Anxiety Talking yourself (affirmations) out of weed-induced health anxiety?

sadmachine

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 14, 2022
Messages
58
I indulge in weed for 2-3 week stints once every 3-6 months. Have done for 15+ years.

Since a traumatic event in 2017 I have often suffered from health anxiety, however I've gotten really good at controlling it in the past 2-3 years. One problem I do get is I become convinced something is wrong whenever I smoke any amount of weed. I start checking my heart rate and blood pressure and feel horribly scared. It always lasts 15-30 minutes then im all good, sometimes if I resmoke in the day it can happen but usually its only the first time. If I go to the gym beforehand I can skip it most of the time too, or if I happen to be on a long acting benzo. There have been some strains that this doesn't happen on but it's not the ones you would think and my strain range is highly limited.

I had a very intense LSD trip yesterday and during the absolute peak loss of rationality I just randomly had the most abrupt sudden clarity and thought "I scare myself on purpose when I smoke weed, weed is harmless, it's my subconscious fighting back because I feel guilty about smoking weed"

I remembered it somehow, and now when I smoked today and those feelings of terror came I just said out loud what I wrote above and tried to convince myself to stop getting panic from weed. It was a bit strange and out of the blue I know, but I have this gut feeling that it might really work. Any discussion about health anxiety is cool.
 
The smoking complicates things, because it's a genuine health hazard.

Have you tried oral use?
 
yeah I occasionally make edibles and occasionally dry herb vape, I find edibles to be the worst for it and vape is about the same as joints. I really applied myself to convincing myself not to panic today and it helped so much.
 
IME, not putting down weed after the anxiety got to super high levels didn't do me any good in the end. It's just not worth it for me. And I'm pretty sure that it hurt my brain, all those times paying to feel like I'm in North Korea or some shit. It was a sign to me that I need to move on, but I just didn't listen to it. Hindsight is 20-20, I know, though. I had limited success at times reducing the anxiety, but damn it couldn't have been good for me to indulge after that started happening.
 
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