aspergers and marijuana -- consider reading this

hey my name is luke sparham im from ontario, canada. as you can see im not much of a perfectionist anymore and im a lot less obsessive. they say aspergers is "the geek disorder". i totally disagree. i beleive myself to be a very deep thinker and i beleive i am smarter than the average guy but i do not think im a geek. throughout school i have been the class clown, the bully, and the nerd -- probably just a bully because the lack of reguard for others and being a lot larger than the rest. i also have a very oppositional attitude along with adhd, aspergers, depression and anxiety. but my social life took a big turn around grade 8 -- when i started smokin mary jane. im not saying it was my greatest decision but ever since i started smoking pot i have had something to obsess about -- that and music -- something to bond me with others and something to talk about. i am on medications -- risperidal, concerta -- but i found pot has got me a lot of friends because its something to do and you dont need to convince a pot head to smoke a joint with you. any thoughts or questions???

As a youth i exhibited severe symptoms, then at about 15 yrs old i started triping acid, It took years of ego deconstruction and self examination, and a few smart loving freinds that were able to convey to me some of the empathetic skills i needed to thrive in short term social settings.
I had to go headlong into insecurity in order to develop the self acceptence i needed in order to practice genuine vulnerability, I believe that all peoples lives are defined by their feelings about vulnerability, it is perceived by all on an intuitive level as either a positive, or a negative. Embracing vulnerability has granted me some very valuable tools.
i still have a very difficult time in long term relationships as my proclivity toward obbseive interest is very much intact, and does not always include my would be spouse, but hell, who dosent have trouble maintaining long term relationships. i have had however the fortune to have lost love time and again. and i think that for me, considering the severity from whence i came, it is an accomplishement of its own.
i myself am as such a big fan of self medicating this condition is a preceptual lens and tweaking that lens a little bit has served me well, i dont advocate my path to others necessarly, i had a lot of special circumstance and timing surrounding my "acid wash" however i am thankfull for the path i found and am far less judgemental about the paths others choose.

Then read this :
I've a marihuana addiction for over 10 years now. I've seen a lot of people with a marihuana addiction as well. My experience :

1) "pot-friends" only stay friends as long as there is pot.

2) marihuana is worsening your capability for social contact. It does lower the incoming signals, which lessened the "overload" of information and stimuli I am experiencing often. But it also means that you react slower, speak different,... The lower incoming signals are a heaven, but being stoned is a very annoying side effect that effects your social interaction profoundly.

3) in the long run, marihuana has caused/worsened psychosis, depression and other mental condititions for quite some of my pot friends. Be careful with messing with your brain.

4) it's a huge disaster for your body. It's not because it comes from nature, that it would be less harmful. Lungs don't appreciate that dirt, and all types of cancer (pretty often skin cancer and leukemia) are common among long-term pot smokers. More than among nicotin smokers. See Bob Marley, see three "friends" of mine that died in their thirties due to cancer. All smoking pot daily...

5) whatever they tell you, it IS addictive, also physical. I've been clean for 8 months in the past (started again, silly me) and can assure you that sobering up is a very hard time with clear physical and psychological consequences (headaches, dizziness, pain in the chest, trembling, distorted sleep pattern, over-anxiety, depression, muscle pains a.o.)

I started again, because the combination of me and the sobering up was too hard to bear. Now I'm looking at quitting again as we speak. My ex-girlfriend told me often enough that she likes me more when I'm sober than when stoned, even when being sober is very intense for me. But there must be a way to cope.

gee sounds rough for you, it wasnt clear though, do you have aspergers syndrome ?

mezi wrote:gee sounds rough for you, it wasnt clear though, do you have aspergers syndrome ?

I don't like to say I have. There are numerous indications from my youth and my current life that make it plausible, but I won't call myself aspie without the proper testing. This for two reasons : I don't like labels, and I don't want to offend anybody by claiming to be like them when I'm not. But I recognize almost everything in most of the stories here.

Apart from that, being an aspie or not doesn't make that much difference for an addiction. I would even think that people with aspergers are more susceptible for it : smoking pot might easily develop into a routine that is hard to stop due to both the asperger and the addictive force of pot.

greetzz

Marijuana lowers your IQ. It really does. My teacher who has worked with kids with all kinds of mental issues has seen students go from rather smart to actually having mental retardation due to smoking pot for years.

That there's good enough reason to quit...

Linz wrote:Marijuana lowers your IQ. It really does. My teacher who has worked with kids with all kinds of mental issues has seen students go from rather smart to actually having mental retardation due to smoking pot for years.

That there's good enough reason to quit...

That would mean that I was smarter than Einstein when I started smoking? I mean, for maths, logic etc I still score at the top 5% of the gauss-curve after 10 years of smoking pot

Sorry, the "mental issues" are not only drug related. If we talk about students, most often it's a lack of effort that doesn't allow them to progress as it would be expected from somebody with their capacities. I've seen it enough, but "mental retardation" is a bridge too far.

Plus : pretty often "pot" is a conseqence of a "mental issue" as you describe it. There is defenitely some interaction, but saying that "pot" is the cause of their evolution is plain unfair. You have to look at all variables, all factors that might contribute to the complete picture. Focussing on one is quite stupid.

I mean, if you look at Bush, one would say that becoming president is not good for your mental health

all drugs may go both ways.... either you have or adquire the proper discipline to do them once in a while, or you're must probably going down.

and the 5 points that mindyou has written are right.
but i do know a person, just one, who can smoke everyday and still get away with it, this person is also a big fan of tripping, and has spendt a lot of time doing it, and sometimes, not often, he has done about 20 drops. if he is paranoid? a bit, but the paranoia of MJ and the inquiring nature of acid has led him to a very good(not excelent) path this days. as far as i know he doesn't has AS tough..

but from my experience(read AS and Drugs) the daily smoking o mj wont be good for almost anyone

Linz wrote:Marijuana lowers your IQ. It really does. My teacher who has worked with kids with all kinds of mental issues has seen students go from rather smart to actually having mental retardation due to smoking pot for years.

That there's good enough reason to quit...

Linz,
What you say is very interesting. Could you give me the Peer Review citation so that I could read the relevent paper for myself? I do realize, however, that by the time I am able to locate it, I may not be able to read it despite my 4 decade in laboratory medicine. I think my mind must be failing fast... Perhaps my Asberger's is saving me from this fate worse than death.

Hi! Yeah I find that without drugs I find it almost impossible to enjoy going out socially. I used to take anything and everything I could lay hands on. Neuroactive chemicals give you a temporary source of neurological common ground while taking away a lot of the anxiety. Trouble is, I don't have anyone to take them with anymore. It used to be my one outlet, my escape from feeling completely alienated. But people don't understand why you blow them off when they just want to meet you for a quiet drink or whatever and I can see why, even when I've tried to explain it sounds ridiculous; like 'I really do like you but only when I'm drugged?!' How flattering! People dont understand why I need drugs and think I'm ignorant of the pitfalls - I'm not stupid. I've gradually lost all the friends i was kind of bequethed by my partner who died, and they were the only ones I ever had, basically. I still smoke cannabis to relieve the mindblowing boredom! Dear me...