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Cannabis Usage (Any similar experiences?)

Did you have similar experiences?

  • Yes

  • No, it didn't do much for me

  • No, it made things worse

  • I have never tried it

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B

Brainhearty

New Member
Cannabis Usage (Any similar experiences?)

So I am 26 years old (officially diagnosed when around 12) and I always have been struggling with social rules and dynamics and id say its more of a disconnect between my own self within me and the person society expects me to be (social rules). And recently I have been getting into cannabis a lot, I have tried it before but it never really did much for me when just smoking. Now after getting myself a Vape and vaping cannabis I had the most life changing experiences that helped me feel more like part of the world and society. It is quite hard to put into words but I just drift away into my own mind and just think and tinkle about literally everything that has to be mentioned in the rules that have been written in my brain. I hope those words don't get tainted too much by society's views of cannabis but I sometimes wonder if this plant really just is something for just healing wounds and helping your body and mind. Just like a lot of other plants that have different kinds of healing effects. It has really helped me break down walls within and learn more about myself.

Has anyone had similar experiences?
 
I never liked cannabis or any other drugs for that matter. Anything that makes me feel altered is not good for me. I don't even take strong painkillers when I have had surgery.

But many people are convinced that cannabis has very positive qualities so you will have good company. Did you know Rick Steves (Travels in Europe on PBS) is a big supporter of cannabis?
 
I found that it helps immensely with brain racing. I’ve used it for years, and during college it helped me ace some of my test due to it slowing my brain down enough to think of the answer. For some people it’s a wonderful drug. it could be bad for others I don’t know. Most folks I know are in their 50’s -70’s and half use and half don’t. Many use it medicinally, helps with sleep and pain too. All the warnings are BS, I was on the honor roll and have used daily for over 45 years so yeah, it’s pure Baloney what was sold to people years ago about it. I’m all for adults having the ability to use it like any other herb. We use it in food in the evenings for a better painless night of sleep. I smoked it during the early years but not a big fan of the vape, hurt my lungs a bong is more in line or favor.
 
 
I've heard some promising things about the therapeutic benefits of drugs such as marijuana, ketamine, mushrooms, LSD, etc. It seems to me that a large part of autism is about an over- or under-active nervous system. It makes sense that marijuana might help with some of this.

I live in a state where marijuana is currently legal. I've often thought about going up to one of the dispensaries but have thus far, avoided it. My limited experience with marijuana has been mixed. When I was studying abroad in Amsterdam I tried it and felt nothing. I don't smoke so it's possible I was doing it wrong. I guess there are some strains that can be relaxing while others are stimulating. I'm not sure what I've had but I let a friend convince me to try a vape once and I nearly had a panic attack.

If you find it helpful, that's great. I think navigating the world with autism can be difficult and if we find things to help us, that's wonderful. However, I also agree with those who suggest caution. While THC may not be addictive from a neurological point of view, I think marijuana can be habit-forming, especially if you feel you need it to be normal. I've definitely known people who had to smoke every day. While it may be helpful to you, it should not stop your journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance.
 
Up until the age of 28, I never did much of anything except nasty drugs that were forced upon me and did me no good whatsoever.

I got into THC second hand after spending a couple of months in Amsterdam in 1975 (and no that was neither the impetus or the location). I actually got a tiny bit high from inhaling second hand smoke in the backseat of a car with some friends who were smoking in the front seat. Not something I recommend in hindsight, but it was interesting enough that I finally decided to try it first hand. [The two friends once described me as the straightest looking freak they knew, which I took as a complement, for it meant I was blending in to some extent even if marginally]

Anyway, that opened me up to possibilities. I do not advocate the path I chose, as it was foolhardy and extremely dangerous, if anyone wishes to know what that was, they can PM me, for I hesitate to go into detail in public.

It is sufficient to say that it led to a breakthrough that eventually eliminated the deep periodic depressions and finally made me comfortable with myself.

So yes, I have had experience and beyond. but what worked for me is not guaranteed to work for anyone else as we are all individuals even if we share some common traits. I urge caution and a deep examination of why you use it and what benefits you gain. Also it is best if you use it sporadically with long periods of time in between.

Now I use for chronic arthritic pain that is present in every joint in my body. Opioids are far worse and never gave me much benefit when I was in hospital. I could write volumes, but I think I have pretty much covered things from my viewpoint.
 
I've never tried it. Like any drug, it can have some nasty side effects, some caused by the way it's consumed. When you inhale smoke from burning plant matter, you inhale many other harmful substances besides the desired ones, that can damage your lungs and cause harm. That's a bad idea in my opinion and just doesn't make sense. So if I were to try it, it would be in edible form.
 
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I have been told that the medical version could have helped my chronic pain sometime ago but I was too depressed to try any. The more severe part of it ended up teaching me more about myself than any class I'd taken because I randomly lost most of the use of my right arm for several months. I was lucky enough to have regained use from months of physical therapy and then the pain from it went away around a year and a half later from a hospitalized ketamine treatment (which I don't remember much of and have never had since due to how sensitive my stomach is). I don't have anything against you using that as it seems to help you majorly since it gives more so of a peace of mind socially. I have heard that it also majorly helps people with depression and pain disorders as well so that's why I'm not against certain forms of drugs as some literally help people stay alive. As someone with a lot of social anxiety and has had panic attacks from that, I had to realize that nothing will be different if I don't post or say something and if it's good, what's really the harm in doing so? I have heard that it helps people communicate since it lessens inhibitions much like alcohol does for some. Hopefully you'll find more self-confidence after longer usage.
 
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I've smoked it and had it in brownies, but I wouldn't say it was something I found a help. I'm like @Suzette, I hardly use any medications, I'm lucky with my health overall and don't usually need anything. I was interested to try it, but mainly what I noticed was it slowed time right down. Oh, or maybe I just thought it did?!
 
Thinx said:
...mainly what I noticed was it slowed time right down. Oh, or maybe I just thought it did?!
Click to expand...

As someone way too familiar with the effects of Marijuana, I think I have experienced just about everything you could at various times. It is sometimes a depressant, most notably as pain relief or as a muscle relaxant, sometimes relaxation to extreme effect (think: crawling on your belly like a reptile to get from one room to another or rooted to the floor – unable to stand up). It is sometimes a stimulant, as in appetite or possibly making you a bit manic - energy wise. It is also a mild hallucinogen, which is where the sense of time dilation comes from. It isn’t real, it is your mind hallucinating time slowing down. I like to think of it as your brain speeding up a bit.

The thing about it is that no two people, even ingesting from the same source, are likely to have the same experience. The manner of delivery is also important, for inhaling it is different from ingesting it. The strain of plant is also a factor because cannabinoids are many and each has its own distinct effects on mind and body, meaning the combinations within a given plant contribute to the way your unique brain chemistry interacts.

I will also say that your mood, environment, and current company will also contribute or subtract from the experience. In short, like any mind-altering substance it is not for everyone. Some get nauseous even (again from the depressant effects).

Of course, CBD has some noted beneficial properties without the high, but that has never worked for me to relieve my chronic pain. It does work for some however, and how you react to that might give you some small clues as to how your body would react to THC and its related cannabinoids.

Pardon the ramble, I’ll stop now. This is all from personal experience and experimentation, off and on and off and on..., over many decades, nothing more. Cannabis is a drug source that was used medicinally for ages, then demonized for social, political, and economic reasons. I find it all incredibly silly that in this day and age tobacco is allowed everywhere to far more detrimental effects, but then the ways of the world have never made much sense to me.
 
Just a word of warning - dope use can be a trigger for schizophrenia if you have the disposition for that condition. To me it is playing Russian roulette with your mental health. I would not advocate it at all.
 
I am highly reactive to cannabis, I get way too high too easily but it does rewire some things in my brain in a beneficial way just like what you said. I wish whatever that was would stay because for the first tie I feel normal or as normal as I am biologically capable of being. Now if I only I can be that at ease in a normal state of being. So unfortunately it just can't be a mainstay in my life and a larger amount showed me what it had to about the nature of time and experience. I can at least from things of this nature get a lot out of the lessons they teach me and I apply what I learn from those intense experiences in my daily life to change things for the better.
 
I grew up in a different era and a different world to many of you. Australia didn't outlaw weed until 1974, and we were told the only reason it was being outlawed was to keep the yanks happy and get the trade agreement we wanted. We were told those laws wouldn't be enforced.

Then all of a sudden it was a heavily enforced criminal law.

Laws can be changed overnight but people's attitudes can not. Where I grew up almost everyone smoked weed, in typical Aussie fashion if there's a law we see as senseless then we tend to just ignore it.

In the early 80s my state decriminilised it, it was then only a civil offence if you had less than 10 plants. The cops would rip your plants out and give you a ticket like a speeding fine, 28 days to pay.

During the debates about this decriminilisation a lot of very interesting information came out about it. In some ways it's not actually a true drug, it triggers a series of allergic reactions that trick your brain into releasing a complex array of endorphins. That's why no one gets stoned the first time they try it, no allergic reaction triggers on first exposure.

I've smoked weed all my life, I still do. I can't back anyone's claims that it's good for pain relief but it does help adjust my attitude so that I can more easily cope with pain.

I've never used the term "self medicating", I think that's a bit of a cop out. I smoke weed because I enjoy it and I make no excuses for that.
 
A couple of times I got busted for "minor possess hemp". The first time I attended court dressed up all neat and I had my Mum with me, I pleaded guilty and got a $100 fine. Second time around a bloke I worked with told me that I didn't have to attend court, all I had to do was write a letter to the Clerk Of The Court explaining that I was pleading guilty and prepared to accept responsibility for my actions. This time the fine was only $80, because I didn't attend court there were no court costs.
 
Again in the 80s, the South Australian Police Force declared that they were no longer going to enforce marijuana laws in the Adelaide CBD. This was because people drinking alcohol get abusive and start fights where as people smoking dope don't.

Naturally we had to test this out, in to the City Hotel in Hindley Street on a Friday night. They had a really good beer garden and live bands. We sat at a table listening to music, drinking, and passing pipes around. About 10:00 that night a police foot patrol came for a wander through and I just ignored them.

One of the cops came up to me and clamped a big hairy hand on my shoulder and said "You're still supposed to pretend that your hiding it from me.".

Oh. Sorry. I put my weed and pipe in my lap under the table.
 
When I was a foster carer I looked after a teenager who was addicted to the stuff and it contributed to various issues including erratic and violent behaviour (as well as things like theft so he could afford to buy it, and getting mixed up with his dealer who was a nasty piece of work).

I had an employee, in his 20's, who said he smoked a lot of weed. He was frequently late for work. He was good at his job. We gave him flexible working hours. And he started abusing those hours. We politely asked him to turn up on time like everyone else. He said that he'd rather be unemployed and able to do as much weed as he liked than cut down on weed and keep a job - and then left.

I asked my cancer consultant about weed and he explained that weed bought on the street frequently has some sort of naturally occurring fungus on it - and there had been cases of people on chemotherapy with compromised immune systems dying from getting that fungus in their lungs. The only treatment was to boost the body's own immune system and if you don't have much to start with you're in trouble. He provided a few case studies and research papers - in one case 80% of samples bought on the street had that fungus present (I don't have the sources for those or I'd post them, sorry).
 
It's a personal choice for sure. It was previously mentioned that for someone it helped slow their brain down. I find the same result. Having ADHD as well as autism, my thought patterns have not only always been very random, they've been intensely rapid. When I was younger my random thoughts were so rapid and constantly so, that at times I could barely even keep up with (ie process) the pace. Enter cannabis. It slows my brain down in a good way. Also, having CPTSD and PTSD it's the only thing I've ever found that relaxes my mind and body overall as much as cannabis can. I liken my brain to being a perpetually "clenched fist". Sometimes it's "clenched" less than other times but never completely unclenched except for...cannabis.

When I was younger, free of virtually any responsibility or obligation, I overused it into a chronic daily habit. From a medicinal approach in moderation I see nothing wrong with a person choosing to use it daily. Personal choice. Countless prescription medications are taken daily including medications for mental health. However in my youth (for about a decade +/-) unless I was sleeping or at work (still held down a full time job continually with no problems), I was high. I got to a point where the habit was too all-consuming so I quit completely for over twenty years. I had a fear of what I considered to be my former addiction.

Then..CBD and low level THC edibles became legal in the U.S. I was fearful (past habit) to try either product. Unlike in my youth, my life has changed dramatically and as could be expected, I definitely have responsibilities and obligations to others which I take very seriously. The possibility of CBD and/or THC helping with some of my issues (e.g. random racing thoughts, relaxation, etc) was too great not to give my fear power over me (as the habit once did) and I tried full spectrum CBD oil. It didn't really slow down the speed of my thoughts, but it eliminated the thoughts that were literally completely random and made my thoughts more linear. That was such a relief. Did I have an urge to overmedicate and chug the oil? Absolutely not. For me... my decades long fear was unfounded.

Then I tried THC edibles. Small doses of 5mg to 10mg. Welcome...relaxation. Welcome..."unclenched fist" of a brain. I haven't exceeded a dose of 15mg of edibles and don't have a desire to try to "push the envelope" at all with them. Ingested THC is processed by the liver and transformed to a different form of THC than inhaling. It's actually transformed in the liver to a different drug. The difference is noticeable to me. I've never exceeded consuming edibles more than 3 nights per week and usually only two nights per week and always after I have completed all my necessary tasks, have no other obligations and no one else needs me that evening. I don't think it's a stretch for me to consider it a form of therapy for myself. Do I have an urge to consume edibles more often? Surprisingly, no. Or if I do think about it in the off-days, it's rarely and then the thought just goes. I don't "jones" for the edibles at all. For me...my decades long fear was unfounded.

Soon it appears recreational use of cannabis will be legalized in my state. If/when that happens I do plan on trying inhaling "flower"/bud by way of vaping. Vaping "dry herb". I don't have an interest in smoking (ie combustion) it. I did enough of that in my youth to tar a roadway. The reason I want to try that method in moderation is that I don't like the inexactness of edibles. The onset time, the intensity, etc. Plus, given that edibles are processed in the liver (as is alcohol), the feeling on edibles is very vaguely reminiscent to consuming alcohol to me and I consume alcohol so rarely that it's almost never.

A few things I'd like to make clear on what I've written above about my past history with cannabis, my prior chronic habit with it in my youth and my limited usage of it now: Every person is different. I'm not a cannabis advocate in that I don't recommend that anyone else try it. It's a personal choice. I'm only speaking for myself about myself. I also felt compelled to clarify in relation to what I've written here that I believe addictions can be very serious and shouldn't be dismissed or pretended that they don't exist.

Only speaking for me again, but I found in trying cannabis products again in moderation, it was also a liberating thing because I don't have a fear of helplessness against a habit I had decades ago in a completely different time in my life. The older I've become, I've been able over time to set boundaries for myself on many different things (e.g. I've fastidiously maintained a rigid and controlled routine in my limited daily intake of caffeine for years, control of sweets, control of calories, etc). I'm not the same person in this sense that I was 20+ years ago and I'm benefitting from that.

A few other benefits I've determined that I've received from edibles: I have BPH which is common for men my age (Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia) aka an enlarged prostate. It's an uncomfortable male age related scourge that results in the feeling of having a full bladder even though it's not. Think of feeling like you realllllly have to pee but then when you do, you only go for about twenty seconds...and then feel like you realllllly have to pee again after about twenty minutes. Repeat. It sucks. When I consume edibles that feeling of bladder discomfort goes away and I can go for sometimes hours (ie what should be normal) without urinating and that's even after regularly slaking my thirst to combat the occasional dry-mouth, one of the few side effects. Plain water tastes like nectar of the gods and is more satisfying and exquisite then than any cocktail during those times.

Calming of nerves. My PTSD experiences have resulted in me reacting to sudden loud sounds sometimes if I'm startled severely enough to where I have brief uncontrollable screaming as a reaction. Someone breaking a glass on the floor, dropping a cooking pot or baking sheet on the floor, etc. Not so with cannabis. It alleviates that issue.

Increased ease of verbal communication: Perhaps it's related to the relaxation of the "clenched fist" of a brain, but it's markedly easier for me to have conversations.
 
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When I was younger I needed glass wine to relax, I don't drink now. It's considered acceptable in moderation but as I said on another thread alcohol nowadays contains sulphites ND histamines and it's a search for decent natural alcohol!!

Arthritis can be treated with CBD however if you suggesting this for ASD then you don't know what you talking about. And so many people hear legal talk and repeat what they really don't understand!!

Marijuana can have benefit of being a chill pill in other words it calm an aggressive person. It can be used medically for treating social/depressive problems but I don't think long term or daily use applies as for withdrawal symptoms for long term use. It can cause mental health issues and for some dopamine release can lead to addiction so it's sceptical to use word 'medical marijuana's

Let's argue only smoke hashish or vape extracts oils which enhances experience and only do this over weekend to help treat alexythemia or help social in ASD

Using THC oils for depression or meltdowns is something I know of it was given to ASD 3 patients for aggression. But I wasn't sure as daily doses as opposed to when issue.

When drug usage stops the brain tries to regulate regular melatonin levels and is known to be a problem regulating afterwards,
Mental illness or addiction (addiction to a substance can fix co-morbid or depressive) so no, it's not physically addictive and why I brought up choose alcohol without sulphites doesn't mess with your head.

So if you experience withdrawal you know what it is and stop. ASD 3 patients that I met who were treated with THC had no possibility of a normal life, I'm not sure as to say if it's good but I did notice is calmed him down and afterwards he was very calm and not aggressive. I can't professionally say whether it was right/wrong.
Mostly ASD is destroying lives, even high functioning people battling to hold down jobs. If you want to experiment use good quality like an Arabic hashish oil and don't use it everyday.
I'm not encouraging but clearing this up...
Only used for weekend as not just withdrawal but if you have dyspraxia or older person with ASD arthritis or osteoporosis then regular people use it and you probably shouldn't.

Be safe
 
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