A marijuana grower talks about using marijuana to treat PTSD. © Copyright, Daniel Dharma, 2015In this series on using marijuana to treat PTSD, we’ve learned what we need to know about the causes and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
We gave you a list of marijuana strains that PTSD sufferers use to treat PTSD and explained cultivation techniques for growing those marijuana strains.
As a PTSD patient, I was fortunate to work with a psychologist who helped me choose the right strains of marijuana to reduce PTSD symptoms and who worked with me using tactics I’ll share with you now.
If you read my previous articles on using marijuana to treat PTSD, you recall my psychologist asked me to give up all drugs, including marijuana and alcohol, before my PTSD therapy started.
She said many PTSD patients overmedicate with marijuana, alcohol, and prescription drugs.
Overmedication covers up some posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, but doesn’t solve their causes, and substance abuse creates new problems.
She wanted me to have a clear mind at the start of my therapy, and only use cannabis with her guidance.
That way, I could more easily observe how marijuana affected my post traumatic stress disorder symptoms.
The PTSD therapeutic model my psychologist used is called “Expose-Defuse-Forget.”
When you deliberately go to your memory banks to re-experience and expose memories of incidents that caused PTSD, that’s the first step.
Then you defuse and reduce the emotional and intellectual baggage attached to the memory o memories.
Finally, you forget the trauma.
In ideal cases, the PTSD memories have been removed from your mind, like if a surgeon cuts cancer out of your body.
Here’s more about specifically how using marijuana to treat PTSD worked for me…
The marijuana strain we chose to help with the expose-defuse-forget process was Timewreck, from TGA Subcool seeds.
After reading an article about Timewreck, I tried it, and found it does indeed change your sense of time, as well as your ability to remember.
In the presence of my therapist, I vaped a gram of Timewreck.
She advised me to wait 15 minutes so the cannabis effects were totally present.
Then with her guidance I accessed memories of the traumatizing incident that created my PTSD—I’d been brutalized by police who raided my house because I was growing marijuana.
This was the “expose” portion of the therapy.
She asked me to speak and write every little detail of that horrible event, right down to the time of day, weather, what clothes I was wearing, what I’d eaten for breakfast the day of the raid, what the police said and did, my feelings and thoughts as it happened, etc.
Recalling obscure details are all part of re-experiencing the traumatic incident in its entirety.
For the defusing part of the therapy, I recited those details over and over while reminding myself: this happened a long time ago, it’s not happening now, and it’s not likely to happen again.
I noticed that when I first exposed the incident by vividly recalling the raid memories, I felt PTSD symptoms such as anxiety and a racing heart.
But as I did the defuse technique, my negative feelings subsided.
Eventually I was able to “view” the incident without any reaction at all, as if I was watching a movie I’d seen many times before and no longer cared about.
The she had me visualize that entire traumatizing incident and its aftermath as being symbolically “put into a box.”
I then visualized that the box was put into the gondola of a hot air balloon, and the balloon was sent up up up into the sky until it disappeared.
This was part of the “forget” phase of the therapy.
She advised me that any time I felt a PTSD trigger, I should visualize the hot air balloon send-off.
Any time I’d have a flashback or trigger about the raid and/or the trauma associated with it (jail, bail, court dates, the threat of incarceration in state prison, etc.), I should immediately recall the hot air balloon and its package of PTSD memories floating high into the sky and out of sight.
The expose-defuse-forget process is just one of several PTSD treatment therapies.
At the end of this article, I’m giving you links to excellent PTSD therapy books.
I also urge you to re-read the other articles in this series on using marijuana to treat PTSD.
The good news is that using marijuana to treat PTSD worked well for me, and for many others.
At marijuana events and at events for military veterans, I’ve met dozens of people who are successfully using marijuana to treat PTSD.
They’d tried every other therapy available, but only when they added medical marijuana to their therapy did they have real success.
You’ll hear people with the old tired excuse of “we need more studies.” That’s what they’ve been saying for years, but when famous doctors like Sanjay Gupta admit that we have all the evidence we need to call marijuana a medicine, I say the hell with more studies, we want it legally available right now.
Time doesn’t heal all wounds, marijuana might not work for some people, and marijuana without deliberate PTSD therapy won’t get rid of the causes of PTSD symptoms although it will decrease those symptoms.
Over the course of five months of using Timewreck marijuana to treat PTSD by working on expose-defuse-forget techniques and having regular counseling sessions, my PTSD symptoms gradually evaporated.
The payoff is that marijuana and other therapy can help you can reclaim your life, confront and defuse PTSD memories, and gradually see the original incident and PTSD symptoms fade from your daily consciousness.
I wish peace of mind, good sleep, health, and happiness for all who are using marijuana to treat PTSD, and I hope you’ll share these links and the following BigBudsMag.com articles with other PTSD patients who want relief.
I gained victory of the trauma, and eliminated PTSD from my life. My prayer is that you too can eliminate PTSD from your life.
https://bigbudsmag.com/using-marijuana-to-heal-ptsd/
https://bigbudsmag.com/using-marijuana-to-heal-ptsd-cannabis/
https://bigbudsmag.com/using-marijuana-to-heal-ptsd-military-veterans/
https://bigbudsmag.com/using-marijuana-to-heal-ptsd-cannabis-strains/
https://bigbudsmag.com/growing-marijuana-strains-that-treat-ptsd/
