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Cannabis use linked to anxiety diagnoses, worsened anxiety disorders
- kaonashi 3y agoDoes the study differentiate between strains used?
- edgyquant 3y agoYeah this pretty obvious to anyone with an anxiety disorder who tries pot as a solution. It gets recommended by users, who think it’s a cure because their anxiety is due to THc withdrawals. But if you aren’t a user and try it it explodes your anxiety and is just the worst.
- LordDragonfang 3y agoCan anecdotally confirm that I know lots of nonsmokers (or at least, those who don't regularly smoke) who find their anxiety spiked when they tried weed. Some of that is just because being in an altered state for the first time is fairly anxiety-inducing itself.
- morkalork 3y agoI find that even with tons of experience, it's a matter of frequency and habituation. When I was smoking every day, there wasn't any anxiety but after a long break, the next time is like the very first time. Full of anxiety.
- marcellus23 3y agoNot sure why this is being downvoted, you're completely correct — anxiety and paranoia are well-known effects of being high on weed (depending on the strain ofc), and anxiety and depression are well-known withdrawal symptoms. And it's much worse if you're already prone to anxiety and depression.
- huytersd 3y agoI smoked a lot about a decade ago. Anecdotally, I can confirm this as well. I would feel great if I got high when life was stress free but it heightened my anxiety when I was already worried about something. It also generally made me anxious to be around other people.
- Fauntleroy 3y agoI wouldn't say it's this simple—there are lots of different strains out there with wildly different effects due to the cannabinoids they contain. Furthermore, every person's own endocannabinoid system is different, and reacts differently to cannabinoids. For one person, a strain might make them feel relaxed and happy—for another, the same strain might make them simply fall asleep (or extremely anxious, for instance). There's also the very common issue of people new to cannabis using far, far too much—which generally results in a feeling of intense anxiety. Anyone who hasn't had any cannabis before should be extremely careful and use as little as possible. Finally, regular users who have developed a tolerance for certain cannabinoids may find it difficult to relax without them. Anyone regularly using a substance like cannabis should be on the lookout for this, and change their behavior accordingly.
- readthenotes1 3y agoIt's not obvious to my sibling. They won't confess they have anxiety even though it's hard to have a conversation with them without heading towards the apocalypse--a change concurrent with treating so e physical disorder with edibles and smokables.
- netule 3y agoThat has also been my experience. I’ve had anxiety since I was a child and was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. Back in 2014 or so, I was at my wits end and wanted to try medical marijuana since it was touted as a solution to my anxiety. I went to see a doctor, who doubled down on this being a good thing to try. So, I got my card, and went to a dispensary where I bought whatever they recommended for anxiety. Two hours later, I was having my biggest panic attack in years. If I didn’t grow up having panic attacks all my life, I would probably have called 911 or got someone to drive me to the ER. If there’s an easy fix for anxiety out there, I’d love to know about it. I’ve been fighting this for decades and it doesn’t get better as I get older. What kind of helps in the meantime is therapy, slow exposure to stressors (being careful to prevent flooding), and mindfulness meditation. None of this fixes my anxiety, but it makes it a little bit more manageable.
- xanderlewis 3y ago> I’ve been fighting this for decades and it doesn’t get better as I get older. As someone younger than you quite possibly suffering with the same thing, that’s saddening to hear. Is there anything you did that you wish you’d done sooner? Have you tried any (pharmaceutical) medication?
- thepasswordis 3y agoSee here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39278214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39278214
- netule 3y agoI do take Clonazepam when I get severe panic attacks or right before something I know usually triggers a panic attack, but nothing on a day-to-day basis. Clonazepam does seem to help with my symptoms, though it just makes me feel euphoric (which, I guess, is better than feeling like I'm dying). I take a tiny dose, but it seems to help a lot. I have a few things I wish I'd done sooner if you'd indulge my ranty and highly personal list: * Moving out of the city and into the country. I know this one is not feasible for most people, but it helped me to get out of the hustle and bustle and back to an environment similar to where I grew up. * Reducing caffeine and increasing water intake. I limit myself to one cup of coffee in the morning and no caffeine afterward. * Quitting my high-stress job in favor of a job at a startup and taking more breaks. * Daily cardio exercise for at least 30 minutes. * Talking about how I'm feeling with my partner. It seems simple and silly, but this one is crucial for me. I tend to lock up when I'm feeling crappy and lash out. Overcoming that and talking about how I'm feeling has helped enormously. * Going to therapy. These are all helping me cope, so I still have panic attacks, but not as often as a decade or so ago.
- j4yav 3y agoIt’s interesting how on HN whenever a topic related to cannabis comes up so many people jump in to say they have anxiety, and that weed makes it worse, and that it must be the same for everyone. Does HN have a higher than normal percentage of highly anxious people? Or is it just the threads attract the kind of people who are likely to be anxious and jumpy around the topic? It’s a really interesting phenomenon. In real life, people may like it or not, may still use it or not, but the discussion seems way more casual and nowhere near as singularly anxiety fixated as when the topic comes up here. I’m not judging, I’ve been treated for anxiety myself. Just quite curious about how different the conversations are.
- thepasswordis 3y agoA thread about anxiety does seem like it would attract people with anxiety who want to talk about anxiety.
- j4yav 3y agoSure, but the phenomenon exists across all the threads about cannabis.
- AlwaysRock 3y agoI think it's a recently developed pushback to the widespread love cannabis has received online for a long time. For a long time, it has been either heralded as a gateway drug or a magical cure all that could do no wrong. Now that it is much more widely available and many more people have actually tried it for extended periods of time, the narrative has shifted.
- j4yav 3y agoHow does saying you have anxiety when you smoke weed push back against people who were overly positive about it though?
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- calfuris 3y agoI wouldn't read too much into this story, as any people who do benefit from THC probably wouldn't be visiting an emergency department for cannabis-related reasons. I'll also say, as someone with an anxiety disorder, that it certainly didn't make it worse. For me, it worked pretty much like Xanax: did wonders for my anxiety, but I couldn't manage to get anything done, so I had to switch back to my usual not-completely-effective meds.
- maxbond 3y agoIt's definitely more than just conflating "treating" THC withdrawal with treating anxiety, at least for me personally. I'll quit for months, have an anxiety attack, and I'm able to interrupt it by using cannabis. It doesn't per say treat my anxiety but can be like a "rescue inhaler" to disrupt repetitive anxious thoughts and snap me out of an anxiety attack. Once they're disrupted, I have a fighting chance to confront my anxiety with other strategies (which are the real long term solutions). But it does make perfect sense to me that the effects of cannabis on someone who has been a longtime user are quite different and that it isn't great generic advice to tell people to try cannabis for their anxiety. I definitely think this current vogue of trying to apply cannabis to every problem is misguided and an artefact of the commercial environment around cannabis being increasingly legal, not our medical understanding of it.
- DANmode 3y agoI'm comfortable recommending broad-spectrum CBD with little or no THC as an anxiety aid. Not all cannabis has THC, high THC (the anxiety-inducing part, for most). Nor should it!
- maxbond 3y agoI'm aware, but I personally wouldn't recommend any mind altering substance to anyone without a lot of context. When I was a young troublemaker my friends and I fancied ourselves as knowledgeable and made very casual recommendations to people about what substances they should try and what dosages would be appropriate. It became apparent to me that a dosage that has no discernable effect on one person can put another under the table, and I became very, very conservative about such things. Eg, I've seen people smoke large amounts of weed and concentrates and then go off and do something productive, and I've seen people take a single hit or gummy and have a panic attack. Someone I know tried a CBD product to see if it would help their anxiety (to be clear, they didn't consult with me on this, this was of their own volution). They somehow had gotten the impression that they wouldn't feel high, and were alarmed when they did. In that case, there wasn't any lasting harm, they simply didn't try it again. I know another person who would have a lot of anxiety on CBD gummies. Again, no lasting harm, they just stopped taking them. But I don't believe that there is no cause for caution with CBD products. I see CBD gummies advertised for just about everything, from helping you sleep to helping you feel awake and helping you feel aroused. These are all plausible effects for someone to experience, but I don't believe we have it down to such a science that these experiences can be bottled and productized. There's clearly a lot of snake oil out there. To be clear I think it's broadly good that cannabis is being slowly legalized in the US and that people have the opportunity to experiment and see if it's helpful to them. I've just had a respect for mind-altering substances ingrained in me, so I'm not uncomfortable with how casually people sometimes recommend these products.
- honkycat 3y ago> who think it’s a cure because their anxiety is due to THc withdrawals. You don't have any proof that this is true or not, yet you state it as fact. Lazy thinker.
- barbazoo 3y ago> The study looked at health data of 12 million people between January 2008 and March 2019 and found that 27.5 per cent of people who visited an emergency room for cannabis use developed an anxiety disorder for the first time within three years. Others are way better at judging a study's methodology but this immediately caught my eye. Shouldn't we also look at cannabis users who didn't visit an ER? And what else was in those people's blood at the time? THC vs CBD? Obviously no link to the actual study so it's hard to judge really.
- LordDragonfang 3y agoAlso, what's the base rate of developing an anxiety disorder? NIH says: > An estimated 19.1% of U.S. adults had any anxiety disorder in the past year. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/any-anxiety-disorder https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/any-anxiety-disor... That's pretty high already, and I imagine the base rates for anxiety developing among "people who have to be hospitalized for any reason" are much higher than the general pop.
- buffington 3y agoAm I right in seeing that the data referenced in that article was collected between 2001-2004? If so, I wonder how that compares to today. I suspect we'd see much higher numbers for data collected 2019-2023, given the pandemic and associated garbage fires.
- j4yav 3y agoWhat does it mean to visit an ER for cannnabis? Wouldn’t that typically be an anxiety attack in the first place?
- throwanem 3y agoIf you've never had a panic attack before, the first one is easy to mistake for something a lot more dangerous.
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- zzzeek 3y agocan confirm here, pot just causes lots of paranoia a few hours after smoking, ill stick with lexapro thanks
- ModernMech 3y agolexapro made me suicidal. YMMV
- op00to 3y agoI'm sorry to hear that, I'm glad you're still here. That's one of the reasons why theres a black box warning for Lexapro about the risk of suicide. I'm told the reason behind this is a significantly anxious and depressed person may indeed be suicidal, but because of their condition are unable to effectively plan and execute the plan. Once lexapro enters the system, the individual can now plan and execute. This is why lexapro should be paired with close monitoring by a psychatrist, and individuals taking lexapro should be made aware of the risk. Lexapro has been a life saver for me.
- freeplay 3y agoI smoked all throughout my teens and twenties. Once I hit my 30s, smoking would give me insane anxiety and, occasionally, full blown panic attacks. Obviously, this is very anecdotal and may have to do with other factors in my life (increased responsibilities to worry about as you get older, kids, etc.). It got to the point where I asked myself why I was even doing it if it was no longer fun or relaxing in any way. People who love cannabis think it's the cure for everything. While I don't doubt its medicinal uses, it's definitely not for everyone.
- accrual 3y agoI agree it has something to do with responsibilities and/or "getting caught". As a young adult I had a lot less going on and cannabis was a wonderful tool for creativity and getting things done. Older, I find myself worrying about more things and cannabis can bring in introspective thought loops which manifest as anxiety. Fortunately I'm better at separating that out now and it doesn't affect me as much - but I know if I was chilling in a hammock in a wooded area somewhere without deadlines to meet, I'd be a lot less anxious. Also, quitting caffeine cut my anxiety in half.
- plasma_beam 3y agoAlso agree it's 100% the responsibilities/feeling guilty syndrome. But I'm basing this on my personal experience only. I suffer from bouts of anxiety and depression. I also like to partake in cannabis. If I'm feeling depressed, anxious, sad - WARNING - don't do cannabis!! It amplifies the feeling. I would never use it for an escape from bad stuff. If I'm feeling good, then go for it! It's a mind altering substance. If your mind isn't in a great place to begin with, what do people think cannabis is going to do? And yeah, cut down on caffeine and sleep some more.
- coffeebeqn 3y agoIt doesn’t for me. If anything it makes my depression and anxiety better for a little bit. It helps me focus on just one thing rather than worry about all the things in the world. Set and setting do matter just like other drugs. If I’m sitting at my back garden then I feel very at peace high. If I’m downtown then I’ll feel anxious from the sensory overload
- cypherg 3y agoI've smoked every day for 15 years and I'm still not addicted
- cypherg 3y agoIt's a psychoactive substances, none of this is the least bit surprising. It helps some people with anxiety and it worsens it for others.
- xeckr 3y agoCannabis is not for everyone.
- accrual 3y agoAgree. IMO it takes a certain personality to enjoy it and make the best of it. Others will find it an awful experience and never touch it again. Nothing wrong in either case.
- oldandboring 3y agoI've been on and off this train. I smoked in high school, not at all in college, again in my twenties, not at all in my thirties, started again recently. I definitely have anxiety but I would not say the pot has triggered panic attacks or otherwise brought on or amplified the anxiety. That said, while the pot has a nice numbing effect for a couple hours, it certainly has not made my anxiety better and I definitely sleep much better when I haven't consumed any THC. Same goes for alcohol.
- bagful 3y agoWhat kind of cannabis are people trying to treat their anxiety with? If it's high-THC dispensary strains and oil cartridges, no wonder; such products have hardly any medicinal value.
- vundercind 3y agoDose level, too. I find being very-high terribly anxiety-inducing. I don’t like it at all. But ~5-8mg of gummy is amazing as a sleep aid (which is largely, for me, about shutting down anxiety hard) and ~3mg (as needed, and rarely, for me) to take the edge off daytime anxiety. Lower doses are quite effective if it’s “full spectrum” and not just isolated THC. The higher (ha, ha) end of that range does “get me high” but in a pretty mild way, like having a really solid alcohol buzz but not being an unfortunate level of inebriated. Meanwhile, I’ve given myself a very unpleasant half-hour with a single too-large puff on a strong vape pen. When I was first getting used to it, 5mg sent me straight to bed, do not pass go, hope you didn’t have any other plans, and was a little too much. I wonder how much of this is from people using it to get very high on purpose, or from novice medicinal users dosing too high.
- cornhole 3y agoymmv but this was the case for me
- seanthemon 3y agoOutside of this study, if you're a constant smoker and you suffer from morning nausea, please see cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome I suffered from intense bouts of nausea often lasting days (and my last time a whole week), I learned of CHS and stopped my use immediately, finally stopped the pain The pain and nausea was so bad, it was honestly the worst i've ever felt
- facialwipe 3y agoJust to clarify, how did you typically consume cannabis?
- supertofu 3y agoI speculate concentrates.
- seanthemon 3y agoMy country doesn't have easily accessible concentrates, but I did dry herb vape high quality cannabis and smoke on occasion (maybe 3 times a week)
- seanthemon 3y agoDaily dry herb vaping and occasional smoking (3 times a week), but very high quality
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y agoI get a strain at the dispensary that's 1:1 THC:CBD. It's a lot better for me than the high THC stuff; I can't handle those.
- thepasswordis 3y agoCannabis use seemed to "unlock" a type of anxiety that I had never experienced before, and after using it, I could never "forget" this feeling. Absolute hell that now recurs. It seems absolutely insane to me that our pop culture pushes this stuff as at worse benign, but usually beneficial.
- hooo 3y agoCan you elaborate on what type of anxiety it unlocked?
- ushakov 3y agoThey're probably talking about intense paranoia. I have a friend, who told me about the one time they were high and couldn't pee, because of the fear that their organs would flush down the toilet...
- thepasswordis 3y agoSure, what's frustrating is that it isn't tied to any fear (if that makes sense). It's not the traditional "I'm gonna get caught!" thing you see in movies. The best I can describe is: pretend there's a murderer right outside of your window, he's coming to kill you and tapping on the glass. Your heart rate is spiked, your body is flooding you with adrenaline, fight or flight is in full kickoff mode; you need to either *run* away, or fight. But now imagine you get all of those physical sensations, but there is no killer outside and you know it. You feel the fight or flight, but you don't have any idea what it is in response to. Trying to slow down is difficult, and you can feel sortof uncoordinated when walking around (your body is screaming to run, so walking feels off somehow). Unfortunately it's hard to describe. It is definitely not psychological concern about something, though, and this is where some frustration when talking about it comes from. There's nothing to reassure yourself of or calm down from, because you're not having the psychological effects of anxiety, just the physical ones.
- p1mrx 3y agoSounds like you should get into running.
- d--b 3y agoIs this the typical case of correlation vs causation? From personal experience, using cannabis when you’re not anxious is a pretty un pleasant experience. It causes a slight euphoria followed by severe tiredness, and nausea. Everyone I know who used cannabis past their thirties does it out of self medication for anxiety/sleep problems.
- theshackleford 3y ago> From personal experience, using cannabis when you’re not anxious is a pretty un pleasant experience. It causes a slight euphoria followed by severe tiredness, and nausea. This does not match my experience, which of course will vary. I don’t get any nausea for a start, and am often ingesting to assist with nausea. Most people in their 30’s I know avoid it as it triggers their already existing anxiety. I took it up in my 30s in combination with other drugs following a spinal cord injury and it’s done nothing to assist with anxiety sadly, and has triggered some bouts, though is quite good for helping me eat. I imagine it’s tripped my anxiety as I’ve been quite anxious since the injury and surgeries to begin with. I managed to reduce those instances by mixing with a CBD heavy strain (my THC strains are all 25% plus which is recommended for my circumstances).
- Madmallard 3y agoAnxiety is an evolutionary mechanism to alert the individual that something is wrong and must be dealt with. That should tell you most of you need to know about whether the it is good for you or not. If you have intolerable pain or no appetite and it solves those issues, then maybe that is worth it. In most cases and for most people, it's likely not worth it. Cannabis lowers blood pressure and can cause tachycardia and has a statistically significant association with the development of heart failure in some users. In my own personal life, I had an episode of moderate autonomic dysfunction after taking it several times with seemingly no issue. While in the hospital the attending ER doctor told me I should probably stay away from it. That was the last time I had it. He was lighthearted and put a joke diagnosis of toxic encephalopathy on the discharge notes.
- rangerelf 3y agoWeed makes you paranoid. Who'da thunk.
- micromacrofoot 3y agoI mean, yeah... if you have a certain type of anxiety (maybe a little paranoia for example) then cannabis will very often exaggerate that feeling. You can very well get stuck on it. I've told new cannabis users this for quite some time. Many people who end up in the hospital because of cannabis convince themselves they're dying, but really they're having what's closer to a bad trip. Edibles are especially prone to this because people often are impatient and end up eating too much because they don't think it's working. Many drugs (including alcohol!) are multipliers. People need to be especially careful if they have preexisting mental illnesses, especially if they've ever experienced psychosis. A lot of people blame poor behavior on whatever they took, but that's always a little bit of a personality tell because often they're just talking about lowered inhibitions. If that makes you a total asshole, then maybe consider why... because drugs aren't giving you new personality traits.
- oblib 3y agoI'll chime in because I've been using cannabis for over 50 years. First off, I've never suffered with anxiety. if anything, THC has been a great help in relieving that for me. I also say that over those years there have been long spells of time when I couldn't get any weed, and again, never had issues with that either. No "withdrawal" issues or anxiety issues at all. The only weed induced anxiety I've ever experienced was caused by knowing I could get arrested for possession, but that's never happened, and where I live now it's legal, so I don't have to worry about that anymore. Personally, I think that the social stigma associated with "refer madness" may be related to weed induce anxiety. But there are studies that indicate THC does affect people differently and that genetics may have something to do with that. For example, those who suffer with psychoses may have issues with weed triggering psychotic episodes, but I recently read that CBD may reduce those events. I think it would be interesting to hear from those dealing with anxiety if CBD relieves that.
- bottlepalm 3y agoI'll throw my own anecdotal evidence in here. I found weed to be fun when I was younger, but after few years I started getting really paranoid when I smoked, like a switch was flipped in my brain. Probably after some edible overdoses. So now I mostly avoid it, or use alcohol to dull the paranoia. I also have a lot of friends with the the same story where it was fun at first, but later just anxiety, paranoia and over thinking things. Looks like in this thread there a lot of similar stories as well.
- Workaccount2 3y agoI'm in this camp and have met many others too. I was a typical heavy user for a few years before over the course of a week I went from chill-out high to full-blown paranoia and insomnia. Tried weed periodically after that and always got the same intense paranoia/anxiety. Now with edibles I can eat a very small dose (2-4mg) and just skate under the threshold for freak-out, but its a far cry from when I used to eat gummies by the mouthful and have goofy fun for hours afterwards.
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- mouse_ 3y ago"people looking for solutions linked to problems" very informative
- rossdavidh 3y agoWhile I don't doubt that there could be a link, it seems ridiculous that they don't (at least as far as we can tell from this article) do anything to tell if this is causation one-way or the other. Not hard to imagine that people who are starting to suffer from chronic anxiety may try self-medication before they try the emergency room. Again, not saying there's no causation the way they imply, but basic experimental principles should tell you to try to control for this somehow, for example by looking at overall anxiety rates before and after it becomes commonly available in a given community, or comparing similar sized communities in different areas with different availability.
- paulpauper 3y agoCannabis is not a dissociative drug. I think pop culture has instilled a false belief it has a calming or chill effect, but it's the opposite.
- hirvi74 3y agoI guess I am somewhat different than many of the commenters in this thread. Cannabis has caused anxiety in me before, but I had anxiety problems prior fwiw. In a weird way, I kind of used the anxiety from Cannabis as "training." What I mean, is that when I would get anxious from cannabis, I would try and talk myself down, remind myself that nothing bad was going to happen, and then kind of intentionally try to refrain my thoughts in order to force myself to enjoy the experience. I learned that the more I did this, the better I was at being able to do this in other situations where I would be inappropriately anxious about something (even without Cannabis). It's not perfect, but has seemed to work better than anything else I have tried. So, my point is that I learned the only way I can apparently beat anxiety is to charge it head on.
- janeerie 3y agoYou basically just did exposure therapy (the most effective therapy for anxiety) with cannabis as your trigger.
- mikhmha 3y agoWow, same thing for me as well. It was very effective because it was like OK I know for sure I'm in a state of anxiousness right now because I just consumed something mind-altering - there is no ambiguity to it. So then you roll with it and gradually start to become bolder in your actions. Because its like "well I thought I was gonna die last time but I didn't so it really was all in my head. Why do I waste so much brain CPU on things that are meaningless?". It didn't 100% solve my anxiety but it put me on the path to finally seek out a legitimate and effective solution because I had enough reference to compare to.
- cthalupa 3y agoNot exactly the same situation, but... a little similar, I guess? Cannabis has never given me generalized anxiety - sometimes it does, however, force me to pay attention to some real truths that I tend to ignore while sober. e.g., I gained 60lb from the start of quarantine to now, became way less physically active, etc. If I get particularly high, it forces me to confront this, and that it's a destructive lifestyle I need to change instead of continuing to put it off. And, well, I think that anxiety is deserved? It's objectively true and a literal life and death matter. For me it's less I have anxiety in general because I am very good at not being honest with myself while not high, but that the anxiety I sometimes get really is constructive, because otherwise I ignore it. A recent shift in my eating habits for the better was directly brought on by a particularly bad bout of anxiety around all of this while very high, and I would consider that to be a good thing. Most of the time when I get stoned I don't deal with any sort of anxiety, though.
- throw3450 3y agoIMO what really matters is the THC concentration. I've suffered from generalized anxiety since early childhood, and the one time I tried typical, high-THC content recreational cannabis things didn't go well. I got a full-blown panic attack, and maybe even psychotic symptoms for a while, afterwards I wasn't sure whether I imagined some things or not. Later when I tried a CBD product I didn't have any problems, just a slight calming effect comparable to having a couple of beers. Since then I've also found out that I probably have increased genetic likelihood of developing schizophrenia. I'll never touch anything with significant THC concentration again, just way too risky.
- DiscourseFan 3y agoYou know, I've only ever had one bad experience with cannabis, and it was only bad for like 30 minutes or so (though it felt much, much longer). I made edibles, and I'd never made them before but I followed online instructions very precisely and ended up, by accident, creating extra-potent brownies. Now, I knew before taking them how potent they were, I was licked the mixing spoon the night before, just a tiny bit here and there, and even that little bit was enough to make me relatively high. But when my friends saw how tiny the doses were, they thought I was being crazy and we all ended up getting each other to take waaaay to many, especially me, the host, which was an especially bad idea because within an hour I'd gone into my room, gotten into bed, and put on some youtube video to calm me down. Well, not very long after getting into bed I had this feeling of immense warmth and comfort, and I got super blissed out and my friends would come in to check up on me and I just gave them a thumbs up with a massive grin on my face. At some point one of my friends joined me in my room, and then sometime later I rejoined the party, which was getting along fine without me, and then we dispersed after we started to sober up. So, all in all, it was a good experience. But I got super fucking high and I was literally starting to lose touch with reality before I sequestered myself, and my heart was beating out of my chest so hard I thought I was actually going to have a heart attack and die. I think it was easier for me to handle since I've had experience with fairly high doses of psychedelics in the past. I suppose alls well that ends well.
- drojas 3y agoThe older you get the more responsibilities and also regrets you have. With more responsibilities and the feeling of not being able to manage them you feel as soon as the THC goes away, it is hard not to get anxious as you age, and it also adds more regrets which directly add to the anxiety and feeling of self-defeat and lack self-control. At least that was in my experience and the reason why I dropped it completely soon after turning 30.
- temporallobe 3y agoJust my personal anecdote: I’ve had moderate anxiety since I was a kid. When I was around 16, I tried weed for the first time and it made my anxiety far worse (in fact I had a pretty bad panic attack). Being a stupid teen susceptible to peer pressure, I tried it a few more times in my late teens and early twenties and had an extremely bad experience each time. Pretty much the same thing happened to my son, but worse. He actually used it to try to reduce his anxiety, and it did work at first, but eventually it made him worse and he had to go on anxiolytics.
- SomeAnxiety 3y agoI'm kind of opposite of some of these postings. I got diagnosed with anxiety a bit over 3 years ago. I crashed and burned, hard. I've been going through various prescription changes, and I'm usually ok, but I've had some really bad days over the past few months. So, after doing a lot of reading, trying to sift out the anecdata, I started an experiment where I added to my pill set, a 10 mg gummies of CBD each morning for the past month or so, and it's been a very pleasant experience. I don't get stoned. I don't dread work. I'm generally productive with my code, and I'm not feeling overwhelmed. It's not perfect, and I still have a bad day here and there, such as this weekend, but it's manageable now. I've actually been feeling somewhat normal, and it's good.
- anonzzzies 3y agoI had my first experience with cannabis when I was a teenager (14 or so) (it was the Netherlands; everyone I knew smoked it); it was a piece of spacecake. After the first laughs it turned into anxiety and paranoia fast. It was horrible. I did it 2 times more with the same effect. Never again. I always say that if you want to torture me to get info (not that I have any but say I was a senator or whatever), just give me spacecake and put on some flashing lights and start shouting at me; I’ll give you whatever you want to make it stop and have Xanax.
- robador 3y agoHad a similar experience, but I was older and used more often. After that experience I was never able to use cannabis again. I'm all for legalization, but THC is not a harmless substance.
- InCityDreams 3y agoPerhaps your problem is the Xannies?
- anonzzzies 3y agoI never took any; I only know the term from people with anxiety. I don't have anxiety unless I eat spacecake :)
- weare138 3y agoCannabis is like anything. It's not for everyone. Some people experience anxiety from drinking coffee. Everyone's physiology is different.
- P_I_Staker 3y agoThis is a horrible title, that should mention the ER visit.
- moi2388 3y agoWow, maybe people who experience high anxiety tend to self medicate?