Bipolar Disorder and Cannabis

[Pakrat]

I was very recently diagnosed as Bipolar type II. I’m a life long substance abuser and after 40+ years I've narrowed my use down to pot and liquor. Liquor just got eliminated via the diagnosis; no wonder I can’t drink like everyone else. Pot can go too, if it makes me feel better. Besides, I can still grow it and share it with others in need Do you all have any info to share?

 

[redneck shogun]

My wife is bi-polar and she loves the indicas, doesn't seem to even get high on the sativas. And it usually takes twice as much of anything compared to me. When she wasn't medicated it was the only thing that kept her somewhat sane. As long as it is an indica I don't see how cannabis can be harmful for a bi-polar.

 

[hazy]

Read granny stormcrow's list, you'll find links to studies and articles about bipolar and pot.

 

[FreedomFightr]

My friend is bi polar. I grew up with him and it did not come out until he was about 25-26. he would never take his meds and would be on another level. He would smoke lil pinner joints all the time, it would make him more loopy. Even though he was a lil loopy he was still very profound and very intelligent, just on on another level.

 

[HOPS5K]

I too am Bi Polar and use cannabis daily. With smoking cannabis and being bi polar, I find it very relaxing for my mind..especially indicas...it really helps with my mood as well, and I find that I'm in a much better mood when cannabis is in my system. It also helps me get the sleep I need and I nod off within 5 minutes of hitting the pillow after having smoked a bowl of indica.

I think overall, being bi polar is managable with a little cannabis and some FlaxSeed Oil.

 

[Phillthy]

many psychiatrists say that bi-polar sufferers respond very well to cannabis.

 

[Pakrat]

Thanks for all the info, folks. I’m getting used to these forms and I’ve been checking in the wrong place for updates to my threads, so my apologies for the time-lapse. I’ll catch up.

 

[Graham Purwatt]

my wife is very bipolar and on the few occasions i can get her to smoke it works better than any pills she has been described for it. imo,bipolar+buds=happiness

 

[stumpy mcgee]

stay away from trippy sativa's like haze and the like......look for indica dominant strains known to make one feel relaxed and happy......

 

[Pakrat]

stumpy mcgee - Learned about those trippy stativa’s the hard way Early Silver Haze used to totally freak me out, helicopters, imminent comets, the whole nine.

I’ve been on Depakote and herb for the past 3 weeks and have never felt better or more stable in my entire life. Then my head docs asked me to go of the herb so they could “stabilize” my mood. I also suffer from high anxiety and after 12 hours without herb I found myself having my first manic episode since I’ve been on the pharmacy stuff. I went home and smoked a bowl, and I felt better, so smoked a few more. Maybe, it’s my crutch, but I sure feel great. I’m just saying…

 

[sso]

bipolar type 2 rapid cycling myself, cannabis is my bread and butter.

indicas do more for me, but i like the odd sativa.

 

[HUGE]

I was diagnosed bipolar but honestly it could be bullshit cop out by the doc. There is sOmething different up stairs and cannabis helps much better than seriquell and kalonapin.

 

[Weird]

i did a year inpatient by the time i was 15

i tried it their was for a very long time

today i am drug free and completely functional

goodbye big pharma

hello marijuana and TY for giving me back my life

 

[Kirsten]

I was diagnosed bipolar but honestly it could be bullshit cop out by the doc. There is sOmething different up stairs and cannabis helps much better than seriquell and kalonapin.

How is a doc diagnosing you as a bipolar a cop-out for them?

Seems to me it does you a favour since they have no financial vested interest in your being bipolar or night beyond appointments for discussions which could easily be given to any doctor.

Bullshit cop out by doc? that part sounds tad paranoid.

 

[sso]

bi polar in my experience.

mania = feels like youve done speed or drunk shitloads of coffee, without the druggy feel, but same effects in general, ranging from mild, talking fast, moving fast. medium, wild impulses. heavy, losing control of yourself entirely. severe, spasming uncontrollably without being able to move.

depression, ranges from mild dissatisfaction with life, to hellholes of utter despair.
from an annoyance to almost complete paralyzation and immobility.

from an slight difficult with life and interaction to inability to go to the store or even eat or more.

like being in a black hole with no escape possible.

rapid cycling means that these states switch rapidly, in some cases predictably, following a pattern or in other cases not at all, completely unpredictable or such a complex pattern.

with me though, it changes from rapid cycling into slower cycling, one state for weeks or months, then perhaps rapid cycling or straight into a long period of the opposite.

any of that ring a bell?

 

[sso]

interesting though that i gotta compare the mania (high) to drugs.

anyone got anyother comparisons?

course if it isnt too much, its really just a happy energetic way of being. and my preferred state, which is why i dont like doctors drugs.

 

[sso]

i sometimes call the depression "the forge" too ,lol

though i usually called it the black hole.

though i got much over it, if not completely,still get somewhat depressed, when i compared it to being in the deeps and knowing that in the deeps there was nothing to be afraid of.

well, plus the wife (said 9 years ago, if it aint true love, fuckit, so figure that one out)

so yeah, find love and throw out all the crap in your life, avoid the people that make you miserable.

with annoying family, i found ignoring them between talking them to shit worked well. lol never giving in to anger.

mostly leave me alone or are better. aside from the one´s i found fine from the start.

find the things that make you happy, avoid the stuff that doesnt.

simple things are the best. (besides alot of them are free too )

 

[Kirsten]

I was very recently diagnosed as Bipolar type II. I’m a life long substance abuser and after 40+ years I've narrowed my use down to pot and liquor. Liquor just got eliminated via the diagnosis; no wonder I can’t drink like everyone else. Pot can go too, if it makes me feel better. Besides, I can still grow it and share it with others in need Do you all have any info to share?

I am diagosed "Schizo-affective Bipolar Type" with extreme rapid cycling, hallucinations - visual/auditory, messages in things i read, watch or hear, etc. Very much a Beautiful Mind daily drag experience.

My chemical cocktail is:
- Invega
- Depakote
- Zoloft
- Ativan

Of which i take none for a year now. They cost over $1500/month and though mentally disabled I do not qualify for financial aid for having not worked enough years in the past 10 - regardless of the fact that i am a U.S. naval military veteran.

Indica's are best. Period. Sativa's are the worst. The reasons are all over google. They can create and exacerbate feelings of paranoia, anxiety, fear and panic, including totally activating issues of "restless leg syndrome" and other similar type of disorders which anxiety can impact greatly.

I do still smoke hybrids. However, strong sativa hybrid's do not get me high they actually lock up my thought process by making my thoughts rush so fast I am unable to grasp even one as a conversational topic or matter to think over for other reasons. I just sit and stare at the computer screen and slowly get overcome by restless legs.

The chemical cocktails are horrific. They crippled my life and made me hate my existence.

I sleep daily 4-6hrs tops, that includes drinking myself drunk and even having a shot of vodka before i crawl into bed at 2am, and I will still rise without fail between 6am and 8am. On those chemical cocktails however, i slept 10hrs straight everyday, and then would sleep 4-6hrs more in 1-2 different sessions throughout the day, 14-16hrs of sleep for a person that has all her life only done 4-6.

I rather deal with seeing floating heads in the distance behind my monitor or my mouse crawling off the side of my desk and returning to its place, or hearing monstrous roars of some dragon or whatever unimaginable creature when i go outside than ever ever ever again take any of those pills and wake up:

- sick & throwing up 3-4 out of 7 days a week;
- dizzy spells - throughout the day where i nearly fall over;
- Extreme lethargy so that i can't do much of anything beyond sit and look wasted;
- Zero motivation
- Zero creative ability
- Inability to drive more than 2-3 miles before falling asleep at every red light i come to and waking up my kids saying: "Mom the light is green green is for go."
- Forced sleep with no way to stop myself from falling to sleep against my will to gain those 14-16hrs of daily sleep the pills demanded i have.

Pills are no way to live your life when they cause such issues. I tried everything. I gave up meat, preservatives, everything unnatural, became a vegan, took B12, flax seed oil, omega fish oil pills, St. Johns Wart, Zinc, Sam-E, and every other stupid thing that i read some bullshit person say would work. And nothing did.

And to this day you won't find one scientific study that can with conclusive, reproduceable evidence and put forward results of any of the aforementioned supplements (or any others for that matter) having any real efficacy on the body, and every time one study dares to show a supplement having a positive effect, another lab can reproduce the same study with the near similar results using placebos.

Cannabis for the win. Its not freaking man made, you don't need a human anything to make it useable for you or to have some human risk tainting whatever it is Mother Nature instilled in that plant that could be of use to us humans.

I smoke cannabis all day. If i do not, i freak out on everyone like many bi-polars do. But thankfully with cannabis, i can be mellow, and live a 'natural normal life style' without some man made chemicals turning my brain into a shit filled bucket of zombieness.

When i say "natural normal life style", i specifically mean, not being locked up in a mental ward, or having to suffer those side effect symptoms. I do live everyday with hallucinations and more, and deal with agoraphobia and find it very hard to leave the house and when i do leave the house, i almost always panic in the cab or in the grocery store. Cannabis helps as much as it can, but these illnesses are powerful things and the monkey's in charge of our medical resources really have no idea what causes any of it to happen and have an even lesser idea of what will happen when they give a person with schizo some medication meant for stopping muscle spasms but happens to have some neural effect no one can explain what - just that it dampens symptoms of bipolar/schizo... So...there you have it.

As long winded as always.

 

[Weird]

i was formally diagnosed pre teen and spent a good 20+ years in psych care

mom was told when i was 15 i was a candidate for permanent institutionalization


when i last took drugs my daily med list

depakote
zyprexa
xanax
eskalith
effexor
ambian


and no it did not contain the mania (most specifically anxiety)

now i am completely drug free (pot is medicine not a drug imho), am completely functional (work etc) and my mind does not go to places that dictate how i feel anymore

im in a constant state of quasi mania, just enough excitement in my heart to get up with enthusiasm and share it with the world

modern psycho-pharmacology is a primitive as fuck and all those meds decimate the bodies natural capacity to heal and over come the payload of bipolar disorder

this is not a dig or a disrespect to those with the diagnosis but most people I meet who express those symptoms have bipolar do to lifestyle not hereditary conditions

club drugs and pharmaceutical abuse cause can bipolar imbalance (by destroying liver enzymes that process stress hormone as ONE example)

seen it happen to alot of people who at one time had be naturally balanced

when ti comes to the human body garbage in garbage out is a very good mantra to follow

 

[HUGE]

How is a doc diagnosing you as a bipolar a cop-out for them?

Seems to me it does you a favour since they have no financial vested interest in your being bipolar or night beyond appointments for discussions which could easily be given to any doctor.

Bullshit cop out by doc? that part sounds tad paranoid.

Do walks in and hands you a double sided true and false test. You answer half the questions one each side true. Congratulations your bi-polar. That seems like a cop out to me. I would say If I am bipolar it's 97% mania. I don't ever really recall being depressed. You know that feeling in your chest when you fall or someone scares you? Well I have that pretty much all day accompanied by racing thoughts and 0 patients for anything. Horrible restless leg I I sit or lay for too long. Defunate IBS as I shit prolly 5 times a day. Antidepressants make my symptoms 1000% worse and anti anxiety Mesa make me zombie. Pot mallows these symptoms out. The weird part is the beat strain for me so far is spacequeen which is mostly sativa. So since your so verses in bipolar do I have it or did my doc take the easy route.