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pot causing depression?

Cat Again

Bluelighter
Joined
Sep 21, 2003
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i find that when i use pot i start to think alot and get into depressing thought loops. when im not stoned this doesnt happen. it only started this past week. i use pot frequently and this doesnt normally happen. does anyone know why is happening now?:\
...cat
 
if you're a regular user since several year it is happening now just because it is a long period that your brain is under the cannabis influence... but it's just a supposition...

meaby some events in your life have favoured this "depression". a friend who was smoking daily pot since 3 year have had a depression and it was most due to the events in his life but he have had to stop smoking (and it was from his decision) to cure his depression. after he have stopped to smoke pot he was feeling better.

for myself i think that pot make me more pensive about my life in general not in a happy way and i smoke pot daily since 4 year.
imo,the regular use of pot during a long time can't be without effect on your mood (and so on your brain)...but i think if you stop it will be ok quickly (but more time you've smoked more is difficult to stop).

this is just observation from my own use and the use of peopel around me, everybody is different. some peopel will never have problem with their pot use...(?)
 
its simply a depressant mate, despite all the stories pot aint helping curb depression, but really intensifies it. I have been smoking for a few years now and I find that I get depressed when i can't get on to any, but then i'm fine when i score (i guess my brain saying "yes, lets pump some cones").......however then i smoke and i do get depressed, i start to feel guilty for smoking and have found the only remedy is smoking less mate, go back to only smoking evenings for a start, then weekends....in time your body won't crave it so much and hopefully this will help curb your depression.......

also have a lok around, there is plenty of help available online here
 
that's pretty strange...when i was a bit depressed i started smoking weed and it went away....the fact that i started noticing a lot more in life probably aided this....now life is really fun and interesting :)
 
Cannabis can lead to depression.
Cannabis can help depression.

It's as simple as that. If it's giving you depression; STOP SMOKING IT!
 
Originally I started smoking to cure depression. Shrinks costed too much, and my meds made me a zombie. Rather than saying "I'm depressed without weed", it's more like... things are a bit boring without it, but still enjoyable. When you can't have fun without smoking weed, it's time to consider quitting.
 
Cannabis is not a depressant. It is actually more of a stimulant. But it is not in the depressant class of drugs such as Alcohol, GHB, Valium etc...

We all know weed works differently for everyone. I know people that rely on it for helping their depression (which is bad in a way I guess but safer than shitty dangerous Anti depressants), and people that cant smoke it because they become depressed.

It's to do with the mindstate. If you sit there and start introspecting and think.. geez.. maybe my life isnt so great as those rich mother fuckers out there.. you're going to slip into a downward spiral of bad thoughts. Try to focus on soemthing else, keep your mind occupied.

But if it still doesn't do what you want it to, then simply stop using it. It's not for everyone, and psychedelics have been known to increase depressing thoguhts in people with depression.
 
thanks for all the advice and opinions. i find thatwhen i smoke with other people this doesnt happen as much. perhaps i need to take velvet udergrounds suggestion and cut down.
thanks again
...cat
 
yeah mate just level it out you'll be fine. And splatt is right to a certain extent it is your mindstate....however, it's also a physical addiction to the drug hence must be treated like one, right?

Splatt: your right technically that pot is not a depressant, but you then contridict yourself by saying that its effects are varied.Ssurely these varied effects can lead one to the assumption that after pro-longed use the stimulating effects are much more thick and far between than the depressing moments. Sure it still has grand effects, and you still get high, but the low feeling inside caused by the addiction can ruin the high and cause depressing feelings.
 
In reality, if you had to classify pot as anything, you'd have to classify it as a depressant; as it reduces the amount of neurotransmitter realeased from neurons. In reality, its a silly way to classify any drug; because as we all know, sometimes weed is stimulatory, some times depressant, the same can be said for alcohol, and a lot doses GHB is stimulatory.
 
weed helped me get out of depression a lot, but mainly because i smoked it in controlled amounts and made sure to only smoke when i was feeling okay.
 
I was talking about depressants in the way of CNS depressants.
 
Pot as a therapy for depression

In the other thread, "Pot Frees the Mind" we were talking along the same lines. The discussion is mainly about how pot relaxes you and it is what state you are in that determinces the effects. If there are problems in your personal life, if you incorporate conflict within the choices you have made, pot will only allow you to focus more on those conflicts. As said in the other thread, pot relaxes your grip on your "sober" state allowing you to move into other states with greater ease.

If you are innocently trusting/beleiving that pot will make you depressed, then you will depress yourself and bring depressing thoughts to mind in reaction.

In my opinion, Cat Again, you had a conflict of some sort in your life, whether internal or external. When you got high, you allowed yourself to reflect upon these conflicts with more efficiency. In this you amplified your own depression and healthly brought it to the forefront of your attention. From there you identified that depression with the pot and symbolicly ridded yourself of that depression when you ridded yourself of the pot.

Whether the changes that came over you are viewed as comforting or discomforting doesn't matter, for the depression was dealt with in your own natural way. You allowed youself to view it and then discard it which is very healthy because it keeps stress from building up. Next time, though may I recommend that you do not identify your depression with the pot, but rather constructively use your high to view what real problems are actually causing the inner conflicts which you identify as depression. You do not need to focus specifically on the problems themselves, but instead just recognize thier exsistance and then move to correct them. Mearly focusing on the problem itself may bring about depression. All you must realize is that you are creating the depression and you need not create it any longer.

-Zoad

p.s. If you cannot rid yourself of the depression right away, do not give up! One must not get more depressed over how inneffective they are at elimination depression! This is very counter-productive!! Just wait it out.
 
some friends of mine, brothers, get depressed and suicidal thoughts run through there minds constantly when they smoke weed... i believe it is because when you smoke (or atleast me) you tend to focus more on stuff and your mind races to presumptions and depending on the presumptions it can turn into an over dramatic situation resulting in suicidal thoughts/depression
 
I quit smoking because I had similar depressing thought loops (and I don't get them anymore). Well, I also felt like I was getting slower, which I was, but my family has a history of that, like Splatt said weed effects different people differently. Weed started to make my mind race over little things I wouldn't have spent time on sober, and sober and high were running together so that paranoid thought process was getting to be all the time. Cat you don't seem to be where I was, but is that close? The thought loops were distressing mostly because I couldn't get myself out of them. Cutting down or taking a break might be helpful, but the nature of the depressing thoughts is key: are they significant depressing thoughts or notions that wouldn't bother you sober? If it's the second one, cutting down or taking a break helps. But you obviously aren't alone, hope it just goes away for you.

peace
 
I subscribe to the idea of your current mindset determining the direction of the high. But there seem to be a lot of factors in determining if pot makes you depressed. Some of those factors are (a) if you are susceptible to pot bringing about a pre-existing mental condition (which may include depression), (2) if you are already depressed, and/or (iii) if smoking the pot is causing you to get into a depressed/down mood.

For me, depression came about 8 months after I started frequently using pot recreationally. My parents always thought it was just the pot, although I think the pot just instigated/amplified a preexisting negative thought pattern. Pot seems to be able to do this.

A major part of ending the "problem" I had with pot is just forgetting about it - something pot also can make you do sometimes. I stopped smoking while getting pounded with numerous pharms from my psychiatrist, and soon I had to stop all drugs. Then all seemed fine.

I started smoking again, and soon enough (within a year) the depression returned. I got out of this one while continuing to smoke pot.

The next issue came when, for a while I would allow myself to sway between thinking I have a problem with weed, and a continual cycle of getting more and feeling guilty. Someone already expressed this position before in this thread.

Eventually I went to a psychiatrist and made a goal to stop smoking pot and find a more legal alternative to my "chemical imbalance." During this time my pot use tapered off to nothing. After another bunch of pharmaceutical drugs, I decided it would be better to lay off all drugs.

Within two months, I had started smoking pot again. This continued sparingly and pot wasn't really a problem. This attitude brought me to today, when pot isn't a thing.

I don't really crave it. I don't go around smoking a few blunts a day. I can get by smoking a bowl or bong, and some days I don't even smoke. Although I still smoke on a weekly basis, the smoking doesn't interfere with my life and I don't spend time obsessing over the fact that I smoke. That was just a figment of my imagination that I allowed myself to build up.

Hope this spreads some insight on the matter.
 
I been smokin str8 everyday for about a year now, admitedly at times i forget what i was doing and i have a shit memory, but i have never been happier :D
 
When I started smoking a little under a year ago I was a senior in Highschool and hadn't graduated yet, pot always made me happy.
But now that I've started college and my lifes changing, i find that I sometimes feel depressed when I smoke alot.
I can tell its because I'm stressed out with school work, finding new friends, money issues, and finding a job which I'm having no luck with right now.
So it depends on the situation your in when you smoke, if everything in your life is going well and your happy, youll probably be happy when you smoke, if everything stressing you out and changing, then you might feel depressed.
 
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