For me it not only helps with pain, anxiety, and depression but it also seems to help me interacting with people and with what I think might be selective mutism.
Example, I went to the dentist three times since November. The first two times, besides being a sensory nightmare, I was unable to speak more than two words to the dentist. The third time, I smoked some cannabis before the appointment and was better able to cope with the lights and sounds, be polite to the dentist, and thank her for recommending a water flosser.
Before that I had been going back and forth on whether I am autistic but on the way home from that appointment I had the realization and the dots all connected: the rarity of me interacting with people unless I have to because of difficulty talking, my dislike of phone calls for the same reason, my borderline agoraphobia and dislike of cars both having to do with sensory hypersensitivity, the fact that I am so much better at communicating in writing than in person because I have more processing time, the list goes on. It just all clicked at once, I think another effect of the cannabis being the ability to see the big picture not just the details.
People look down on stoners and have all kinds of misconceptions about it but honestly, I would use it every day if I could. It helps me so much.
Anyway, I can't be the only one. In my state, autism is on the list of qualifying conditions for medical cannabis. So, I'm curious. How about you?
@MnemosyneSinger@actuallyautistic #Cannabis isn't legal here, so I've not tried it. But I started taking #CBD soon after it became available in health food shops, and it really helps me. Helen was initially sceptical (CBD? Cannabis? That's drugs!) but has since become completely supportive and said CBD has made me easier to live with.
One of the difficulties with CBD here is that, because it's regulated as a #supplement and not a #drug, there's no guarantee of quality. According to the BBC series "Trust Me, I'm a Doctor", some CBD supplements contain much more or much less CBD than is marked on the label, and some contain none at all. Combine that with the placebo effect and it's really hard to know what you're taking.
I don't really differentiate between pharmeceutical and recreational drugs. Both are simply better living through chemistry...unless you are actually delusional. Those drugs are medicine. But, like, i see prozac as a part of a spectrum that has valium and narcotics as well.
Weed always helped most, but i think i ran it out to the end. I'd like something different.
@Uair@actuallyautistic #CBD and (recently) decaf #GreenTea help me handle stress. I can't try whole #cannabis because it's illegal here, even for diseases where it clearly helps, such as #MS.
Up until about twenty years ago, I used to drink too much. That was before I knew about the strong vein of addiction running through my family. Once I found out about that, I cut right down and made sure I got several consecutive dry days every week. I now interpret my previous over-drinking as an attempt to numb the abrasiveness of life as an autist in a neurotypical world. Whatever we call it and whatever excuses we make, it wasn't healthy. I was lucky in having no trouble in cutting down. Do as I do, not as I did. 🙂