Hits from the Bong: What Weed, Hormones, ADHD, and My Brain Have in Common
By Creative Therapy Printables
It’s a Saturday night in 1990. I’m lying in a field near my house, high as a mellow cloud, listening to The Doors and feeling, frankly, like the universe makes perfect sense. Back then, hashish and I were best friends. We’d vibe in synchronicity — no anxiety, no chaos, just vibes and Jim Morrison.
Fast forward a decade or two, and that same plant turned on me, like an ex at a wedding.
The turning point? A massive 150000 strong gig at Milton Keynes Bowl: Cypress Hill (“Hits from the Bong” — but of course, so we did ) which kicked things off with joy and chill. But by the time Eminem hit the stage a few hours later, something had changed. Slim Shady brought the darkness with him (those pesky Jungian concepts, flying at me again) and I was spiralling into an anxious, overcooked mess of overstimulation, internalized fear, and sweaty existential dread.
And then the three-hour queue to get out of the car park.
If you know, you know.
And yet, I didn’t stop trying.
In the early days of my current long term relationship, I gave weed another go. We were on the sofa, Saturday night TV in the background. Sounds innocent. But the weed hit and suddenly I was raging at the utter meaninglessness of prime-time television, screaming internally about cultural conditioning, how Simon Cowell is a minion of Satan, and then flipping to Carrie (yes, that movie), and going down a conspiracy rabbit hole that ended in valium and a 48-hour emotional hangover.
So what changed?
Was it the weed? Was it me? Was it the hormones? Was it ADHD? Was it the slow creep of menopause and autoimmune dysregulation? Spoiler: yes.
The Chemical Soup Nobody Warned Us About
Over the last few months, I’ve been deep-diving into the neuroscience, endocrinology, immunology, and general chaos of being a neurodivergent woman with early menopause, Crohn’s disease, and an increasingly intimate relationship with my amygdala. And let me tell you: it's not just you — it’s everything.
Here’s what I’ve learned:
THC (the psychoactive part of cannabis) can increase amygdala activity — the part of your brain involved in fear, threat perception, and emotional memory. For someone with trauma, a sensitive nervous system, or a primed HPA axis (aka the stress response system), this can feel like hitting the gas pedal on anxiety.
ADHD brains respond paradoxically to stimulants. Amphetamines calm us down. So it’s no surprise that THC — which can be sedating or stimulating depending on the strain — might not be calming to a brain already working overtime to filter sensory input.
Menopause involves plummeting estrogen levels — and estrogen modulates dopamine, the very neurotransmitter involved in reward, motivation, and emotional regulation. Low estrogen = less dopamine = ADHD symptoms on steroids.
Autoimmune disease is fundamentally inflammatory. So is chronic stress. So are hormonal shifts. It’s all one big immune-endocrine-neuro soup. There’s also increasing recognition that many neurodivergent people live in a constant state of nervous system activation — a kind of background trauma recovery — which may be one of the missing links between neurodivergence and autoimmune illness. The body is simply on high alert for too long.
Weed has changed, too. The THC content in many strains is exponentially higher than what we smoked in the 90s. Hashish back then wasn’t the same as today's high-THC hybrids.
Cannabis use has exploded among Gen Z and Millennials, especially in neurodivergent communities. Streaming culture comes mostly from North America, where cannabis is widely legal — so the content we consume often treats weed like a normal part of daily functioning. That shifts perceptions, expectations, and social norms, even in places where it's still illegal.
The Mushrooms (Not the Pizza Kind)
When weed stopped working for me — or rather, started working too much — I took advice from a podcast with Laura Marling, where she talked about her experiences microdosing magic mushrooms.
I tried it. Of course I did. Bear in mind that after many many years of feeling like an alien walking through this world, I’d try anything to make life feel even a little more comfortable.
It was… weirdly effective. Calmer moods. Softer edges. More curiosity, less despair. Fun reappearing. My mind starting being kinder to me. Brilliant. I’ll take it. For the rest of my life, please.
Hahahahaha - the miracle cure is not available to you, silly girl! For magic mushrooms are seasonal and - let’s face it, not easy for a white middle-aged woman in middle England to source without texting her children and nephews and feeling like a narc.
Big time.
So I turned to Lion’s Mane, a legal, functional mushroom known for its neuroprotective benefits. It made me manic at first — apparently this is common in people with sensitive nervous systems — but I stuck with it, and it eventually levelled out and became part of my daily routine. I took it for years… until one day it just stopped working. (Classic.)
I’m now experimenting with different mushroom complexes — also legal, also widely available — to see if I can find that elusive calm/focus balance again.
What Now? (Besides Not Watching Carrie When High)
I’m not here to tell you cannabis is bad. I am here to say it’s complicated — especially if you are:
Neurodivergent (ADHD, autism, sensory sensitive)
Perimenopausal, menopausal, or post-menopausal
Autoimmune and inflamed
Processing trauma
Taking SSRIs, mood stabilizers, or stimulant meds
That’s a lot of variables. And while your doctor might see each one in isolation, you are the only one living in the middle of the Venn diagram where they all overlap.
Oh, and both of my adult children — both neurodivergent — use weed regularly and medicinally for anxiety. It works for them. It doesn’t work for me. That alone tells you everything you need to know about how personal this chemistry really is.
So I Made a Symptom Decoder
Because I was sick of guessing. Sick of wondering whether it was the progesterone, the weed, the moon, the gluten, the trauma, the thyroid, or just vibes. So here it is — no download required. Use it as a quick check-in, a journaling tool, or just to validate what your body’s already trying to tell you.
✨ The Symptom Decoder
A gentle journal tool for emotional and physical pattern spotting.
🧠 Mood / Cognition
Foggy
Anxious
Doom spiral
Hyper-aware
Distracted
Spaced out
Ragey
Flat / Numb
Meltdown brewing
🔥 Body / Inflammation
Bloating
Joint pain
Skin flare
Heat in body
Gut chaos
Stiffness
Fatigue (bone-deep)
Sudden energy surge (false alarm?)
🌀 Hormone-Related
Night sweats
Crying at soup adverts
PMDD vibes
Progesterone panic
Estrogen crash
Hot/cold emotional whiplash
Weird cravings
Libido confusion
🌪️ Overstimulation / Executive Dysfunction
Everything is loud
Everything is fast
Can’t do simple tasks
Too many tabs (in head and browser)
Phone = enemy
Eye contact = threat
World = too much
📝 Optional Notes
What’s your inner narrator saying today?
How might your body be trying to protect you?
Is it hormones? Is it trauma? Is it capitalism?
Final Thoughts
If weed used to help but now sends you into a spiral, it might not be about willpower or fragility — it might be about neurobiology, neurodivergence, and hormone chaos. You’re not broken. You’re chemically interesting.
And if you’ve ever tried to decode your body’s signals and felt like you needed a PhD in endocrinology, immunology, and astrology just to get through the day — same.
Use the decoder. Be curious. Be kind to your biochemistry. Don’t try watching Carrie if you have changed even the tiniest thing from your regular medicine cabinet of ingested substances. Unless it’s Ben and Jerry’s newest flavour.
Love,
Kat x
Creative Therapy Printables
