Sudden School Anxiety and Marijuana Use

Reader’s Question

I am 16 and I have just started to develop strong anxieties during the last year. These anxieties have caused me to miss almost a whole year of school because I cannot get myself to go, and after not going even for one day the anxiety just gets worse and worse due to the awkwardness of going back after not being there.

I have attempted to try to go to school at least 30 times; sometimes I end up staying for a week or so and then I start to develop anxiety over it again.

I have been sent to a government-run house for delinquents and other people that were truant like me. The program of course got me back to my normal self since I was pretty much forced to attend school, wake up, talk, etc. But that only helped for the short-term. Summer started right then and I had a lot less anxiety then but when it came back to school again I attended for around a week or two then failed again.

I have seen a psychologist, but I have no experience and do not want to share my life with him. I am not a shy person, but I keep to myself with my personal issues and even getting near something very personal to me I get shaky and my brain tries to resist me almost totally. I have also seen a doctor, which I reacted to the same way (and was prescribed Prozac, which hasn’t helped anything).

The only thing that has ever helped my anxiety has been marijuana, I’m by far not addicted to it — I never just want it — I just know that it works and has worked to stop me from having these feelings.

As far as I understand, the state wants to send me to a “minimum security” camp that “was rated as one of the most successful delinquency prevention programs in Minnesota”.

I know that this is not the right answer but I don’t know how I will stop it from happening. Any ideas, suggestions, etc. that could help?

Our Consulting Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

When people have anxiety, they often develop ways to cope with it. Most find healthy ways to cope such as anxiety treatment, stress reduction problems, support groups, etc. Some find illegal or negative ways to cope such as marijuana, alcohol or illegal drugs. In the real world, your use of marijuana hasn’t worked at all as you are still in legal trouble for truancy. Sad to say, but school-related anxiety is often created by marijuana use in the same way that chronic use of alcohol eventually makes the person unemployed. If you want to fix your situation, you must recognize that marijuana is a part of the problem. You only developed the school anxieties over the past year or so…shortly after you began using marijuana I’d bet. You had been attending school without problems prior to that time. So…the problem isn’t school — you’ve done that for many years.

It sounds like the State of Minnesota has found a treatment program for you. I’d be cooperative and when in the program, admit that marijuana has been part of the problem. Participate in rehabilitation and a return to school program. Open up to professionals at the facility.

I hate to sound hardcore but if you don’t fix this now, your adult life will be miserable. Alcoholics often go for many years blaming their jobs, their families, their relatives, or their “luck” for their misery. They tell you they only use alcohol because these other factors are bad. In truth, alcohol creates the problems in all areas of their life. You’re 16 and headed down a very bad road. This is your second legal/court intervention in less than a year and you’re still blaming the school or “anxiety”.

I also work at a maximum-security juvenile correctional facility (prison). Every day youth explain that their use of marijuana, drugs, alcohol, etc. is not a problem. Oddly, they’re telling me through a steel door. You need to wake up now before group-home and minimum security moves into medium and maximum security. It’s up to you.