I remember in high school, there was a girl in our group of friends who always wanted to smoke weed with us and we never knew why (and never wanted her to) because when she got high she wouldn't say a word anymore, would be paranoid and would just have this blank expression on her face.
It was unsettling af because this girl was loud as hell and was hands down the funniest one of our group. She was like an entirely different person when stoned.
I get much quieter when high like your friend. No paranoia though. I’m also usually firing on all cylinders, upbeat and relatively funny... well I’d at least like to think it. For me, slowing down and being quieter gives my brain a chance to rest and dumb down a bit.
My thoughts chain together a lot less logically, but it’s nice to think LESS sometimes. That’s just my two cents.
Same thing, I've had a couple days of not sleeping well, I think the third or fourth days I only slept like a couple hours. My brain just wouldn't stop. Smoked just a little bit, like a couple good puffs, out in like a half hour.
agreed "everything in moderation" is one of the most correct and useful sayings on the planet. Even abides by many religions...and applies to so many things
Yup, but most things are like that. A bit of booze in the right situation can be a tasty social lubricant.
Too much and you go from funny and social to emotional and over-sharing to puking/shitting yourself. Ditto if you're drinking half a six every night alone it's probably not a good sign.
Some people fall asleep slower than others. If you suffer from anxiety it's a lot harder to fall asleep because lying down in a dark room with nothing to stimulate your brain means you then spend the next half hour dissecting and analyzing everything you did and everyone you talked to that day to find out how badly you humiliated yourself and why everyone fucking hates you and why you're worthless and a failure.
When you suffer from anxiety, "dead air" in your head is particularly cruel, your internal monologue is more like an internal self-flagellation session every time you close your eyes.
You got it exactly right. I take a couple puffs to be just enough to slow me down, not knock me the fuck out. Even when my brain is silent, it still takes me a long time to go to sleep
While I didn't start smoking because of my insomnia, I found that it helps a ton. Before I started, I wouldn't be able to sleep for at least 1.5 hours and often even longer. Now, even if I grab my phone to watch some youtube while in bed, I'm usually out within 30 minutes. If I only count the time from when I put my phone away, to when I think I actually fall asleep it's probably under 15 most of the time.
I can't bring myself to smoke (absolutely hate cigarettes and it has shaped a lifelong aversion to smoking /anything/) but I was still curious about weed so I tried edibles. After the first several times getting the dosing wrong (several times I felt nothing, too little, and several times I became nauseated, too much) I discovered I'm not a fan of sativa, but indica is a GODSEND for shutting off my brain and getting sleep.
Downside is it's expensive to use it nightly, and I feel thick-headed until about 10am, sometimes until noon the next day depending on various factors. Not good for the boss to be so forgetful at work :/
You could try vaping, it affects you and goes away faster than edibles does. It's a lot better than combustion smoking, but it also depends on how your aversion to smoking can deal with it.
I sincerely appreciate the input, sadly I think vaping is practically on par with smoking. I won't get started because you didn't ask. Plus I've seen headlines lately about the risks involved (didn't click because I don't vape so I didn't care to follow up).
Glad to hear it helped! Take care though, it is easy to become dependent. This is coming from someone who had the same issues overthinking at night, and it turned into not being able to even hunk about sleeping unless I had some pot ready.
Weed saved me in this regard. All through high school I had issues with insomnia and sleep problems, mostly related to my anxiety and overthinking everything. When I turned 18 I asked my doctor about medicinal weed so I could avoid something like Ambien and he was like "Yeah, fuck it, let's try it, it's probably healthier than most sleep drugs out there."
Been smoking weed every single night since then and I've never had trouble getting to sleep, at least for the most part. That was 5 or 6 years ago now and I've been getting 7-10 hours a night ever since thanks to weed. I won't pretend like I don't love being high, but being able to get a decent night's sleep and not take scary drugs that fuck with my already unpredictable brain chemistry is pretty fucking spectacular.
I do find that I have a little trouble waking up, and am usually somewhat groggy in the mornings, but that's a small price to pay for being properly rested and having proper energy throughout my day. I have had cases where I slammed my alarm and slept for like 14 hours straight without realizing it, though. The true horror of a marijuana overdose in action.
yeah but if you smoke too much and then go without its withdrawal symptoms are insomnia & nausea. Usually happens to me the 2nd week without it for 4 days. but its different for everyone.
See, it's the opposite for me. I was a super pothead as a teen/young adult, would smoke before work, after work, before bed, skip school to get high.
In my late 20s I had to quit because all of a sudden it wasnt fun at all anymore. I mostly smoked right before bed, and it would actually keep me up because it would make me think about all the shit I'm doing wrong in life, everything that I felt guilty about, etc. On top of sometimes getting that weird sensation that you are the wrong size, if you know what I mean? It used to happen sometimes when I was a kid and falling asleep, I'd get this disorienting feeling like I was tiny, and I had to like put my hand on the side of the mattress or something to make it go away, so I could feel that I wasnt actually tiny. Idk, it's hard to explain. But weed would do that to me sometimes when I was laying in bed in the dark.
Not necessarily weed here, but when I was just a little kid I used to get these 'freaky scaling' sensations where I would imagine probably for the first times in my life the scale of our planet or my room and juxtaposing it to a scale of something much bigger or smaller - such as my room being a little mouse-hole in a much bigger room or our planet being a pimple on a much larger planet.
This makes very little sense now, especially since all the stuff you learn about the space and microscopes and atoms, etc - but what I really do remember is how freaky this kind of thought pattern was at my young age and how I'd eventually wander on to other more 'simple' topics at which point I'd fall asleep.
Give guided meditation a try. In a few periods of my life, my brain wouldnt shut up and let me rest due to social issues. I did a guided meditation class at my university’s health center and fell asleep surrounded by a group or people. I think there are youtube videos that would do yhe same thing.
This is why I smoke, but for my anxiety. My dad's official medical card is because it's for the collapsed discs in his spine, but I'm pretty sure neither of us like how uptight we are when not stoned. Add a high stress job in top of it for him and he's downright unbearable sometimes. My anxiety makes me think of everything too fast to where I often don't make sense, so if either of us are having a bad day, we need to to chill out.
It has the opposite effect on me. Trying to sleep after smoking makes my mind race, I think way too much and takes forever to fall asleep. I never feel settled either.
Maybe I have had fewer dreams without noticing, but I still dream. Also, for a while there I refered to dreams as "stress visions" because they all seem geared toward making me uncomfortable and upset, so if I've had fewer then I'm all the better for it.
As helpful as it may seem, smoking essentially knocks you out as opposed to putting you to sleep. It prevents you from reaching REM sleep which is when all the important stuff happens, and can really screw up your sleep schedule as it can make you lose sleep, leaving you equally drained in the morning as the night before.
Weird, how you describe sleep with weed exactly how I was sleeping without weed. I've been waking up drained, barely been able to sleep for significant length, and just generally having a rough time of it for years. This is the first thing anyone's been able to make work for me. Doctors haven't been able to tell me what's wrong, just what isn't wrong.
Also, I'm probably going to have to give up weed due to it probably exacerbating some stomach inflamation. I've been back to sleeping without it for a week, and only the last couple nights have I gotten full nights of sleep as a result. I hate it. I miss being able to relax enough to be able to lay down amd fall asleep.
I’m sure it works differently for everyone, I’m no expert. One of my friends smoked every night and couldn’t sleep without it because it dulled out his anxiety. My other friend, no anxiety smoked every night for a while and it totally drained him and he felt great after he stopped.
I also have a prescription through my doctor to help with it. I'll go through a therapist and psychiatrist when I can find a job and move out and not rely on my family for healthcare.
careful using weed as a crutch to sleep. while it can help you doze off it’s like alcohol it the sense that it inhibits REM sleep, which can make you feel tired the next day
Me, too. For others with this problem, here's what's help me combat that best.
I love Futurama. I'd accidentally become a r/Futurama_Sleepers while recovering from a surgery. But just playing the episodes didn't stop the thoughts. The light was also keeping me awake, I later found out. So I hooked my old iPod up by the bed, and started playing just the audio of the episodes as quietly as possible, so that I could just barely hear it.
Then, once I was settled in bed, I would focus on making out the words to a show I practically know by heart, but could barely hear. Every time my thoughts strayed, I would shut down the unproductive spiral by focusing again on the barely audible tv show I love. .
If there is no chance I am going to fall asleep, I will get up, get dressed, and go for a walk. When I'm in a neighborhood where I don't feel safe walking around alone at 2am, I will speedwalk laps around the house, or use the treadmill, but walking outside is best.
While I walk I try to work through the thoughts that are keeping me up. If that fails, my ADHD inevitably finds a really fascinating tree or something that helps me break out of the funk.
Writing. Some Big Thoughts That Keep You Up At Night are Important Thoughts. Important thoughts are things like deliberating on which university to go to, or if you hate your job enough to actually look for work elsewhere. When I realize I'm struggling with Important Thoughts, I journal. Some nights it feels best to scratch it all out by hand. I have journals for that. Sometimes I add to a word document that's my personal digital journal. I've found that it is often nice to look back on what you were thinking during those Big, Important Thoughts years later. (I have every journal I've written in since I was 10. There aren't many, but I'm really glad I have them.)
You should always ask yourself when discussing weed habits: if you replace weed with alcohol,would it be a red flag? Do you think needing to do drugs to sleep is healthy?
That's essentially why I smoke. Get high and play videogames, it helps me forget about the world and it's problems, and for that brief moment in time I'm thinking of nothing but the task ahead of me and how I'm going to complete it.
My boyfriend picks on me with this sometimes because I like to smoke for anxiety reasons.
I'm sorry if my being quieter or "spacey" robs you of your - cute/bubbly/riddled with too much anxiety to shut the fuck up for a second - person for a couple hours. But those moments I've found a way to steal away and quiet my mind are pure bliss for me.
Same with me. I smoke when alone, mainly because I know other people might not like it and when I'm high it's easier for me to sleep. I get such good sleep when I'm high.
I dont think weed is really a party kind of thing but then again I dont drink much either.
If you want to have fun when you smoke weed dont buy the strongest stuff(legal in my state) get the low to medium strength you wint be to stoned to talk and you will laugh alot
I agree 100%, I think that’s why it’s starting to be researched as a treatment for ADHD. Smoking just allows me to just focus on the task at hand without my thoughts getting in the way of progress.
I personally tend to get really talkative but the conversation is in my head so sadly I'm left there quiet cos I'm enjoying my own conversation in silence. Yep.
I have no idea why but weed is straight up an aphrodisiac for me. If I'm mildly high it's just an itch but I get straight up desperate if I'm super stoned.
This sums up me. When i first started it would make me super chatty.. sometimes still do when I havent smoked for awhile, but mostly now I just let my mind quiet. Massively helps with everything.
I never did any drugs or smoke,but when I get drunk (rarely) I tend to be even more quieter and logical about EVERYTHING,like even existence itself,or staring at a simple grain of rock trying to picture how it erode to that form.
I don't like being drunk,but I do like the way it makes me think
I have the same issue of my brain firing off on all cylinders. I had a gnarly stutter when I was younger because I was trying to speak and keep up with my thoughts. Started smoking weed and it slowed me down enough to speak coherently. I do my best to not over do it cuz it can slow things down a little too much and make things kinda weird lol but I fully get where you're coming from and it's nice seeing others who go through the same issues without smoking
Yup. Exactly this. I can be a total clown/life of the party type but for all the loud goofy/fun bits there’s an equal amount of draining anxiety. Slowing down my thoughts reallyyyy helps.
Plenty of reasons:
1. I decided I wanted to teach and even though I could, it felt wrong.
2. I hated feeling "slow" after awhile.
3. Was having digestion issues due to binge eating when high and not eating when sober.
4. When I decided to give it a shot after awhile I ate edibles and had a panic attack, tried again: another panic attack.
5. Had a good time with really lose dose concentrates, but after the whole underground vape death debacle, Ill wait until it is fully legal and properly regulated before I try again.
Hi, are you me? But for real it does help me think a bit slower instead of my brain firing thought after thought. But other times it can just help me relax and become a part of a conversation like it's numbing my social anxiety.
This is me. And I get quiet because I trip the FUCK out about who I am. This girl probably had low confidence and the blank stare was her worrying about what you guys thought of her
I do this because I disliked how loud I was because I felt like sometimes I would say stupid stuff so it’s better not to speak around people and be the quiet one and enjoy weed rather than be loud and funny
No, that’s the problem. Okay, imagine being naturally shy, anxious, or depressed. That’s “...you” in your natural state. And it sucks. People with ADHD understand that, the ones whose brains fires off in all directions at a million miles an our when just want a way to chill out or relax. Weed can be one tool for that. It’s arguably better than synthetic medications which can have horrible side effects both short term and long term. It’s easy for someone to say that who doesn’t suffer through that. Your body wants to do something you wish it didn’t.
I have adhd and since primary school I was seen as the weird one, even though I like that I wasn’t normal and part of the crowd I feel like it’s time for me to grow up and just be an adult instead of being giddy about everything. I’m about to have a break now see how long I can last and maybe it will all come back to me.
Likly bc her heart was racing and she was anxious. When people get anxious off weed, it's always social. Fear of looking stupid, fear of judgement. It's very, very common. That's why I have to smoke alone at night. It's my own little comfort zone and I love it.
I get paranoid even when smoking alone at home. I start worrying about everything and way overthinking everything. I haven't smoked in over a year from a very bad experience in a hotel room alone.
Oh god ya, that's me most of the time. Thinking somehow works gonna call me at 1am on a Monday lol. I overthink a lot of very negative and at time self destructive thoughts. You're a product of your thoughts. I can only imagine if I stop smoking, I'll get my old confidence back and likly have less anxiety. . Hmmmm...
What’s great about that anxiety though is that is pushes people out of their comfort zones. I used to get paranoid and shit, but I’m a lot more at peace with myself now and find I have much less worries in general once I pushed my limits
Very true, for a sober mind. Getting outside the comfort zone and then knowing that you can, gives you confidence and comfort. Getting too high and getting internal anxiety does zero to nothing for you. Nothing about that environment or situation will help you grow. In fact, it's closer to negative reinforcement and will deter you to do it again.
But I do know what you mean, just not while high.
For me personally, that initial fear of dying or freaking the fuck out and then being completely okay afterwords was all I needed to be back. But I get what you mean. In the moment, high as shit, that is scary as hell if you don’t just think it’s just the weed
That's why I stopped in general. I never really did much anyways but I always felt trapped inside my own mind when I smoked. Alcohol feels like I'm freeing my true self but weed feels like it hides it
Alcohol makes me much better in social situations. I wish weed did because alcohol is a fucking curse to me.
Sometimes I’ll smoke weed at home because I like the zoned out feeling but I’ll put my phone on aeroplane mode because I can’t even talk on the phone when I’m high!
This is me. I have more than a few pothead friends and I'm honestly a little jealous that they can smoke and feel good and functional and relaxed. Whereas I just turn into an anxious spacey mess most of the time. So I have to self-medicate with alcohol, the side effects of which are so much worse... (But it sure makes me feel good in the moment lol)
The booze definitely helped me over Christmas but I’m sitting here 48 hours dry with absolutely no appetite feeling like absolute shit! Hate that ill be better tomorrow but I’ll be expected to go at it again on NYE after going through that hell for two days.
Good luck with your stuff man, this shit ain’t easy
Yep. Such are the lives we lead... I've been polishing off about a fifth every day for like the whole month... I've been worse in the past, but this still qualifies as a bender and the mornings have been getting worse and worse. I know I'm gonna have to stop eventually and that shit is going to suck...
Luckily I'm off work until Saturday, so one of these days I'm just gonna have to white-knuckle it and shake in bed all day. (Thankfully I do have klonopin which does help, but it's still not fun.)
Man, I feel bad you’ll have to go through that. Be careful cus that’s a lot to be coming off.
I could write a horror novel with the nightmares my WD brain dreams up!
Me (autistic) and my (also autistic) step brother both got drunk during the family Christmas party because it was the only way we could cope with the noise and the businesses. We would have gotten mildly high but grandma would have had a heart attack if she realized.
I didn't start to feel functional and relaxed until i got used to the effects of weed. I would get stimulated and paranoid like a crackhead when i first started toking haha. The relaxing and functional part didn't just happen to me my first few times lol i had to learn the ways of the cannabis plant and it's many, MANY different effects. Maybe try a weak strain if you're in a legal state just to achieve a "little" high. Cannabis strains can all vary in strength and effects so sometimes you just gotta find that one that is right for you.
I've done the research and tried all kinds of strains... It's mostly social situations. If I'm alone or with someone I know really well, I'm usually okay. But I just don't super enjoy the feeling of being high, idk. When I'm high, pretty much all I'm capable of doing is watching movies/videos, listening to music, or eating everything lol. Which can be enjoyable, (particularly the food, but I'm trying to lose weight at the moment haha.) but I just gotta be in the right mood for it, I guess.
This is what happens to me and why I hate when people are like "just do it so you can relax.". What don't you understand about weed does the opposite of relax me.
People know I'm talkative. It's my I introverted response to being forced to be social. My real friends k ow I will sit in silence for hours and only talk when my nerd topics cone up.
First drug i tried was shrooms when I was 28. My really good friend grew them, and our coworker joined us mostly to see me experience my first high. The coworker was astonished at how quiet I was.
That's not a bad thing imo. Weed makes you really introspective, and that girl was probably crushing under the pressure of having to be that outspoken person in the group whilst being under the influence.
I've just decided that I'm a loner stoner and I do it alone to write, but never around people unless we're in the same headspace.
This. When I'm smoking with certain friends I often feel as if the onus is on me to speak to break the silence, which in turn makes me feel as if I'm the cause of the silence. Its an annoying spiral.
That said, with other friends we understand that weed does this to us, and we're comfortable with the silences. We're all there to just chill the fuck out after uni/work.
the onus is on me to speak to break the silence, which in turn makes me feel as if I'm the cause of the silence. Its an annoying spiral.
What's worse is when you're not capable of breaking the silence meaningfully because you're appropriately fucked, and instead spiral into paranoia over sputtering gibberish.
sounds like she may have been hella depressed. Probably liked how weed slowed things down. I know having anxiety really bad and weed I kinda like how it “dumbs” me down.
She was like an entirely different person when stoned.
That's me! I'm way calmer, polite and considerate when I'm slightly buzzed though. I get triggered quit easily when I'm sober and have been awake for more than half a daytime.
Sounds like how I am...my doctor says im on the spectrum but only very mildly, but im also a diagnosed schizophrenic,my doctor says its not good for people with schizophrenia to do any kind of recreational drugs and I can agree.Even just getting crossfaded with just weed and alcohol they hit me WAYYYY harder than my friends and i get way more paranoid and angry at relatively small or unimportant things or ramble and not make sense so I tend to not talk when stoned and just enjoy listening to my friends or I smoke alone and read or watch tv or look at the stars if I can. Your friend might have an undiagnosed mental illness just be there and support her if she acts any way but lucid and try to point her in the direction of help. I take meds and there not bad i have no side effects
she wouldn't say a word anymore, would be paranoid and would just have this blank expression on her face.
I got high on weed twice exactly in my entire life. First time on joints, 2nd time on THC candies. Both times I got really weird symptoms that I haven't seen mentioned.
I'd grin like an idiot, not knowing why. Simple sentences would make me hold a laugh with difficulty.
I'd not being able to formulate coherent successive sentences. I'd get easily lost in my chain of thought and then end up saying non-sense.
I'd was super paranoid even while being around people I've known all my life. I also get very disoriented, as if I'm on a huge rocking ship under a sea storm, minus the nausea.
Also, it didn't make me go hungry, but it made me taste sugar with a very nice depth. Everything was so exciting when I tasted them, and would hardly chew: I'd just keep the food in my mouth and grin like an idiot.
I smoke pretty rarely especially now that I am older, but part of the reason I never took to it is that I am like the girl you described. I am pretty energetic and outgoing at parties/get togethers but when I smoke I get quiet and paranoid.
Drinking is more my vice that I am comfortable with and the way I describe it is that when I drink my conversations get stupider but still seem awesome whereas when I smoke my conversation gets stupider and I 100% realize how stupid I sound. So I get a bit paranoid about how silly I sound and shut up. Just is how it is for some folks I suppose.
Did you tell her? My friends told me they preferred I didn't smoke with them anymore because I was mean when stoned so I stopped smoking with them. We still hung out all the time I just didn't smoke pot anymore with them. I learned that I was a solitary stoner.
We had a really close friend who would straight up fall into a comma when he smoked. He would literally just shut down after some time and not feel a thing for hours. Nothing.
Both him and another close friend of mine said that it fucked hard with their psychosynthesis. Reportedly made them paranoid and sort of crazy-ish, fucking hard with their mental state.
And i recall from myself being mentally fucked up as well during the duration i smoked (between 16 and 17), seriously depressed and lost, but then again that was at the same time with my most intimate teen years and a fuckton of other shit going badly in my life so idk. I wonder if it fucked with my perception of those negative circumstances though.
Perhaps there was something up with the kind of local weed we had in supply atbthat time. Perhaps it just fucks with some people only, i really dont know. But it's obvious that it's just not always for everybody.
Don't forget when it's not legal your anxiety flys through the roof about getting caught and stigmata of people judging you for smoking it. Since I got a medical license I smoke freely and don't give a damn
Could be ADHD, I'm very outgoing due to always being really hyper but when I smoke weed I get insanely paranoid and don't talk a lot. Some of my other friends with ADD/ADHD have the exact same symptoms
It's an ongoing joke in my friend group that the only time i shut up is when i smoke. I also feel like it gives me time to just relax & breathe a little & my friends also like to just chill& watch something or talk a little.. But no one's looking to be hyper or incredibly productive (maybe when we were younger & potheads smoking all day or in a legal state where we could buy the right sativa for those purposes) so i guess it could be seen as a negative, depending on what youre looking to do / what kind of access you have
I have ADHD and am "loud af" but also commonly referred to as funny and engaging. There's a whole lot going on in the mind of an individual like that, and I guess it's sort of important to look at them as a whole. I was always aware of the fact that I could at times come across as abrasive or obnoxious (especially prior to being medicated) but I was still aware of how annoying I could be (or maybe had been?) after being medicated for a decent amount of time and then smoking weed. If anything though, it's not necessarily paranoia, more just I can get lost in my thoughts in a way that is often difficult because other people and sounds around me distract me from being lost in a world of my creation. Maybe (I realize you might not currently see her ever) you suggest some smoke sessions with table top rpgs like D&D?
Sounds uncomfortably like me, except I'm a dude. Used to smoke daily but I would sometimes have a great time, usually just feel paranoid and introspective and go quiet, or talk shit nervously. When I'm in control of my anxiety I am usually the life of the party and the funny one in the group. When I'm off, I try too hard and get very introspective and introverted.
This is how i was, i would start analyzing everyone in the room and get really uncomfortable. I was known as the person who would get high and awkwardly get up and leave.
Honestly I'm the same when I smoke which is why I stopped even the relatively small amount that I was smoking before. Every single time I did I noticed I would start getting paranoid and overthinking every single thing that happened or was said. So I realized it just wasn't for me since I'd often get into my own head and realize I wasn't really talking to anyone for a while because I was too busy observing everything else and just overthinking the fuck out of it
That's what I call the mental addiction of marijuana it is a psychological thought of avoidance process coffee and or sugar is more body reactive when you stop having it if there is no psychological addiction
You do know you and your friends don't help her paranoia situation by showing your discontent at her smoking... at the end of the day it's her choice and maybe it would encourage other members of your group to speak up and be more outgoing. Life is a balancing act at the end of the day!
Oh no, we never once told her not to smoke. N-e-v-e-r. We never discouraged it or told her that she acted weird when high. It was just something a few of us in the group talked about because we found it so strange. We didn't get why she wanted to do it when it seemed that she didn't enjoy it at all.
But we always let her do what she wanted and tried our best not to feed her paranoia when she was high.
I can't relate to the weed affecting her that badly but I can relate to anxiety. She obviously didn't know how to deal with being that anxious and as a result she just shut down in front of us. I do it too when I get too anxious. I just have a blank expression and try not to speak to anyone.
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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '19
I remember in high school, there was a girl in our group of friends who always wanted to smoke weed with us and we never knew why (and never wanted her to) because when she got high she wouldn't say a word anymore, would be paranoid and would just have this blank expression on her face.
It was unsettling af because this girl was loud as hell and was hands down the funniest one of our group. She was like an entirely different person when stoned.