DOSE:

4 hits

smoked

Cannabis

BODY WEIGHT:

140 lb

Panic on Marijuana

My friend Matt and I had just come back from a great day at an amusement park. I had about 4 decent hits over about 5 minutes, and the weed wasn’t that extraordinary. It was average quality.

He knows I get nervous “coming up”, so he decided to wait for me to get used to it in a comfortable spot before we got up and did a lot of moving. He went into the other room to grab a drink. That’s when I started to think about my heart beating. “God, my heart is beating really fast… I hope that’s healthy.” This, of course, made me feel a tinge of panic. “Shh, I’m okay, I’m okay, it’s just the weed” I repeated to myself over and over again. Funnily enough, this made me freak out even more. By the time Matt came back, I was having moderate to severe anxiety. He noticed right away and asked if I’d like to draw or play tic tac toe for a bit. I said yes, hoping having him beside me working on something would keep my mind off it.

It worked for the first game, but in the middle of the second game, I felt another tinge of panic and the marker felt weird in my hand. I inhaled deeply and threw the marker on the ground. “I need to lay down”, I said. He understood. He kept saying to me “You’re alright. I promise.” This sort of reassurance made me feel like I really DID have a serious problem and began to add to my panic. I told him to be quiet for a bit, sorry. As I thought further into my condition, the blare of the TV and the dead silence began to make me panic again. I wanted him to talk. I asked him, “Talk to me about something. Anything.” He talked to me about childish subjects in the attempt to bring me down to something comfortable and familiar. “Do you like horses? Didn’t you have a horse when you were a kid? What was his name again?” All of this noise was too much to take in. I grabbed the remote and started flipping channels, thinking CSI was making me sketch out since it was a particularly violent episode. I thought one channel was fine, then I realized it was scaring me and changed it again. “Damn, maybe I just need silence.” I turned off the TV and asked Matt to turn off the light. He did right away. I was starting to enter a full-blown panic. I couldn’t stop hyperventilating and running my hands through my hair constantly.

The silence was even worse than the environment before. I felt as if I was dying- everything was dark with no sound. This further added to my terror. I immediately grabbed for the TV remote to turn it back on. I tossed and I turned. I flipped channels and turned the TV on and off. I could sit for about 10 seconds, then I would need to breathe really hard and really fast. I noticed my pinkies had started to go numb. I was terrified. My hands were sweating. I felt like I couldn’t get enough air. Hot-white stars began to cloud my vision.

About ten minutes later, both of my hands were completely numb and so was my left arm. My legs had begun to twitch involuntarily and frequently. I was too scared to cry. I told Matt, “Shit dude, shit dude. I can’t feel my hands. Dude, call an ambulance.” He attempted to calm me down by saying, “Hey, hey listen. I can feel your hands. You’re all here. Nothing is wrong.” I tried to dial the hospital on my phone, but he took it from me. This made me feel helpless and I reassured myself of the fact that I was going to die. I felt like my left lung was collapsing. My whole left side felt weird. When I breathed in, I swore I could hear liquid gathering up in my lungs. I knew it was all in my head, but this brought me to the deepest terror I’d ever felt in my entire life.

Matt tried to calm me down again. He began to sing the Terrence and Phillip song from South Park. I normally laugh my ass off at that song, but I was too terrified to do anything but breathe. He also tried to bring up other funny things- no luck.

I tossed and turned some more. I was blinded by the hot-white stars now. I laid on my back and folded my hands on my chest in an attempt to naturally calm myself down. I stared at my hands and focused on nothing but them. I began to feel a little bit better. Whenever I lost focus on my hands, the terror would begin all over again. By focusing on my hands, I could make myself feel calm.

Soon, the feeling came back to my hands and arm. My legs were just barely twitching now. Matt mentioned something about volcanoes and I began to laugh uncontrollably. I went from sheer terror to absolute happiness. I don’t know if what he mentioned sounded silly somehow or if I was just overjoyed that I could finally feel comfort and happiness again. I could see clearly again within another 5 minutes.

The whole ordeal lasted for about an hour and forty minutes. I don’t know what it was about that weed, but ever since I grow nervous when I smoke even a little bit. The next day after was depressing. I felt sad when I got up in the morning and didn’t feel normal again until about noontime. I think that experience changed my life forever. I’ll definitely think twice before I smoke again.

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 72812
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: May 28, 2020	Views: 818
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