DOSE:	400 mg	oral	Pharms - Venlafaxine	(daily)
	repeated	smoked	Cannabis	(plant material)

BODY WEIGHT:

125 lb

I have been on Effexor since November of 2005. I was put on it originally because of my overwhelming depression and anxiety. I had little to no social anxiety but it felt impossible to do the smallest of things without having an anxiety attack. Walking down the hallway, waking up in the morning, planning, doing work, doing nothing. Everything except for social events resulted in a panic attack for me. My stomach would get tight with pain, it would be very difficult for me to move and no amount of therapy or herbal remedies seemed to do anything. My depression has been active for as long as I can remember, in 5th grade I remember having crying spells over nothing. As I grew older, I was often confused as to why I was depressed over everything. I didn't want to do anything, I was indifferent to my own future and the consequences of my actions, and, once again, no amount of therapy or herbal remedies could seem to shake this out of me. And, trust me, I was not one to soak in it, I willingly saw a psychologist my freshman year of high school and told him myself that I was having suicidal thoughts and that I didn't know what to do.

For me, my body was controlling my emotions, it seemed like. Hypertension would result in less confidence in myself, depression would lead to more anxiety since nothing was working to treat it. It was a circle of chaos. My parents were supportive of my actions to get through it all. I forced myself to go to social occasions I knew would arouse anxiety and hopelessness. For me, it's about 75% genetic: my mother's side of the family has a long line of psychiatric disorders such as depression, schizophrenia (of which no one in our nuclear family has), alcoholism, and others. My brother and I share our symptoms and are amazed every time with how alike the symptoms are: deep, dark pits of hopelessness that nothing can shake, and every emotion experienced with it clouds under the depression itself. It was just that: a bottomless pit.

I had experimented with drugs my senior year of high school, and by experimented, I mean smoked pot for the first time (but definitely not the last), snorted coke, mixed 600mg of DXM with 75mg Effexor (ended up in the emergency room thinking I was barfing up blood and losing my mind), tripped indefinite amounts of times on salvia, among others. I was a fairly innocent, naive child until my jr and sr year of high school when I thought that my calling was drugs. They took me out of my mind and into something I couldn't fathom on my own. My imagination went wild with the open doors of music and art, my passions. They produced, although not real, emotional states that I wasn't used to. Euphoria, loss of fear, paranoia, hypertension, delusions, hallucinations, tachycardia, the list goes on and on. Every cannabis experience has been different for me whether on Effexor or not. Even if I have the most horrifying, maddening experience of my life, I still think it's worth it. Something about not controlling my mind took a hold of my interest, and kept it there.

I started Effexor on October 31st last year. I didn't feel anything notable until late December. I waited and waited and waited and actually noticed changes in my emotional state. Coming from a severe depression, this was rather a shock to me to actually be clear of thought for once. It wasn't placebo: this was the real deal. I could discern every emotion seperately without including hopelessness and indifference in -every- equation. However, I still felt like I wasn't quite there. Life was almost .. boring on anti-depressants. I wanted a little spice with my peace. It was almost unsettling. During the first few months, I experienced a lock-jaw type of syndrome which my doctor told me was expected. Every night when I would go to bed, as my body started to relax my jaw would clench. It became a compulsion, and it honestly kept me awake a couple of nights. He said it would go away as the dose increased, and he was right.

At 150mg in December, I told my psychiatrist to up it, and up it went, until March when we reached the maximum dose of 400mg. Every time I saw him, I said, 'I'm still feeling kind of hopeless, although my anxiety is completely gone. Can we up it?' We couldn't go past 400mg, and when I let that sit in me for a month or two, I noticed very unsettling results. I was not of this reality, everything was numbed to me to a point where I cared neither about this life or the afterlife. I wrote long, detailed descriptions of the worthlessness of living and the pointlessness of existing if one couldn't feel. I came to the earnest conclusion that my life was a waste of space on account of my lack of, well, being human.

During all the time I was on Effexor, I smoked weed. I smoked it often, although I would take 1-2 month breaks to just give myself some recovery time. I understood marijuana's effect on my emotional state and knew when to call it quits. Although emotionally I would want it immediately after I binged, I disciplined myself and thanked myself later for it. As the dose went up, the trips became more and more maddening. I use the word 'madness' because that's exactly what it was. As the tunnel-vision would increase, my paranoia would sky-rocket to extreme proportions and my heart-rate would go above 180.

At one point, this was when I was on 400mg, I began convulsing uncontrollably on the floor of my room, and this was only after one bowl of normal shwag. The tunnel-vision tripled. I can't possibly explain the madness of this. One tunnel is trippy enough, but three in my vision is pure disaster, especially when combined with a rocket heart-rate and the panic-attacks of a possible OD. I thought, okay, placebo effect. My bad for having a bad trip. It happens. Bad state of mind, maybe I was really dehydrated or just panic-y in general. I basically gave my mind the benefit of the doubt and smoked a giant bowl the very next night.

For the entire time, I repeat, entire time I was on 400mg of Effexor, I had the most maddening trips I've ever experienced. I would lose awareness of my surroundings and find myself knee-deep in bathwater holding a plugged-in hairdryer and a giant butcher knife, with no recollection of how I got there until after the trip ended. Convulsions were almost expected. Tripled vision happened every time, and every time my heart rate would go sky high, I counted over 170 bpm. The oddest thing is, I never thought what I was doing was, well, odd. Everything made perfect sense, every maddening essay I wrote on how the world was a rotating delusion of fear and mortality. I honestly don't know how I survived. At one point, on the floor in the midst of convulsions, I prayed to God that if he let me live, I would never smoke weed again. He answered my prayers. I broke my promise a month and a half later.

I don't have a fairy-tale ending to this. It has been almost a year, as it is the beginning of October that I am writing this. I am on 75mg now because any more will put me into an alternate-reality of numbness and madness. Every time I smoke weed, I'll occasionally flash back to those times. I have nightmares about them, occasionally I'll have a dream that I went back up to 400mg and slit my throat while high thinking that physical pain was the only feeling I could feel (a true conclusion I came to).

I won't even begin to talk about the withdrawl of Effexor. That alone makes me wish I never began it(one phrase: brain shocks). I still smoke weed even though I am on Effexor. Why? I have my reasons. I will not ever brag about this though, and I definitely will not encourage it to anyone.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 56442
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Oct 9, 2007	Views: 19,027
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Pharms - Venlafaxine (191), Cannabis (1) : Depression (15), Combinations (3), Not Applicable (38)