Asperger's and Marijuana

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Ah, the perfect post for me.

Yes, weed is like.... It is what got me functioning enough to realize that I was different, previously I was blissfully ignorant but in a constant state of depression. As soon as I had some weed I become aware of my actions and it led to my happy re-discovery of Aspergers.

I now use it legally for sleeping and depression, and it's very effectively treating both. I also find more time to draw.

Having done the research, I find that 99% of the stuff written about the ill effects of weed is in fact a lot of BS.

I also have a not so crazy theory that weed is how NT's become autistic. Why do I say this?

Weed: Makes you see patterns(on the wall and in general), thoughtful, more awkward, crazy ideas and thoughts.
Aspergers: Makes you see patterns(on the wall and in general), thoughtful, more awkward, crazy ideas and thoughts.

Yes, and moderation is important.

To be fair, smoking ANYTHING is going to be somewhat bad for you. I now have an occasional cough, but I take that as a side effect, just like any medication.

The trick is to be strong minded when smoking, you can't let things rule you or how you act. Now I just take it as a calming, happy thing, I'm rarely bothered by anxiety/depressive thoughts on it anymore because I know it's just a side effect, so I distract myself.

Subotai: Your theory is correct, most entheogenic drugs amplify your mood, and weed is no different.

I didn't expect to get so many responses, but I'm glad to see there are others like myself.

Of course it's bad for you to overuse marijuana, it's bad to overuse anything. Moderation is paramount. I used to smoke weed 5+ times a day, in large amounts. My brother was a dealer and always had something packed or lit. The day I decided to not be afraid of it anymore was the day I started realizing how different I was, like one poster previously said. I've had many out-of-body experiences whilst stoned, and realizing my awkwardness was the first step to "fixing" myself.

Generally, I would say I am better in social situations because of my experience with marijuana. I would have never left my room or gone outside unless absolutely necessary until I started smoking.

For those of you who don't smoke:
I am not advocating drug use, but merely suggesting an alternate medication. Forget what you've previously learned about marijuana and do the research yourself; you'd be surprised as to what you'd find. ALSO, it is not true that once you take your first hit, you're hooked. I didn't feel a thing when I smoked for the first time, but I was determined to experience an alternate state of being. The best way to learn about marijuana is to smoke it once, take note on how it makes you feel, and meditate on whether it would be in your best interest to become a smoker. I've been smoking for years, and only smoke the strong herbs (being from Los Angeles, getting bomb bud isn't hard). It CAN make you stupid, if you smoke too much. You CAN get hooked, if you smoke too much, all the time.

For those of you who do smoke:
I'm hitting a bowl for you as soon as I post this. Much love <3

I forgot to add, my symptoms are clear. In my mind I know I have AS, but somehow I can't accept it. Maybe I don't want to admit it to myself.

Also, I love you all.

Orr: A few points:
1: I meant that I was happy to think that I was normal, while being depressed because I didn't understand I wasn't normal. It's kind of an oxymoron, but it's how I felt.
2: Let me clarify, "ill effects that programs like DARE use to scare people into believing nonsense." Reefer madness is nonsense as far as I've seen.
3: I have read articles similar to this. I understand why people think this. From personal experience the effects listed are usually only experienced while on marijuana, some people have a different biochemistry so I guess some people may be more likely to experience this after usage to a degree, but I PERSONALLY don't find it to be a realistic fear.
4: Schizophrenia is in fact linked to pot and this is indeed a risk, but there are risks with every drug, and pot is much less harmful from a physical standpoint, while I'm not saying schizophrenia is an acceptable side effect, I am saying that the prevalence of that seems to be low. Also this theory is sort of a joke which stems from my having to do a lot to get any effect, and the reason for that being that my perception is already different and that it takes more pot to alter it further, thus my theory.

This is where not being able to form coherent sentences is kind of a failing of mine.
I also concede that much of this is my personal experience speaking, rather than fact based evidence, but I also think if I took the time I could probably put together a fair enough thesis on the point.

Love you too Teknique, I'll be doing the same soon.

I was a heavy pot smoker during my college days 40 years ago (as well as many other drugs... my favorite was LSD... the real stuff, not the dangerous substitutes out there now). I never did really like cannabis that much though because it made me withdraw into myself more when I desperately wanted to be able to relate to people. I did sleep more easily in those days though and now that I am a total hermit wish I had the cannabis to help me sleep again.

I'm not sure, but, I don't think I have schizophrenia... but the delusions of reference, and the delusion of mind reading are kinda annoying, and delusion that everyone is watching me with telepathic cameras too, and this all started when I smoked too much pot. I was just smoking too much all the time though, like 9 times a day, and I had not much to do with my life, and so I kept thinking about the people outside of my house and around my neighborhood for a while since I could hear them jibber jabbering when I was stoned, and the dog barks too. I never felt stoned though, but it somehow calmed my depression a bit still, but my paranoia was a constant problem with my natural social anxiety and agoraphobia. I am sure that pot may have enhanced these mood effects over time, but not all at once probably, only from prolonged use of pot.

Something to consider, is that I was doing super natural research at the time, because my online girlfriend of the time said she had special powers and that she had lycanthrope.
I became a bit obsessed with trying to find some kind of extra sensory perception... but as I broke up with her online due to her doing some crap to piss me off, I found this turn into hearing illusory voices inside of the neighbors voices, hearing laughs and thinking they were laughing at me when they are likely just watching a funny TV show and laughing or talking to some friends, and I could always hear the illusion that they are calling me names. I started thinking dogs were talking to me with dog barks and telepathy (my GF at the time said she was a lycan, figure that one out).

I thought this girl I was dating online secretly wanted to kill me, I was paranoid, yes, and I couldn't believe that someone as good looking and cool as her would like me out of the blue on the Internet, and I didn't know why, she just kept saying I was amazing to her for no reason, so I thought maybe she was an online predator out to rip my eyes out and kill me. I was also listening to a lot of death metal, as that is what I like, and I was also listening to some of it backwards, because it sounds cool backwards, and I thought that metal bands were out to kill me also for some odd reason. I kinda thought I was a chosen one or something for some odd religious cult because of the girl the I was dating online, I couldn't figure out why she liked me, so I thought it was all a lie, it was just too good to be real.

I think the mix of this girl I was dating online and dumping her with all the negative emotions and smoking to much pot at the same time caused me to lose my mind.
That's it, I think I just figured it out right there.
Pot enhanced my mood at the time, going through a break up (of the online variety, but it still felt real breaking up, she was all saying I was her soul mate and BS, but flirted with other guys and started ignoring me at one point), and being stoned at the same time, with all my social anxiety and paranoia, and caring too much what people thought of me because of her, and I went crazy because of that I think.

If pot enhanced my mood, no wonder I went crazy, now it makes sense.

Well from that it sounds kind of like like you where already having some issues before the marijuana effected much of anything....I don't want to be ignorant or anything so maybe I am wrong. But yeah it seems like the marijuana reacted badly with what was already going on rather then having caused it.

I actually have actually had a bit of a paranoia problem since I was about 7, and that issue still kind of exists but since it existed before the cannabis use and the cannabis use does not have any effect on it other then reducing the anxiety I might feel if I have any paranoid thoughts. I will say however it has gotten worse since I tried taking anti-depressants and promptly stopped taking them for my depression which is mildly annoying.

According to some of the things I've read, we tend to have an ingrained "low to medium level of paranoia."

I found and find myself, before cannabis, looking over my shoulder and thinking things are suspicious, but I just remember that it's me being paranoid and more than likely a wrong suspicion(and it usually proves to be wrong.).

That was a thing I had when I was younger, I thought maybe I was like a paranoid schizophrenic, but I'm not, it's just Aspergers, and from the things I've read the two are not all that dissimilar, or at least the symptoms are in some ways similar. Talking to oneself, fascination with certain subjects. One of the books I read about this subject from a clinical psychiatrist was saying that he suspects that many atypical/paranoid schizophrenics who were diagnosed prior to the 90's may have in fact just been people with AS who were misdiagnosed.

In my opinion that's revolting and sad if true, but I do see pot contributing to paranoia if you allow yourself to believe it. Like I said earlier, going into it with a strong mind and knowing that it's only the effects of a drug does wonders to ease your paranoia. I also got suspicious that my brother-in-law was messing with me, and I still think that to a degree, but once I talked it out with him(which was hellish), it turns out it was him in a misguided attempt to be sensitive about Aspergers and kind of failing really hard. I had a meltdown over this actually, ended up under a table, rocking.

And that's why you shouldn't mix caffeine pills/no sleep/and pot. But that's another story.

Either way: I can understand linking schizophrenia and pot, but I think there are more factors than marijuana alone.