Hi everyone,
short backstory needed for my question: I have diagnosed ADHD as well as severe depression and anxiety. Even before I got diagnosed and put on medical treatment, I noticed Cannabis had a generally positive effect on me. I never went down that rabbit hole too much and only rarely consume pretty small amounts to this day.
I expect Cannabis to help with my depression and maybe anxiety. As for the ADHD, I never get tired from using Cannabis like people I hung out with. It just seems to work differently to some degree with my brain chemistry. I noticed it clearly impairs my executive function and memory pretty severely for about a day if I smoke. But on the flipside it does a similar thing as my Vyanese does and helps to lower how much energy it takes to start tasks.
I am super curious if anyone has anyone made similar experiences or if anyone is successfully using cannabis as treatment?
I am aware ADHD is a spectrum disorder, so experiences will vary. I know at least one person with diagnosed ADHD that also smokes occasionally. In their case the weed takes a bit longer to set in, but it seems to work on them as it assumably does on a neurotypical people. I also heard a lot of people also use/used Cannabis to treat their ADHD and I am glad it works for them. Personally I just used it once for a prolonged period in my life, but the negative effects quickly outweighed any positives. I could get shit done, but it felt like a dice throw each time what parts of my ADHD got much worse in exchange.
Don’t self-medicate, talk to a professional
I find that being high reduces my racing overthinking by a lot and makes it significantly easier to socialize. Yeah my executive function crashes but eh. Worth.
What I find interesting is I gain a sort of clarity for the day or two after a good session. It’s like my mental fog clears up and it’s easier to push myself forward into doing things before I return to baseline. This effect goes away if I toke too many days in a row of course so I only do it maybe once a week at most.
A good friend of mine who is very adhd and also on the autism spectrum tokes very frequently, mostly as a sleep aid.
I’ve also found that cannabis can be helpful, but as with any medication, it’s important to use it in correct doses at the right times.
I find that it can be incredibly helpful to get through tasks I would otherwise find too tedious like cleaning or putting away my clothes. It can also help to get me to a flow state on solo creative tasks. That said, it can also make it difficult to focus in more “high-information” situations, such as studying and especially listening to and understanding other people.
While cannabis isn’t physically addictive per se, tolerance is a real thing and you may find yourself spending more money and, importantly, more time on cannabis than you’d like. You can lose a lot of productivity you’d gain with the time taken packing and smoking a bowl or two (or three or four as time goes on). This can be managed with careful dosing and tolerance breaks but you have to put in the effort.
Ultimately, if you can afford it and it makes you feel better, there’s very little harm outside of smoking anything, which vapes and edibles can get around. But if you want it to help and not just be a hobby (or worse, a crutch), you need to treat it like medicine.
I think it’s a pretty common “self-medication” tactic. I went from 0 to “I consume a fair amount” pretty quickly. Initially, I used it for workouts–it just made them better, more interesting, easier to check off my list. I’d get changed, get my headphones ready, smoke, then go get lost in music while working out. Helped me get in better shape. And like the other poster, I find it really helps me to knock out otherwise painfully tedious tasks.
I haven’t been diagnosed with ADHD, though my sister has been, and I have a history of depression, anxiety and personality disorders (and I’m most likely a bit autistic) as well as a stoner.
Anyhow, maybe you could focus on the parts of your ADHD that do get worse, see if you can identify them and then maybe work on those? There rarely is just one “panacea” that works for all, as you might know already.
Also, have you tried other ways of enjoying the product? Vaping or eating even (cannabutter etc), instead of smoking? It delivers a different effect on the body, which might affect the cognitive and emotional response differently. I have noticed that for me, vaping is usually considerably less in your face and might even pleasantly surprise me when the high hits, and space cakes just seem to hit the body more, making me more relaxed.
Also the difference between indica and sativa, between different strains, and different growing conditions all will have an effect on the product, right down to the molecular level, wherein some bud will have higher amounts of THC, which causes the “drunkenness”, and others will have more others like CBD, which in turn causes the relaxation (afaik, not 100% sure on the specifics of these). My own experience is that the strongest possible sativa, laden with THC is more often that not worse for my psychotic symptoms and executive dysfunctions than somewhat milder options.
