How the green out happened and what I learned afterwards
‘Greening out’ is defined by the urban dictionary as… – actually, there are no good definitions from the urban dictionary to describe the experience of greening out. I know, I’ve looked, and they’re all terrible.
Jessica Fung (Personal experience)
The first time I experienced a green out, it was a busy Saturday afternoon, but I wanted to have a nice relaxing start as I ate my lunch and had my coffee. So I took one gummy and then another almost immediately, a silly move, I know. In my defence, I remembered I didn’t feel any of the effects the first time with one gummy, so I figured two to start would be best, and then I got very impatient and decided to take a third within 30 minutes of taking two to see what would happen. Oh, did things start to happen almost immediately after that third gummy.
For those of you who don’t know (this is my own description of a ‘green-out’, and any statistics do not legitimize this), ‘greening-out’ is the feeling or experience that follows when a person ingests an exceeding amount of cannabis through any means such as edibles, smoking and/or vaping in a short amount of time. Where their body exudes symptoms that can range from hallucinations, episodes of anxiety and/or panic discomforts, paranoia, vomiting, fainting, dizziness and just overall distress.
Just a rule of thumb – wait an hour or more between each gummy before taking another if you’re not feeling the effects, this way you can pace yourself and avoid overdoing it and greening out.
Jessica Fung (personal experience)
Never again.
And before I knew it, I was sitting there watching Gossip Girl, and the room began spinning, and I felt like I was falling off my seat. Being inexperienced with being high, I honestly didn’t know what was happening. Five minutes into trying to figure out what was wrong with me, I felt a dry mouth, and then nausea started to sink in. The worst part was the panic – I thought I was going to die because the words ‘overdose ‘ started going through my mind. Then I realized I was ‘greening out,’ and I was alone.
This went on for about 10 minutes, and then for two seconds, I had a desperate moment of clarity and remembered what to do when a person is ‘greening out’. Sleep.
I fell into my bed and shut my eyes, I immediately went into the deepest slumber I could remember. I stayed there for five hours without moving a single muscle, literally staying in the same position. That was my Saturday afternoon and into the evening. I had to cancel plans and commitments that I had that night.
I woke up, and it was Saturday evening. I recovered and was totally fine and calm though still a little bit high and loopy. I knew I needed to eat and rehydrate. It was the strangest experience, I was weirdly efficient afterwards. I guess I wanted to salvage what was left of the evening and went along and answered a few emails.
After dinner and washing up, it was midnight, and I went to bed and slept like a baby until the next morning and woke up happy as ever.
What I learned from my first green-out experience
The first time I experienced a green out began very naively, went very terribly, but ended amazingly. It was the rest my body really needed. Even though my Saturday was basically spent in bed, the next day I woke up completely fine and went about my day without any kind of hangover or illness from my ‘green-out’.
I know that it sounds terrible to have a ‘green-out’ experience and I can’t agree with you more! Looking back at it now, I can’t say that it was all bad, to be honest. It was the first-time experience that I had to have to know what my limits were, a definite lesson I had to learn the hard way.
I do not recommend anyone doing this and would not want anyone to experience it, because everyone’s experience is very different. However, I did learn some powerful lessons, like how to pace myself with edibles, how my body reacts to an overload of THC and what my limits were, but I walked away from my ‘green-out’ feeling educated and unafraid.
