My dissent into mental illness

[washingtonbound]

My descent into mental illness

Hi all, I wanted to share my experience because I've been doing a lot self reflection over the past few months and I thought you could benefit from hearing it.

First of all, I can't stand it when people have a negative experience with a substance and because of that try to preach to others that it won't work for them either. Everyone's brain chemistry is different and some people can certainly benefit from moderate marijuana use among other things. But unfortunately in my experience, the increase in my marijuana use kickstarted my pitfall.

When I was in high school I smoked off and on but it was never more than very casual use. I saw it as similar to drinking in the sense that it would give people something to do in social situations besides just sitting around. But when I got to college, I ramped my use up to daily and this unfortunately was one of the worst decisions I could have made.

The concerning thing is that I don't have any family history of mental illness. No bipolar/schizophrenia or anything of that nature. However, I have dealt with a fair bit of self esteem issues and a lot of intrusive thoughts. Often times I would feel a lot of negative feelings about myself which the weed initially alleviated. I would be able to enter a completely non judgemental and tranquil state of mind when I smoked.

But as I continued to smoke daily I would feel worse and worse afterward. The intrusive thoughts got bad to the point of me hitting myself and I appeared very strange to people at my college. My mental health got worse and worse as I over indulged in weed and strong wax to the point of a psychotic break. Ever since then I have not been the same.

Just wanted to share this with you all because in my experience weed will only be a temporary band aid for more complex psychological issues and there isn't a way out of dealing with them. I would encourage those of you who use weed to avoid dealing with certain aspects of yourself to examine it. If I had been more cognizant of my use earlier I wouldn't have ended up in this situation.

 

[poledriver]

Good post. How are you now? Have you totally stopped using weed and seen those issues you described slow down or hopefully even go away? The negative thoughts towards yourself or hitting yourself? I guess you were self medicating with weed, you could have gone on to do it more and more with alcohol or some type of prescription medication. All of those things could also have had some negative side effects though.

I think using a lot of weed, especially highly potent concentrates can more easily cause issues. I love living in the country now where I can often get weed that is grown out doors under the sun with no chemical nutrients. I grew up in the city of Sydney Australia when I was younger and we used a lot of very strong hydro weed that I think messed with our brains a lot more than the bush weed I often get now. I dislike it when I have no other choice by to buy the hydro weed, it's often grown by crime gangs and pumped full of nutrients and PGR's and not flushed correctly. Where as the bush buds I often get are more from peoples personal grows, grown with love and care and when I use the bush weed I dont feel the need to re dose nearly as much and I feel better.

I hope you are in a better place now.

 

[washingtonbound]

Thanks for your response. Unfortunately the bandwagon has gotten worse for me over the past couple of years. In conjunction with smoking I used psychedelics a fair bit to try and understand my mental situation even more, needless to say this didn't work out to well. While I used to be able to handle tripping every once in a while, ever since my first bout with weed psychosis it is out of the question. Since that episode psychedelics are just about guaranteed to send me to the psychiatric hosptial. I guess the point of the post is that weed is what started me down the path of not being able to handle myself mentally. I think it has a lot to do with frying my pleasure center; when I started smoking a lot of wax daily I began to have a harder and harder time dealing with myself sober. To this day sobriety is still hard for me and I do struggle with mental illness. I have put a lot of thought into what exactly it is and am still puzzled. The guilt, anger and shame is definitely there but I know it's a lot deeper than that.

 

[DerDiebKommt]

I'm with you bud, I smoked about a year straight even though I would even get super anxious while I was high sometimes I would always go back to toking, which is psychological addiction.

My mental health wasn't good at the time, but I'm positive smoking that often made it much more worse and I have developed a couple other mental disorders.

 

[herbavore]

Just remember that mental health is very fluid. I had severe mental health problems as a young teenager--including symptoms that would now get me a pretty serious diagnosis (hearing voices) but I had a drive to understand myself and I think that is what saved me. Your post makes it clear that you are also motivated to understand what is causing the imbalance in your psyche. For me psychedelics were therapeutic but I say that while at the same time issuing a huge warning to others that this is not always the case. If I were advising my younger self today I would never advise taking psychedelics unsupervised. But for me, it gave me back what was missing: a connection to something deeper than the superficial world I spent my days battered by.

I think that your best bet is to stay away from weed (and psychedelics) as it triggers the issues that are plaguing you, like anxiety and overthinking. Get into cooking if you are not already, and make having a good diet something pleasurable and engaging. If you live in a place where you can have your own garden that is even better because the activity of being connected to the earth, of actually nurturing your own nutrition, is a trip! As much time as you can find to spend in nature will be time spent healing. Most of our self-negating thoughts are tied to human society--and our own perceptions and reactions to it. Removing yourself from it physically can be a very easy way to regain your internal balance. Some people have to get used to it--and even find at first that being alone in nature without distractions actually triggers more negative thinking. But give it time and search for places that can give you the calmness of trees and see what happens.

The other free and often overlooked healer is exercise. Do you get exercise?

 

[washingtonbound]

Thanks for the post. I have somewhat delved into the activities and lifestyle habits that many promote as an alternative to drug use. I was really into eating a pescatarian diet for a while, taking loads of herbal supplements/drinking tea, etc, in an attempt to attain that higher state of mind in conjunction with some yoga and exercise. The problem is nothing really stuck. I just became so hard wired to instant gratification that I now have a hard time having the foresight necessary to make long term changes. I am in the process now of making baby steps, gradually cooking more and trying different medication, to see how things work for me.
As for the exercise piece I am struggling to break sedentary habits.

 

[washingtonbound]

Yea I think it's unfortunate that there isn't more research on long term effects of daily smoking. As much as I don't like to admit it there have definitely been psychological problems that I've developed post daily use that I haven't fully recovered from. It is definitely not a substance that works well in conjunction with mental illness in my experience.

 

[Transcendence]

Remember that your brain can and will heal from this in time if you take care of yourself. It is a good sign that you are able to reach the self-reflection needed for self-improvement. I've also been there, and despite my persistent fears, things do return to homestasis if you have the willpower. Good luck and we'll wishes.

 

[HJ420]

Remember that your brain can and will heal from this in time if you take care of yourself. It is a good sign that you are able to reach the self-reflection needed for self-improvement. I've also been there, and despite my persistent fears, things do return to homestasis if you have the willpower. Good luck and we'll wishes.

I'm totally with Transcendence on this one. Keep a positive attitude and keep away from the weed. Over time the balance will return