The more I learn, the lamer I feel..

I was with a friend last night, and among many fantastic topics of conversation, came marijuana. And it got me thinking more. About smoking it. Lol

I used to smoke a lot in high school. Though, I'm pretty sure MY definition of smoking a lot is rather pathetic compared to the majority of my fellow classmates. I remember us girls bonding over the fact that our 'cycles' had aligned naturally..and then further bonding over how much getting high helped lessen the painful, bloated, nauseous side effects that are coupled with being a woman.

A little while ago my dad and I were watching a Discovery Channel mini series about drugs (do YOU know how they make cocaine?), and I started considering the positive effects that smoking again could have on my anxiety.

Its a toughie though! I don't drink because panic has lead to a severe fear of not being in control of myself, and drinking greatly enables a loss of control. And besides the fact that I don't really hang out with people who smoke weed anymore, I'm sure that I've chosen to avoid it over the last few years because as good as the high can feel, you're still losing control.

Plus, I've had my fair share of bad highs. Sometimes I'd end up staring in a stranger's bathroom mirror for what seemed like hours with my best friend, laughing hysterically and taking turns peeing because we were laughing so hard..and other times I'd wind up paranoid and hallucinating and wishing there was some kind of de-high button you could push!

You never really know how a high is going to turn out (maybe unless you're Snoop Da-double G) and panic has has destroyed my interest in any kind of unknowns. There's a good chance I could have a drink or two tonight and feel totally fine and happy..but there's also a chance I could end up shoving $50 at a cab driver and begging her to get me home before I shit my pants, and then end up throwing up. And honestly, the idea of THAT chance has my heart speeding up even now.

Still curious though, I Googled 'marijuana and anxiety', because that's what we do now when we have wonders! And every site states the same thing, whether it's some stoner's blog or a web M.D. And that is that the effects are different for anyone, and you can't predict it. Even getting a medical marijuana prescription and buying from some hippie/legal store doesn't ensure a nice, panic-reducing high. And I don't think I could survive a bad trip..no matter how many friends I had around to babysit me, or how many Ativans I had on hand. So really, why bother risking it?

Because if you don't risk it, how will you know?

Ya, ya.

This entry wasn't meant to be all about pot. My point was that Googling pot lead me to other sites about anxiety (because that's what Google does..takes you on an unexpected journey through interspace, every time!) and the new things that I learned have left me feeling a little extra useless.

Firstly, 'Agoraphobia'. This was never properly explained to me when I was first getting treatment. When people have their first (or one of their first) attack, they often form a fear of whatever they were doing when panic struck. If you were driving on the highway when you first felt the symptoms, driving could become something you're afraid of, because your brain assumes that doing it could lead to the next attack. For me, it was getting sick. I am definitely terrified of any stomach flu-related symptoms. And that's Agoraphobia, an often unnatural fear that only develops because of anxiety, and not for any other rational reasons.

I read about people not being able to be around kittens because they had their first major attack when they were in a pet store trying to pick out a new cat to bring home! And really, how pathetic does that sound? About as pathetic as it sounds to say, Im scared of going to the bathroom now.

Also! Nocturnal Anxiety Attacks are a real thing! And why hasn't one of my doctors mentioned this term before? Do you know how mental I feel, trying to explain that I can be having a perfectly fine sleep and then suddenly wake up in the middle of a level 10 attack? I'm not having scary dreams, I'm not having flashbacks of some bad guy breaking into my house in the middle of the night, I'm just waking up for no reason, pounding and sweating and trying to breathe for no reason. And yet, there are other people out there who experience the same thing. Well, there must be, because that term wasn't invented just for me.

The bottom line here, is that even after nearly a year of KNOWING that I have an actual anxiety disorder, there's still a lot that I don't know. Learning new things is supposed to make you feel better, but it actually makes me feel more desperate for help, and that makes me feel stupid. Not that needing help is stupid. But feeling my skin start to crawl when I'm sitting in my perfectly safe bedroom just reading about what a panic attack is, makes me feel extra stupid. And thinking that this panic might be something that I'm going to have to just have to deal with for the rest of my life, feels pretty lousy too.

I don't have a real conclusion here. I'm trying to think of a well-written way to end this. But this is my blog, so I'm just going to deem proper endings unnecessary for now. The end!