Does anyone else use weed either legally medically or self medicate. I want to know what your experience has been. I have smoked for about 5 years everyday multiple times a day and I have stopped self harming but I don’t know if it’s actually had benefits or not. Maybe I should just stop smoking lol. Am also on 150 mg of Effexor and I’m not sure if that has truly helped

Hey, so this is more of a venting and like talking post. I know weed is different for everyone, but for me personally, it has really changed my life for the better. In the fall semester of school I was at my lowest, I was very stressed, had breakdowns every week, and was going to doctor appointments after doctor appointments bc my stress/anxiety caused me to have heart problems and other problems during that time. I stopped taking care off myself, never had friends or a social life, and my adhd and trauma caused a lot of triggers for me. That was really the time I stopped smoking to focus on school. This semester, I'm doing better than I ever have, I finally got diagnosed with adhd and OCD, and I started smoking more heavily, about maybe 2-3 times a day. Since I've been smoking more, I've seen a huge improvement. My grades are better than last semester, I'm happier, I've been able to think about stuff without worrying or being emotional about it, Im able to let things not go to my head, and its limited both my obsessions and compulsions. Weed along with meds (I got genetic testing to make sure my meds wouldn't interfere) I've seen a huge improvement in myself. Ive been learning new things about myself now that I'm not in my head, I joined my college's step team which I would've never been able to do with my social anxiety, I'm more productive, I've been slowly healing my c-ptsd bc its been helping me take a second to chill out and reflect and think. I've made so many new friends and finally have a social life by letting go and not worrying with the use of weed. Its really healed me, especially since when I'm sober, bc of trauma I'm always in "survivor mode" and i will constantly find something to stress and worry about. i've only had one bad stress flair up this semester, and only went to the urgent care once compared to last semester with something not too serious. its made me more kind to others and to me, made less angry and had made me a genuinely happier person and allows me to see life in a so much more deep and meaningful way. I don't get memory fog from it, and can still remember things i did while high, mainly because I started using it in senior year of high school and don't get much negative effects from it. Thing is, my boyfriend doesn't get it and thinks I smoke to much. I've tried to explain how much of a better person ( and definitely a better partner since I've been using it to help me think rationally with arguments and stuff) but he still doesn't get it. His sister is kinda an alcoholic and his other sister smokes weed heavily and has more of a addiction type relationship with weed,doesn't have a job and has a problem, so I think its bc he's only seen how substances hurt and not help, but its still incredibly frustrating. I made it clear I'm not stopping anytime soon and sometimes he'll still make comments about it. I feel like I've only changed a good way from gardening more regularly, and I only do it when I know I have nothing to do, have stuff that I can put off for a few hours, and when I know I'm not driving that day or not driving for more than 2 hours. My therapist says that if it works it works and she thinks I should officially get a medical card, but I'm worried that my bf might say stuff about it now more often now that I have my card and can buy it now without needing to really hide it. He got mad at me today bc he found out i smoke during school, which I only do during my hour gap in between my classes and don't do it in the morning often, during my STEM classes. I have only core classes after my hour break which are easy classes that I have A's in, and its mainly a talk based lecture so I don't see the harm in doing it. Am I in the wrong? is there a way to help my bf understand that i'm worse without it? Should I stop or do less ? I don't know I'm just lost. I feel like I don't let it run my life, but sometimes I feel like he thinks I'm some like addict or something.

i’ve been going through weird phases in life and it’s really not what i need at all. i’ve been recently having really bad anxiety and i think i have depression (not sure) but everytime i go out my stomach starts to hurt and my mind goes all over the place i just always overthinking bad things are gonna happen like im just having the worst panic attacks when nothing is even happening. i can never go out with friends feeling normal because my mind goes crazy about anything. i can’t hang out with my girlfriend without having really bad anxiety and panic attacks, it’s also so bad that recently i got a job i’ve been trying to get for almost a year now and i finally have the chance to get into the job but my minds all over the place about traveling to another state for training and also even getting the job in general i feel so scared and feel so uncomfortable and uninterested when i been hoping for this opportunity for the longest. idk what’s going on with me and it’s clearly ruining my life and my mental. im starting to think it’s because about 2 years ago i used to smoke weed frequently and i stopped a while ago but now i do it once every blue moon and im thinking about quitting everything in general. what can i do to heal my mental and help my panic attacks where nothing is wrong? i need help..

For the past three years I've smoked marijuana nearly everyday. It helped with my anxiety and quieting my brain and helped me sleep. Recently, it began to make me feel more anxious, i would wake up nauseous and even threw up a couple of times which really triggered some health anxiety. I decided to quit because of this and i'm almost 2 weeks out from the last time I smoked. My body is slowly recovering but my brain just doesn't seem to quit it. I went to my GP a couple of weeks ago for a routine checkup and everything came back normal in my blood work and exam, yet that hasn't stopped me from completely obsessing over my health and feeling like (in my mind, not my body) i'm seriously ill- which is giving me extreme anxiety. Because of my reoccurring stomach issues my GP referred me to a GI who I had an appointment with yesterday. He was very unimpressed by everything I said and seemed like everything is pointing to IBS-which is not serious and something my mother also deals with. He ordered some extra tests to make sure I wasn't dealing with inflammation and he said he was very confident that my internal vital organs were a completely fine. I'm still waiting on those test results and his confidence should I have made me feel better but i'm still freaking out. Everybody in my life is tired of hearing about it and I just don't know what to do anymore. I feel like i'm pushing people away. I feel good and like myself when I'm distracted and doing something fun, but mornings and nights and when i'm doing something mundane it's the worst. I feel like I can feel all of these pains and sensations but I have no idea if it's real. I've even started asking Chatgpt for constant reassurance and constantly googling my symptoms. I'm in a horrible loop. I should mention that on top of quitting weed, I also just graduated college, moved back home and my boyfriend and I started the longest period of long distance we've ever had to do so i'm just not feeling like myself at all. My psychiatrist just put me on Zoloft (my vomiting and intense anxiety coincided with when i began taking Prozac again so she wanted me to try something else) I'm only on day 3 of the meds but nausea and insomnia are the two side effects im dealing with right now which is just making my anxiety so much worse before the meds have even kicked in. Does anyone have advice on how to break this cycle of constant checking-i feel like taking a deep breath has even turned into a compulsion.