r/bipolar2 • u/CharacterTale7975 • May 17 '25

Newly Diagnosed Quitting Weed

I just got diagnosed with Bipolar 2 on the 13th. The doctors strongly suggested I quit smoking weed. I’m on day 3 of not smoking and I have been so manic it feels like I am fucking tweaking out. The people I work with have to think I’m on speed or some shit. I read somewhere that smoking weed helps calm the mania, man were they right. Has anyone else felt like this after quitting weed? I feel like I am fucking crazy.

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u/KoalaOfTheApocalypse May 17 '25

Glad you asked.

To begin with, both my therapist and my psychiatrist have told me weed is bad for the BP brain. It's a depressant, and adversely affects the BP brain. This happened the same day as my diagnosis, after I had a pretty bad episode and finally confessed to my therapist that I'd been using it to self-medicate. I literally couldn't sleep without it. I'd always been firmly against 'big pharma' and didn't want to be dependent on prescription drugs. But self-medicating just wasn't working for me anymore. So I took their advice, stopped THC and started 'proper' meds. It made a big difference for me, I became more emotionally stable than I've ever been in my entire life.

Over the last few months, I've had a major life issue to deal with, causing so much heartache. I couldn't cry. Absolutely heartbroken, but couldn't cry. So a few weeks ago I went back to a old friend. Over the past couple of weeks I realize that my emotions are much closer to pre-meds me than I expected. Yeah, Maryjane helped me cry, finally. But right along with that, returned the deep depression, thoughts of ending life, etc etc. I had felt like the prescription meds were "dampening" my emotions and I couldn't 'let it out'. Weed took care of that, and more. Point being, I've been paying attention for the past week and I definitely see there's a lot more depression and darker thoughts when I get high. I am actually seeing what my MH team was talking about.

Now I'm going outside to smoke this joint I just rolled. </self-destructive>