kevin77

This post is directed at INTELLIGENT marijuana users. I want some insight from some people who have it together in their heads.

Now I am 24. I know that when I was smaller I had some irrational fears and thoughts ever since I was a little kid. These irrational thoughts and fears did not effect me that often as I got over them and didn't dwell on them. They would come and go. I also had a lot of trouble getting over things (and still do).

I remember I used to think that drugs were the worst thing in the world and that I would never do them.

Well when I was about 15 or 16 I tried marijuana for the first time. I was really anxious about it, and after I got baked I knew I felt weird, but it wasn't a bad kind of weird and I was laughing away.

Well for about a year or 2 that was just casual smoking...which developed into chronic smoking...I'm talking a an average of 2 grams a day.

As I progressed I sometimes got these thoughts that I was so stoned and I might die, but I could always calm myself down by saying "noone has ever died from smoking weed." I also started getting really paranoid about getting caught if I wasn't in a place I knew I DEFINATELY would not get caught. I started thinking that when I was stoned, everything I said was stupid, and that people who knew I was stoned were judging me negatively which made me not want to be around any non-stoners.

Just before I ended up quitting weed, I got hit with some bombshells. I just got a tech support job so I had to put up with assholes all day long, my girlfriend (who I was breaking up with) told me she was pregnant, and I just got charged with DUI (for being ONE BEER over the limit) and lost my drivers license.

Now when I smoked I was starting to get this weird panicky feeling....and feelings of guilt. Like I felt guilty for being high. I also got the weird, panicky, fog-like feeling when I wasn't baked but that was rare.

Then I remember when I got my first full blown panic attack. I was at a buddies house and we all got baked...I figured I was only getting these weird panicky feelings because I was smoking too much...so I purposely did not smoke that much (not as much as I normally did). I got a full blown panic attack....everything was really REALLY weird...I felt like I was dying....thoughts racing through my mind.....I didn't know what the fuck was going on and that freaked me out more but I concluded that it was the weed....I looked into the night sky and the stars freaked me out....I made up some excuse and rushed home in my truck. The whole time I had crazy thoughts like "what if I just drive off that guard rail"...and things like that. Then when I got home I felt really guilty, and thinking about my son while I was baked made me feel really guilty...like I am a bad person/father for smoking dope.

So its about 3 years later and now I have full blown panic disorder with agoraphobia and I haven't smoked weed in years. I'm trying to get over this bullshit but its hard. I get the derealization hardcore. Things which pose no danger to me sometimes scare the shit out of me. Sometiems I feel like I dont wanna live anymore (not suicidal) or like my soul just wants to jump outta my body. I avoid doing shit because I dont want to have panic attacks. I just started taking clonazepam and that helps.

I think my first panic attack just totally blew me away and then I started having panic attacks while sober. I think the panic attack just hit me so hard, not knowing what it was, that I obsessed about it non stop and it scared the shit out of me and I just let it get worse and worse by avoiding things that I thought would give me panic attacks and now I have agoraphobia and often dont wanna leave my house.

Now I have a girlfriend and she wants me to get baked with her, and I wanna get baked with her, but I'm scared shitless. Even though I have panic attacks when I'm sober....I feel like even after 1 toke of weed I am going to obsess about it so much that it will cause a panic attack no matter what.

Does anyone have any advice for me?