The 420 Minute: Why We Smoke

Alright, folks. Welcome back to The 420 Minute after a long (and quite necessary) “high-atus”. I’m speaking to you today from inside a smoke-filled bubble, gleaming in the sun as it floats along on a chilly, late-winter breeze.

As you know (if you read these posts at all, you filthy animals!), I love writing about weed. I love smoking weed; I love opening a new container and inhaling the exotic aromas.

Hell, I just love weed. 

But sometimes, people ask me ‘Girl, why you smoke so much fucking weed?’.

So today I decided to provide an answer other than ‘STFU!!!!’.

The Breakdown

From an early age I had extreme emotions. I cried constantly. When I was sad, when I was mad, shit I even cried when I was happy. I could always feel it happening, deep down inside. That hard knot welling in my chest, rising into my throat. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t ever stop it from happening.

No matter how much my step-dad berated me, belittled me, or abused me.

Eventually, this toxic environment led to other types of outbursts. Equally predictable, equally uncontrollable and equally frustrating.

I could always feel it happening. Still can. Every. Single. Fucking. Time.

But I can’t stop it. Impulse control disappears.

These particular ‘symptoms’ as well as a tendency toward self-harm, severe bouts of depression, and past trauma led to several mental illness diagnoses by the time I was 18 (also the year of my first hospitalization). Among those diagnoses are Major Depression, PTSD, insomnia, and finally, in my late 20’s, Borderline Personality Disorder.

WTF Is Borderline Personality Disorder?

Bet you didn’t know you were getting a vocab lesson when you started reading this today!!

Borderline Personality Disorder is a form of mental illness with a wide range of symptoms. It is very similar to other disorders and often ‘masquerades’ as depression or PTSD, or other anxiety or depression centered disorders. BPD is characterized by extreme emotion dysregulation, lack of impulse control, and self-destructive behaviors (self-harm/cutting, drug/alcohol abuse, violent/reckless action). It is extremely difficult to diagnose and even more difficult to treat.

The main treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder is a type of therapy called DBT. Essentially it teaches ways to distract your mind from the racing thoughts and negative self-speak that lead to emotional dysregulation.

Just think about something else and you’ll be fine.

There is no medication specifically developed to treat Borderline Personality Disorder.

An Epidemic of the Medicated

I went for a decade, in and out of counselling and hospitalizations, before receiving a diagnosis of BPD. During that time I was subjected to a multitude of prescriptions, mostly antidepressants but also a handful of sleeping pills, anti-anxiety, mood stabilizers. Once, as a teenager, my doctor told my mother he thought I had schizo-affective disorder. He immediately prescribed an antipsychotic.

All of these misdiagnoses and incomplete diagnoses led to a decade of upheaval and chaos.

Between the ages of 18 and 30 I was prescribed (at one time or another):

• Prozac
• Zoloft
• Celexa
• Trazadone
• Lexapro
• Ambien
• Seroquel
• A mood stabilizer I can’t remember the name of (also an anticonvulsant)

Through 2 hospitalizations and half a dozen counsellors, these are just the ones I can recall.

WTF Does This Have To Do With Weed?!

I know, I know. WTF does any of this have to do with weed?!

Well, I’ll tell you.

During that decade or so, I was also homeless. Off and on for 8 years (mostly on). When I was 25 I decided that I would see if there was anything that could help me. Help me with my anger and emotional outbursts. Help me with the debilitating bouts of depression. Help me want to live again.

I was flat-out tired of feeling like dying and, more specifically, I was tired of wanting to kill myself. Fucking exhausted of it.

I went through two more years of counselling, medicating with prescriptions, before being given the Borderline diagnosis. I knew I was a borderline for at least 3 years before that diagnosis came, but had to let the doctors treat me for depression until they finally figured it out.

During that time I abstained from every drug (including weed) except what was prescribed. I wanted to give the prescription medications a fair shake. I needed stability and rigorous control.

Now doctors won’t work with me at all. Unless I’m actively in counselling. Because of the Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis I fought so hard for.

Due to all that emotional dysregulation, borderlines are notoriously difficult to work with regarding their mental illness. Add to that my sassy, sarcastic attitude and razor-sharp wit (plus a healthy dose of stickittodamaniosis), and you can perhaps imagine the level of cooperation I get with medical professionals.

The Bottom Line

I’m difficult. Difficult to talk to, difficult to deal with. To paraphrase The Black Crowes, I’m sure hard to handle.

About a year after I got my BPD diagnosis, I was deemed “well enough” by the federal government to go back to work. After three years on disability, I lost my insurance as well as my monthly Social Security Disability check. I found myself without an income and no access to the counselling and medications I had become dependent on.

In the years before ACA, people like me did not have access to affordable healthcare. Simply because we could not afford it.

Without insurance, the cost of my antidepressant, mood stabilizer, and sleeping pills were too much. I had to detox myself from these hardline, mind-altering medications without the help of a doctor or counselor.

You see, when I lost the right to receive the necessary treatments and medications required by doctors, I had to find another way. A way that they couldn’t take from me regardless of my insurance status.

That’s when I remembered about marijuana. I had read so many articles about the medical benefits of weed. Hell, I had written papers on the subject myself. But, those were for serious physical ailments, not the bullshit in my mind! Could it help? Would it help? Did I just want it to help so I could smoke weed? What were my motivations and what did I really want?

I wanted to feel like living without taking a bunch of pills everyday. I wanted the shit in my head to stop. Mostly, I wanted to learn how to love myself and how to respect myself. I wanted a life.

(Weed isn’t my only savior. I had an amazing counselor named Mike, whom I met with once a week, every week for almost 5 years. He helped me work through my past trauma and he listened to every stupid thought in my head. And he helped me fight for my BPD diagnosis, so I could get the help I actually needed. I will always be grateful to him. But without insurance, my weekly visits with Mike were gone too.)

Without weed I would not be able to hold down a job, maintain my home, take care of my husband and kitty, help my niece and nephew with their homework. I would not have the life, actual real life, that I have today.

Learning about the differences between Indica and Sativa, understanding THC and CBD levels, and now starting out on the discovery of terpenes; all of these things help me everyday to understand my own mental illness better because they help me find ways to control my symptoms and live a regular life.

This is why I rant and rage against the federal government, against ridiculous scheduling of marijuana, against making nature illegal. The more we study this wondrous plant, the more we realize how connected we are to it, and the more we resent the federal stance on legalization.

So I will always fight for weed, because I need it to survive. Without weed, I would wallow in despair, weeping for lost humanity, and I would eventually take my own life. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Feeling suicidal is the loneliest, emptiest, most desperate emotional place one can exist in.

It goes against every fiber of one's being, the willful destruction of self.

Weed inhibits the racing, relentless stream of negative thoughts in my mind. Without this steady stream of bullshit and volatility, I can focus more clearly on the tasks at hand. I have less violent/emotional outbursts (not gone completely but usually due to overstress and a THC deficiency), I actually have a sex drive (it was nonexistent on all those pills), I sleep well and without nightmares for 6-7 hours a night, I have a lot fewer self-harm episodes as well as fewer suicidal episodes (passive and active) throughout the year.

My overall quality of life has improved, I can hold down a job, my bills are paid on time, most of my relationships are stronger, I actually accomplish tasks I set out to do. And all I use is Marijuana (Aunt Mary for the DEA).

I smoke weed because I have to, there is no choice. Legal or illegal, it is medicine that I require to live my life. Why do you smoke weed? Leave a comment or find me on Instagram @the420minute to vote for why you smoke (medicinal/recreational/both).

Thanks for reading, and remember to keep calm and smoke on!