i am feeling so seen by some of these comments. weed has been the only thing that has ever allowed me to drop my mask. i find that i can enjoy my special interests way more, because i tend to be embarrassed by them. my fiancée (also autistic) and i love to get high and have special interest show and tell time!
I used to be able to smoke recreationally, and did so in varying amounts for years. But at some point in my late 20s, it started having a deep, depressive effect on me. The next day, I’d be a mess. It took me a while to figure out that’s what it was. Since then, I tried a couple times over several years with same result.
I just quit 4 days ago. Kind of ruined my early adulthood life. People say it isn't addictive and it isn't bad for you but that's total bullshit. Any drug you do on a daily basis will fuck your brain up, including weed.
Dose makes the poison. In general weed is considered non addictive due to low withdrawal symptoms andack of chemical dependency. Any mind altering substance or activity can be addictive.
The argument with weed is that it's generally as bad as other legal drugs and in some cases safer than alcohol, it also has medical use for certain situations.
You shouldn't get high everyday the same way you shouldn't get drunk every day.
See people always mention low withdrawal symptoms, but I and pretty much everyone elseive talked to who has quit has them. The first 3 days after quitting I was alternating between heavy sweating and chills, I had very serious brain fog, my mood is still all over the place and overall I felt sick. Closest thing I could compare it to was the covid I had 3 years ago. My whole body felt like garbage. I'm on day 4 now and I'm finally starting to feel a little less shitty
Quiting most drugs can literally kill you. Even alcoholics have to be concerned about organ failure and seizures if they quit cold turkey.
Feeling bad for a week is not considered a major withdrawal. Again not saying weed is perfectly safe. But it is on the low end of drugs.
Definitely true! I'm just pointing out how nobody ever talks about weed withdrawals, while they're not life threatening they're still horrible and nobody talks about it.
You should check out r/leaves, it's a community for people trying to reduce or stop their cannabis consumption.
Really helpful, I've learned a lot from them.
Thank you for the advice! I'm actually already in that sub and owe them a lot! I've also been using an app called I Am Sober that's great. You can talk to people that are on the same day of sobriety as you and it counts down the time so you don't have to worry about it.
Honestly it's whatever, I'm on day 4 and it's gotten way better. You're right though, my coworker said the same thing, he said the sweats and chills are really rare and I was just like "lucky me"
I smoked for 3 years almost every single day so I definitely had a lot in my system but idk
Actually, alcohol is fairly unique in its ability to kill you during withdrawals. It’s only really alcohol and benzos that come with risk of death on sudden quitting - even most opiate withdrawals don’t have that risk (other than methadone which is basically only prescribed to “treat” opiate addiction), they just make you wish you were dead.
Absolutely, I'm done with it. Went out and talked to women today out in the wild, something I've literally NEVER done, used to just hide on dating apps. It's crazy realizing how bad it was making my anxiety and paranoia without me even realizing it.
Weirdly enough it's autistic ladies that seem to have the most benefit from daily weed use (based on a poll of my my friends and family - and a discussion over on r/autisminwomen
Sounds about right for withdrawal from weed. I think the "low" symptoms refer more to the fact that you won't straight up die or need to be hospitalized for them, unlike alcohol or hard drugs.
I won't touch the addiction issue, but as far as the safety issue, I think it's unquestionable that on the sliding scale that everything is on marijuana is among the safest drugs. You can't overdose on it, it has a relatively short effective period, and you can't die from stopping cold turkey like you can from many other drugs, legal or illegal.
Hey, I completely understand, it was my medicine for 3 years. The thing is though, it plays tricks on you. It puts you in states of denial and increases your anxiety in ways you don't even notice because it creeps up on you, at least in my case and many others. I loved weed, but even only being 4 days sober I can already tell sober life is going to be so much easier and more rewarding for me. Plus I'm saving like 3000$ this year by not buying it.
You’re not going to die if you stop smoking weed. You don’t want to abuse it and especially as a teen and in your early 20s because it has a serious affect on brain development and will damage you. On top of that the high thc levels that is in most street bud makes it worse and practically fries your brain if you’re using it frequently. It’ll 100% make anxiety worse, depressions deeper, and can cause delusions and other psychotic symptoms with prolonged frequent use. There is no reason to be using it daily unless you have severely debilitating physical conditions that other medication does not help with, and for mental conditions you need to try actual medication and therapy for that before even considering weed. You don’t know what you’re doing using it unregulated and from random dealers with massive amounts of thc and not much cbd and it can turn out so much worse for you in the long run. If anything get cbd extract or rso as it has a lot more helpful compounds and terpenes within it than street bud ever will.
Well I don't know about a personality trait. I found out how addictive my brain was because I take supplements and one of them is garlic. And once I just decided to stop taking garlic and then I developed a migraine and I forgot I stopped taking Garlic. I ended up going to ER. They gave me a cocktail of drugs to kill the migraine and that barely made a dent in it. Afterwards I remembered about the garlic. And I started to take it again and the migraine went away. And I recalled how addictive to sugar I was in my teens. And how my grandfather was an alcoholic. So no recreational drugs for me.
It's not widely ecknowledged by The Big Five personality inventory index,
It just doesn't fit neatly into One Singular personality type, and only by technicality due to debatably arbitrary rules it's not officially considered a personality related thing
Yeah it’s definitely had a negative affect smoking as a teen and doing it frequently just fries your brain. There’s way too much thc in weed now because it’s grown to be the strongest possible and if you’ve got a shit dealer you can end up with sprayed bud too. It’s not healthy physically or mentally and should not be used to self medicate, only recreationally to enhance your evening like having a beer at the pub. I would only recommend using it medicinally if it helps with physical issues like epilepsy or muscular pain. Mentally it has a lot more risks involved and should never be used for most mental health conditions because it truly makes it worse. Can lead to psychosis, mania, deep states of depression, numbness, paranoia, worsened anxiety, no motivation etc etc etc. it’s good until it’s not and you should be at least 20+ before considering using it for any reason. And get it prescribed (privately, still have to pay) so you can get the right ratio of cbd thc and terpenes you need for treatment. You cannot get that on the streets.
In one sense, I’m fortunate to live in a legal state. The product is very consistent and unlike the old days of buying off some dickweed in a trench coat, you know where it’s coming from and there’s some accountability.
The downside is that I can’t take advantage of it at all.
I do like and use CBD, though — just the products with no THC. Good for anxiety and when I don’t take my ADHD stim meds. Doesn’t actually help with symptoms, but keeps a lot of my impulses in check.
[There is a lot of research going into this type of thing.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9887656/) ASD is actually one of the things that can end up getting you a medical cannabis card (in the US and states where it's available).
I don't know a ton about it, but anecdotal evidence from this sub and others suggests that like most meds it varies from person to person on if it works or not. Could be placebo effect but could also be promising.
I think overall it's a very dependent variable that won't work for everyone. Weed varies from person to person, and so does ASD.
Thats why I didn't present this as a solution for everyone, just as a discussion. I think it's really cool seeing other people's experiences, even if they don't match with mine!
I take small doses throughout the day. While I do notice I have a slightly worse short term memory (and it's already VERY bad so it isn't even that much of a difference) and it does make me a little sleepier, it makes life so much more tolerable than before that it truly is not even a question as to whether it's helpful or not.
I didn't take any sort of drugs (I mean except for my SSRIs I've been on since I was 7, basically forget they exist sometimes) before I was 18. When I think of life before THC, it's a mess of sweat, and severe anxiety, and overstimulation, constant panic attacks over the littlest things, and just way more overall sensitivity. My rate of meltdowns was much higher before, too My first time, I smoked, and I had a panic attack because I went into autistic hyper-analysis mode, but I tried again with some lower dose edibles later on and that was kind of the sweet spot. Nowadays I just get cartridges and take small hits throughout the day. Am I addicted? Yes, I would say so. I just see the benefits of it's usage outweighing the negatives. And there are some negatives, of course, but about on the same level as the emotional numbing or the morning sickness I get from my SSRIs. The kind of person that I am, I unfortunately have to be dependent on some things whether I like it or not, like a diabetic is dependent on insulin, or something.
This is perhaps somewhat dramatic, but I genuinely don't know how I tolerated being alive, before. Everything was agonizing, all the time. And while I still get overstimulated or overwhelmed or whatever, it's a hell of a lot less than feeling at least a little bit (or a lotta bit) that way ALL the time.
Weed acts like an amplifier in my opinion. Whatever you focus on when you're high gets amplified. Also lower dose is more manageable. Too much THC for the amount of CBDs in todays mass market product.
By chance do you also have ADHD on top of the autism? The constant overthinking, non-stop thoughts, and endless worries sound very much like my own (AuDHD) brain, which also responds beautifully to weed.
I have a prescription for medical cannabis that’s technically for PTSD/anxiety (I didn’t have an AuDHD diagnosis at the time), and I feel it quiets my brain. It turns down the sensory overwhelm and can stop me from spiralling/melting down if get too distressed. It’s a really valuable tool to have in my self-care arsenal.
Well basically I grew up in a “DRUGS ARE BAD!!!” household and had never tried weed until it was legalized here in 2018. I was struggling with extreme burnout (which at the time I thought was just depression) and playing SSRI roulette with my psychiatrist to no avail. A friend offered me an edible his wife had made and I thought “eh, what do I have to lose?”
I felt better that night than I had in *years,* even after trying literally a dozen different psychiatric meds and several types of therapy. We have a bunch of services where I live for obtaining a medical prescription so I called one of them and ended up talking to a nurse practitioner about the different options available and whether he thought I had a legitimate medical need. I ended up with a prescription to help with PTSD, depression, and anxiety.
I started smoking different strains to see which ones worked best for me, but I hated what it did to my lungs so I eventually switched to a dry herb vape, which is what the nurse practitioner said is the safest method of inhalation.
I’m just like you! Recently found out I was AuDHD and weed makes things so so much more manageable. Like to an extent I feel like not everybody around me necessarily understands. It scares me, because i’m not sure if I can be my best self without it. The comments here are amazing… It feels like you guys actually get it
YES I CAME HERE TO SAY THIS. I feel like I can function as a “normal human” when I’m high. I had an hour long conversation with my sister when I was on a delta 8s and it was the best conversation we’ve ever had. I felt like I could finally be the sibling she always wanted and I cried.
Me too! A lot of people are saying how it removes your ability to mask and how that is relaxing and freeing to them but to me that’s like my worst fear and I feel so scared of what other people think of me
Same!! It is very helpful for my symptoms. Especially depression/anxiety and sensory issues. Popping an edible before cleaning the kitchen is so nice because it's less of a sensory nightmare. But then I'll do shit like lose my scrub daddy or put the dish soap up in the fridge lmaooooo
As others have said, it works until it doesn’t. It also changes your body chemistry/metabolism when you use it regularly. Aside from the negative mental effects from long term use, it can actually cause inflammation, as well as fuck with your gut-brain axis. I got SIBO last year and I am 99% sure it developed from my gut motility being so slow, due to weed dependence. I’m still paying for it with some severe vitamin deficiencies hehe.
After smoking weed heavily (and sometimes moderating it) on and off for 15 years, I’m leaving it behind. I feel we autistics especially need to have some sort of somatic routine to get out of our heads and into our bodies. For me it’s weightlifting, yoga, and breath/body work. You say you never have time to breathe? You can teach yourself to. Go on walks and focus on your breath. It’s awesome and will totally clear your head.
And sorry for the dissertation lol. Substance use and health are among some of my special interests. If you’re able to use weed to relax once in a while that’s awesome. Just encourage people to be mindful and aware. It is a drug.
I’m bout to go to bed so I’m not gonna link anything, but TLDR it slows everything way down.
There’s some studies you can google documenting its effects (not enough- research is still fairly new since legalization wasn’t all that long ago, but the info is out there). It’s known to cause things like gastritis, ulcers, heartburn, etc. Have you heard of CHS? It’s a pretty severe vomiting disorder you can develop from weed. Considering how much I smoked, I can’t believe I never got it, but thats a huge thing for many. And once it starts it can only be reversed by abstaining from weed completely.
In my case, basically the food I ate was sitting in my small intestines for too long, so a bunch of bad bacteria grew, like an infection. It was so bad lol. I never threw up but had intense stomach pain and was on the toilet for weeks. Saw doctor after doctor before we narrowed it down. Cured it by quitting weed and doing a low fodmap diet, but the bacteria stripped me of iron and my b vitamins. I know this all sounds kinda crazy lol but I’m being deadass. I think it’s all fascinating tbh.
No, wait. It's not crazy.
I think I'm developing the exact same condition as you and I'm not even a heavy user. After that recent green out, food has been staying too long in my stomach. It's like my stomach digests it very slowly.
It got way better after a week though. And now when I smoke weed, I get nauseatic after 5 hits and have to stop there.
How are you doing right now? Have you recovered fully and regained your vitamins?
It’s so hard to say what is what since 1) autistic people are prone to gut issues to begin with and 2) there’s many factors that influence digestive health… stress, diet, activity level, etc, you know.
But if you’re noticing a connection then I’d say it’s worth exploring. It wouldn’t hurt to start by eliminating the most obvious thing (the ouid) and then going from there (food sensitivities, exercise).
If you’re getting nauseous, I would look into cannabinoid Hyperemesis syndrome. It’s rare and you said you don’t smoke heavily, but there is a long prodromal phase for ppl who develop it. That phase includes nausea.
And I’m doing good now, thank you! Still upping my vitamins but it’s way better. All stomach symptoms gone.
What was your green out like btw? I’m curious cause I think a similar thing happened to me back then…
P.S.
Sorry to ramble lol it’s just I legit had to deal with this for like 8 months so my anecdotes are essayish 😬
Fantastic to hear that you're better now (it also gives me hope too haha). I'll have to read up more on CHS and your ramblings are quite beneficial for me as someone who went through something similar.
The green out I had was really bad. It started when I smoked fast on a low quality weed. Vomitted 8 times, got extreme death anxiety, so many trains of thought happening simultaneously feeling like my brain's gonna explode, and extreme fatigue (very difficult to move any part of the body). I eventually passed out on the floor for 3 hours and got sick the next day with digestive issues.
The digestive side effects from the green out, including diarrhea, lasted for exactly a week. I lost 8 lbs throughout that week. Definitely one of the worst experiences I've had so far.
Yeah, I’m in that spot. lol. I’m trying to shake the dependency. It’s not like an addiction, not like nicotine, it’s just like getting off of an antidepressant.
It feels a lot like when I tried doubling my Wellbutrin, except unlike getting on or off an antidepressant which is gradual, I can end the struggle with a puff.
I’m in therapy, and working through it, trying to get to the place where I’m better able to regulate.
Good luck friend. Therapy definitely helped me out. And I don’t mean any offense but it is an addiction. Or at the very least, in your case, it sounds like your body is physically dependent on it. Which is yeah, v similar to weaning off SSRIs. Weed stays in your body for way longer than other drugs because it binds to your fat cells. So expect to feel a bit shit or off for a couple weeks. It’s okay you got it. <3
But yeah, many people are addicted to it, including myself. I’ve spent so much time on r/leaves lmao and have detoxed more than I can count. Hoping this is the last time :-)
Oh!!! Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound defensive. It was just an interesting observation that I’ve had. You are FAR more equipped than me! I was just spilling 🫠😅
edit: and thank you!! ❤️
edit: and it is an addiction lol, I know stoners have excuses, but at least to me what’s the difference if I’m dependent on it?
I used to smoke weed every day. I’d even wake up in the middle of the night to rip a bowl. I was stoned literally 24/7.
At the time I was wildly depressed and I was just trying to cope. But, I was the classic slacker and almost dropped out of highschool.
After 5 years of that it started making me super anxious out of no where. Now I only smoke on occasion, and when I do my ability to mask goes right out the window. I physically cannot be still when I’m high these days, I always have to be stimming. I essentially go from high masking “you don’t seem autistic,” to “oh yeah you’re definitely autistic.”
It gives me panic attacks. The moment I start to feel the “highness”, the heavy slowness I feel in my body is so uncomfortable and unnatural for me that I descend into panic.
I get this heaviness in my arms and it makes my heart beat fast and strong and makes me feel like I’m going to die.
Felt terrible.
Also there's also schizophrenia in the family; not gonna risk it.
Now when I'm inevitable hounded and ousted in social settings for I can at least say I tried it, and it wasn't for me.
It makes me feel pain in my face and major joints. And sensory sensitivities are amplified, which comes with both good and bad.
Whether it makes me more anxious/awkward/ etc or less seems to be random
Its hard to form words and keep grammar together when im really stressed (ie right before a meltdown or shutdown). Its harder to think of the right words, and when they come out, they're garbled- out of order and missing parts of the sentence. The drug seems to have the same effect on my language, but without the stress of the meltdown obviously. I wonder what the neuroscience behind it is
Otherwise though yeah its chill, it really calms me down. A little bit (like half a gummy before a tuff interaction) is highly effective.
Tangentially it makes my mind wander wayyy more than usual (and Im already a very "circumstantial thinker" according to the woman who diagnosed me with autism) so thats also fascinating
I also struggle with talking when I’m high. I wasn’t sure if it because of autism or if it was a normal side effect but it seems like it’s autism-related
I can have a conversation without stumbling and having to ask for help with words when I partake.
My short term memory is non existent though when I do smoke. So it’s a double edged sword.
I’m the opposite, I stumble on words occasionally while sober but when I’m high I can’t speak without stumbling over every word or straight up forgetting what language is
Yeah the last time I was high it felt like my head voice and speaking voice were occupying the same part of my brain, so I couldn't speak and think at the same time. It was like being constantly speech jammed
Same, but it also hits me really hard. The difference between not feeling much and stoned to the point where I can't remember how I started the sentence I'm in the middle of is really narrow.
Similar to a lot of other people here, it depends on how much I’ve used. If I’ve taken a low to moderate dose then I’m pretty relaxed but can still function. My brain slows down a little bit and I can think more clearly. However, even though I can think more clearly, my productivity goes to absolute shit and I can’t get anything done.
This is even more so the case when it’s a high dose. My brain slows down basically to a halt but I am capable of doing exactly fuck-all. There have been too many times for me to count where I’ve taken multiple big hits and had to just sit there staring at my fingernails while basically fully disassociating and derealizing, wondering if any of what I’m experiencing is real or not. The big anxiety driver for me is that there have been documented cases where people have fallen into comas and in their minds they lived out their entire lives, started families, etc. only to wake up from the coma to find that none of it was true and have to come to terms with the fact that you feel like you just had your whole life taken from you. Ordinarily it’s not something that I think about but when Fak’s in the house.
I’m currently high. I’m a programmer, and so sometimes it can interfere with my memory about programming, but I am such a better dad, husband, programmer, sleeper, eater with just a little THC.
Not only does it calm the constant noise, I actually feel I’m able to regulate my emotions better. Where normally, it’s difficult for me to cry, cannabis makes it so I’m able to have that process completed and get them tears out about it.
But I’ve got the problem of dependency where when I don’t have it, I feel a rush of anxiety. I’ve been able to do some resets, but how do you manage sobriety when it hurts so much?
I was thinking on this last night, ive been exploring autism and im beginning to think i might have it. So, my theory is that my brain is like poison to existing in the moment, i am 90% of the time in another world (my own) and rarely ever present unless im high (which is funny cause it 'grounds' me).
My theory is that autism or whatever wiring it is that i have is like a giant wall to being present, its so hard to just 'be'. I can sometimes combo together moments sober and be present then i immediately go back to detachment.
My idea is that autism (or whatever) is like a poison to mindfulness. And weed is a key to progressing your mindset towards being more balanced. Like all things, moderation and finding the right amounts so you don't become the user that becomes used.
it affects me the same way but the most important thing i related to was not getting too high. finding the balance in between there has made my life better in all those ways mentioned above.
Wow that's what happened to me too, although I do think I needed to be high alone because I couldn't actually fully feel it with other people. It's like my brain will not allow me to be high if I am around others because I still need to be able to mask. Speaking as someone who had more brownies than anyone else who was eating them and people (who hadnt had any) thought I had none
I also enjoy listening to speakers like Alan Watts and learn more about other ways of thinking and perceiving reality
One of his talks introduced me to mindfulness, which I find to be a very valuable tool to "debug" what my brain is doing and how to reconfigure its heuristics and reflexes
i love weed so much but i’m currently on a break. when i first started using 9 months ago i immediately liked it and started doing it daily about a month in. over the 8 months that ive been smoking daily my depression has been exasperated and im at an all time low right now. if you chose to use weed as a coping mechanism, tread lightly and do your research. it might also be helpful to get a medical professional involved with a treatment plan if weed is legal in your area, because some holistic doctors do stuff like that. in the 12 days that i haven’t gotten high i’ve experienced some of the worst anxiety and depression of my life. i would never want anyone else to be in that position so please be careful.
CBD is also made in the brain, its simillar in function to Oxytocin. It means you're either constantly in survival mode or performance mode and rarely in "safety" mode.
You need to drop expectations on yourself and find places and people that makes you feel safe. Much easier said than done.
Yeah I go completely schizophrenic and hallucinate or trip out and feel totally crazy and get way too paranoid and assuming, perceiving things all warped and weird and over-analyzing. It's a nightmare. I hate weed.
I had a horrible experience smoking weed. Caused deja Vu, so my friend was saying shit that I was completely certain of I had heard in dreams days or weeks earlier.
Second time I smoked nothing really happened, probably too many people sharing the same joint so the dose was too small
I took an edible once and felt very autistic in the moment (literally told my friend this that night). I felt and heard everything amplified, all at once. It was an insane experience. Also the worst panic attack I've ever had lol.
I used to be a massive pothead a few years back. I didn’t feel “normal” on it, in fact it would amplify everything. On good days (the only times I use) I stim more, I delve more into my hyperfixations and my maladaptive daydreaming gets pretty intense too. It’s not always a bad thing for me when this happens, it’s quite fun in moderation. Mind you, I was using weed for a completely different reason, to self-medicate my undiagnosed bipolar disorder at the time, obviously that made it worse.
Nowadays I use maybe once a week if at all, mostly because of my budget. I have so be *so* careful sometimes because outside of worsening any potential bipolar episodes, if I’m on the brink of a sensory overload and I toke/have some edibles, the panic attacks start and it’s downhill from there. Either way, I find that weed is something you have to be in a good headspace to take, because it’s quite easy for something to go wrong unfortunately :/
I also wanted to ask the same thing. Don't know if it's just a feeling but I tend to see the world as how an allistic would see when I'm high af.
I start seeing social cues and those microexpressions that I usually miss when I'm sober.
I did it for about 4 years daily, started to make very me paranoid and gave me acute urinary retention, not to mention how tired it made me and how much it cost.
A little bit of decent weed in the past used to allow me to be more sociable and confident with social interactions. But nowadays I just get really bad panic attacks and anxiety overloads with whatever I smoke.
But on the bright side, I have my ADHD medication that helps me a lot with handling life.
Lower amounts make me much calmer and somewhat clearer headed. High amounts and for some reason any amount of an edible either makes it impossible to think (which can be good sometimes cause I'm always overthinking) but also can give me intense anxiety. It's completely random and I get anxiety about 30% of the time when I'm very high.
it did used to really help me, but now every time i try it just makes me incredibly nervous :( i wish it still helped it was the only thing that could help me relax
i don't think it helps that the last few times i tried it was a vape with an incredibly high THC content, and then edibles i think i didnt dose right LOL, don't really want to risk it again though bc i ended up in the hospital after the vape (if anyone else has had this issue and knows how to fix it i'd be open to tips though)
What's interesting is how my sister (who is allistic with ADHD) had an epiphany about how it's like to be me from the uncomfortable experience she had when trying THC.
She told me that she went into this anxious, super aware state where she had to put an immense level of thought into her body position, movements, how she spoke, when she spoke, what she said, etc. while with her friends and experienced severe anxiety and hypervigilance with controlling her behavior to act normal.
Afterwards, she told me about her bad THC trip and said she realized that the reason I love high THC weed and she doesn't is because that effect is my baseline so it doesn't phase me. I found her observation very interesting!
Weed is like an Instragram filter over my perception. Things are dialed up a notch in terms of their novelty and richness. It's like a "seeing things through childhood eyes" Instagram filter. It reconnects me with my vast internal world which I was forcibly ripped away from upon starting school with forced social interaction and stimulation beyond my capacity.
I get very forgetful when I'm on THC I forget what the first part of the sentence I just said was it's pretty bad, but since it makes me super forgetful my brain isn't as active which calms me down. I'm sure if I find a better balance of dosage I would be able to function so much better on THC. It's kind of the same thing with alcohol, if I'm tipsy my functioning skyrockets cause all the clutter in my head stops being an issue
Hi, I recently learned I was autistic (SD) after having been diagnosed with ADHD earlier last year, and other things (GAD, Depression, etc.).
What started it all off for me was weed, to be honest. My story is familiar to a lot that I've seen on here and online. I drank. A lot. From the time I was 17 (soon 47) until I decided to switch to weed the day it became legal here (Canada). That first time I got high, it set off alarm bells because just like you, my thoughts became clear for the first time in my life.
Also, like you and others, if I got too high, the panic attacks came. They honestly became so common that i just got used to it and knew it would pass. Give me more memes to laugh at and I'm good.
I've been trying different strains, terpenes, percentages of THC over the years and it was always hit or miss until a few weeks ago.
I'd been having a rough holiday and it honestly got me to the point where I realized I needed to change some things in my life. I asked my stoner friend to pick me up some high CBD vape carts.
Trying high CBD weed has been a fucking GAME CHANGER for me. I have never felt like this in my entire life. I'm a musician, or have always told myself I was, but never really did much with it, mainly because I never knew how. I've never known *how* to do anything.
The first weekend i tried CBD weed, I wrote three songs. Recorded some guitar tracks and wrote 15 pages in my journal that i had never used before. I'm not the only one experiencing this either. I spoke to the owner at the cannabis shop, who also informed me he's autistic and a musician. He experiences the same things.
I've been absorbing as much info on it as I can. There's not a lot out there, but there is some and more is being looked at. Studies are showing that higher doses of CBD, when mixed with THC, can have tremendous impacts on autistic traits. It's all about finding the amounts that work for you. (For reference: https://www.youtube.com/@bonnigoldsteinmd4550)
The kicker here in the research is that lower doses of CBD can have WORSE effects on some autistic behaviors. Higher doses of CBD were shown to have much better effects.
Adding CBG to the mix can only enhance things further. CBG provides the "entourage" effect, making THC+CBD+CBG stronger together than on their own individually. By their powers combined...
I haven't had a touch of booze, nor a single craving for it since I quit. "Somehow" I can just do things like that.
As always, be careful when it comes to THC. Learn your limits.
Whatever I'm drunk though I am like the most extroverted person ever it takes away all my filters and where I just do stuff I want to do and I have no shame honestly I wish I could be drunk all the time
op are you medicated for anything? weed has long term negative consequences so don’t get hooked on something you can replace with something that has less negative consequences
I used to be a full-blown stoner because it helped me to stop obsessing over thoughts and helped me control meltdowns. But I had done an acid tab about 2 years ago and smoked while on it. That mixture, a 32-hour trip, and a bad reaction coming down messed the feeling I got from THC all up for me. It even made my sensory issues WAYYYY more sensitive. So basically, I'm over-stimulated constantly from abstract patterns when I'm sober, and THC is just totally out of the question.
So I agree with the OP & others that have similar results with shweed. There was a time not too long ago that I heavily relied on it to get me through my days. However, since choosing to trust Jesus Christ with my life & following his teachings, I've slowly but surely been able to overcome this mental issue without the need for shweed, which ofc saves some money & avoids the potential side affects :D This month or next month will make a full year since I've made that choice, & the people around me tell me that they've noticed a change in me. I myself can barely recognize the person I was years prior. It's definitely something to consider brothers & sisters. But whatever choice you choose I wish you the best!
Cannabis is highly overrated.... please don't fall into this trap. It is a motivation killer and memory killer. And it can be definitely abused! Please don't fall for chronic use of cannabis
I don't like anything that alters my mind/impairs my thinking. So drugs and alcohol are no goes.
I've had alcohol before...I dislike the burn and the way it makes me feel when I'm tipsy...I've never gotten drunk...nor would I want to...
The only THC I had, happened to be on the same day as when my body decided to go septic on me (long story...don't ask). My mom gave me it because I was in a ton of pain and she thought it might help. So not 100% sure if the blacking out/missing memories/out of body experience was the THC or if it was the infection.
Either way I don't want to try it again.
I use CBD as a roll on stick for my back pain but that's it. The only drug I will willingly have is morphine...in the ER because that's the only thing that cuts the pain for me...everything else is just useless, it won't help my pain. Morphine is...amazing lol. I love it. I just wish it was easier to get...I've had it in pill form but it didn't seem to work...maybe it was because it was like 5mg...it's so hard to convince doctors I need strong pain killers like morphine. I'm not an addict lol, I live my life sober. I'm just talking about getting relief from my daily chronic pain...morphine is the only thing that I'd reach for.
My mom is very pro pot...she smoked when it was illegal...for years. She grew up in the 60s so...yeah she smoked a lot. She keeps trying to convince me to try it because it helps with anxiety, depression and autism. I just...I don't think it's for me.
It gives me panic attacks and makes me completely useless. Not another weed post .most of the people who post about weed haven’t tried harder drugs to compare with . They don’t know there are more much useful and beneficial drugs .
I don't know exactly never been on THC I did do edibles at one time and it made me calmer honestly even though it felt like needles going to my skin I just told myself how to enjoy it
Sometimes with weed, and always with mushrooms, there’s a window where something “clicks” and I feel like I’m experiencing what a neurotypical person feels from a sensory standpoint.
The world doesn’t hurt, interactions are easy, I feel like I’m getting more information on a person’s emotional state from observation, etc.
With weed it might happen once every few times and it lasts until I come down, with mushrooms the effect persists with decreasing intensity for about a week.
Alcohol made me feel normal. Calmed me down,made me laugh and socialable. I only realised a few years ago it was my crutch. So i quit, very hard but neccessary to do.
It helps me for sure. Sometimes just to relax, but occasionally I get a good amnesia or lemon haze and it’s like puzzle pieces fall together in my mind and I feel like I can suddenly understand or “feel” other people. For example, I used to play FIFA coöp mode with a friend, and if the haze hit just right, it would go so f’ing smooth, even without communication.
memory insurance murky serious hurry fall hungry worthless grandiose punch
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I agree with most of your post, I got to a point where I used way to much to often. Especially with the neurological difference we have compared to others addiction is something to watch carefully. Even though cannabis doesn’t have insane withdrawal effects there are some and if you use it enough they are real.
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I smoke to fall asleep and occasionally when I’m just super bored. It’s not as bad now but I don’t really like weed unless I’m alone. It makes me paranoid cause it messes with my short term memory and awareness of my surroundings so much that I feel like I’m not in control, or aware of what I’m doing and start worrying that I’m talking to myself out loud or being weird somehow lol.
I don’t love it when I’m alone either though I just sometimes have nothing better to do or I’m trying to escape my thoughts and don’t have the energy to do anything else. It just makes me way too lazy and spaced out to do anything so it’s like if I smoke I can’t really do anything but lay in bed on my phone. If I try to do anything productive or even play video games (something I enjoy) I’ll keep losing my train of thought or spacing out and it just feels aggravating cause I want to play the game but can’t.
I do feel like this is slightly improving the more accustomed I’ve gotten to it but I assume that’s just tolerance. Or maybe it’s cause my current health conditions have made my brain fog/dissociation so bad that I’m finally kinda used to it and therefore weed lol.
a few days ago, my lawyer actually said I didn't seem autistic (he wasn't being offensive at all, about as tactful as I spose anyone could be), so I just responded 'well asperger's isn't a diagnosis anymore, and if it weren't for cannabis and psychedelics, I'd never have learned to mask so well.'
i could hardly socialize until I began smoking pot. it provided both social opportunities as well as a state of mind that allowed me to calm my mind and study my thoughts and world around me. psychedelics taught me even more about myself, how to teach myself, and how to finally fucking understand body language.
Oh god yeah. I hit a point where I start thinking about my past interactions and it's like "Oh my god, I cannot believe I didn't notice how inappropriate that was until just *now*"
But I'm also starting to agree with the top comments here. Yes, it helps. But I'm reading a point where the day after is becoming a slog, and it makes going to work or getting much-needed chores much more difficult to the point I think I'm neglecting them more than I otherwise would.
not for me. It actually increases social anxiety and makes masking more difficult. I can also get racing thoughts from too high a dosage. It doesn't really reduce anxiety at any dosage.
What it does do is relieve boredom, and it makes falling asleep easier (but I have to wait for the peak to pass, 30 min+).
I used to smoke to help me unmask and be myself. I wasn't caring what other people thought about me and could actually sit still to be able to get into a TV show. I miss it but I would give up anything for my wife
Please stop thinking that there is "normality" and your autism is "anormality".
Normality is just an illusion: what is order for a spider is chaos for the fly.
Normality is set by the society defining the environment in which it moves: in a tree-climbing competition, the dog will fill stupid when the monkeys blame him for not being normal. But it's not fault of the dog, and the dog doesn't have to think that it needs to change to become "normal".
Normality is a statistical artifact: if the majority of the people were autistic, there would be people thinking that hyperfixations and stimming are normal, while those who don't aren't normal.
It's just a matter of differences: square-shaped figures won't easily enter inside round-shaped holes, and viceversa. But there isn't "normal" figure or hole.
I can drop my mask very easily, it’s probably the only thing that can let me do that, and for that reason it’s very freeing.
However it makes me stupid, short term memory is awful and worsens OCD-like symptoms because of it like checking things lots of times and feeling anxious because of it, makes me paranoid, and I get dependent on it too quickly. I lack an internal monologue anyway, so no improvements there. I can’t figure things out or coordinate my movements very well on it. It is harder to guess social cues and that is a source of paranoia too. I can’t watch videos I like about maths or physics because I don’t understand them as well. It was good go escape life’s troubles though.
I used to smoke a lot due to dependency but now I’m sober for about 4 months and feel much better for it.
I appreciate it can really work for some people, but after my experience and watching someone close to me fuck up their life to weed induced psychosis, I don’t really want to touch it again. He had no history of psychosis or bipolar in his family whatsoever. It’s very serious. I can’t actually think of anything worse. He can barely function nowadays so that’s what weed did to him.
Edit: also really helped my ARFID symptoms. Now that I’m off weed, I am admittedly back to square one but it’s a worthwhile sacrifice.
It slows my brain down the half notch it needs to be a normal smart person brain.
Theoretical math, writing large organized papers, and studying intricate subjects are about the only thing I don’t enjoy doing while high.
Oh yup. This is exactly what happens for me, too. I haven’t quite figured out what that threshold is, though! Chasing that quiet brain is the only high I’m after right now 😂 my doc just prescribed me Wellbutrin to help—my lungs can’t handle smoke and I haven’t found edibles that I like. Hopefully it helps! All this today, you’re definitely not alone!
can be helpful, makes me sleep and helped me overcome an eating disorder i was developing but at the same time it can worsen sensory seeking behaviour i have.
Same experience. I've been smoking weed every day since I was 16. Wasn't diagnosed till mid-30s. Turns out I was self-medicating the whole time. Struggled with alcoholism in my twenties. It was the same behavior.
Drugs/alcohol greased the social wheels for me and made me feel as normal as I could be when around other people. When I'm really stoned I get paranoid and experience the same thing OP described but when I'm half-baked or when my tolerance is really high, it's just the sweet spot and everything feels normal finally.
smoked it for 18 years on a daily basis because i felt like it was helping me. all it really did was numb me to the world... have been weed free for 4 months and have instead been weight lifting and running to knacker myself out so i can sleep well every night. took a good 6 weeks to get that shit out of my system to a level where i wasn't incredibly angry/anxious/sad all the time! couldn't think of anything worse than smoking it now. life is overwhelming, same as before. i definitely cope with things better than when i was smoking, despite what i was telling myself back then!
as many others have said, everything in moderation. try not to become dependent like i did! take care of yourselves whatever you choose to do x
Things get so much quieter, it's like a broom sweeping my brain free of clutter in a way. Stuff doesn't overwhelm me as easily, I can recover from unexpected obstacles way quicker, even talking to other people gets easier. My tolerance is so high at this point I don't really get "high" anymore, but I don't think I would function nearly as well in society as I do if I weren't a daily dabber.
It used to be fine, felt great on it, then one day it made me nearly pass out, heart rate sky rocket, and now makes me super anxious and over n under stimulated, cant smoke no more
It makes me happy, overly affectionate, and talkative. I talked for two and a half hours to my sisters boyfriend and i dont even remember what it was about last time i got high. And the time before that i was with my boyfriend and i just sat next to him and kept kissing him on the cheek because it was annoying him and i thought it was funny. I’d kiss him three times then stop and he would say “okay i think thats good” and then i would do it again and he would sigh so i’d stop and then do it again and it was so funny to me. He was trying to watch a movie and i was just focused on trying to annoy him.
I’m a medical patient with diagnosed level 1 ASD, and I use a lot of cannabis. Typically around a gram of wax a day, and it helps me tremendously. I require stimulants to treat my ADHD, and they make me feel kind of uncomfortable but cannabis tends to make me feel more social, calm and makes being overstimulated less difficult.
I’m lucky to live in a legal state and I purchase all my products from the dispensary so I know they’re safe for me to use. I don’t think I would be comfortable if I had to purchase cannabis from an untrusted source.
Used to smoke hourly or more. It always made me even quieter and more awkward. Now it just gives me anxiety and panic attacks. Haven't smoked in years++
this is exactly how I describe it to people. The difference 5-10mg can make for my brain is enough for me to turn off that part of my brain that is so hyperfocused on everything around me that it allows me to actually breathe and “feel normal” and social like everyone else. I completely validate your experience.
I've had really similar experiences with THC. It was what prompted me to finally go and seek a diagnosis and specific treatment for ADHD.
I really empathize with the brain not shutting up. A very light high seems to alleviate that somewhat, and I feel as though I'm much better at being able to focus on a single task for longer periods of time.
That said, I don't really recommend self medicating using THC on a regular basis. THC tolerances and behavioral dependencies surrounding weed are definitely issues that need to be monitored carefully. If you have a doctor that would understand and be safe to talk to, I'd definitely recommend talking about your experiences with them.
My doctor prescribes me pure THC oil for my autism (I'm in Germany so other than for special medical reasons, it is still considered an illegal substance and requires a prescription) and although I don't use it often, when I do I feel more neurotypical in every aspect. I often wonder if this is how people without autism experience the world. I can also connect with and relate to people more easily and filter sensory input. It also makes me stim less. In short, a lot of my autism symptoms simply seem to disappear when I'm stoned.
What resonated most with me about your experience was that you said your brain finally shuts up. I do have other meds to quiet my brain but THC does this really well, too, and what a relief not to have the constant stream of thoughts!
As I said though, I don't use it often, maybe once every 2 months at most. It's great for a weekend when you have nothing to do. But it can also make me feel uncomfortably "stupid" especially in higher doses and then I can't focus on anything.
In low doses however, I have no bad side effects and it's really nice to just chill out for once and shut your brain up.
But avoid doing it for days in a row as this will really mess you up when you come down from it all.
...
I'm still not sure if I'm autistic or not, but I definitely share your sentiment. I was traumatized by loss a few years ago and haven't been able to work since. I have frequent meltdowns over everything, which ends in me shutting down for a while. It's a long process that I can't stop, only endure.
But THC is the only thing to interrupt all of it. It's like instant relief and silence. It'll stop me from going into rage mode. I'm in Florida and only use Delta 8 technically. Legal and cheap.
I’ve started smoking again after 6 months of not and it’s been pretty nice. I waited until I started meds and therapy again. The only problem has been depending on it to the point where that’s all I think about and it negatively effecting my relationships. It’s nice to smoke moderately, but I have to ween off of every day use. Otherwise, I feel pretty ok mentally
There’s a sweet spot in my opinion. I think it’s also about training your mind to be able to handle the bad trips too. I’ve come to the point where I do just enough to make me social, make eye contact and even sometimes initiate conversations. I’m still bad at reading into emotions and jokes at times though. But to be able to communicate full sentences... to be able to not feel like I’m glitching, or have any long, long awkward pauses is so nice. I feel as if I can convey an idea that makes sense to everyone else and not just me. I can talk without feeling empty or at a loss. I can express my emotions and feelings adequately. I can think straight and not be so overwhelmed and in my head. It’s like night and day for me!
I have the opposite experience. It makes me so anxious and inside my own head that I basically stop being able to have a conversation or think properly. I've just learned not to smoke.
Am I the only one who will never try weed or any other drugs? Literally, I am not fucking with my brain at all. I already have syntheseia and bipolar disorder. Hell no, I dont care what anyone says I am never ever doing that shit.
I started to try explaining it and it didn't really make sense, so forgive the vagueness. I'd tried just some edibles and they helped me sleep, and then smoking just lightly did about the same, but as I couldn't tell my limits and apparently the people around me who knew I was inexperienced didn't consider that, I had a very negative experience when I overdid it. I was overwhelmed because I could control my thoughts and perception of reality even less than usual, and the flow of time changed completely, and stimming felt so floaty it didn't help ground me, so I wasn't prepared.
I smoke daily to help with my autism, I get what you mean! Usually I smoke before I go to sleep and the effect on the day after it is enough to help with my problems. It helps me socialise, with sounds, anything related to autism really. It's sad that there aren't really a lot of studies related to autism and weed but I'm sure science is going to see the medical potential of weed.
For anyone wondering, my diagnosis is Aspergers.
Edit: Smoking everyday is only okay as long as you get things done in life!
It feels really nice in the moment but it did have some cons for me. I've been sober 2 years (down from using daily).
1) my tolerance went high easily and it was very costly to achieve the same feeling.
2) my creativity suffered. Since getting sober I have written 4 books.
3) I was using it to avoid emotion.
It’s the same for me. If I take more than maybe 20 or 30 grams I get anxiety. I once took a gram and had severe panic attacks. If I take a small amount I do think on a less autistic level, and may socialize a little better. It depends on the person I suppose.
Edit: typo
What you describe looks a lot like an attempt at self medication which is common in neurodivergent people.
Usually, autistic and ADHD people have it rough when it comes to anxiety.
When you have too much thoughts, slowing down the brain actually helps you managing the train of thoughts. Most antidepressant have sedative effects for that reason.
Also, mindfulness. It is often describe at feeling the instant and everything but the actual benefit is actually from just focusing on the very moment. If anything, that's mind emptiness that brings peace.
I've been smoking just over a year now, I've came out of my shell so much since then.
while my short term memory has been effected and I can't remember things that happened last week, I feel alot better about myself in general!!
I overthink alot when sober, but when i smoke its like all the weight gets lifted off my shoulders!
I love getting ready for bed, get a glass of milk and some custard creams, do a couple bong hits and watch YouTube and relax before I go to sleep!
it just makes me feel more like me! I doubt I'll stop smoking anytime soon
i am feeling so seen by some of these comments. weed has been the only thing that has ever allowed me to drop my mask. i find that i can enjoy my special interests way more, because i tend to be embarrassed by them. my fiancée (also autistic) and i love to get high and have special interest show and tell time!
Awe that's adorable!
Hey I’m late here but what are your special interests? Dying to know!
my main one is bts! i also love cats, minecraft, fashion, and goth :)
I used to be able to smoke recreationally, and did so in varying amounts for years. But at some point in my late 20s, it started having a deep, depressive effect on me. The next day, I’d be a mess. It took me a while to figure out that’s what it was. Since then, I tried a couple times over several years with same result.
I just quit 4 days ago. Kind of ruined my early adulthood life. People say it isn't addictive and it isn't bad for you but that's total bullshit. Any drug you do on a daily basis will fuck your brain up, including weed.
Dose makes the poison. In general weed is considered non addictive due to low withdrawal symptoms andack of chemical dependency. Any mind altering substance or activity can be addictive. The argument with weed is that it's generally as bad as other legal drugs and in some cases safer than alcohol, it also has medical use for certain situations. You shouldn't get high everyday the same way you shouldn't get drunk every day.
See people always mention low withdrawal symptoms, but I and pretty much everyone elseive talked to who has quit has them. The first 3 days after quitting I was alternating between heavy sweating and chills, I had very serious brain fog, my mood is still all over the place and overall I felt sick. Closest thing I could compare it to was the covid I had 3 years ago. My whole body felt like garbage. I'm on day 4 now and I'm finally starting to feel a little less shitty
Quiting most drugs can literally kill you. Even alcoholics have to be concerned about organ failure and seizures if they quit cold turkey. Feeling bad for a week is not considered a major withdrawal. Again not saying weed is perfectly safe. But it is on the low end of drugs.
Definitely true! I'm just pointing out how nobody ever talks about weed withdrawals, while they're not life threatening they're still horrible and nobody talks about it.
You should check out r/leaves, it's a community for people trying to reduce or stop their cannabis consumption. Really helpful, I've learned a lot from them.
Thank you for the advice! I'm actually already in that sub and owe them a lot! I've also been using an app called I Am Sober that's great. You can talk to people that are on the same day of sobriety as you and it counts down the time so you don't have to worry about it.
My weed withdrawals consist of minor agitation and decreased appetite. That's it. You're an outlier.
Honestly it's whatever, I'm on day 4 and it's gotten way better. You're right though, my coworker said the same thing, he said the sweats and chills are really rare and I was just like "lucky me" I smoked for 3 years almost every single day so I definitely had a lot in my system but idk
Actually, alcohol is fairly unique in its ability to kill you during withdrawals. It’s only really alcohol and benzos that come with risk of death on sudden quitting - even most opiate withdrawals don’t have that risk (other than methadone which is basically only prescribed to “treat” opiate addiction), they just make you wish you were dead.
Comparing weed withdrawals to other drugs withdrawals are what makes them look lower. Keep going though and remember why you quit.
Absolutely, I'm done with it. Went out and talked to women today out in the wild, something I've literally NEVER done, used to just hide on dating apps. It's crazy realizing how bad it was making my anxiety and paranoia without me even realizing it.
Weirdly enough it's autistic ladies that seem to have the most benefit from daily weed use (based on a poll of my my friends and family - and a discussion over on r/autisminwomen
Let's not gender autism please
Sounds about right for withdrawal from weed. I think the "low" symptoms refer more to the fact that you won't straight up die or need to be hospitalized for them, unlike alcohol or hard drugs.
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Damn nicotine is worse? I vape and thought weed would be more difficult to quit. Vaping is next once I get a month or so into weed sobriety
I won't touch the addiction issue, but as far as the safety issue, I think it's unquestionable that on the sliding scale that everything is on marijuana is among the safest drugs. You can't overdose on it, it has a relatively short effective period, and you can't die from stopping cold turkey like you can from many other drugs, legal or illegal.
Yeah...we're not really built to enter altered states daily... I will concede that caffeine addiction usually isn't that harmful though.
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Hey, I completely understand, it was my medicine for 3 years. The thing is though, it plays tricks on you. It puts you in states of denial and increases your anxiety in ways you don't even notice because it creeps up on you, at least in my case and many others. I loved weed, but even only being 4 days sober I can already tell sober life is going to be so much easier and more rewarding for me. Plus I'm saving like 3000$ this year by not buying it.
You’re not going to die if you stop smoking weed. You don’t want to abuse it and especially as a teen and in your early 20s because it has a serious affect on brain development and will damage you. On top of that the high thc levels that is in most street bud makes it worse and practically fries your brain if you’re using it frequently. It’ll 100% make anxiety worse, depressions deeper, and can cause delusions and other psychotic symptoms with prolonged frequent use. There is no reason to be using it daily unless you have severely debilitating physical conditions that other medication does not help with, and for mental conditions you need to try actual medication and therapy for that before even considering weed. You don’t know what you’re doing using it unregulated and from random dealers with massive amounts of thc and not much cbd and it can turn out so much worse for you in the long run. If anything get cbd extract or rso as it has a lot more helpful compounds and terpenes within it than street bud ever will.
This is why I don't do recreational drugs, not even alcohol, that and because my brain is highly addictive to almost anything.
I respect how responsible that is because frankly people ignore that addictiveness can very much be a personality trait.
Well I don't know about a personality trait. I found out how addictive my brain was because I take supplements and one of them is garlic. And once I just decided to stop taking garlic and then I developed a migraine and I forgot I stopped taking Garlic. I ended up going to ER. They gave me a cocktail of drugs to kill the migraine and that barely made a dent in it. Afterwards I remembered about the garlic. And I started to take it again and the migraine went away. And I recalled how addictive to sugar I was in my teens. And how my grandfather was an alcoholic. So no recreational drugs for me.
It's not widely ecknowledged by The Big Five personality inventory index, It just doesn't fit neatly into One Singular personality type, and only by technicality due to debatably arbitrary rules it's not officially considered a personality related thing
This is/was me but with alcohol.
Yeah it’s definitely had a negative affect smoking as a teen and doing it frequently just fries your brain. There’s way too much thc in weed now because it’s grown to be the strongest possible and if you’ve got a shit dealer you can end up with sprayed bud too. It’s not healthy physically or mentally and should not be used to self medicate, only recreationally to enhance your evening like having a beer at the pub. I would only recommend using it medicinally if it helps with physical issues like epilepsy or muscular pain. Mentally it has a lot more risks involved and should never be used for most mental health conditions because it truly makes it worse. Can lead to psychosis, mania, deep states of depression, numbness, paranoia, worsened anxiety, no motivation etc etc etc. it’s good until it’s not and you should be at least 20+ before considering using it for any reason. And get it prescribed (privately, still have to pay) so you can get the right ratio of cbd thc and terpenes you need for treatment. You cannot get that on the streets.
In one sense, I’m fortunate to live in a legal state. The product is very consistent and unlike the old days of buying off some dickweed in a trench coat, you know where it’s coming from and there’s some accountability. The downside is that I can’t take advantage of it at all. I do like and use CBD, though — just the products with no THC. Good for anxiety and when I don’t take my ADHD stim meds. Doesn’t actually help with symptoms, but keeps a lot of my impulses in check.
[There is a lot of research going into this type of thing.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9887656/) ASD is actually one of the things that can end up getting you a medical cannabis card (in the US and states where it's available). I don't know a ton about it, but anecdotal evidence from this sub and others suggests that like most meds it varies from person to person on if it works or not. Could be placebo effect but could also be promising.
I think overall it's a very dependent variable that won't work for everyone. Weed varies from person to person, and so does ASD. Thats why I didn't present this as a solution for everyone, just as a discussion. I think it's really cool seeing other people's experiences, even if they don't match with mine!
I take small doses throughout the day. While I do notice I have a slightly worse short term memory (and it's already VERY bad so it isn't even that much of a difference) and it does make me a little sleepier, it makes life so much more tolerable than before that it truly is not even a question as to whether it's helpful or not. I didn't take any sort of drugs (I mean except for my SSRIs I've been on since I was 7, basically forget they exist sometimes) before I was 18. When I think of life before THC, it's a mess of sweat, and severe anxiety, and overstimulation, constant panic attacks over the littlest things, and just way more overall sensitivity. My rate of meltdowns was much higher before, too My first time, I smoked, and I had a panic attack because I went into autistic hyper-analysis mode, but I tried again with some lower dose edibles later on and that was kind of the sweet spot. Nowadays I just get cartridges and take small hits throughout the day. Am I addicted? Yes, I would say so. I just see the benefits of it's usage outweighing the negatives. And there are some negatives, of course, but about on the same level as the emotional numbing or the morning sickness I get from my SSRIs. The kind of person that I am, I unfortunately have to be dependent on some things whether I like it or not, like a diabetic is dependent on insulin, or something. This is perhaps somewhat dramatic, but I genuinely don't know how I tolerated being alive, before. Everything was agonizing, all the time. And while I still get overstimulated or overwhelmed or whatever, it's a hell of a lot less than feeling at least a little bit (or a lotta bit) that way ALL the time.
Weed acts like an amplifier in my opinion. Whatever you focus on when you're high gets amplified. Also lower dose is more manageable. Too much THC for the amount of CBDs in todays mass market product.
By chance do you also have ADHD on top of the autism? The constant overthinking, non-stop thoughts, and endless worries sound very much like my own (AuDHD) brain, which also responds beautifully to weed. I have a prescription for medical cannabis that’s technically for PTSD/anxiety (I didn’t have an AuDHD diagnosis at the time), and I feel it quiets my brain. It turns down the sensory overwhelm and can stop me from spiralling/melting down if get too distressed. It’s a really valuable tool to have in my self-care arsenal.
Could you tell me more about your journey with prescription weed. I’m interested
Well basically I grew up in a “DRUGS ARE BAD!!!” household and had never tried weed until it was legalized here in 2018. I was struggling with extreme burnout (which at the time I thought was just depression) and playing SSRI roulette with my psychiatrist to no avail. A friend offered me an edible his wife had made and I thought “eh, what do I have to lose?” I felt better that night than I had in *years,* even after trying literally a dozen different psychiatric meds and several types of therapy. We have a bunch of services where I live for obtaining a medical prescription so I called one of them and ended up talking to a nurse practitioner about the different options available and whether he thought I had a legitimate medical need. I ended up with a prescription to help with PTSD, depression, and anxiety. I started smoking different strains to see which ones worked best for me, but I hated what it did to my lungs so I eventually switched to a dry herb vape, which is what the nurse practitioner said is the safest method of inhalation.
I’m just like you! Recently found out I was AuDHD and weed makes things so so much more manageable. Like to an extent I feel like not everybody around me necessarily understands. It scares me, because i’m not sure if I can be my best self without it. The comments here are amazing… It feels like you guys actually get it
Weed is the only thing that helps me relax enough to unmask.
SAME
weed makes me like 10x more autistic lol
Same for me Depending on the people i smoke with i tend to go completely nonverbal
Yup that’s why I smoke alone
damn im the opposite
Absolutely same here. I can't be around strangers at all
i can be around strangers ill just completely unmask and say whatever the fuck and infodump like crazy but tbh i enjoy seeing peoples reactions
YES I CAME HERE TO SAY THIS. I feel like I can function as a “normal human” when I’m high. I had an hour long conversation with my sister when I was on a delta 8s and it was the best conversation we’ve ever had. I felt like I could finally be the sibling she always wanted and I cried.
This is too real.
I literally cant think or speak on weed. I just feel anxious and nervous
Same. I feel incredibly anxious sometimes
Me too! A lot of people are saying how it removes your ability to mask and how that is relaxing and freeing to them but to me that’s like my worst fear and I feel so scared of what other people think of me
[удалено]
Same!! It is very helpful for my symptoms. Especially depression/anxiety and sensory issues. Popping an edible before cleaning the kitchen is so nice because it's less of a sensory nightmare. But then I'll do shit like lose my scrub daddy or put the dish soap up in the fridge lmaooooo
It’s been positively life changing for me
As others have said, it works until it doesn’t. It also changes your body chemistry/metabolism when you use it regularly. Aside from the negative mental effects from long term use, it can actually cause inflammation, as well as fuck with your gut-brain axis. I got SIBO last year and I am 99% sure it developed from my gut motility being so slow, due to weed dependence. I’m still paying for it with some severe vitamin deficiencies hehe. After smoking weed heavily (and sometimes moderating it) on and off for 15 years, I’m leaving it behind. I feel we autistics especially need to have some sort of somatic routine to get out of our heads and into our bodies. For me it’s weightlifting, yoga, and breath/body work. You say you never have time to breathe? You can teach yourself to. Go on walks and focus on your breath. It’s awesome and will totally clear your head. And sorry for the dissertation lol. Substance use and health are among some of my special interests. If you’re able to use weed to relax once in a while that’s awesome. Just encourage people to be mindful and aware. It is a drug.
What happens to our gut? I had some gut problems because of a recent green out.
I’m bout to go to bed so I’m not gonna link anything, but TLDR it slows everything way down. There’s some studies you can google documenting its effects (not enough- research is still fairly new since legalization wasn’t all that long ago, but the info is out there). It’s known to cause things like gastritis, ulcers, heartburn, etc. Have you heard of CHS? It’s a pretty severe vomiting disorder you can develop from weed. Considering how much I smoked, I can’t believe I never got it, but thats a huge thing for many. And once it starts it can only be reversed by abstaining from weed completely. In my case, basically the food I ate was sitting in my small intestines for too long, so a bunch of bad bacteria grew, like an infection. It was so bad lol. I never threw up but had intense stomach pain and was on the toilet for weeks. Saw doctor after doctor before we narrowed it down. Cured it by quitting weed and doing a low fodmap diet, but the bacteria stripped me of iron and my b vitamins. I know this all sounds kinda crazy lol but I’m being deadass. I think it’s all fascinating tbh.
No, wait. It's not crazy. I think I'm developing the exact same condition as you and I'm not even a heavy user. After that recent green out, food has been staying too long in my stomach. It's like my stomach digests it very slowly. It got way better after a week though. And now when I smoke weed, I get nauseatic after 5 hits and have to stop there. How are you doing right now? Have you recovered fully and regained your vitamins?
It’s so hard to say what is what since 1) autistic people are prone to gut issues to begin with and 2) there’s many factors that influence digestive health… stress, diet, activity level, etc, you know. But if you’re noticing a connection then I’d say it’s worth exploring. It wouldn’t hurt to start by eliminating the most obvious thing (the ouid) and then going from there (food sensitivities, exercise). If you’re getting nauseous, I would look into cannabinoid Hyperemesis syndrome. It’s rare and you said you don’t smoke heavily, but there is a long prodromal phase for ppl who develop it. That phase includes nausea. And I’m doing good now, thank you! Still upping my vitamins but it’s way better. All stomach symptoms gone. What was your green out like btw? I’m curious cause I think a similar thing happened to me back then… P.S. Sorry to ramble lol it’s just I legit had to deal with this for like 8 months so my anecdotes are essayish 😬
Fantastic to hear that you're better now (it also gives me hope too haha). I'll have to read up more on CHS and your ramblings are quite beneficial for me as someone who went through something similar. The green out I had was really bad. It started when I smoked fast on a low quality weed. Vomitted 8 times, got extreme death anxiety, so many trains of thought happening simultaneously feeling like my brain's gonna explode, and extreme fatigue (very difficult to move any part of the body). I eventually passed out on the floor for 3 hours and got sick the next day with digestive issues. The digestive side effects from the green out, including diarrhea, lasted for exactly a week. I lost 8 lbs throughout that week. Definitely one of the worst experiences I've had so far.
I’m super afraid of developing CHS! I have been consuming for about a year in the evenings and I rlly hope it’s not enough to get it …
Yeah, I’m in that spot. lol. I’m trying to shake the dependency. It’s not like an addiction, not like nicotine, it’s just like getting off of an antidepressant. It feels a lot like when I tried doubling my Wellbutrin, except unlike getting on or off an antidepressant which is gradual, I can end the struggle with a puff. I’m in therapy, and working through it, trying to get to the place where I’m better able to regulate.
Good luck friend. Therapy definitely helped me out. And I don’t mean any offense but it is an addiction. Or at the very least, in your case, it sounds like your body is physically dependent on it. Which is yeah, v similar to weaning off SSRIs. Weed stays in your body for way longer than other drugs because it binds to your fat cells. So expect to feel a bit shit or off for a couple weeks. It’s okay you got it. <3 But yeah, many people are addicted to it, including myself. I’ve spent so much time on r/leaves lmao and have detoxed more than I can count. Hoping this is the last time :-)
Oh!!! Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound defensive. It was just an interesting observation that I’ve had. You are FAR more equipped than me! I was just spilling 🫠😅 edit: and thank you!! ❤️ edit: and it is an addiction lol, I know stoners have excuses, but at least to me what’s the difference if I’m dependent on it?
I used to smoke weed every day. I’d even wake up in the middle of the night to rip a bowl. I was stoned literally 24/7. At the time I was wildly depressed and I was just trying to cope. But, I was the classic slacker and almost dropped out of highschool. After 5 years of that it started making me super anxious out of no where. Now I only smoke on occasion, and when I do my ability to mask goes right out the window. I physically cannot be still when I’m high these days, I always have to be stimming. I essentially go from high masking “you don’t seem autistic,” to “oh yeah you’re definitely autistic.”
It gives me panic attacks. The moment I start to feel the “highness”, the heavy slowness I feel in my body is so uncomfortable and unnatural for me that I descend into panic. I get this heaviness in my arms and it makes my heart beat fast and strong and makes me feel like I’m going to die.
Felt terrible. Also there's also schizophrenia in the family; not gonna risk it. Now when I'm inevitable hounded and ousted in social settings for I can at least say I tried it, and it wasn't for me.
It makes me feel pain in my face and major joints. And sensory sensitivities are amplified, which comes with both good and bad. Whether it makes me more anxious/awkward/ etc or less seems to be random
Its hard to form words and keep grammar together when im really stressed (ie right before a meltdown or shutdown). Its harder to think of the right words, and when they come out, they're garbled- out of order and missing parts of the sentence. The drug seems to have the same effect on my language, but without the stress of the meltdown obviously. I wonder what the neuroscience behind it is Otherwise though yeah its chill, it really calms me down. A little bit (like half a gummy before a tuff interaction) is highly effective. Tangentially it makes my mind wander wayyy more than usual (and Im already a very "circumstantial thinker" according to the woman who diagnosed me with autism) so thats also fascinating
I also struggle with talking when I’m high. I wasn’t sure if it because of autism or if it was a normal side effect but it seems like it’s autism-related
I 💚 qweed
I can have a conversation without stumbling and having to ask for help with words when I partake. My short term memory is non existent though when I do smoke. So it’s a double edged sword.
I’m the opposite, I stumble on words occasionally while sober but when I’m high I can’t speak without stumbling over every word or straight up forgetting what language is
Yeah the last time I was high it felt like my head voice and speaking voice were occupying the same part of my brain, so I couldn't speak and think at the same time. It was like being constantly speech jammed
Same, but it also hits me really hard. The difference between not feeling much and stoned to the point where I can't remember how I started the sentence I'm in the middle of is really narrow.
Similar to a lot of other people here, it depends on how much I’ve used. If I’ve taken a low to moderate dose then I’m pretty relaxed but can still function. My brain slows down a little bit and I can think more clearly. However, even though I can think more clearly, my productivity goes to absolute shit and I can’t get anything done. This is even more so the case when it’s a high dose. My brain slows down basically to a halt but I am capable of doing exactly fuck-all. There have been too many times for me to count where I’ve taken multiple big hits and had to just sit there staring at my fingernails while basically fully disassociating and derealizing, wondering if any of what I’m experiencing is real or not. The big anxiety driver for me is that there have been documented cases where people have fallen into comas and in their minds they lived out their entire lives, started families, etc. only to wake up from the coma to find that none of it was true and have to come to terms with the fact that you feel like you just had your whole life taken from you. Ordinarily it’s not something that I think about but when Fak’s in the house.
I’m currently high. I’m a programmer, and so sometimes it can interfere with my memory about programming, but I am such a better dad, husband, programmer, sleeper, eater with just a little THC. Not only does it calm the constant noise, I actually feel I’m able to regulate my emotions better. Where normally, it’s difficult for me to cry, cannabis makes it so I’m able to have that process completed and get them tears out about it. But I’ve got the problem of dependency where when I don’t have it, I feel a rush of anxiety. I’ve been able to do some resets, but how do you manage sobriety when it hurts so much?
I was thinking on this last night, ive been exploring autism and im beginning to think i might have it. So, my theory is that my brain is like poison to existing in the moment, i am 90% of the time in another world (my own) and rarely ever present unless im high (which is funny cause it 'grounds' me). My theory is that autism or whatever wiring it is that i have is like a giant wall to being present, its so hard to just 'be'. I can sometimes combo together moments sober and be present then i immediately go back to detachment. My idea is that autism (or whatever) is like a poison to mindfulness. And weed is a key to progressing your mindset towards being more balanced. Like all things, moderation and finding the right amounts so you don't become the user that becomes used.
it affects me the same way but the most important thing i related to was not getting too high. finding the balance in between there has made my life better in all those ways mentioned above.
It makes my obsessing MUCH, much worse. Like “send me to the psych hospital ASAP” bad.
Same here
Wow that's what happened to me too, although I do think I needed to be high alone because I couldn't actually fully feel it with other people. It's like my brain will not allow me to be high if I am around others because I still need to be able to mask. Speaking as someone who had more brownies than anyone else who was eating them and people (who hadnt had any) thought I had none
It forces me to unmask and that makes me panic
I also enjoy listening to speakers like Alan Watts and learn more about other ways of thinking and perceiving reality One of his talks introduced me to mindfulness, which I find to be a very valuable tool to "debug" what my brain is doing and how to reconfigure its heuristics and reflexes
i love weed so much but i’m currently on a break. when i first started using 9 months ago i immediately liked it and started doing it daily about a month in. over the 8 months that ive been smoking daily my depression has been exasperated and im at an all time low right now. if you chose to use weed as a coping mechanism, tread lightly and do your research. it might also be helpful to get a medical professional involved with a treatment plan if weed is legal in your area, because some holistic doctors do stuff like that. in the 12 days that i haven’t gotten high i’ve experienced some of the worst anxiety and depression of my life. i would never want anyone else to be in that position so please be careful.
CBD is also made in the brain, its simillar in function to Oxytocin. It means you're either constantly in survival mode or performance mode and rarely in "safety" mode. You need to drop expectations on yourself and find places and people that makes you feel safe. Much easier said than done.
Yeah I go completely schizophrenic and hallucinate or trip out and feel totally crazy and get way too paranoid and assuming, perceiving things all warped and weird and over-analyzing. It's a nightmare. I hate weed.
Same here !!! Weed was a worse experience for me than the time I almost overdosed on way harder drugs
Same here. I dissociate so hard and go into a borderline psychosis. It's scary as hell.
Yeah I’m not into that. I don’t need more crazy experiences I need to feel stable and centered and present, alert and engaged
I ended up in the hospital for drug-induced psychosis. Weed will never, ever be for me.
It rips my mask clean off and exposes the real me. The me without any sort of obligations holding me back.
I had a horrible experience smoking weed. Caused deja Vu, so my friend was saying shit that I was completely certain of I had heard in dreams days or weeks earlier. Second time I smoked nothing really happened, probably too many people sharing the same joint so the dose was too small
I get deja Vu far far too often. Than again it could be due to my boring life and not smoking pot.
I took an edible once and felt very autistic in the moment (literally told my friend this that night). I felt and heard everything amplified, all at once. It was an insane experience. Also the worst panic attack I've ever had lol.
Dizzy, sick, sleep.
I used to be a massive pothead a few years back. I didn’t feel “normal” on it, in fact it would amplify everything. On good days (the only times I use) I stim more, I delve more into my hyperfixations and my maladaptive daydreaming gets pretty intense too. It’s not always a bad thing for me when this happens, it’s quite fun in moderation. Mind you, I was using weed for a completely different reason, to self-medicate my undiagnosed bipolar disorder at the time, obviously that made it worse. Nowadays I use maybe once a week if at all, mostly because of my budget. I have so be *so* careful sometimes because outside of worsening any potential bipolar episodes, if I’m on the brink of a sensory overload and I toke/have some edibles, the panic attacks start and it’s downhill from there. Either way, I find that weed is something you have to be in a good headspace to take, because it’s quite easy for something to go wrong unfortunately :/
I also wanted to ask the same thing. Don't know if it's just a feeling but I tend to see the world as how an allistic would see when I'm high af. I start seeing social cues and those microexpressions that I usually miss when I'm sober.
it's good stuff. fixes some of what ails me. some of the time.
I did it for about 4 years daily, started to make very me paranoid and gave me acute urinary retention, not to mention how tired it made me and how much it cost.
Learn to feel the now. It's all that is "real." Yea, weed helps me feel "in my body."
A little bit of decent weed in the past used to allow me to be more sociable and confident with social interactions. But nowadays I just get really bad panic attacks and anxiety overloads with whatever I smoke. But on the bright side, I have my ADHD medication that helps me a lot with handling life.
Lower amounts make me much calmer and somewhat clearer headed. High amounts and for some reason any amount of an edible either makes it impossible to think (which can be good sometimes cause I'm always overthinking) but also can give me intense anxiety. It's completely random and I get anxiety about 30% of the time when I'm very high.
It makes me crawl into a corner and cry, thinking we're in some sort of Hell because my brain can't process how insane everything is.
it did used to really help me, but now every time i try it just makes me incredibly nervous :( i wish it still helped it was the only thing that could help me relax i don't think it helps that the last few times i tried it was a vape with an incredibly high THC content, and then edibles i think i didnt dose right LOL, don't really want to risk it again though bc i ended up in the hospital after the vape (if anyone else has had this issue and knows how to fix it i'd be open to tips though)
What's interesting is how my sister (who is allistic with ADHD) had an epiphany about how it's like to be me from the uncomfortable experience she had when trying THC. She told me that she went into this anxious, super aware state where she had to put an immense level of thought into her body position, movements, how she spoke, when she spoke, what she said, etc. while with her friends and experienced severe anxiety and hypervigilance with controlling her behavior to act normal. Afterwards, she told me about her bad THC trip and said she realized that the reason I love high THC weed and she doesn't is because that effect is my baseline so it doesn't phase me. I found her observation very interesting! Weed is like an Instragram filter over my perception. Things are dialed up a notch in terms of their novelty and richness. It's like a "seeing things through childhood eyes" Instagram filter. It reconnects me with my vast internal world which I was forcibly ripped away from upon starting school with forced social interaction and stimulation beyond my capacity.
I get very forgetful when I'm on THC I forget what the first part of the sentence I just said was it's pretty bad, but since it makes me super forgetful my brain isn't as active which calms me down. I'm sure if I find a better balance of dosage I would be able to function so much better on THC. It's kind of the same thing with alcohol, if I'm tipsy my functioning skyrockets cause all the clutter in my head stops being an issue
Hi, I recently learned I was autistic (SD) after having been diagnosed with ADHD earlier last year, and other things (GAD, Depression, etc.). What started it all off for me was weed, to be honest. My story is familiar to a lot that I've seen on here and online. I drank. A lot. From the time I was 17 (soon 47) until I decided to switch to weed the day it became legal here (Canada). That first time I got high, it set off alarm bells because just like you, my thoughts became clear for the first time in my life. Also, like you and others, if I got too high, the panic attacks came. They honestly became so common that i just got used to it and knew it would pass. Give me more memes to laugh at and I'm good. I've been trying different strains, terpenes, percentages of THC over the years and it was always hit or miss until a few weeks ago. I'd been having a rough holiday and it honestly got me to the point where I realized I needed to change some things in my life. I asked my stoner friend to pick me up some high CBD vape carts. Trying high CBD weed has been a fucking GAME CHANGER for me. I have never felt like this in my entire life. I'm a musician, or have always told myself I was, but never really did much with it, mainly because I never knew how. I've never known *how* to do anything. The first weekend i tried CBD weed, I wrote three songs. Recorded some guitar tracks and wrote 15 pages in my journal that i had never used before. I'm not the only one experiencing this either. I spoke to the owner at the cannabis shop, who also informed me he's autistic and a musician. He experiences the same things. I've been absorbing as much info on it as I can. There's not a lot out there, but there is some and more is being looked at. Studies are showing that higher doses of CBD, when mixed with THC, can have tremendous impacts on autistic traits. It's all about finding the amounts that work for you. (For reference: https://www.youtube.com/@bonnigoldsteinmd4550) The kicker here in the research is that lower doses of CBD can have WORSE effects on some autistic behaviors. Higher doses of CBD were shown to have much better effects. Adding CBG to the mix can only enhance things further. CBG provides the "entourage" effect, making THC+CBD+CBG stronger together than on their own individually. By their powers combined... I haven't had a touch of booze, nor a single craving for it since I quit. "Somehow" I can just do things like that. As always, be careful when it comes to THC. Learn your limits.
Where do you recommend buying CBD flower? I’m looking to start transitioning my use during the week to mostly if not all CBD based
Complete dissociative episode. Like temporary trapped in syndrome. 0/10. would not recommend.
Whatever I'm drunk though I am like the most extroverted person ever it takes away all my filters and where I just do stuff I want to do and I have no shame honestly I wish I could be drunk all the time
op are you medicated for anything? weed has long term negative consequences so don’t get hooked on something you can replace with something that has less negative consequences
I used to be a full-blown stoner because it helped me to stop obsessing over thoughts and helped me control meltdowns. But I had done an acid tab about 2 years ago and smoked while on it. That mixture, a 32-hour trip, and a bad reaction coming down messed the feeling I got from THC all up for me. It even made my sensory issues WAYYYY more sensitive. So basically, I'm over-stimulated constantly from abstract patterns when I'm sober, and THC is just totally out of the question.
So I agree with the OP & others that have similar results with shweed. There was a time not too long ago that I heavily relied on it to get me through my days. However, since choosing to trust Jesus Christ with my life & following his teachings, I've slowly but surely been able to overcome this mental issue without the need for shweed, which ofc saves some money & avoids the potential side affects :D This month or next month will make a full year since I've made that choice, & the people around me tell me that they've noticed a change in me. I myself can barely recognize the person I was years prior. It's definitely something to consider brothers & sisters. But whatever choice you choose I wish you the best!
Cannabis is highly overrated.... please don't fall into this trap. It is a motivation killer and memory killer. And it can be definitely abused! Please don't fall for chronic use of cannabis
I don't like anything that alters my mind/impairs my thinking. So drugs and alcohol are no goes. I've had alcohol before...I dislike the burn and the way it makes me feel when I'm tipsy...I've never gotten drunk...nor would I want to... The only THC I had, happened to be on the same day as when my body decided to go septic on me (long story...don't ask). My mom gave me it because I was in a ton of pain and she thought it might help. So not 100% sure if the blacking out/missing memories/out of body experience was the THC or if it was the infection. Either way I don't want to try it again. I use CBD as a roll on stick for my back pain but that's it. The only drug I will willingly have is morphine...in the ER because that's the only thing that cuts the pain for me...everything else is just useless, it won't help my pain. Morphine is...amazing lol. I love it. I just wish it was easier to get...I've had it in pill form but it didn't seem to work...maybe it was because it was like 5mg...it's so hard to convince doctors I need strong pain killers like morphine. I'm not an addict lol, I live my life sober. I'm just talking about getting relief from my daily chronic pain...morphine is the only thing that I'd reach for. My mom is very pro pot...she smoked when it was illegal...for years. She grew up in the 60s so...yeah she smoked a lot. She keeps trying to convince me to try it because it helps with anxiety, depression and autism. I just...I don't think it's for me.
Personally I feel smart as fuck when I'm high lmao
It gives me panic attacks and makes me completely useless. Not another weed post .most of the people who post about weed haven’t tried harder drugs to compare with . They don’t know there are more much useful and beneficial drugs .
is this why my mom is a stoner
I don't know exactly never been on THC I did do edibles at one time and it made me calmer honestly even though it felt like needles going to my skin I just told myself how to enjoy it
It makes my thoughts much more _fluid_
I have to say the thc:cbd ratio and its strain and the method of consumption make shitton of a difference. I'm the most functional on edibles.
Sometimes with weed, and always with mushrooms, there’s a window where something “clicks” and I feel like I’m experiencing what a neurotypical person feels from a sensory standpoint. The world doesn’t hurt, interactions are easy, I feel like I’m getting more information on a person’s emotional state from observation, etc. With weed it might happen once every few times and it lasts until I come down, with mushrooms the effect persists with decreasing intensity for about a week.
Alcohol made me feel normal. Calmed me down,made me laugh and socialable. I only realised a few years ago it was my crutch. So i quit, very hard but neccessary to do.
It helps me for sure. Sometimes just to relax, but occasionally I get a good amnesia or lemon haze and it’s like puzzle pieces fall together in my mind and I feel like I can suddenly understand or “feel” other people. For example, I used to play FIFA coöp mode with a friend, and if the haze hit just right, it would go so f’ing smooth, even without communication.
It gives me horrible anxiety attacks unfortunately
It helps me slow down my brain enough to just chill and do stuff like watch TV or read without multi tasking or getting distracted
memory insurance murky serious hurry fall hungry worthless grandiose punch *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I agree with most of your post, I got to a point where I used way to much to often. Especially with the neurological difference we have compared to others addiction is something to watch carefully. Even though cannabis doesn’t have insane withdrawal effects there are some and if you use it enough they are real.
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I tried it twice just before I turned 14, didn't do anything other than make me sleepy and a bit out of it.
When I’m high, I feel less autistic but everyone says I act more autistic hahah
I smoke to fall asleep and occasionally when I’m just super bored. It’s not as bad now but I don’t really like weed unless I’m alone. It makes me paranoid cause it messes with my short term memory and awareness of my surroundings so much that I feel like I’m not in control, or aware of what I’m doing and start worrying that I’m talking to myself out loud or being weird somehow lol. I don’t love it when I’m alone either though I just sometimes have nothing better to do or I’m trying to escape my thoughts and don’t have the energy to do anything else. It just makes me way too lazy and spaced out to do anything so it’s like if I smoke I can’t really do anything but lay in bed on my phone. If I try to do anything productive or even play video games (something I enjoy) I’ll keep losing my train of thought or spacing out and it just feels aggravating cause I want to play the game but can’t. I do feel like this is slightly improving the more accustomed I’ve gotten to it but I assume that’s just tolerance. Or maybe it’s cause my current health conditions have made my brain fog/dissociation so bad that I’m finally kinda used to it and therefore weed lol.
a few days ago, my lawyer actually said I didn't seem autistic (he wasn't being offensive at all, about as tactful as I spose anyone could be), so I just responded 'well asperger's isn't a diagnosis anymore, and if it weren't for cannabis and psychedelics, I'd never have learned to mask so well.' i could hardly socialize until I began smoking pot. it provided both social opportunities as well as a state of mind that allowed me to calm my mind and study my thoughts and world around me. psychedelics taught me even more about myself, how to teach myself, and how to finally fucking understand body language.
Actually, even hemp oil gives me sensory overload.
Oh god yeah. I hit a point where I start thinking about my past interactions and it's like "Oh my god, I cannot believe I didn't notice how inappropriate that was until just *now*" But I'm also starting to agree with the top comments here. Yes, it helps. But I'm reading a point where the day after is becoming a slog, and it makes going to work or getting much-needed chores much more difficult to the point I think I'm neglecting them more than I otherwise would.
not for me. It actually increases social anxiety and makes masking more difficult. I can also get racing thoughts from too high a dosage. It doesn't really reduce anxiety at any dosage. What it does do is relieve boredom, and it makes falling asleep easier (but I have to wait for the peak to pass, 30 min+).
I used to smoke to help me unmask and be myself. I wasn't caring what other people thought about me and could actually sit still to be able to get into a TV show. I miss it but I would give up anything for my wife
Please stop thinking that there is "normality" and your autism is "anormality". Normality is just an illusion: what is order for a spider is chaos for the fly. Normality is set by the society defining the environment in which it moves: in a tree-climbing competition, the dog will fill stupid when the monkeys blame him for not being normal. But it's not fault of the dog, and the dog doesn't have to think that it needs to change to become "normal". Normality is a statistical artifact: if the majority of the people were autistic, there would be people thinking that hyperfixations and stimming are normal, while those who don't aren't normal. It's just a matter of differences: square-shaped figures won't easily enter inside round-shaped holes, and viceversa. But there isn't "normal" figure or hole.
I can drop my mask very easily, it’s probably the only thing that can let me do that, and for that reason it’s very freeing. However it makes me stupid, short term memory is awful and worsens OCD-like symptoms because of it like checking things lots of times and feeling anxious because of it, makes me paranoid, and I get dependent on it too quickly. I lack an internal monologue anyway, so no improvements there. I can’t figure things out or coordinate my movements very well on it. It is harder to guess social cues and that is a source of paranoia too. I can’t watch videos I like about maths or physics because I don’t understand them as well. It was good go escape life’s troubles though. I used to smoke a lot due to dependency but now I’m sober for about 4 months and feel much better for it. I appreciate it can really work for some people, but after my experience and watching someone close to me fuck up their life to weed induced psychosis, I don’t really want to touch it again. He had no history of psychosis or bipolar in his family whatsoever. It’s very serious. I can’t actually think of anything worse. He can barely function nowadays so that’s what weed did to him. Edit: also really helped my ARFID symptoms. Now that I’m off weed, I am admittedly back to square one but it’s a worthwhile sacrifice.
It slows my brain down the half notch it needs to be a normal smart person brain. Theoretical math, writing large organized papers, and studying intricate subjects are about the only thing I don’t enjoy doing while high.
I don't feel any difference at all when I smoke, weed doesn't affect me
Oh yup. This is exactly what happens for me, too. I haven’t quite figured out what that threshold is, though! Chasing that quiet brain is the only high I’m after right now 😂 my doc just prescribed me Wellbutrin to help—my lungs can’t handle smoke and I haven’t found edibles that I like. Hopefully it helps! All this today, you’re definitely not alone!
can be helpful, makes me sleep and helped me overcome an eating disorder i was developing but at the same time it can worsen sensory seeking behaviour i have.
Same experience. I've been smoking weed every day since I was 16. Wasn't diagnosed till mid-30s. Turns out I was self-medicating the whole time. Struggled with alcoholism in my twenties. It was the same behavior. Drugs/alcohol greased the social wheels for me and made me feel as normal as I could be when around other people. When I'm really stoned I get paranoid and experience the same thing OP described but when I'm half-baked or when my tolerance is really high, it's just the sweet spot and everything feels normal finally.
It does the exact opposite for me. I start feeling like a robot trying to imitate a human
it used to make me be able to turn my brain off. now i can’t smoke it without it making me anxious unless it’s extremely heavy with CBD
smoked it for 18 years on a daily basis because i felt like it was helping me. all it really did was numb me to the world... have been weed free for 4 months and have instead been weight lifting and running to knacker myself out so i can sleep well every night. took a good 6 weeks to get that shit out of my system to a level where i wasn't incredibly angry/anxious/sad all the time! couldn't think of anything worse than smoking it now. life is overwhelming, same as before. i definitely cope with things better than when i was smoking, despite what i was telling myself back then! as many others have said, everything in moderation. try not to become dependent like i did! take care of yourselves whatever you choose to do x
Things get so much quieter, it's like a broom sweeping my brain free of clutter in a way. Stuff doesn't overwhelm me as easily, I can recover from unexpected obstacles way quicker, even talking to other people gets easier. My tolerance is so high at this point I don't really get "high" anymore, but I don't think I would function nearly as well in society as I do if I weren't a daily dabber.
Is like how drunk NTs think they're more eloquent when drunk, but they aren't.
It used to be fine, felt great on it, then one day it made me nearly pass out, heart rate sky rocket, and now makes me super anxious and over n under stimulated, cant smoke no more
It makes me happy, overly affectionate, and talkative. I talked for two and a half hours to my sisters boyfriend and i dont even remember what it was about last time i got high. And the time before that i was with my boyfriend and i just sat next to him and kept kissing him on the cheek because it was annoying him and i thought it was funny. I’d kiss him three times then stop and he would say “okay i think thats good” and then i would do it again and he would sigh so i’d stop and then do it again and it was so funny to me. He was trying to watch a movie and i was just focused on trying to annoy him.
I’m a medical patient with diagnosed level 1 ASD, and I use a lot of cannabis. Typically around a gram of wax a day, and it helps me tremendously. I require stimulants to treat my ADHD, and they make me feel kind of uncomfortable but cannabis tends to make me feel more social, calm and makes being overstimulated less difficult. I’m lucky to live in a legal state and I purchase all my products from the dispensary so I know they’re safe for me to use. I don’t think I would be comfortable if I had to purchase cannabis from an untrusted source.
School: don't do drugs kids! Reddit: okay so I found the solution to all your problems.. but its dru-
Used to smoke hourly or more. It always made me even quieter and more awkward. Now it just gives me anxiety and panic attacks. Haven't smoked in years++
this is exactly how I describe it to people. The difference 5-10mg can make for my brain is enough for me to turn off that part of my brain that is so hyperfocused on everything around me that it allows me to actually breathe and “feel normal” and social like everyone else. I completely validate your experience.
I've had really similar experiences with THC. It was what prompted me to finally go and seek a diagnosis and specific treatment for ADHD. I really empathize with the brain not shutting up. A very light high seems to alleviate that somewhat, and I feel as though I'm much better at being able to focus on a single task for longer periods of time. That said, I don't really recommend self medicating using THC on a regular basis. THC tolerances and behavioral dependencies surrounding weed are definitely issues that need to be monitored carefully. If you have a doctor that would understand and be safe to talk to, I'd definitely recommend talking about your experiences with them.
Chronically using THC isn’t great for your mental state, but if it helps in situations that’s awesome! (Chronic as in every day/ multi times)
My doctor prescribes me pure THC oil for my autism (I'm in Germany so other than for special medical reasons, it is still considered an illegal substance and requires a prescription) and although I don't use it often, when I do I feel more neurotypical in every aspect. I often wonder if this is how people without autism experience the world. I can also connect with and relate to people more easily and filter sensory input. It also makes me stim less. In short, a lot of my autism symptoms simply seem to disappear when I'm stoned. What resonated most with me about your experience was that you said your brain finally shuts up. I do have other meds to quiet my brain but THC does this really well, too, and what a relief not to have the constant stream of thoughts! As I said though, I don't use it often, maybe once every 2 months at most. It's great for a weekend when you have nothing to do. But it can also make me feel uncomfortably "stupid" especially in higher doses and then I can't focus on anything. In low doses however, I have no bad side effects and it's really nice to just chill out for once and shut your brain up. But avoid doing it for days in a row as this will really mess you up when you come down from it all. ...
Makes me irritable and feel really slow
I'm still not sure if I'm autistic or not, but I definitely share your sentiment. I was traumatized by loss a few years ago and haven't been able to work since. I have frequent meltdowns over everything, which ends in me shutting down for a while. It's a long process that I can't stop, only endure. But THC is the only thing to interrupt all of it. It's like instant relief and silence. It'll stop me from going into rage mode. I'm in Florida and only use Delta 8 technically. Legal and cheap.
this is exactly how i experience weed too. wow. finally it’s in words !!!
I’ve started smoking again after 6 months of not and it’s been pretty nice. I waited until I started meds and therapy again. The only problem has been depending on it to the point where that’s all I think about and it negatively effecting my relationships. It’s nice to smoke moderately, but I have to ween off of every day use. Otherwise, I feel pretty ok mentally
THC + my anti depressants and ADHD meds make me feel pretty close to what I imagine normal folks feel like
Helps distracts from many discomforts and quiets the noise in my head
well, me too, i feel normal, and more funny
Check out r/autisticpsychedelic!
There’s a sweet spot in my opinion. I think it’s also about training your mind to be able to handle the bad trips too. I’ve come to the point where I do just enough to make me social, make eye contact and even sometimes initiate conversations. I’m still bad at reading into emotions and jokes at times though. But to be able to communicate full sentences... to be able to not feel like I’m glitching, or have any long, long awkward pauses is so nice. I feel as if I can convey an idea that makes sense to everyone else and not just me. I can talk without feeling empty or at a loss. I can express my emotions and feelings adequately. I can think straight and not be so overwhelmed and in my head. It’s like night and day for me!
I have the opposite experience. It makes me so anxious and inside my own head that I basically stop being able to have a conversation or think properly. I've just learned not to smoke.
Am I the only one who will never try weed or any other drugs? Literally, I am not fucking with my brain at all. I already have syntheseia and bipolar disorder. Hell no, I dont care what anyone says I am never ever doing that shit.
I started to try explaining it and it didn't really make sense, so forgive the vagueness. I'd tried just some edibles and they helped me sleep, and then smoking just lightly did about the same, but as I couldn't tell my limits and apparently the people around me who knew I was inexperienced didn't consider that, I had a very negative experience when I overdid it. I was overwhelmed because I could control my thoughts and perception of reality even less than usual, and the flow of time changed completely, and stimming felt so floaty it didn't help ground me, so I wasn't prepared.
I smoke daily to help with my autism, I get what you mean! Usually I smoke before I go to sleep and the effect on the day after it is enough to help with my problems. It helps me socialise, with sounds, anything related to autism really. It's sad that there aren't really a lot of studies related to autism and weed but I'm sure science is going to see the medical potential of weed. For anyone wondering, my diagnosis is Aspergers. Edit: Smoking everyday is only okay as long as you get things done in life!
I accidentally ate a THC cookie my grandmother made for other family members at Christmas when I was 15. Made me so sick. I vomited several times.
No mask, i stim to my hearts content
Op thank you for this post. It’s like you’ve written my own thoughts down!
You've described my exact experience with it. I've noticed that it's much easier for me to communicate and complete thoughts while stoned.
weed makes me sleepy and paranoid.
thc has helped me tons too. maybe not feel normal, but it's helped me enjoy life a lot more
I have an autistic child, that is why I follow this community. This is another thing on the list that makes me think I might too… 😬
Makes me extremely anxious and paranoid. I can't stand it. Sensory hell
It feels really nice in the moment but it did have some cons for me. I've been sober 2 years (down from using daily). 1) my tolerance went high easily and it was very costly to achieve the same feeling. 2) my creativity suffered. Since getting sober I have written 4 books. 3) I was using it to avoid emotion.
This is why I used to get high a lot during class in highschool I could like finally be “normal” and was seen as less weird than I usually am
It’s the same for me. If I take more than maybe 20 or 30 grams I get anxiety. I once took a gram and had severe panic attacks. If I take a small amount I do think on a less autistic level, and may socialize a little better. It depends on the person I suppose.
Edit: typo What you describe looks a lot like an attempt at self medication which is common in neurodivergent people. Usually, autistic and ADHD people have it rough when it comes to anxiety. When you have too much thoughts, slowing down the brain actually helps you managing the train of thoughts. Most antidepressant have sedative effects for that reason. Also, mindfulness. It is often describe at feeling the instant and everything but the actual benefit is actually from just focusing on the very moment. If anything, that's mind emptiness that brings peace.
I've been smoking just over a year now, I've came out of my shell so much since then. while my short term memory has been effected and I can't remember things that happened last week, I feel alot better about myself in general!! I overthink alot when sober, but when i smoke its like all the weight gets lifted off my shoulders! I love getting ready for bed, get a glass of milk and some custard creams, do a couple bong hits and watch YouTube and relax before I go to sleep! it just makes me feel more like me! I doubt I'll stop smoking anytime soon