I was always very anxious person and this anxiety really helped me to motivate myself to do anything. I would procrastinate, wait for anxiety to kick in and panicking do the thing in 1/10 of time. However after this cbd thing the anxiety no longer kicks in lmao. It is gone for real, I can’t even evoke it if I wanted. And so my career/education took a huge hit.
At first I thought this effect was because of slight amounts of THC “making me lazy”. I imagined that I got a bit addicted to it over the year of everyday full spectrum cbd usage and I got stereotypical “bum” mentality from “weed” 😅
My next step as soon as I noticed that I no longer have drive and motivation and ambition? was to just come clean off it and I did it single day, was a bit irritable and angry for a week but generally not a big deal.
So now I am months after that and I realize that there is more to this. That this anxiety that cbd killed was actually part of my coping with adhd. I mean how else explain that months after quitting I still haven’t regained my “motivation” to finish something before deadline? The anxiety just doesn’t kick in, it is gone.
Idk honestly I must find some other way because I am almost 30 and that also is some sort of deadline hopefully the anxiety kicks at birthday.
I don’t know honestly if I should celebrate my calmness and relaxation or should I curse myself for losing the coping method. I need to find another… somehow.
I guess I don’t miss panic attacks but it is hard to balance it all. Some anxiety is kind of a force that for me was propelling me forward. Now I just want to relax and chill all the timee. Sit there on the patio comfortably with beverage and just take the nature in. That doesn’t work good for me in the long run I feel.
I hate to be the bearer of bad (good?) news, but, at least based on this post, it does not sound like you’ve defeated your anxiety. You’re just anxious that you’re not anxious enough lol
Maybe, I am a bit energetic and overthinking as always but I don’t know if I would call it anxiety. At least it is different than it was. It was more like a paralysing fear that made me shake and I thought I am dying every second day.
If this overthinking is anxiety indeed then I think I kinda like it. But then I couldn’t know, I never had it differently.
I also fkd this post up a little by saying CBD but it likely was also HRT estrogen, probably mainly. I am not super good at formulating good posts
I would definitely expect the positive effects of HRT to reduce anxiety
Well yeah I think it is more properly attributed to that. But that also doesn’t change my point too much. If someone was pulling life together by anxiety, such sudden change is bound to be chaotic. I have plenty of security to insulate against this chaos at least
I just didn’t expect I would lose drive that made me grip the first career that was considered trendy that someone mentioned somewhere and I chosen because I had to choose something and maybe prove something
This sounds, to me, a lot like being driven by revenge. Yes it can work, you can force yourself to move with spite, but it’s not healthy, and eventually you’re going to have a reckoning. “Paralyzing” anxiety is not good for you. Using it to squeeze every last drop of productivity out of yourself is going to leave you wrung out.
I am, of course, not a therapist. I recommend you discuss this with one.
Society has convinced us that we have to always be doing something and contributing to the economy in some way. There is nothing wrong with having fun and just living life.
This is correct, but you still gotta pay rent. You still have to buy groceries. You still have to cook and clean to maintain your life and environment. You need motivation for all that
If anxiety was your only driver you basically don’t know how to be productive without it. Productivity is a learned skill, but when you’re basically fear driven you never learn it.
So yes now you have to learn how to find self motivation and learn how to apply yourself without feeling terrible first
Basically if you did the job in 1/10ths the time when anxious you now have more time to get these things done and not in a rush. Do you tasks and feel chill about it cuz you don’t wait to the last minute.
A lot can be learnt, as I did for decades. Always obsessed to try all the various methods, and enough of them work for me, to a degree.
But I think when it has gone to the point, there is more to it. In my case, it was the ADHD. My brain did not follow through with the plan to start doing the task, always had to push through some inner “pain”, and that is not pleasant. For others, it might be depression. So I had a lot of pain just to do the highest priorities barely good enough, while a normal brain would do it all without the effort, and kick in sweet dopamine rewards after each task.
Anxiety as a driving force isn’t really great for your health, so I would be happy to be rid of it. You should look into treating the ADHD itself, could be with a medical professional and trying if there are meds that work for you. One of my kids also has ADHD and we did find some meds for her that help after going through a few options.
You could also try controlling it yourself, this is a bit of mixed bag though and I would recommend exploring the medical options if they’re available for you.
For example, I’m quite a bit older than you and I never got it formally diagnosed, so no meds. I try to keep work and free time as separate as possible. For example during work hours my personal PC is strictly off, I do my work with another PC that only has access to my music and what is required for work, no other media that could distract me. I need to always do something, so basically the work gets done because I don’t have anything else to do. I don’t always stay on the right task, but this works well enough for me.
People and ADHD are both on a wide spectrum, so it’s always a bit of trial and error to find out what works for you
Maybe I will but my country has substandard adhd treatment with 2 meds available but I guess one can try that and see for myself if this is desirable change or something only made to fit into contemporary society workforce
That is honestly a pretty incredible outcome. Cannabinoids only help me control my anxiety, they’ve never gotten rid of it like that. I know what you mean though, I have been hypomanic and feel strongly that I wouldn’t have taken the plunge with my first business without that.
It doesn’t change that it was mental illness though, and I’m better off not being that way. I think you’re probably better off without your anxiety. You talk about pursuing success; a lot of people - mostly in their 30s and up I’ll admit - would class “being able to sit with a beverage and enjoy life regardless of income” as the definition of success.
On the other hand, is your anxiety really gone? Or is it still there, as part of why you procrastinate? If your panic coping mechanism is gone and can’t compensate for procrastination anymore, maybe it’s time to try and figure out why you procrastinate instead of just doing the thing and then getting back to your beverage and chair?
Well I was born fortunate and so my success didn’t come and yet I can enjoy such things. I think we all want to accomplish something in life ultimately, small or big it’s all very personal. My history is so complicated because I am also on HRT right now and I have gender related goals that take a big part of the whole picture. Maybe I underestimate how big. And yet some of these goals will never materialise and I will have to come to terms with some of it.
As much as I would want to look like some girl from instagram. I don’t think this is possible or is even productive to think too much about
Yes, the anxiety, guilt, pressure that gets it done eventually in a panic frenzy, when the adrenaline kicks in. It was not a good life, though.
For my son, I don’t want that, I want to be understanding that he might have a dopamine/noradrenaline imbalance that would make it disproportionately cruel to force him to clean his room right now. (He’s getting checked, of course, but in the meantime got to take my best guess.)
But the result is that he does not get even priority tasks done, sometimes.
I’m sure I can find a different way for him, starting with getting him checked. Some methods also work for him. E. g.: Don’t have to do it right now, but when it’s 5 p.m. / the video is done / whatever, set a stopwatch and do 10 minutes of cleaning. Or, since he can’t find where to start, do one thing: All garbage into a bag, or all toys into the box, or all dirty clothes into the wash.
Don’t get your anxiety back, find a different way for yourself.
Adderall helped me with this temporarily if that is something accessible to you.
I’ve smoked weed daily for the past 4 years and over time it helped me slow down my mind to identify situations that give me anxiety. I’ve practiced either avoiding those situations or taken the time to understand why those situations give me anxiety.
I am a people pleaser and would do everything I could to make others jobs at work easier at my own expense. I got lots of praise and good raises because of it. After learning to deal with my anxiety I just can’t put myself back into that position anymore.
I started taking Adderall which helped for a few months but I didn’t stop with the weed so I feel like i’m back at square one as my body has gotten used to it.
Currently trying to abstain from weed to see if it helps but struggling with the irritability and anger.
Weed has helped me figure alot out about myself as well. The main thing is that I really don’t like spending all my time stressed out. It feels physically uncomfortable. I had never noticed that before I had THC, to calm me down for the first time in my life. It’s helped me break down a lot of walls my anxiety built, which were keeping me from parts of myself.
Tolerance is so unfair lol
You don’t owe it to society to be productive. If you’re happier then you’ve made a positive change.
let’s not be naive: society doesn’t owe them anything either. so unless they adapt, they are screwed long-term.
Assuming you’re somewhere without good social supports (aka America) you do need to do enough to support yourself - but you don’t need to be an overachiever. Letting your mind be off sometimes is healthy for you.
This might not be the perfect analogy but this made me think of people I know who find healthy relationships “boring” and prefer unhealthy relationships with a lot of fighting and drama because it’s more exciting.
But at the end of the day the healthy relationship is healthier, it just “feels” uncomfortable until one can realign to it. As another comment says, you feasibly have more time to do the same tasks and, thus, avoid any stress or anxiety but that is possibly going to feel weird and uncomfortable because of the anxiety you were so used to attaching to it.
Maybe it’ll just take some time?
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You should probably see a doctor about this issue. I’m neurodivergent too, and the one time I had cannabis it messed me up too.
I cannot recommend the stuff, no matter how many junkies say it doesn’t hurt.
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That is plain old substance abuse, I’d have deleted that too.
We love substances, if there is one thing I love as chem tech its substances
Most people don’t have that experience. I’m AuDHD and I really like weed, personally. But I found it demotivated me, so I decided to quit it, and I cold turkey put it down about a month ago. When I start working again, I’ll probably start smoking again because it helps with the day-to-day stressors that cause me an undue amount of, well, chronic anxiety.
You know what really messed me up? Vyvanse. I got some really intense anxiety, even after being on it for a few months. Decided it wasn’t for me.
Ye, not everyone has the same response. But the usual marketing telling people it’s safe is simply misleading.
Vyvanse I’ve not had before. No branded medication at all, really. My healthcare provider got me on methylphenidate for a while, it’s basically a weaker version of lisdexamfetamine. (aka vyvanse). It did nothing for me :/
Good thing you listen to your body, and deciding for yourself. well done!
