Pot, Psychedelics, Depression, Writers Block

Hello all, this is my first time perusing the site, I found it by typing in something similar to the thread title in google...I've come to a point where I feel like I can't find anyone in my everyday life to share my concerns and get some educated feedback...I have been smoking marijuana everyday for a little more than two years and during initial usage it was wonderful, I found it incredibly stimulating, especially for opening my mind to different modes of expression, my artistic expression floursihed during this period, but as I continued my usage and upped the intake due to a raise in tolerance, I found myself becoming more nervous than relaxed when I smoked, stumbling over my words and often having a sort of mental traffic jam everytime...i found it very difficult to "hang" and even have a conversation...some of these issues passes over to my sober time which is very infrequent...I've found a difficulty connecting with people in simple everyday dialogue, often suffering from similar neurotic behavior when I'm having a nervous stone...also my art has suffered quite a bit, I have difficulty expressing myself and putting words to my feelings, before it came very naturally but now everything feels unnatural and contrived, I remember when I would go to my guitar with my mind racing and my heart full of emotion, and now I feel dead and frustrated that my writing, music, and thoughts don't flow as they used to, this expression is what keeps me going, its what i live for and now I'm afraid that I've lost it forever...I've also had quite a few intense psychidellic experiences and I'm afraid that I've ruined my creative edge permanantely, I've changed myself for the worse...I quit smoking pot a few days ago and I'm feeling nervous, anxious, irate, and unable to think clearly...any advice, support as far as regaining some ground and connection with the world around me, especially in being able to channel my creative abilities would be much obliged.

 

You sound as though you're the kind of person who should not be doing any type of drugs, even pot, which is quite mild(it's the only drug I do myself). Everyone's different, and if you're feeling this way from lack of weed, I would say that maybe it's not for you, especially at this time in your life.

 

Yeah, after re-reading your post, I can tell you that I don't know very many people who have these bad side effects from marijuanna usage(does anyone here know people like this? I know very few if any). If all this is true, weed is probably not for you, like I said. Just stay off it for at least a month and by then you should be feeling better, and then stay off it for good. The negatives seem to outweight the positives in your case, as far as I can tell.

How much exactly DID you smoke?

 

Dude, if you want to get your creative edge back, stop smoking for a few weeks. Wait for your tollerence to go down. You totally need a break.

 

yeah i'd say quit for a while, a month or so will do, and if you decide not to quit intirely (which may be for the better) then you should at least cut down so you're not smoking any more than once or twice a week. there's my two cents

 

yeah, a break seems 2 be in order here. well im no doc, but like, what i *THINK* is like, well sometimes when i smoke alot or alone and kinda in a depressed mood....it makes it worst, like i get all weird and nervous and cant think at ALL and i have no fucking idea whats going on in a BAD WAY. haha. cuz somtimes, when im weird and have no idea whats going on, its fun.....but only if im in the right atmosphere and in a kinda good mood or whatever. i hope that made sense. and i heard some people have '''withdrawl" symptoms from quitting weed..but i heard they only last for a few weeks and what u described yours sounded normal. and sometimes i have this writers block....cuz i always write alot...but sometimes, for even MONTHS, i just cant write ANYTHING! like whatever i write i think is stupid so i throw it away or i just cant think of anything. so maybe the writers block is not related to the weed. and the depression, well...sometimes if i feel depresed i think its cuz the weed but i dont think it is, i just had alot of shit going on in my life! oops this is LONG!

 

Definitely take a break, and IF you start smoking again, do what moe-ron said up there, smoke much less, maybe once a week. You've overdone it, turned from use to abuse. Gotta keep it in moderation.

By the way, your creative edge isn't gone. You can't lose that, short of major brain damage which I really doubt you have. You're just burnt out on drugs. You have to free your mind to be creative, which marijuana or psychedelics can help with, but you've become a slave to drugs, especially weed. And even though I said drugs can help with creativity, always remember that it's not the drugs that do it, it's you. Drugs, like any tool, can be used positively or negetively. They can help get the creative juices flowing, or they can get you lost in a heavy fog.

Anyways, you were right to take a break, good job. It won't be easy given how much you smoked and how used to it you were, but if you stick to it, you won't be sorry. Drugs can be fun and good, but clearly, the way you were using them wasn't. Keep reminding yourself that, even when you get an urge to say "fuck it" to your break.

 

That's a little over-exagerated don't you think?

 

Hmm... how rare. I do every day and never have a problem.

 

no. clearly he's having problems. Stop acting like weed is harmless, it can be abused like anything else.

That's the biggest problem I have with this forum, others like it, and (young) pot smokers as a group. they act like it's a harmless drug, akin to eating fresh herbs out of the garden. But don't be fooled, marijuana is a powerful psychoactive, and thus can have dramatic effects. Sometimes damaging effects if used to excess.

So no, I don't think it's over-exaggerated.

 

I know what you are feeling, poster, but the creativity never goes away, it just doesnt come out as often. Ive found that It often comes out if ive gone for a few days without any weed.

I get a litlte upset when i feel that my creativity is fading.. then ill be forced into a break, even just a short one.. and the come back and be like 'hey its still there yay'.

but one thing about stoned creativity is ive found i pretty much can never coax it
it just comes.

If you ask it to come out it will be like 'what? fuck off'. but then if you stimulate it unknowningly.. it will just take hold

 

i smoke every day and have been for about a year now. i go to work high sometimes and get really blazed at work sometimes but i am always able to get all my work done on time often early. it depends on the person really.

 

I think I can relate alot to what you're saying. I've been smoking for about a year and I feel like a lot of my creativity has been lost. Even worse than that, I've found that when I get stoned I start to get really introverted. I was never a quiet kid, I used to talk alllll the time to anyone, but now when I'm stoned (and sometimes when not) and I'm with even my good friends I just cant think of anything to say. Its not like I wanna say shit and can't form it inot words, I just feel braindead to come up with anything worth saying. All of this built up over the past school year and for a good amount of time this past year I was pretty depressed off and on frequently. Overall I felt like shit. Now its summer, I'm done with school until I start University next fall, and I'm in a better mood overall. I've been drawing a bit more and I've only felt really depressed a once or twice the past few weeks.

You have two options to try and improve things. The first is to just quit, which may prove to help or not. Over the past year I've quit for a few days and I've quit for a few weeks, neither ever really helped much. Now I've been trying to smoke to make my life better. When I take a hit I think to myself "How can this make my life better?" and focus my intent not on smoking just to get high but smoking to make my life better. I've been meditating a bit more and trying to find some sense of inner peace... As for creativity, surrounding myself in art helps spur my own creativity. Back when I watched anime, I had a constant source of art throwing itself at me and I would take it all in and transfer it to paper. A lot of my drawings were anime-ish but not all of them. After I quit watching cartoons, though, my art started to slow down.

My final point: Our psyche, our personality, and even our existance are alot like pot. Its all what you make of it. You can change it for the better, or you can change it for the worse. Altered states of consciousness are really based on how you expect them to be, alot like a placebo effect. You will get higher if you expect to get higher. You will have emo breakdowns while smoking (like I did) if you have something bothering you deep down, or you have a real negative outlook. If, on the other hand, you are at peace and happy, you'll have much more rewarding highs. If you let your personality just die (like I did when I started using the internet alot...) you'll find that you miss it very much.

In summation, like allready mentioned, drugs are a tool. I bet you can improve your life and keep smoking, but you need to put effort into it. Look into more spiritual wasy of smoking, do some research. If your problems are anything like mine, the real problems lie in your life outside of pot and your own psyche. Pot is merely amplifying and contorting these problems in new and fun ways.

 

I disagree, at least for the short term, this guy needs to quit totally and get to know himself without drugs. Clear the fog, let the light of sobriety shine in a little. Then you can start to use pot as the magnifying glass again.

 

hey guys, thanks for giving your insight, i really appreciate it. to the last poster, i really took your advice to heart, i really do need to get to know myself without pot, thats the problem i feel like ive lost my sense of personality and connection with the world, therefore my creativity dwindles, which is my only way of feeling really happy, through creative expression. ive taken a break for a week last summer i remember, and i got a surge of energy, but then i slipped back into the routine of numbing myself. its true that a lot of the effects are related to the state of the psyche, what i expect and the set and setting, but the set and setting itself has been fractured through constant use, slipping back into the abuse. and the abuse aspect is not exaggerated, its something thats become a way to escape doing something with myself, an embodiment of a habitual laziness of mind...i smoked a LOT of pot throughout my last school year, i go to UC santa cruz, and i did better than i ever did in any academia, i got straight As and I mainly took history, literature, and philosophy classes, lots of intensive writing. i dont think my cognitive abilities are gone, but just a general feeling for life has dissolved...i havent smoked for a few days now and i already feel a lot better, i plan on posting again in a few weeks and letting you guys know my progress if u care.

 

it must be the fact that creativity and inspiration draws from the outside world. If you start to spend a lot of time creating and thinkning, and less time listening/viewing and talking, you sort of lose inspiration

try taking some mdma, then youll be talking ahaha

 

Glad to hear that you're starting to feel better. Pot is fucked up like that, it affects everyone differently. I'd be interested to hear back in a few weeks. Good luck! =D