Thanks for your replies! I really appreciate it. Perhaps if she is still worried after today I will let her read them

 

[BlueBull]

So, small update. It's been now just over two months since that night. She is deeply traumatised by it which was already apparent to me but became really apparent yesterday. I had a talk with her and she is convinced something is wrong with her. Reality feels 'fake', she has a constant head pressure behind her left eye. Her emotions have changed, at times she feels more deeply than before and other times she hardly feels anything at all. She has had several small panic attacks, nothing too serious but enough to make her heart race and her breathing to become very fast. At times she says it's like she can't feel her own body anymore and has to pinch herself to convince herself she is real. And she also has some recurring thoughts that aren't really her, 'what is my purpose in this life?', 'if I would disappear all of the sudden, who would miss me?' and so on. No depression though. And to her the most alarming feeling is that she feels like she lost a part of herself, though she has no idea what part she says that she isn't herself anymore

I'm convinced at least a part of it is psychosomatic but I'm wondering if there is a part of this that isn't. She had a serious breakdown yesterday. This turned out to be positive because it gave her a chance to vent everything that was going on in her head. Not something that normally comes easy to her. She seems to be a bit more accepting of the experience and realises that whatever is happening, it can't be permanent or even physical, that she just needs to work through this and not run away from it. All in al this reminds me HUGELY of the after-effects of a serious bad trip on LSD I once had, there are so many things that I recognise that it can't be a coincidence

Thoughts?

 

[Yourbaker]

Wow.

Have you taken her to see a doctor that works with derealization and depersonalization?

Tbh other than see a doctor just double check the edible dose. I don't know your area packaging laws but .2gr here would be thc only, which would be 200mg thc. Not .2 grams of the plant matter or .2 grams of shitty weed. 200mg is a heroic dose for someone to take first time on edibles. You may have huge tolerance, edible tolerance is separate from smoked IME or at least they don't seem completely related.

 

[Felonious Monk]

Sounds like she might just have a REALLY strong reaction to THC. I've seen it in people before, where just 10-20mg of THC leaves them totally incapacitated for hours (one lady told me she got caught on a raft in the middle of her pool for like 3 hours until her husband came home).

All you can do is be supportive and continue what you've been doing.

If you could access dosed CBD-rich medicine that might help. Something with a very very low level of THC (like a 20:1 CBD:THC ratio) has helped people with schizophrenia and also calms the effects of THC.

 

[BlueBull]

Wow.

Have you taken her to see a doctor that works with derealization and depersonalization?

Tbh other than see a doctor just double check the edible dose. I don't know your area packaging laws but .2gr here would be thc only, which would be 200mg thc. Not .2 grams of the plant matter or .2 grams of shitty weed. 200mg is a heroic dose for someone to take first time on edibles. You may have huge tolerance, edible tolerance is separate from smoked IME or at least they don't seem completely related.

It was a quarter of a piece that contained 0.2g of weed processed into butter. So not 0.2g of thc but 0.05g of weed processed into butter. That was the dose that was mentioned on the package and also confirmed to me by the shopkeeper, I went back there to double check. The amount of thc is not mentioned, it really is plant matter which I indeed find weird but it says so right on the package. I smoke regularly and usually end up eating 4-5 entire pieces to get a decent buzz. It really is very weak cake and I only gave her a quarter of a piece. We are considering going to the doctor but the thing is, if we can't find a good one with experience in this, I think it can do more harm than good. If this doesn't start to go away soon we're going to see a doctor I know personally, with some experience in drug issues. Mostly trip drugs but as I said there are a lot of similarities between this and a serious bad trip on a strong hallucinogen

Sounds like she might just have a REALLY strong reaction to THC. I've seen it in people before, where just 10-20mg of THC leaves them totally incapacitated for hours (one lady told me she got caught on a raft in the middle of her pool for like 3 hours until her husband came home).

All you can do is be supportive and continue what you've been doing.

If you could access dosed CBD-rich medicine that might help. Something with a very very low level of THC (like a 20:1 CBD:THC ratio) has helped people with schizophrenia and also calms the effects of THC.

I'm actually kind of apprehensive of giving her any more THC-containing stuff. Even CBD I don't want to try if I'm not absolutely sure it will help. If she has another one of those episodes it's going to make it worse. Other than that, I don't really have access to these kinds of things no. Perhaps a neighbouring country sells it I could check. But again I'm not really sure if that is a good idea. Her reaction to the cake was completely unexpected considering the dose so she might even react badly to CBD if she's unlucky

Thanks for the replies!

*edit*
Is there anyone on here with experience in psychosis that can tell me if this was likely something related to that or probably not? That's what has me most worried, that she is prone to that without her knowing it and the cake triggered an acute psychotic episode

 

[dandyuk]

My thoughts on this -

Cannabis can have a strong psycholytic (trippy, psychedelic) effect, although it is usually dampened down by the narcotic effect. It's
quiet well known that an experience with a psycholytic drug can allow stuff from the deeper regions of the mind to come to the surface
or near enough to the surface where it can make itself manifest. Maybe this is what has happened to your girl?

The famous comic book artist Robert Crumb has recounted that after an LSD trip (his first) he had a 6 month period where the he felt
the "Real world" was fake and grotesque. Strangly (or not) it was in this period that he created most of his famous comic book charecters.

You can watch a documentary where he mentions this here -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv2INVdsOW4

He talks about it from 18 minutes onwards.


Maybe it will bring some resolution if your girl has some insight to what might have caused her state of mind?

 

[Ksa]

OP, it is important to set the right expectations at the beginning with the drug naive person before administering THC. Also, the dose is irrelevant, even tiny doses can produce serious impairment. It is equally important to block central adrenaline with 0.1mg of Clonidine as soon as symptoms of unrest or panic attack occur, as the adrenaline can spike naturally to very high values and by itself, can worsen the trip 10 fold.

I can skip 10 nights in a row on amphetamines to the point where I run cold water on my hand it feels hot and smells like beer, I run hot water it feels cold and smells like pancakes, I hear the Police trying to break the door asking me to put my hands behind my back, when I stand up from my chair everything blacks out due to low blood pressure, then I see 12 computer screens on the wall rotating in circles...heart trying to break out of my chest, and despite all, the trip is clean and clear and under control. Like Tampax clear. That's because I've done it approximately 2500 times, and know exactly my way around, deaf dumb and blind and I still know what's up.

The drug naive person does not know what drugs do. They think drugs are like a sugar rush, or eating a happy meal, or going party, or whatever life experience they had in their one and only dimension, they will use these life experiences to form an impression of what it will be like, before even taking the drug, and the drug will not only surprise them, it will scare them because, since they don't know what they're doing, they think something is going wrong, while in fact everything goes according to plan. Explain that plan to the naive so that they don't believe something is wrong. Say to her:

- Nothing you experienced in this world will have anything in common with what you will experience now.
- If you feel like something is wrong, nothing is wrong, you only feel that way.
- If you start getting ideas or thoughts, observe them as they cross your mind and do not pay attention or engage them. They are only there to entertain you, don't entertain them.

 

[Fire&Water]

+ 1
must of had psych problems before hand

 

[David Wooderson]

- Nothing you experienced in this world will have anything in common with what you will experience now.
- If you feel like something is wrong, nothing is wrong, you only feel that way.
- If you start getting ideas or thoughts, observe them as they cross your mind and do not pay attention or engage them. They are only there to entertain you, don't entertain them.

That is some of the best drugs advice you can get

I seen two women on two separate occasions go batshit crazy off a bowls worth of weed, to the point you might think they were on "bath salts" or strong psychedelics.

They were just hypersensitive cannabis and some ppl are and should NEVER consume it regardless of benefit because it will always go bad.

I had bad acid trips screw me up for months at a time, it wasn't the substance it was the trauma experienced and the same can happen with cannabis same from a traumatic event.

In time things should go back to normal but only if she abstains from it and all drugs for a long while.

 

[Ksa]

^ Thanks. I agree completely, some people just have a natural predisposition or have a latent mental condition that THC or other drugs can trigger so for them it's a no no. I also think the media, aside from picking up black sheep from the drug users community and portraying them as model drug users, they also like bad trip stories, preferably, stories so bad they determined the person not to use drugs again! They love hearing those, I'm like, the person telling the near-life ER experience is an idiot, he's not an ambassador of our community, who the fuck gave HIM the right to speak on behalf of everybody?! If someone sat with him on Bluelight to set expectations and instruct him on HR use, he wouldn't have gotten to the ER in the first place.

 

[growit&smokeit]

It does as if she had some sort of psychotic episode, she definitely sounds like she has derealisation. I'm not sure what your best plan is, probably going to talk to someone might help.

 

[augustaB]

Space cake can be very tricky. It stays longer in the system, and the user has no idea when enough has been consumed.
I've seen regular potheads freak out on space cake and so it comes as no surprise that your totally inexperienced lady had a problem.
Rather than going into the causes and dynamics of what happened what is more important is how to get her out of the current hole.
Medical help? I doubt that any doctor is going to help. What might help is a sympathetic PTSD therapist.
She probably blames you for this episode and is conflicted in her feelings.
The great healer is time, but of course putting 50 years between herself and the experience would perhaps be a bit drastic.
On my 21st birthday I had a bad experience with LSD and cannabis and ended up in semi-psychotic state.
I was not hospitalized or treated but suffered intense paranoid episodes for several years.
The only treatment I managed to obtain was a bottle of Librium pills.
I had occasional bad moments for about 30 years until I was introduced to ecstasy.
The sense of self-worth that mdma confers helped me heal and to confront probably what were the underlying problems.
So at the risk of sounding trite, if you could find a PTSD therapist who is using mdma during therapy I think you might find a way out of the hole.