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.
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.
Weed is funny. I used to smoke regularly but now if I take even one puff I will have panic attacks to the point I can't breathe. I fully support its use but am no longer able to benefit from it.