GrandMasterFrillz
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2013
- Messages
- 17
Background
I'm a pretty young guy, just finishing up my university degree, things are looking pretty good for me at the moment, in general. I have, however, always had a non-negligible amount of social anxiety and anxiety in general. To elaborate a little further on this, in the past I have found it difficult to approach and to get know new individuals apart from my ordinary group of friends, and I tend to have a fair amount of anxiety when it comes to situations such as meetings in university with members of staff whom I don't know. In addition to this, I have some irrational recurrent negative thought processes that generally occur when under pressure, in situations such as job interviews. These negative, irrational recurrent thought processes have caused me to have a panic attack on at least one occasion in the past.
My anxiety, in combination with my [relatively well controlled]* recreational drug use (I have used a fairly large cross-section of different drugs recreationally) has caused some depressive episodes during my life, but these episodes have generally not lasted longer than four or five weeks at a time and have occurred maybe 3 or 4 times in the last two to three years.
I have not been to see a doctor about any of this, but my entire family, whom seem to face similar problems as I, are all on anti-depressants (SSRIs) and I have spoken to them about my problems and anxiety in quite some detail. I have a feeling that if I went to see a doctor, they'd just throw the same anti-depressants at me. In the past when I have felt down, I have often thought that perhaps some cognitive therapy might be a good route to go down, but I have never actually followed through with going to see a therapist, I always seem to tell myself that I can sort it out myself; and generally I overcome the way that I'm feeling and resume my usual mental state. However, this doesn't seem to fix my anxiety.
More on Topic:
Recently, after having had a panic attack; I decided to give valium a go, I'd only ever used it recreationally before, when dealing with a comedown. I knew it was prescribed as an anti-anxiety medication and thought I might be able to utilise it in certain situations (e.g: social events I didn't feel comfortable with, job interviews, presentations, that kind of thing) to try and level myself out a little bit. I began using it about three weeks ago, in anticipation for a presentation and it worked wonders!
I have since been dosing approximately 5 to 10mg every 48 - 72 hours, which I didn't think was much. It has been making me feel much better, I defiantly feel revealed from a lot of the day-to-day anxieties that I face (certain social interactions, etc), so from a medicinal perspective, I think it's been quite effective. I initially thought that you'd probably be having to take it on a daily basis to acquire a physical dependency, but on second thoughts due to the lengthy half life, I'm thinking perhaps the dose I have been taking has been enough to begin to acquire a physical dependancy, since I have been experiencing some muscle pain and intermitted headaches for the last two days. It hasn't been anything too bad, but I don't really want to acquire a physical dependency to these things.
So I'm wondering what sort of length of time should be left between each dose to avoid acquiring a physical dependency?
Do you need to wait until the drug is out of your system entirely before taking anymore?
Is it impossible to avoid? Even on these small, spaced out dosages?
Do the therapeutic benefits and relief justify the continued usage of this drug?
Considering that I am fairly well disciplined with regards to my drug use, could continued usage only end in tears?
I would really appreciate any insights or opinions from anyone, especially those of you who can relate to what I'm saying and are experienced with this stuff,
Cheers,
GMF
* It's often difficult gauge exactly how well controlled your recreational drug use is, I guess it's sort subjective; but generally I feel that I don't use drugs often enough for it to qualify as a drug problem. To elaborate on this a little more, I don't feel that my drug use has interfered enough in my life to cause me to loose sight of my aims / goals and to follow through in obtaining those aims / goals (one step at a time).
I'm a pretty young guy, just finishing up my university degree, things are looking pretty good for me at the moment, in general. I have, however, always had a non-negligible amount of social anxiety and anxiety in general. To elaborate a little further on this, in the past I have found it difficult to approach and to get know new individuals apart from my ordinary group of friends, and I tend to have a fair amount of anxiety when it comes to situations such as meetings in university with members of staff whom I don't know. In addition to this, I have some irrational recurrent negative thought processes that generally occur when under pressure, in situations such as job interviews. These negative, irrational recurrent thought processes have caused me to have a panic attack on at least one occasion in the past.
My anxiety, in combination with my [relatively well controlled]* recreational drug use (I have used a fairly large cross-section of different drugs recreationally) has caused some depressive episodes during my life, but these episodes have generally not lasted longer than four or five weeks at a time and have occurred maybe 3 or 4 times in the last two to three years.
I have not been to see a doctor about any of this, but my entire family, whom seem to face similar problems as I, are all on anti-depressants (SSRIs) and I have spoken to them about my problems and anxiety in quite some detail. I have a feeling that if I went to see a doctor, they'd just throw the same anti-depressants at me. In the past when I have felt down, I have often thought that perhaps some cognitive therapy might be a good route to go down, but I have never actually followed through with going to see a therapist, I always seem to tell myself that I can sort it out myself; and generally I overcome the way that I'm feeling and resume my usual mental state. However, this doesn't seem to fix my anxiety.
More on Topic:
Recently, after having had a panic attack; I decided to give valium a go, I'd only ever used it recreationally before, when dealing with a comedown. I knew it was prescribed as an anti-anxiety medication and thought I might be able to utilise it in certain situations (e.g: social events I didn't feel comfortable with, job interviews, presentations, that kind of thing) to try and level myself out a little bit. I began using it about three weeks ago, in anticipation for a presentation and it worked wonders!
I have since been dosing approximately 5 to 10mg every 48 - 72 hours, which I didn't think was much. It has been making me feel much better, I defiantly feel revealed from a lot of the day-to-day anxieties that I face (certain social interactions, etc), so from a medicinal perspective, I think it's been quite effective. I initially thought that you'd probably be having to take it on a daily basis to acquire a physical dependency, but on second thoughts due to the lengthy half life, I'm thinking perhaps the dose I have been taking has been enough to begin to acquire a physical dependancy, since I have been experiencing some muscle pain and intermitted headaches for the last two days. It hasn't been anything too bad, but I don't really want to acquire a physical dependency to these things.
So I'm wondering what sort of length of time should be left between each dose to avoid acquiring a physical dependency?
Do you need to wait until the drug is out of your system entirely before taking anymore?
Is it impossible to avoid? Even on these small, spaced out dosages?
Do the therapeutic benefits and relief justify the continued usage of this drug?
Considering that I am fairly well disciplined with regards to my drug use, could continued usage only end in tears?
I would really appreciate any insights or opinions from anyone, especially those of you who can relate to what I'm saying and are experienced with this stuff,
Cheers,
GMF
* It's often difficult gauge exactly how well controlled your recreational drug use is, I guess it's sort subjective; but generally I feel that I don't use drugs often enough for it to qualify as a drug problem. To elaborate on this a little more, I don't feel that my drug use has interfered enough in my life to cause me to loose sight of my aims / goals and to follow through in obtaining those aims / goals (one step at a time).