Hey, I’m 20 and honestly just trying to figure out what’s going on because this has been messing with me for a while now.
Not even sure if talking about weed/drugs is allowed here, so sorry if this isn’t the right place.
Quick context: I’ve been smoking since around November. Started once a week, then 2–3 times, and eventually it became basically every day.
Also I should mention early on that I’ve been taking a small amount of retatrutide, and it might be making things worse, but I’m not 100% sure.
The main thing that started all of this was a night where I took multiple bong hits, way more than I normally would. It hit me HARD. I got super anxious, borderline panic attack, and felt really dissociated, like I wasn’t fully in my body and everything felt kind of fake.
That experience didn’t just go away when I sobered up. After that, I started feeling weird even while sober, like slightly disconnected from reality. That lasted pretty strongly for about 1.5–2 weeks. It has slowly gotten weaker over time, but it’s still there a bit.
About 5 days ago, I tried smoking again (just 3 hits from a joint). First 20–30 minutes I got really anxious again, but after that it actually felt like a normal high like I used to have.
But now the main issue is that even sober, I get these random waves of anxiety. They come out of nowhere, especially when I’m alone, and it feels very physical and intense. This is very different from any anxiety I’ve had before and it's extremely debilitating .
I’ve had some social anxiety since I was younger, but this is on another level. It feels more like something in my body is off rather than just thoughts.
Another thing that’s been bothering me is I sometimes feel like I’m not the same person I was before all this. Like I can’t fully connect to myself the same way, which is super scary.
I also have ADHD (diagnosed when I was very young). I have a Ritalin prescription, but I basically haven’t used it at all the last 2 months.
One thing that’s making this harder is that I’m honestly very scared to talk to a professional about it. I live in a country with pretty strict views on drugs, and I’ve heard stories where people open up about using weed and it ends up affecting things like prescriptions and jobs, even though we’re supposed to have patient confidentiality.
I’m also too afraid to fully admit everything to my family, and most of my friends don’t really understand what I mean when I try to explain it, even though they’re trying to help.