I need me some more cbd heavy strains I think, to combat that anxiety. I tend to find I can knock the depression into submission with enough dabs of my THC bomb shatter at the moment, but at the expense of crippling anxiety. Unfortunately, I live in a place where finding CBD strains would be next level needle in haystack type stuff.
Yikes, that doesn't sound like a very good trade-off. Personally, I think I'd take the depression over the anxiety anyway. At least I could probably sleep to escape a bit. But maybe I haven't hit the lowest lows possible with depression and just don't know any better.
So, don't have easy access to mmj either and certainly not a CBD heavy strain in particular, but I would be willing to do whatever it takes to find a way to get it if I felt strongly that it might be theraputic for symptoms of psychotic delusion and hypo-mania. These are what my son is struggling with. I'm trying, so far without much luck, to gather anecdotal information on the treatment of psychotic symptoms with CBD in particular. His official diagnosis (for whatever the dx is worth--and that is very unclear to me at this point) after 3 psychotic episodes in two years and three concurrent hospitalizations, is schizophrenia.
As his mother, I have plenty of reasons to be "in denial" about that diagnosis, but I don't believe that's why I'm hesitant to use the label. I hate the word, with all its awful stigma, and I feel like a diagnosis can frequently be a false or over-simplification of what's really happening inside a person. Doctors may be aware of needing to have a diagnosis quickly for insurance reasons, but they still go into "treatment protocol" mode, and start treating the "disease" and not the person. In other words, they stop being a physician, a diagnostician.
Earlier in this thread, XRufusX said something along the lines that
diagnoses are *supposed* to make it easier to treat a mental health issue systemically. In my son's case, he got on the pharma train and inside of six months went from a super-skinny, energetic, social 18 year-old, to an overweight, housebound space-case with occasional hypo-manic symptoms. He can barely string a sentence together a lot of the time, and I don't know if it's iatrogenic -from the treatments--or part of his existing problem. Or even what the "existing problem" even is. Especially because of all the fucking "treatments". Before his first episode, he was smoking mj (who knows what, exactly--not mm, that's for sure) on a daily basis, and then experimented with MDMA and methamphetamine once or twice. In my opinion, it was this last that
triggered the first psychotic episode, although who knows what lie latent before that... if latent mental illness is even a valid concept. And I have some reason to think his incessant use of MJ may have contributed in some way as well, although I have no strong opinion about that. Impossible to know.
From my observations, the process of psychiatric diagnosis--even in the city probably best known for good medical care in the world--is fairly scattershot. As I said, doctors are under pressure to put a name on it fast so they can bill insurance. Then they try a series of drugs, sometimes only for a few *days* each before cross-titrating to the next. Where they ended up--with a drug that has life-threatening side-effects--seemed to be more a matter of what suppressed symptoms, aka as "quieted him down", than anything. To me, the important point is not what will make a person shut up and act normal. That may be a benefit, but if the drugs are obfuscating what's happening internally, as so many of these heavy-hitting anti-psychotics do (and that's the tip of the crap side effects iceberg), what is the point other than the comfort of the people around the sick person. It's like giving speed to children so they will sit still--for OUR benefit. It's an infuriating, disgusting mess. Where are the real physicians, the healers?
Rambling on here. What was my point? Right: I'm hoping someone can engage the topic of CBD as a treatment for symptoms of mental illness--of any kind--but particularly psychotic delusion and/or hypo-mania.
If you made it to the end of this post, thanks for reading. Any feedback is appreciated.
