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Silly_Lily46

Getting extreme mood swings after quitting cannabis?

Hi Y'all. I have been a chronic smoker of the devil's lettuce since the age of 16 (27F) and am beginning to not only scare myself, but I am worrying the people around me with my behaviour since quitting smoking.

I am 2 weeks in to quitting and no longer crave the stuff which is great. I even spent a couple days here and there not even thinking about it, so I think I might be done with the stuff. It's the symptoms that come after that are really worrying me.

For starters, when I began quitting, the first few days I was doing a lot. I had a lot of energy I didn't have before, and I was getting bouts of anxiety because I didn't have any weed to smoke on and take up my time. So I was trying to finish old art projects that I claimed I had no energy for because I was smoking so heavily right before I quit (quarter of a cart to half a cart a day, or 1g of flower every evening after work, whatever I had at the time). When I was a chronic user, I would just wake up and work, go home, smoke, feel tired and scroll my phone till I fell asleep.

Now I am getting these terrible mood swings and becoming really stressed really quickly. It's like I have no threshold for stressful moments and am getting irritable and snapping on coworkers and my partner. Today (day 14) was the worst IMO. My coworkers were saying I'm too stressed and need to calm down, as this is normally a stressful job I am working and can usually handle it (childcare), but lately I have been worrying them because I am letting it get to me and affecting others and possibly the children. I spent half of my lunch hour in the bathroom crying because I couldn't handle a parent becoming irate at me over a small incident and management snapping at me over it as well before they got the full context of the situation.

My partner is saying that I have been worrying him too, the past few days (days 10 to 14) I have been coming home and crying due to the stresses of my work and life until falling asleep around 8pm or so, then not replying to his messages because I am asleep until around 5 or 6am to wake up for the morning from my alarm to go back to work. I am also getting angry and snapping at him a bit as well, which he doesn't deserve either. He's not happy about it and I feel it might put a strain on our semi-long distance relationship if it goes any further.

I don't want to ever get back on the stuff, I think I just want these awful emotional symptoms to stop. I ised to smoke and smoke and smoke some days after stressful moments just to not feel anything because it numbed me and made the world more tolerable. Without it, I feel I have nothing to help me with tolerating such things.

I used to do talk therapy when I was younger because I have so many mental health issues with depression and anxiety, but I'm not doing it right now due to affordability issues and starting a new job where my benefits don't kick in until November.

Has anyone experienced what I am going through? Can anyone help with advice or supplements they took to subside the symptoms described? I really don't want to be put on mood stabilizers for the rest of my life and want to live a completely sober life if I can. TIA.

Posted Aug 14, 2026, 5:53 AM UTC

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