In the fourth grade, I developed a stress-related stomach ulcer. Yes, I was so stressed as an eight-year-old that my stomach acid literally burned a hole in my stomach. If only I had known that life got more difficult than gold stars and dodgeball.
I guess I’ve always been an anxious person. When I was six, my doctor told my mom that I have a “type-A personality” and that people like me are likely to develop eating disorders. Despite my mother’s hippie-like attitude, which shined through her (“Do whatever makes you happy!”), I was constantly afraid of disappointing her and anyone else in my life. I couldn’t recognize how absolutely privileged and lucky I was (and am), but mental health can be like that. It can cast a shadow over everything beautiful in your life, making the lovely irritating and your favorite pieces of yourself unrecognizable.
The fourth grade was also the year when I taught myself how to sit with my tippy-toes on the floor, holding my legs above the desk chair so that my thighs wouldn’t “spread” against the hard plastic, making them look “big.” This trend was the precursor to years of scales, doctors and threats of being submitted to a treatment center.
Up until this point, I had refused to try marijuana because I thought that it would make me a bad person. I figured that I would lose some pure, good part of myself.
I went to therapy. I took the pills. I read self-help books and wrote journals and painted. And then, years later, shaking from anorexia-driven malnourishment, my college boyfriend offered me a hit of his joint to try to see if it could calm my shaking muscles.
Up until this point, I had refused to try marijuana because I thought that it would make me a bad person. I figured that I would lose some pure, good part of myself. Losing your weed virginity: it’s something you can never take back. I smiled while telling my friends that I had never had even one hit, like it was some oddity meant to be praised.
Maybe it wasn’t the weed itself but the fact that I let go for once in my life — that I did something I considered deviant and chose to do something because I wanted to, not because I thought that I should or shouldn’t.
Regardless, in that moment, everything around me became soft. My fears and anxiety hadn’t dissipated — I saw them, and I felt them — but for the first time, I was able to really recognize them and tell myself that it was OK to feel the way that I was feeling.
I feel like I can tap into this once-locked-off section of my brain that sees the world the way I saw it pre-ulcer, pre-anxiety, pre-everything.
That was a year ago. My anxiety is still here — still present in the everyday. I still go through all the motions of aiding it, but I have to say, nothing does the trick like even just pretending that I’m high. I feel like I can tap into this once-locked-off section of my brain that sees the world the way I saw it pre-ulcer, pre-anxiety, pre-everything. I can observe the individual leaves on each branch of each tree and count the threads in the frays of my jeans. I listen to music and look at art with newfound appreciation — through a lens previously hidden from me. When I’m sober, I can actually be “high on life,” as I hear the kids say nowadays.
Everybody has their own method. Mine is creating a mindset, a mental space where I can be free from my mental-health issues, whether that involves actually using the aid of medical marijuana or just visualizing it.
