Anyone else out there use marijuana primarily for anxiety and depression ?

Couldn't find anything else posted exactly similar to this, so I thought I would ask, sorry if I'm posting redundantly. I use weed almost entirely to help with my anxiety and depression. I first tried it recreationally as a teenager and found it fun but didn't really get into aside from doing it occasionally with friends. But, as time went on my anxiety, which it took me most of my life to realize I even had a problem with, and the depression I had been struggling with since I was put on antidepressants unnecessarily when I was 10 or 11 continued to increasingly dominate my life. As that grew worse I realized that weed provided significant relief from my incessant worrying and my growing lack of desire to do...anything. I find it helps me overcome my disinterest in the things I enjoy, and it takes enough of an edge off my thoughts for me to be able to basically function in most social situations. I did for a while have some issues with the bud actually flaring my anxiety, but with practice and maintaining an awareness that it was all in my head I managed to mostly overcome that, and since switching entirely to vaping I have zero issues. I know this is really long now, but I was curious to see how many other people around here used for reasons similar to me.

My story would read near identical to yours. No anxiety or depression medicine has ever helped me as much as marijuana. Magic mushrooms is also very helpful when i have felt completely overwhelemed. But yes, weed is for me the best depression/anxiety medicine i have ever used.

johnlenin said:

My story would read near identical to yours. No anxiety or depression medicine has ever helped me as much as marijuana. Magic mushrooms is also very helpful when i have felt completely overwhelemed. But yes, weed is for me the best depression/anxiety medicine i have ever used.

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I have tried mushrooms 3 times and it is wonderful, I feel like a completely well adjusted person on them, my issues just disappear. But it's not the kind of experience I could handle more than very rarely, weed doesn't disrupt my ability to function like shrooming.

Yup, I get the same benefits for sure and more, I use cannabis for anxiety, depression and an eating disorder. The stuff (especially CBD) took me off psych meds and for that, I am eternally grateful!

herbivore21 said:

Yup, I get the same benefits for sure and more, I use cannabis for anxiety, depression and an eating disorder. The stuff (especially CBD) took me off psych meds and for that, I am eternally grateful!

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That's great. I don't have anywhere near an eating disorder, but sometimes if I get particularly down it will kill my appetite for a while and having some to vape definitely helps me get around that

Kalessin said:

That's great. I don't have anywhere near an eating disorder, but sometimes if I get particularly down it will kill my appetite for a while and having some to vape definitely helps me get around that

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This is definitely not uncommon, it is doubley bad when this happens and you have an eating disorder as well!

Still, my SiC dish with sapphire insert just arrived and I just hit a huge CBD dab of ACDC on the convection shelf. It tastes better than anything I've ever had, ever.

The ACDC tastes like never before, and I've been dabbing on sapphire at circa 500f for the last month or two!

Convection dabs on sapphire at 850f are TO DIE FOR!

Oh fuck I gotta go write this in the right thread.

Get some cbd people, you'll be glad you did! Much love to my sometimes downbeat FCers!

Kalessin said:

Couldn't find anything else posted exactly similar to this, so I thought I would ask, sorry if I'm posting redundantly. I use weed almost entirely to help with my anxiety and depression. I first tried it recreationally as a teenager and found it fun but didn't really get into aside from doing it occasionally with friends. But, as time went on my anxiety, which it took me most of my life to realize I even had a problem with, and the depression I had been struggling with since I was put on antidepressants unnecessarily when I was 10 or 11 continued to increasingly dominate my life. As that grew worse I realized that weed provided significant relief from my incessant worrying and my growing lack of desire to do...anything. I find it helps me overcome my disinterest in the things I enjoy, and it takes enough of an edge off my thoughts for me to be able to basically function in most social situations. I did for a while have some issues with the bud actually flaring my anxiety, but with practice and maintaining an awareness that it was all in my head I managed to mostly overcome that, and since switching entirely to vaping I have zero issues. I know this is really long now, but I was curious to see how many other people around here used for reasons similar to me.

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Great minds, I wanted to ask this as well but in the medical forum. I know mmj is great for anxiety, but the jury is out on depression.

I would love to find a psychiatrist who is willing to work with me to get off the pharmaceuticals through proper nutrition, exercise, and mmj.

They say now that certain terpenes may hold some promise - linalool and lycene (spelling?) - in offsetting the depression and negative thoughts.

Obviously, therapy, too, is useful. I have been in and out of therapy for almost 30 years and on and off anti-depressants for 20. I have found since I increased mj use, a little longer term effect even when not high. A little better able to be relaxed.

A friend finds CBD tincture, with a smaller amount of thc, to do her anxiety and pain wonders during the day.

I have to watch out to avoid psychological addiction, since I have that inclination (which is why I avoided drinking for years) as well as a family hx of addiction.

The actives in mushrooms are being examined as a tx for depression, I think, because I saw an article a while back about it.

woolspinner said:

I know mmj is great for anxiety, but the jury is out on depression.

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I don't know the medical stance on it, but it definitely helps me. Not so much with dealing with the terrible emotions, but it makes me much more mentally interested in having something to do, instead of just staring into space despairing

woolspinner said:

Great minds, I wanted to ask this as well but in the medical forum. I know mmj is great for anxiety, but the jury is out on depression.

I would love to find a psychiatrist who is willing to work with me to get off the pharmaceuticals through proper nutrition, exercise, and mmj.

They say now that certain terpenes may hold some promise - linalool and lycene (spelling?) - in offsetting the depression and negative thoughts.

Obviously, therapy, too, is useful. I have been in and out of therapy for almost 30 years and on and off anti-depressants for 20. I have found since I increased mj use, a little longer term effect even when not high. A little better able to be relaxed.

A friend finds CBD tincture, with a smaller amount of thc, to do her anxiety and pain wonders during the day.

I have to watch out to avoid psychological addiction, since I have that inclination (which is why I avoided drinking for years) as well as a family hx of addiction.

The actives in mushrooms are being examined as a tx for depression, I think, because I saw an article a while back about it.

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Man, the jury is really, really not out on depression. It is in and it has more support than ever from the science.

I too got caught up thinking in terms of potential 'addiction' for a time, especially when I went off psych meds (SSRI's, Atypical Antipsychotics and Benzos). Still, honestly, man these psych meds we are taking are not salubrious stuff. Benzos are the most recreationally abused prescription drug in my country, they are as addictive as just about any drug you can find and more dangerous than alcohol and many illegal drugs to the user! Atypical Antipsychotics are now being associated with physical withdrawal symptoms and behaviours in prison populations, where these meds are used long term and daily to manage inmate behaviour (tell me about it, the spookiness!).

SSRI's killed my sex drive dead a few years ago, and it has yet to return. They gave me shocking anxiety and akathisia and at times worsened my depressive symptoms. They exacerbated my insomnia too! There is a growing body of literature surrounding publication bias with SSRI's (by the way, I am actually a research psychologist by profession) leading to these medications' efficacies being exaggerated in research literature and especially meta-analyses.

Long term and especially major depression leads to cell atrophy in the hippocampus, the region of the brain that deals with stress, mood, anxiety etc. Over time, those who experience depression actually have this part of their brain shrink from this damage. This international, interdisciplinary study recently demonstrated (http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/mp201569a.html) this long held hypothesis.

Now, research has suggested for some time now that CBD promotes hippocampal neurogenesis, the growing of new nerves in this brain region (as I mentioned before). CBD is also a serotonergic agent (acting on the 5HT1a receptor). This has long been known as a potential mechanism of action for anti-depressant effects of CBD https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2697769/

Cannabis could cause problems for depression sufferers if they are just randomly hitting recreational concentrates and flowers, especially smoking, getting couchlocked and staying in the house and not doing anything - sure. Still, if we take the time to use CBD, it doesn't need to be that way. Cannabis can be the best thing to happen to depression sufferers. It sure was for me, I would not be the prolific, hard worker that I am now in so many different fields if it were not for cannabis. I'd be getting unemployment 'benefits' on the streets - and I've been there before. No really into doing that one again!

I didn't have anxiety, but I had some mild depression that led me to get prescribed Lexapro, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Around this time it was suggested to me to stop smoking pot as it was a depressant. So I stopped.

I went from mildly depressed to non-functional brain shutdown on that SSRI, got put on Wellbutrin, which put me into hypomania, then the doctors decided to double up or triple up; I spent the next 5 years on cocktails of various "antidepressants", "mood stabilizers" and other things- over 20 different medications, some of those really amazing third generation atypical antipsychotics- the partial antagonist, stimulate and wiggle neurorecpetors and not allow them to fire (incredible mental fatigue- big surprise?) Abilify, Zyprexa

That was five years of my life, and for a lot of it I was unemployable. I couldn't think well enough to handle a high level job. For about a year, I changed oil at a quick lube. I had to quit that job when I couldn't hold it together anymore. I knew I used to be smart, but I figured this was what depression was like. It meant not being able to think intelligently and not having the brainpower to change that. While diagnosed with a variety of mental illnesses that after years of having a non functional brain and becoming a zombie on lithium, after researching on reddit- places like /r/bipolar and some other online mental heath communities, I realized that it had to be compounding side effects and asked to be taken off the drugs.

It became quickly apparent that I was right, and within two months after leaving pharmaceuticals and returning to cannabis my brain began working well again. I have mental scarring, PTSD that I've spent time in therapy to try to cope with some of the crazy things I did on those drugs, things that impact me more than the loss of fine motor skills and the tremors I now have (I used to be able to solder and desolder, add sockets and rechip printed circuit boards, but now my hands shake and I'm not even 30 years old)

I'm very medication sensitive, and cannabis is the only 'antidepressant' or 'mood stabilizer' I've ever used that doesn't have debilitating side effects. It's saved my life twice; (I have some physical ailments I'd used cannabis for, and had initially gotten a medical recommendation to help cope with; I didn't renew that rec or use cannabis for sometime while under treatment for those mental issues per the recommendation of the doc who had me doped up on other things) and during those years I had to use prescription pain kills to manage rotator cuff pain. The combination of all those drugs weakened my stomach a good deal, so now I occasionally have painful stomach issues that vaping really helps with since I can't eat anything or keep any pills down during those bouts, but I still primarily use cannabis to treat depression and the PTSD that came out of the manic states I was on under prescription medication. Dream suppression is what lets me sleep each night.

SamuraiSam said:

I didn't have anxiety, but I had some mild depression that led me to get prescribed Lexapro, a selective seratonin reuptake inhibitor. Around this time it was suggested to me to stop smoking pot as it was a depressant. So I did.

I went from mildly depressed to non-functional brain shutdown on that SSRI, got put on Wellbutrin, which put me into hypomania, then the doctors decided to double up or triple up; I spent the next 5 years on cocktails of various "antidepressants", "mood stabilizers" and other things- over 20 different medications, some of those really amazing third generation atypical antipsychotics- the partial antagonist, stimulate and wiggle neurorecpetors and not allow them to fire (incredible mental fatigue- big surprise?) while diagnosed with a variety of "mental illnesses" that after years of having a non functional brain and becoming a zombie on lithium, I realized that it had to be compounding side effects and asked to be taken off the drugs.

It became quickly apparent that I was right, and within two months after leaving pharmaceuticals and returning to cannabis my brain began working well again. I have mental scarring, PTSD I've spent time in therapy to try to cope with some of the crazy things I did on those drugs, things that impact me more than the loss of fine motor skills and the tremors I now have (I used to be able to solder and desolder, add sockets and rechip printed circuit boards, but now my hands shake and I'm not even 30 years old)

I'm very medication sensitive, and cannabis is the only 'antidepressant' or 'mood stabilizer' I've ever used that doesn't have debilitating side effects. It's saved my life twice; (I have some physical ailments I'd used cannabis for, and had initially gotten a medical recommendation to help cope with; I didn't renew that rec or use cannabis for sometime while under treatment for those mental issues per the recommendation of the doc who had me doped up on other things, and during those years I had to use prescription pain kills to manage rotator cuff pain. The combination of all those drugs weakened my stomach a good deal, but I still primarily use cannabis to treat depression and the PTSD that came out of the manic states I was on under prescription medication. Dream suppression is what lets me sleep each night.

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Sounds like you've had a very similar experience to me with psych meds bro. Glad mmj has been working so well for you too!

herbivore21 said:

Now, research has suggested for some time now that CBD promotes hippocampal neurogenesis, the growing of new nerves in this brain region (as I mentioned before). CBD is also a serotonergic agent (acting on the 5HT1a receptor). This has long been known as a potential mechanism of action for anti-depressant effects of CBD https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2697769/

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Thanks for this. I guess I have had my head in the sand about the SSRIs. I am really getting worried about the permanent damage I may have done.

When I am not on them, I have no shell. Everything sets me off. I get super angry, super sad. All the SSRIs do is level that off. They do not boost my mood or make me more interested in doing and joining. My social anxiety has gotten progressively worse. My depression has gotten much worse.

Colorado says depression (and PTSD) do not have the research to justify putting it on the list of meds for mmj. But the CBD tincture my friend uses for anxiety and pain (and does her wonders) is $30 for a small bottle when all the retail taxes are applied. The shop budtender says CBD works better if there is a little THC with it as well. She was talking to me about live resin because it will have the most retained terpenes, but that is ruinously expensive! Especially with retail taxes.

So, at the moment, I am going it alone. Trying to boost my exercise, adding b vitamins and fish oil, trying to manage my refined sugar addiction...and my insurance is high deductible, so seeing a shrink is out anyway.

I may pursue a medical card anyway. Maybe a doctor with more knowledge who is willing to prescribe off label and use my migraines as the justification. Thankfully, my tolerance is still relatively low. But the tincture could be my daytime helper.

I was hoping to see a particular doc in town who is the man who pretty much developed the treatment for kids with epilepsy because he is a real doc with training in nutrition and behavioral health, open minded, and clearly willing to think outside the box, but he is moving to another country where research into med application of cannabis is easier.

Thanks for letting me share. Would love to hear what others are doing for alternative tx.

Well, I think I took my last ssri (celexa) pill 2 days ago. I admit it does seem to help with my moods but the side effects are too much for me. I am having a hard time staying focused and keeping my head in the game.

I have made 500+ of this one style chiller at work without issue and for the first time I actually could not remember how to put it together and put it together incorrectly. (A $6000 mistake).

I caught it in time before it left the shop and was able to rework it and save it thankfully but still totally unacceptable.

Needless to say, I am done with the pills.

I am going to order some cbd oil tonight to try.

Kalessin said:

I have tried mushrooms 3 times and it is wonderful, I feel like a completely well adjusted person on them, my issues just disappear. But it's not the kind of experience I could handle more than very rarely, weed doesn't disrupt my ability to function like shrooming.

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I took small doses two summers ago.
0.5-1.3g. I think they helped with my add depression and anxiety for months. It helped me make the decision to go to school. I think it really helpedy school performance too. Right now though I feel like I'm back to where I was before i took them. I felt like a normal person on them haha.

The thing I hate is everyone saying you have to take 2g+ to get effects from them. Sure its different for everyone but I feel like people think the only use is to trip balls.

That's what I hate about drugs and society. For some reason its like partying and binging people set what becomes the base dose for everyone. I don't get why society isn't actively trying to teach people to titrate any drug. They do the opposite and then wonder why there are drug problems.

I used to hate callng into work for being sick then going back in and people would talk like I didn't make it because a hang over. Simply because my age. Also at school I did some assignments about drug legalization and then was labelled at the class stoner for the whole semester.

People doing too much of a substance and finding a reason to brag about it, to me, would be like someone running a red light almost causing and accident and then bragging about it.

Herb for me is love/hate. If I was smart I'd keep my dose low. Then maybe I would see benefits.

Sorry bit of a rant...

Bacopa, Rhodiola Rosea, and vitamin B's seem to help me out the most for add, deprssion, and anxiety.

Herbs for sleep and tension at night.

I use it to cure anxiety. I never considered myself to use it to cure it. But I did take a 2 year break about. Then got back into it. Used a pipe for a bit. Decided eh, I need a vape. I cannot vape at low temperatures. My mind races too much. Higher temperatures so I zone out and get lost in my head helps a lot better for me. Get those "what was I just thinking about " moments lol.

Great thread. Wife is Bipolar and has anxiety issues as well. I just bought some Darkside of the Moon Extreme CBD Oil for myself for pain. I'll have to see if I can get the wife to try it out and see how it affects her. Hopefully it will take that "almost always on edge of losing it and screaming at me or the kids" away

The two main reasons I use mj is for appetite and depression. A lot of times I feel sick to my stomach and can't eat. After a vape session I start feeling hungry and food is enjoyable. The depression is a bit harder to control because sometimes I can vape and it makes me feel worse but most of the time the sadness goes away as I get buzzed, which is nice.

All hail the mighty weed. Life would be a bummer without it.

Kalessin said:

Couldn't find anything else posted exactly similar to this, so I thought I would ask, sorry if I'm posting redundantly. I use weed almost entirely to help with my anxiety and depression. I first tried it recreationally as a teenager and found it fun but didn't really get into aside from doing it occasionally with friends. But, as time went on my anxiety, which it took me most of my life to realize I even had a problem with, and the depression I had been struggling with since I was put on antidepressants unnecessarily when I was 10 or 11 continued to increasingly dominate my life. As that grew worse I realized that weed provided significant relief from my incessant worrying and my growing lack of desire to do...anything. I find it helps me overcome my disinterest in the things I enjoy, and it takes enough of an edge off my thoughts for me to be able to basically function in most social situations. I did for a while have some issues with the bud actually flaring my anxiety, but with practice and maintaining an awareness that it was all in my head I managed to mostly overcome that, and since switching entirely to vaping I have zero issues. I know this is really long now, but I was curious to see how many other people around here used for reasons similar to me.

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It's not my primary purpose for medicating, but it plays a big role. I have a tendency toward anxiety (and depression), that I stave off with regular applications of MMJ; it was rough at the beginning, though, as some sativa strains give me CRAZY paranoia/anxiety. Also many indicas described as "mood enhancers" would make me go off the deep end instead of picking me up like I would expect from a mood enhancer -- it took some time to find that "enhancer" did not mean it would "improve," but rather it would "amplify" it. I now know to stay away from certain strains, depending on my state of mind before consuming.

Great thread. Thanks for starting it.

Just wanted to add that you need to keep a close eye on your actives in different strains and stick with the right stuff. Some are better for anxiety and depression, others not so much. And, weed seems to affect different people more differently than most drugs or alcohol, so a good idea to go easy with the same strain for a few days (at least) until you find what might work best for you and adjust as you can.

But, if you're like many and don't have access to strain specific meds, it's probably going to be a bit of a rollercoaster with some bags helping, and others making things worse.

flotntoke said:

But, if you're like many and don't have access to strain specific meds, it's probably going to be a bit of a rollercoaster with some bags helping, and others making things worse.

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This is how it is where I am, and when I first started getting into smoking heavily I did have some freakouts, but I can almost always willpower myself out of them when it flares up now. I've yet to buy any I just could not handle at all, but some batches must be handled with more caution

Kalessin said:

This is how it is where I am, and when I first started getting into smoking heavily I did have some freakouts, but I can almost always willpower myself out of them when it flares up now. I've yet to buy any I just could not handle at all, but some batches must be handled with more caution

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Definitely! Tho suck as it may, if there are nice heady, racy sativas around (which could be one that isn't good for anxiety), chances are you aren't just going to luck into a sack of it. If it's anything like my area, if something like this was around it would be at quite a premium price with plenty of talking things up to justify it. Unless you can find the right people at the right time, it is all pretty much hybrid mids. Probably good to find what works for you, but often hard to get the exact same thing unless only a day or two later.

How about vaping temps? Doesn't that also make a differece too with how much or how little it helps?

Bluestang said:

How about vaping temps? Doesn't that also make a differece too with how much or how little it helps?

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That does seem to be the case, though I haven't gotten to experiment with it myself since I don't have a vape that's good for temp stepping yet. Maybe one day I'll have my Grasshopper to experiment with...

I suffer from social anxiety and depression and use cannabis to tackle these to an extent. Unfortunately this side of the pond we don't really get much of a choice of strains so it can be a real pain finding something that works and subsequently not being able to get hold of it again.

As a general rule, strong sativas (particularly hazes) seem to tackle my depression for a good few hours but can also set my anxiety off. I've tackled this by restricting myself to a very small amount in the morning, 2-3 inhales of a 0.05g bowl on the blue setting in my Arizer Air.

Conversely, heavy indicas seem to tackle the anxiety but can make the depression a bit worse in the sense that I'm a bit lethargic and more likely to dwell on things if I go too heavy or don't have something to occupy the time.

I'm sure there's the perfect hybrid somewhere for me. The best all-day strain I've found so far in terms of keeping me grounded but not necessarily tackling either issue head on is probably White Widow.

Very interesting thread to follow, cannabis is such a strange drug. It does seem like one strain can have polar opposite effects on different people.

Superhans said:

I suffer from social anxiety and depression and use cannabis to tackle these to an extent. Unfortunately this side of the pond we don't really get much of a choice of strains so it can be a real pain finding something that works and subsequently not being able to get hold of it again.

As a general rule, strong sativas (particularly hazes) seem to tackle my depression for a good few hours but can also set my anxiety off. I've tackled this by restricting myself to a very small amount in the morning, 2-3 inhales of a 0.05g bowl on the blue setting in my Arizer Air.

Conversely, heavy indicas seem to tackle the anxiety but can make the depression a bit worse in the sense that I'm a bit lethargic and more likely to dwell on things if I go too heavy or don't have something to occupy the time.

I'm sure there's the perfect hybrid somewhere for me. The best all-day strain I've found so far in terms of keeping me grounded but not necessarily tackling either issue head on is probably White Widow.

Very interesting thread to follow, cannabis is such a strange drug. It does seem like one strain can have polar opposite effects on different people.

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Yup. Personally, I've found sativa dominant hybrids work well (60/40-70/30 is a good ratio spread for me), but they're usually the type that nubs incorrectly categorize as Indica (headband, chemdawg, OG, diesel genetics). It's tough to get what you want repeatedly when your distributor is not a shop