wow!I truly identify with where you are coming from.I've been diagnosed with PTSD as of last year,after being misdiagnosed all my life.Misdiagnosis is dangerous.Its the equivalent of a doctor diagnosing a man with AIDS as having cancer,when he has AIDS,not cancer,and is given chemo,only for him to die from it alot quicker than if they had diagnosed him properly!!!I myself suffer from depression,anxiety,anorexia,and am a cutter.I understand what you mean when you say pot keeps you from doing self destructive things.I myself have used that method,and in some really twisted way,it was a blessing in disguise because it kept me from ultimately slicing an artery and succeed in killing myself or even using harder drugs, which I am proud to say I have been off of for 2 years now.Pot is my only thing,and it calms me down better then a seroquil,and I don't feel hungover the day after from such psychotropics,although I only take them when I feel I am about to have an anxiety attack from a flashback I am having,which is a scary thing for me,cause I'm out of my body looking down at myself,and I wanna stop myself,but I can't,and then I'll self destruct,whether its taking a whole bottle of pills or using a knife and slashing violently at my arm.Pot keeps me from doing these things,I don't do it for recreation,I do it to keep myself somewhat sane.I will say,however,that I am at this moment trying not to smoke pot and as a result,I am more moody and bitchy and anxious.Since I have cut down,I find certain things are more doable, and I am trying to learn how to cope with things without resorting to acts or thoughts of self destruction.I am currently in treatment,myself.Hopefully,one day,I won't need to self medicate myself,however,this is not to excuse the fact that it has keeped me from hurting myself,but I am trying to learn new ways to cope.I hope everything works out for you.

hey,

don't be discouraged by scunner's comment.  it is my personal opinion that anyone who cannot form basic cohesive sentances utilizing proper spelling and grammar as well as avoiding fragmentation and run-ons should not be handing out advice.  further, what he said was irrelevant and unnecessarily disturbing and potentially triggering as well.

i am a woman who struggles with depression, body consciousness, anxiety, and PTSD.  i take very low doses of several medications to make it through the day, because i have found it is not possible to get out of bed, in my particular case, without them.

the drugs i take are paxil, 20; lamictal, 25; adderall, 20; klonopin, 1; claritin, 20 (non psych).

i don't like being on them, and i am nervous because the doctors want to increase my dosages.  however, i intend to resist increase until my symptoms become completely intolerable.

it is very difficult to rationalize taking medications when we know how many complications are associated with them, and especially when we know the grim details of the pharmaceutical (sp?) industry behind them.  the only way i've found to rationalize it is that i am a more capable activist when i am mentally stable than not, and thus while refusing medication is an act of revolutionary resistance in some respects, i have more opportunities to take more large scale measures of activism when i am giving in to the medical industrial complex in this way.

but before i shutup, let me get to the pot peice.  i've passionately smoked weed and advocated for its legalization since i was 16 (6.5 years ago).  i have definitely used it as a coping mechanism, and would consider it my primary one.  however, i am currently 5 days sober and i've made that decision based on some difficult soul searching.

basically, i think the problem with weed is literally its illegality.  were we able to light up throughout the day consistently, i would assert that pot would be a better medication than any pharmaceutical (and perhaps that is part of the reason why it remains illegal).  however, the issue i find with smoking weed is that we can only do it sometimes, and this leads to a huge disparity between where we are mentally when we are sober and when we are stoned.  when we are constantly moving between two brain states, the healing process is consistently stalled and interrupted.  i would never advocate for the erradification of marijuana from any person's life, but i think that using it in moderation is very important while trying to work through psychological issues.

what i do, and like to recommend, is that you try - at least for awhile - only smoking in social settings.  this way, you are able to enjoy the blissful escape provided by the herb while in a setting that is most likely minimum stress.  avoiding smoking alone or smoking when in a negative brain state is important, in my opinion, in order for us to be able to learn to process and cope with our pain in a way that will always be available to us even when pot isn't.

and lastly, don't worry - i have a lot of friends with fields and i can assure you that none of them have a hand in rape, pillage, or murder.  in fact, i wouldn't even classify most of them as greedy.  unlike most drug trades, pot tends to be a lot less corrupt and is entirely incomprable to such industries as, say, heroine or meth.

good luck and write back if you want to chat more, i'd love to hear how you're doing.

beth

"it's a hard parade, just be courageous."

People who smoke pot are shit heads. The drugs money generated by the sale like all money leaks. so as the greedy farmers crop gets as bigger with his greedier or greenier eye he has to supplement 1 his habit 2 her habit 3 the needs of all others with the less offensive, ones own children if they are not influential enough to enslave other people's children in the child sex rape murder and snuff porn and related industries. I f you want to know the latest strain of weed that has less need for light and is so dwarfed yet the foliage abundant then ask mike Malloy to allow those who know why we are mad a descent hearing on his liberally dishonest radio show the children who are asexual who got drugged by Eli Lilly and novartis and raped for the child sex victim lab trade are not because of all of the afore mentione asexual and we all ways like what we got a mature pussy in my case so why change it unless the mature pussy floated amongst the higher echelons of society like all the other brown logs.

  scunnered

I would do neither