121 days

[Head in loud]

Today it is 121 days since I quite weed. I guess my symptoms has improved. Honestly I don’t remember a day when I felt normal and don’t even know what normal is. My main complain are high anxiety, restless sleep(waking up few times but do get 6-7 sleep) and depression. I have become to senstive and emotional, I was also emotional but now over emotional. I feel like crying about stupid things and people irritate me, also have anger/rage but thankfully able to control myself. One thing I notice that I have been obsessed with eating. Like I have lunch and after I’m done I think about what to eat next? I think my mind is trying to substitute for lake of weed? My intrusive thoughts are 80% gone but I do still get this high anxiety when I read about mental health or if I see someone crazy and feel like I might end up like that. My shrink really miss me up, he give me bipolar medication and said weed withdrawal will not last more then 10 days. Which made me not take the med after talking with my family and friends and reading about weed withdrawal. Still his diagnose sometimes bothers me. When I’m down I end up thinking what If I’m bipolar or what if I’m going insane. This is by far the worst thing I have ever experience in my life. Ok enough or ranting. Anyone else has issue with over eating?

[Astro413]

Hey man don’t sweat it, it’s just paws. I did the over eating thing too but I think that’s just part of finding a way to fill that void. I made my 4 month update a few days before the 16th of October and honestly don’t even remember what I said, I forgot I even posted to be honest. This has been by far the best month I’ve had and I’m looking forward to month 5. Keep at it!

[emtelligence]

Hey Man, I too have had over eating issues.

I'm pretty bad at it, but what has helped a lot is when I feel hungry, I just go and drink a lot of water. It curtails that.

I also set goals for myself. If I achieve my goals, then I treat myself a little bit. But keeping a goal and working toward that is a big step, I think.

Doug

[ashthewarrior7]

Hey head in loud,

A few points to comfort you. Bipolar doesn't kick off so serverly at the age of 40. By now you should have lots of episodes of bipolar mania or depression if you were bipolar. The second point is that since this happened right after you left weed, you can directly relate it to your issues. Withdrawals have mania type symptoms, especially the starting few months. Also the fact that your symptoms are slowly improving and not jumping means you're not having a disorder but rather recovering. Remember in disorder things get worse over time, not improve. You hang in there and give yourself time to recover. Your brains and body is just too used to weed and now without it it's going crazy. Very few people know about weed withdrawals because it affects only 10% of users not everyone. In other drugs the majority of users face withdrawals. Why don't you meet another shrink also if you need to? Get a 3rd or 4th opinion. Alot of shrinks these days just decide the prescribed medicines without doing a proper diagnosis. I've seen it happen with real experience in the industry. It's because it's easier, results are better but they aren't the cure, they just keep everyone happy for the time being. When you are down, keep yourself busy. Dont Google symptoms, symptoms on the internet won't tell you the intensity or relativity of each symptom. True mania would mean you wouldn't have the ability to even type this post or understand your situation. Just keep an eye on your recovery, withdrawals come in waves so some days you may feel better and some days are bad but you'll won't have many days worse than the worst day you've already had

[BullFrog]

Head in loud. I completely understand the eating thing. I currently am trying the 30 day potato fast. I would recommend it. Just go on youtube and see ideas. The monotony of just one type of food helps to curtail obsession with food in general. It has been helpful to me so far and I'm almost two weeks in.

[Head in loud]

Thanks for replying guys. I don’t want to jinx it but I had few good days.

Ashthewarrior7, thanks a lot! I discuss the bipolar diagnosis with my family and friends and all were like no way. I don’t have mood swings and any symptoms of bipolar but still when PAW hits I can’t help it to think what if? I do have a cousin who has bipolar and I get crazy anxiety thinking I will end like her.

BullFrog, I look up 30 day potatoes fast, I think it will be extra hard now that I’m suffering from PAW. Maybe in a month I will try it.

[ashthewarrior7]

Well, when you are down with paws and your emotions and fear take over, you have to reason with yourself logically. That's the what ifs and use it against itself. For example, what if you're going crazy right, then you think if you're going crazy you wouldn't be aware of it and that makes you not crazy. Then keep adding logic, like if I'm truly bipolar then why don't more of family members have bipolar, then use a positive what if, what if your cousin isn't really bipolar but was misdiagnosed and the meds she's taking is actually messing her up. They are all what ifs right? Now this is just a quick fix idea but not the solution.

As you do this also try to take up meditation, preferably the mindfulness kind like vipassana or the headspace app to learn how to meditate, this is very useful to cope with anxiety.

Let me ask you this, have you ever felt anxious when you were not thinking about either the past or the future? If your answer is no or rarely then you need meditation.