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seeyatI'd have to start with my reason for picking it up.
I was basically a Dudley Doright, Boy Scout sober kid who would sort of judge people for smoking and drinking even up to about 17 years old. My cousin's head was severed by a drunk driver when I was maybe 12 and that filled me with a powerful anxiety around the substance that I just internalized instead of metabolizing so I feel either insecure and uncomfortable around alcohol or I push through it into avoidance of feeling anything at all... which just dysregulates me and still features powerful urges to escape and pangs of anxiety and fear.
When I was willing to self-abandon, I'd take the beer or joint they handed me and seemed to want me to consume and I'd hide away.
Thing is, at about 17 and a half, still sober and totally underprepared for the world, my dad refused to let me come home after I jumped out my window to avoid a punishment he was aiming for and I wound up living with my high school girlfriend.
I was 18 when I started smoking weed. We found an available unit in the same complex and building my stepmother was living in, I had my dad cosign so I could properly afford it... and a few months later, dad bought it as a condo.
While I was in that apartment, I felt lonely, got a cat and even had a friend of mine mention someone they'd heard might need a place to stay. I wound up taking in that someone, a high school dropout about a year older than myself... and his friend.
The two of them were heavy smokers of weed with a fluctuating range of cigarette smoking.
They brought all manner of strangers into my one-bedroom apartment and all it took was about 3 months of shaming, teasing, attempted rationalizing and eventually a bet that got me smoking weed. ...and it sucked. The feeling was horrible but they all seemed so happy and enthusiastic, even celebratory that I finally smoked weed.
Over the next few months, I stopped forcing people outside to smoke their cigarettes and even let them smoke weed in my condo.
I hated it... and I eventually wound up in some extremely isolating depression. I checked myself into a psych hospital to figure things out.
Cut to 5-6 years later when everyone's lives were evolving in whatever ways... and the same people stuck in the same patterns clung to me. Facebook made clinging and communicating easier and any time I felt alone or lonely, someone would be looking to use my car, ask me if I can help them move or if I want to go to a house party. Naturally, I'd put myself out there and try to feel some human connection, maybe get laid.
I wouldn't say I was ever a "regular weed smoker." I was always willing to sacrifice what I wanted because I believed people wanted something else. Not only that, I noticed that if I kept weed in my body in small quantities, like a prescribed medication, I could sort of ease the tension, anxiety and discomfort or paranoia I experienced if I just smoked occasionally with certain people.
The thing that finally had me quit? I started journaling again... and I reconnected with myself, threw away things that the drug communities convinced me to prioritize; musical instruments I never wanted to touch, video games I never wanted to play... things that tried to fill an intellectual and social void.
I'd had a life that made my actual hobbies much more difficult to access. I lived in a few isolated facilities, psych treatment and such... I wasn't able to explore random places, shoot photos or video, longboard or ride a bike. I couldn't explore random places for poetry and sketching inspiration.
When I finally came home, I was disconnected from trusted friends and I felt less than them so I didn't bother reconnecting with Boy Scout friends and friends from Latchkey, summer programs, my old daycare neighborhood... and it made sense. Most of them are doing really well; owning their own homes, college educations, working as civil engineers, mechanical engineers, firefighters, healthcare and educational professions...
They'd never seek me out. It took me a long while to seek them out... all I had was the toxic ties to a community that came into my life at a very low point when I was looking for help and also wanted to help them.
Through self-examination, reconnection with Scout-era friends, therapy and studying a wealth of psychology-related concepts including social psychology and an understanding of my nervous system and basic human needs according to Marshall Rosenberg, I was able to identify why I was hurting myself to "fit in."
So... I cut the shit.
I was basically a Dudley Doright, Boy Scout sober kid who would sort of judge people for smoking and drinking even up to about 17 years old. My cousin's head was severed by a drunk driver when I was maybe 12 and that filled me with a powerful anxiety around the substance that I just internalized instead of metabolizing so I feel either insecure and uncomfortable around alcohol or I push through it into avoidance of feeling anything at all... which just dysregulates me and still features powerful urges to escape and pangs of anxiety and fear.
When I was willing to self-abandon, I'd take the beer or joint they handed me and seemed to want me to consume and I'd hide away.
Thing is, at about 17 and a half, still sober and totally underprepared for the world, my dad refused to let me come home after I jumped out my window to avoid a punishment he was aiming for and I wound up living with my high school girlfriend.
I was 18 when I started smoking weed. We found an available unit in the same complex and building my stepmother was living in, I had my dad cosign so I could properly afford it... and a few months later, dad bought it as a condo.
While I was in that apartment, I felt lonely, got a cat and even had a friend of mine mention someone they'd heard might need a place to stay. I wound up taking in that someone, a high school dropout about a year older than myself... and his friend.
The two of them were heavy smokers of weed with a fluctuating range of cigarette smoking.
They brought all manner of strangers into my one-bedroom apartment and all it took was about 3 months of shaming, teasing, attempted rationalizing and eventually a bet that got me smoking weed. ...and it sucked. The feeling was horrible but they all seemed so happy and enthusiastic, even celebratory that I finally smoked weed.
Over the next few months, I stopped forcing people outside to smoke their cigarettes and even let them smoke weed in my condo.
I hated it... and I eventually wound up in some extremely isolating depression. I checked myself into a psych hospital to figure things out.
Cut to 5-6 years later when everyone's lives were evolving in whatever ways... and the same people stuck in the same patterns clung to me. Facebook made clinging and communicating easier and any time I felt alone or lonely, someone would be looking to use my car, ask me if I can help them move or if I want to go to a house party. Naturally, I'd put myself out there and try to feel some human connection, maybe get laid.
I wouldn't say I was ever a "regular weed smoker." I was always willing to sacrifice what I wanted because I believed people wanted something else. Not only that, I noticed that if I kept weed in my body in small quantities, like a prescribed medication, I could sort of ease the tension, anxiety and discomfort or paranoia I experienced if I just smoked occasionally with certain people.
The thing that finally had me quit? I started journaling again... and I reconnected with myself, threw away things that the drug communities convinced me to prioritize; musical instruments I never wanted to touch, video games I never wanted to play... things that tried to fill an intellectual and social void.
I'd had a life that made my actual hobbies much more difficult to access. I lived in a few isolated facilities, psych treatment and such... I wasn't able to explore random places, shoot photos or video, longboard or ride a bike. I couldn't explore random places for poetry and sketching inspiration.
When I finally came home, I was disconnected from trusted friends and I felt less than them so I didn't bother reconnecting with Boy Scout friends and friends from Latchkey, summer programs, my old daycare neighborhood... and it made sense. Most of them are doing really well; owning their own homes, college educations, working as civil engineers, mechanical engineers, firefighters, healthcare and educational professions...
They'd never seek me out. It took me a long while to seek them out... all I had was the toxic ties to a community that came into my life at a very low point when I was looking for help and also wanted to help them.
Through self-examination, reconnection with Scout-era friends, therapy and studying a wealth of psychology-related concepts including social psychology and an understanding of my nervous system and basic human needs according to Marshall Rosenberg, I was able to identify why I was hurting myself to "fit in."
So... I cut the shit.
