[modified from a post on my Dreamwidth blog in May 2024]
BS"D
As a rule, I don't like discussing my personal business in public and keep my public face a bit "grey rock" because of certain people who have nothing the fuck better to do with their time than stalk my journal since 2020. Having said that, it's not a secret that I'm disabled and have PTSD among other problems, I'm pretty open about that in my "buyer beware" warning before people add me on Dreamwidth. I'm still not planning on making a huge amount of personal posts in public going forward, because I practice "don't bleed in the shark tank", but for this particular topic... I decided to risk the gloating and snark from Spiced and her friends and people on wank/cringe forums and make this public on the chance it might help someone out there. It's a mitzvah, and all that.
Hi, my name is Jon and I'm an addict. "Hi An Addict." "Hi Jon."
I was a casual stoner in my early 20s and mid-late 30s, and for the last couple years have been more or less a daily cannabis user to self-medicate the brainfail and chronic pain.
Welp, I inadvertently got addicted.
This is not my first rodeo with substance abuse: I was prescribed benzodiazepines daily-use for four years, which you are Not Supposed To Do and in my twenties with less of a wealth of information on the Internet than there is now I had no idea they were Not Supposed To Do That [unfortunately, my former prescribers are dead so I can't sue them], and quitting benzos was a bitch, which I wrote about a couple years ago. I self-medicated with alcohol for a bit in my early 20s [I had to stop drinking to go on meds] and for the first nine months after leaving a DV relationship in my early thirties, before then-friends staged an intervention.
Following said intervention in 2014 I found a decent GP [technically a nurse practitioner] who put me on a medication used off-label for anxiety and ADD and I managed to get refills from her through 2015 after moving back to my former home state; those were in hindsight the two most functional years of my life - to be sure, shit still happened but it felt less overwhelming, more manageable.
By 2016 I was out of refills so I began attending an outpatient mental health clinic. Said mental health clinic was the only game in town that took my insurance and accepted new patients, and required you to attend therapy to get meds from a prescriber. Within a few months I quit the clinic because the therapist assigned to me said "what did you do to make him hit you?" and I had to explain Trans 101 shit [which shouldn't be my fucking job] and she still didn't get it and I no longer felt safe attending there, and every GP in town said I had to be in therapy to get meds, so I ended up not on meds, which wasn't exactly safe re: withdrawal.
I already had a fraught history with doctors:
Not only was I told I had to be in therapy to get meds by more than one doctor but there was also a heaping helping of fatshaming and not listening/talking over me - like one GP completely disregarding me telling her I have a gluten allergy and was on a GF diet and forced me to read and agree to comply to a meal plan where 2 out of the 3 meals per day involved whole wheat.
Look, motherfuckers. I feel that being told I had to do therapy to get brain meds is cruel - it's like the equivalent of telling someone with cancer they have to lose 200 pounds before they can get chemo. My experience has been that bad therapy is worse than no therapy, and even if you find a good therapist who ticks off all the boxes for your set of needs [for example, I need trauma-informed, trans-competent, etc], therapy is heavy lifting and not everyone is ready to do that or should be required to do that to get help. IMO, someone who has hardcore trauma issues needs to be calm/stable for months if not years before they can do this kind of work, especially someone with C-PTSD who has deep trust/betrayal issues and where opening up to even a good therapist can be overwhelming and triggering in and of itself, and since it is a documented fact that trauma rewires your entire body and usually requires chemical assistance, that was irresponsible and fucking dangerous for these doctors to insist I had to try therapy again and risk yet another victim-blaming, abuse-apologizer, trans-incompetent therapist to get the biochemical help I needed much more than talking about my parents over and over again.
So I started smoking weed, my connect was my mom's friend who had a dispensary prescription [back before my former home state just legalized it altogether] and I got the good shit for $120/ounce. In 2020 I moved to a state where it is not legal - @rosedelavictoire rescued me from my abusive mother, my mom had been my least bad option after leaving a DV relationship and then ending up in unsafe living situations. As soon as I got to safety in a new state with my best friend the shit started with Spiced and her clique, and the bullying took a huge toll on my already-terrible mental health. It may not sound like a big deal to you, but it triggered my old bullying trauma from school/work/church back in the 90s/early 00s, with a heaping helping of Spiced's behavior resembling my mother's in some ways so that was an added trigger bonus, and because I was less resilient after seven years of intimate partner violence followed by the hell that was living with my mom from 2014-2019, as well as being less resilient due to perimenopause, and a traumatic breakup, not to mention the stress of the pandemic and life under Dump, it was being kicked while I was down and sent me into a big emotional flashback spiral that got worse and worse as the smear campaign, harassment and shunning continued. By 2022 I was a complete fucking wreck, and a friend informed me I could buy federally legal delta-8 gummies online.
The edibles worked great for awhile, until they didn't. Some stressful life events happened in late 2022 through 2023 which I won't discuss in public, which broke me hard enough I decided to try religion again after seven years [I am in the process of converting to Judaism] and then in early 2024 despite trying to take steps towards improving my health - going kosher meant fast food was no longer a part of my life since pretty much everything at Taco Bell, McD's, etc, is treif, and I decided from there to go low-sodium since perimenopause has made me more sensitive to salt, and to watch my sugar intake too, and decided to take my gluten allergy seriously again and went back to a GF diet for the first time in eight years - the piper came for his pay with various health problems caused by years of lacking self-care [exacerbated by the fandom bullying; my executive function went to shit and just feeding myself felt like a herculean effort most days] and things I'd been shoving under the rug [e.g. hormonal upfuckery] due to my deep distrust of doctors from repeat bad experience. I was needing more and more weed to cope and it was doing less and less for me, which created a vicious cycle - it is documented that weed raises your heart rate and BP, which is exactly the last thing with someone with C-PTSD autonomic disregulation needs. I felt like I was in a non-stop panic loop. Being in perimenopause with hot flashes and night sweats disrupting my sleep didn't help that at all.
I had to stop cannabis for three days for my first round of major dental work re: the local anesthesia, and then I couldn't chew for a few days which made gummies inaccessible, and I ended up in the ER with what I thought was a heart attack but my EKG and vitals were fine, my BP was just a bit elevated due to anxiety. That night I went home and did weed while I was waiting for the anti-anxiety PRN I'd been prescribed [since the pharmacy closed before we could pick it up] and it did absolutely fuck-all for me. If anything, I felt even worse.
The following day I finally faced facts: I had inadvertently, unintentionally developed a dependency on cannabis; in the hell week of dental work and not being able to chew gummies, I was going through cannabis withdrawal which created a panic clusterfuck of epic proportions, and it was no longer safe for me to consume the ever-increasing dose of weed I needed to calm down. I thought I had a different relationship to weed than I had to benzos and to alcohol, but I do not.
Before you call bullshit and say "nobody gets addicted to weed, you're just being hysterical, that's just Reefer Madness/DARE propaganda", this is an actual thing.
[For the record, I still support full legalization of marijuana, a pardon for those convicted of marijuana offenses, and I believe that it has medicinal benefits when used responsibly in moderation. I also support legalizing psychedelics at least for medicinal use. I have to stay away from weed for the rest of my life, but I'm not about to go straight edge on you, though to be frank I am probably going to have a hard time reading about recreational (non-medicinal) substance use going forward. That said, I am not retconning fic or deleting art that has weed references, as it's a part of my history that I'm not comfortable sweeping under the rug, also just because I have a problem with it doesn't mean it's a problem for everyone, so I don't need to have everyone in my multiverse be suddenly straight edge.]
My first week of full, knowing sobriety following the ER visit was one of the worst weeks of my life. I cried a lot. I had more problems with concentration than usual. Panic was my constant companion. It was just Bad. Week two was also pretty intense - I had yet more dental work, and the pain, stress and limited food options [especially when I am allergic to gluten and have to watch sodium] put recovery on hard mode.
I am, at the time of this post, continuing to cry a fucking lot as all the feelings I've been trying to numb away for the last two years are surfacing - especially the profound, shattering grief. I've even had some trauma-processing dreams.
Transformation, you ain't felt grief 'til you felt it sober
― "Mother I Sober", Kendrick Lamar
I finally went to the doctor on Day Seven, the earliest appointment I could get; I had to take a cab there and back. I actually found a decent doctor who takes my insurance and was accepting new patients. I went on vibes [her smile/eyes and describing herself as compassionate] and my vibe check was correct - she promised never to fatshame me and went on a monologue about how fatshaming is Bad Actually and keeps people from getting the care they need, and she was very understanding and sympathetic about the shit I've been through from other doctors and in general.
Also after being gaslit about my menstrual shit being "normal" my entire adult life, I now have a formal diagnosis of PCOS since I can grow a sad, pathetic-looking beard without being on T, the super irregular cycles + excruciatingly painful periods, my lifelong battle with weight, still getting acne in my mid-forties, etc etc etc yada yada. I'm also officially in perimenopause, whee. I have labs in July which will determine whether I need to be on any other meds but in the meantime... I am medicated for anxiety again and it's already making a profound difference.
Not only was the doctor kind, but there were other kind people I encountered that day - the receptionist who went with me in the elevator [I'm claustrophobic], and the beautiful Black lady who was my taxi driver to/from the appointment who was good company, very reassuring, she told me she was proud of me, and got a good tip from me for being such a wonderful soul who restored my faith in humanity quite a bit.
Hashem is looking out for me. I truly, truly believe this now. Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha’olam hatov v’ha’meitiv.
I'm not out of the woods yet - cannabis withdrawal typically takes 28 days if not longer, and I'm going to have more doctor and dentist visits this year, which is stressful even when it goes ok [the autism gets overstimulated by Too Much Out and having to interact with strangers outside my safe zones, etc], and due to my roommate's crazy work schedule and my clinic's nightmarish parking logistics I need to take a cab whenever I go to my GP which is Expensive [$60 round-trip before tip] especially on a fixed income and where Medicaid won't reimburse me - but I am on my way to a healthier, happier version of myself, like climbing out of an abyss up towards the light.
Some take-aways
If you haven't been to a GP in awhile and my story is giving you a shot of courage to go, and you get the option to pick your provider rather than having one randomly assigned to you, here's a general piece of advice especially if you're AFAB and have chronic shit going on: go with someone under 35, even if you're older than that and you feel weird taking advice from "a kid". Xennials/Xers and boomers were raised with a lot of ableist, outdated attitudes about what's "normal" and what the body and mind are capable of, and a lot of them are also prejudiced which affects how they treat their patients, and that can be extremely fucking dangerous in combination. [Also, as a late Xer, Please Fucking Do Not with "Not All Xers" or "Not All Boomers". I am not talking about you personally.] Young millennials and zoomers were raised to be more inclusive and have more understanding of fatness, chronic illness, menstrual issues, and the like. [My new GP is a young millennial.]
I have started practicing meditation, which I've heard described less as trying to find peace and more about learning to tame your brain. Time will tell.
And if you're struggling with addiction, there's hope. I felt like a broken, hopeless trainwreck disaster of a person just a few months ago. I didn't really have a concrete plan to off myself but I felt like life was meaningless - especially when the weed was doing less and less for me and causing more and more problems - and I used to wish I wouldn't wake up. And... I'm doing better now, for some value of better. It's an ongoing process, one more thing I have to keep on top of the rest of my life like my teeth, but I want to live. 13 days after I quit cannabis I hit rock-bottom and almost ended up in the ER again, but my headmates got me through the night and the next day I went for a short walk and saw a monarch butterfly and got all verklempt and it felt like a sign.
Remember, you are Loved, and you are good enough just the way you are.
Now, you must get up.
I know it isn’t easy.
I know it will take time.
Remember, the seed
can’t imagine breaking
ground. And the fledgling
can’t imagine flying.
And so, your broken heart
can’t imagine finding its way.
But life is this repeating journey
from sleep to wakefulness,
from blindness to sight,
from fear to love.
No matter how many times
we fall, we are just beginning.
-Mark Nepo