What do you make of this situation?? It's a long one but I need advice, any thoughts?

Yeah, I think you're right man. I've always known that high stress, bad settings and sativas do not seem to mix for me haha... but I also DEFINITELY agree and think that I was actually GIVING MYSELF anxiety, I would not go out and say it's the weed "causing" it... because it's actually BEFORE I would smoke that I would already start freaking out subconsciously, like a post traumatic stress type thing from that first and worst experience of my life (but the funny thing is at the time, I loved it at the same time... it was an odd first experience haha) ... But now it's been so long (and the last times I smoked I didn't have much anxiety) that I really think if I got something low THC / high CBD, maybe some calm indica dominant, maybe even make some brownies like pr said, and I make sure I'm at ease and really just ready to relax and chill that I should be alright. I would just make sure to take baby steps and space it all out :)

I think you just need to have a very clear and optimistic mindset before you smoke up. For example, if you come with the mindset that you will most likely suffer from anxiety or a panic attack because you will be too high, then your mind will go into this vicious/paranoid thought cycle(especially when you are high )where you are inducing yourself to panic. Instead you should come with the mindset that smoking marijuana will actually make you very relaxed and will cause you to be happy and will NOT cause you to have any panic attacks.

You shouldn't really be thinking too deeply about exactly "how high" you are or if you are too high(kinda the root problem too all of the madness right?). Like I said before, just smoke some bud, and instead of sitting around pondering, do some activity that will keep your mind busy(play video games, watch a movie, play a sport, browse the internet). You said that you like to build apps for the iphone right? smoke some weed and just work on some new app and keep your mind focused on the app and away from paranoid thoughts. And if you do have some paranoid thoughts, just dismiss them as false and just move on to another more happier and mellow thought.

You will most likely still have that fear in the back of your mind, that you will get some anxiety after smoking, but you need to just shrug it off and not pay it much attention, instead of paying it a lot of mind and thinking all kinds of paranoid though that will eventually cause you to panic. Like you said start off with small steps, like smoke a bowl before you watch a movie or something, and progressively move up the amount that you smoke, until you feel completely comfortable smoking any amount of weed. IMO to get rid of this fear, you must first become comfortable with being pretty high.

I also wouldn't put too much thought into the whole sativa and thc/cbd %'s. it seems to be more of a mindset/fear problem instead of the properties of the weed. I'm sure that once you get over the "fear", then you could easily smoke some sativa with high thc %'s and still have some good/positive thoughts flowing through your head(while simultaneously blocking off and dismissing the bad thoughts going through your head).

Also I would be pretty cautious with edibles. consuming edibles causes me to be super baked and its a whole lot stronger and different then straight up smoking weed (but its more of a body high then a head high). Just start off with low doses is what i'm recomending, I am not really trying to make you paranoid about eating edibles lol.

I would say try all kinds of methods of consuming marijuana, and see which one will work the best for you with little to no side effects. And if you have tried all kinds of methods, and tried all kinds of mindsets and activities, and you still get anxiety and panic attacks, then I would just suggest to not smoke weed, unless you can endure it. Like I said weed is not for everyone, and there is nothing wrong if that is the case for you(just unfortunate).

Good luck, hope you will eventually figure this all out:thumbsup:.

AWESOME advice man. I think that is exactly spot on. And I hope that all the advice on this forum like that from you and pr will help out many others as well with similar problems, because this is really something I wish no one to have experience and I know you will agree with me (medically or spiritually) that there is much good that can come from this plant and no one shouldn't have the ability to use it and enjoy it, and for me I truly believe all of this will eventually be a thing of the past.

I don't believe this is something that will always be prevalent. For example the last few times I vaped with a friend just relaxing watching south park, taking small tokes every long while, I didn't experience much anxiety, because like you said I took it slow and was in a relaxing and anxiety-distracting environment(my anxiety OF weed and getting a panicky feeling wasn't something I was focusing on as much), and as long as I didn't get ahead of myself everything went MUCH smoother.

It's been a long time since then and I think that if I continue and follow all this advice, that this will all slowly fade into the past... After the years of researching and trying, (for the most part) the anxiety has only become less every time... it's like getting over a stressful event, an event that sort of scarred you... I believe anyone can do it in time as long as you take it slow, in this case, one small relaxing toke at a time. Thanks again everyone! I truly appreciate every bit of your time in this tread, and again I really hope this can maybe one day become a reference for other people struggling with similar unfortunate issues :)

thank you man