atouchofgreen

[atouchofgreen]

Weed & Mental Health (adolescent)

Mom and Dad,

In the recent months I have experienced cognitive decline that I attribute to my use of weed cartridges. I started smoking weed cartridges when I was in my senior year of high school, and  became addicted. I hated it but for some reason I couldn't stop I smoked daily. Although I took month long breaks often, I continued to smoke in college during my first 2 years. Towards the second semester of sophomore year, I used legal delta 8 carts instead of delta 9 carts. The only negative aspect of using up to my sophomore year was my lack of motivation and any minute cognitive changes went away following abstinence. I should have quit or asked for help. In high-school I asked for help by leaving my stash on the laundry machine and gave a singular puff to mom one time (she thought it was an e-cigg though). In highschool in my AP Chemistry class, I saw a kid at the end of class do a hit from a similar weed cart in front of his friends. It would have been so easy for him to get caught, he was standing up giggling with his back turned but the teacher was on the computer and didn't notice. I recognized then that this kid was so alone with his addiction that he did it in front of his friends at school out of pain and solidarity. He had an expressionless face most of the day and seemed distraught, I knew from the grapevine he smoked a lot. He was like me, addicted, and did a hit in school subconsciously screaming for help. After class I asked coach Jacobs his thoughts on using weed. He said, sitting on his computer desk chair with his hands behind his head, " I think after 25 half a joint does the same damage as having a martini, but before then its really bad for you physically, mentally, and your development as a human being. You should wait until after your brain is fully developed to try anything." I remembered this for the rest of my life. I didnt have the courage  to directly ask for help but I needed it and should have asked anyone. I couldn't quit it although I should have had the courage to do so. I tried quitting many times but I was too far down the drain mentally. But now, I am scared for myself. I quit completely following moving jethin in because I was noticing cognitive decline in myself. It was terrible. One morning, I woke up and nothing entered my brain its like I was a zombie. That is why I quit. I hoped I would regain my functionality like before, but to no avail. My iq seems to have dropped 10 points at least. My short term memory has regressed so much that learning new information is difficult for me. Reading is harder and to recall something takes me much longer than before. I have a harder time making long term plans and imagining things. I had a hard time with understanding and expressing English as well though this has been improving. My mind is nothing like it was before. Now, my memory, pattern recognition, recall, imagination, has diminished to a much lower degree. I was fine last year and the year before that, my mental health and cognition were good, but recently it seems like a switch turned off for me. When I walk in the world I don't absorb information the same. I don't abstractify what I am seeing as easily, and my short term memory is really shot. Its like I'm just walking in the world blind deaf and dumb. I am scared I won't be able to pass my classes even though compared to highschool these classes are an absolute breeze relatively speaking to when my brain was sober. I can't do quick calculations anymore and I am acutely aware that my senses are just senses. Seeing touching hearing are just that, I can't calculate the same way i used to to create a coherent experience of what's going on around me. I don't have appreciation for life anymore. I  am telling you all of this now because i have really experienced cognitive decline and I am extremely depressed, unhappy, and anxious. I am afraid that my prefrontal cortex and hippocampus is permanently damaged. Weirdly, I've had a dull ache in my head ever since I've quit, in the middle and front of my brain, that's been getting slightly better with time. The slight discomfort or pain is always there its terrible. It also gets better temporarily when I cry, meditate, or sleep for an extended period. I hope that after a few months this dull pain would subside and my mental capabilities would return. Even my dreams are less complex and have less emotion. All of this is what I talked to that therapist about.  It's not like I am sad ALL of the time, but a lot of it. But I am pretty sure my mind will never be what it was before. I experienced life to its fullest extent while I was not using any drugs, and now that I've been sober for 2 months now and my mind is not returning close to what it was. I still feel like a zombie when exercising, and I develop a deep sense of sadness right after I work out because i recognize my short term memory and mental capability are weakened which makes it hard for me to make good memories and I get anxious about my future. I am pretty emotionless, even fear is hard for me to experience. When I am unhappy, at times I break out into a sob, but because my emotions have dulled probably from the weed, I only start to sob momentarily and then return to a face of stoicism. This makes it hard to achieve catharsis for my sadness and it gets bottled up inside. I don't really mind the mental health difficulties from quitting weed - that can pass over time with proper behavior - but it's the cognitive difficulties that makes me afraid. I am afraid that I will never be able to view the world the same way that I used to before weed. I am afraid that I won't be able to become a doctor unless my brain heals over time. I have read many studies about the use of marijuana during adolescents. Although there is conflicting research, my experience suggests the worst for me - that what I am experiencing may be permanent. I also read that smoking weed during adolescence can delay prefrontal cortex maturation, meaning I would never be able to absorb information and process it  the same way ever again. If only I had read the dangers of early marijuana use earlier and understood I would have quit immediately. It is entirely my fault my life is like this now, I was too weak. Both of you have given me everything and helped me the most you could. Especially Dad. Dad, I feel so bad because you have lowered your expectations of me so much. If I hadn't started smoking, I know I would be a completely different person.  Mom and Dad, I have been thinking about committing suicide for some time. I've been thinking about it at least once a day actually for a few months. Its not that I think life and the world is terrible and bad, I actually think the opposite. Before smoking I loved life and loved myself. I could feel the world like a thumping heartbeat or a quivering harp playing soulful music. I feel like killing myself because my current and future experiences will be inorganic. My brain structure/chemistry probably changed forever and I don't want to live with this brain anymore. I cant understand everything going on around me thus I can never understand the world the same way like I used to. I feel like i can't learn new things, everything I do now is because I am just accessing what I learned before starting to smoke weed and during freshman and sophomore year of college. My emotions have waned. I can't calculate complex things anymore and put it into context sufficiently. I can't move my body and think strongly at the same time. Right now, meditation and thinking about my long term memory is my only friend. My short term memory is shot which affects my learning and ability to make meaningful experiences or connections. It's like I have pseudodementia though not as bad. The only joy I get is accessing my long term memory and talking long walks in places and with people that used to bring me joy. I loved Turkey so much and the time we spent I go there in my head all of the time. I love Africa, I love India, I loved my friends at swimming and during highschool. But if that's all I am living for I don't know what the point is. I curse myself everyday for making the mistake of smoking weed or not quitting when I could have. I could've become a beautiful person had I continued developing normally. I am so sorry for being a bad son. I am so sorry that you came from India to America to have a child that fucked up like me. I am sorry for the stress this places on both of you. You both did nothing wrong in raising me, I just fucked up. I am sorry for how this may affect your work dad. And I am sorry for being a liability for the family. While I am drowning I don't want you both to drown with me. Maybe I can get a job somewhere or go into the military. At this point cognitively, unless my brain is capable of rewiring itself (maybe that's what the dull persistent ache is in my head) I don't think I can learn the information necessary to safefully treat patients. My therapist said it would take 3-4 months to a year to feel normal again but I don't know what I will do if I can't return to baseline. I used to live with such a thirst for life and understanding but if that doesn't return I feel like I am dragging life down and owe it to my memory of what life was before weed to take my own.  Currently my plan is to wait a year and a few months before seriously thinking of committing suicide if I don't heal because the pain I am feeling is so immense. I want to live life FEELING everything organically regardless of what it is. Also my smarts are gone and that gave me tremendous joy. I know what life was like before using weed and I know how it should feel. But I cannot properly life, my sense of self, empathy, and life around me currently. I am walking around blind deaf and dumb I don't know if I want to live this way for the rest of my life. I would have loved to become a doctor.

I just don't know what to do anymore, I don't want to kill myself and I don't think I will have the balls to frankly but that saddens me even more if I can't feel or process what I am experiencing for the rest of my life. Life is too short to waste, any life really even if I'm dumber than what I used to be. I think of people who are paralyzed, people who have cancer, who have nobody left to care for them, people who are homeless and have physical ailments. They don't give up, but their minds are still natural. I am young and the only reason I am thinking of this is because I don't want to go the rest of my life with derealization of the world around me. I don't want to live the rest of my life blind deaf and dumb. No new experiences since the latter parts of my weed addiction have given me any meaning in life compared to what I had learned before smoking weed. I am grateful I got to experience and learn the meaning of life from my perspective and others when I was younger, thank you for that. I love you both so much. I am sorry and don't worry I am not going to kill myself its just that I am angry with myself, angry with my cognitive decline, and angry that I can't experience what life ought to be currently. I am hoping for better in the future though. I just thought you should know.

Love, Your son

Before Weed: 

I am telling you this because I am scared for myself although it may be too late. Before I tell you what I've been going through, I want to tell you about my life experience up until junior year of highschool. Although I wasn't exactly extremely smart from your perspectives, I was acutely aware of my surroundings. In school I was more focused on how things were organized and what every single person in the room was thinking and what their plans were rather then what they were teaching. It's like my brain was calculating 20 things at once and i was living existentially all the time. I was incredibly happy just to be alive. I could recall the exact positions of people and things around me, what I was thinking, and the sutle muscle movements of people over a reasonable amount of time. I used to know what people were going to say before they said them, and know someone's personality outlook on life, habits mentality etc.  just by watching for 10 seconds to an incredible degree of accuracy. The longer a person was in my focus I learned more about them exponentially. I could learn things very well and had a memory based on the things that I was focused on that was so precise and better than almost everyone I had ever met. People in high school who knew me well knew this and would be shocked how i could know things about them. Some things like sexuality and gender insecurities, presence of autism/ Asperger's as a child, family life back home, and who liked who, I could tell about people after observing them for a little. I had  respect from people at school and some teachers because they knew what I could learn about a situation or people just by being in the same room. I could learn new words in the blink of an eye if I heard it just once, I was constantly calculating. With dad, I could not learn what he tried to teach me though just because I was so scared of him that my focus wasn't there and panic was always set in I was scared to be beat frankly (i wasn't scared of the pain but just scared what it meant which was hard for me to fully realize because I would slightly repress the memories and I don't like to do that). But it's from him I learned how to analyze people and the world. But he is one of the only people I've ever met where I could not track his mind to a satisfying degree. For most people I would now what they were thinking, what they were incubating in the back of their head, and their current plan of action in a glance by looking at the eyes and body. I could not do this with dad because his mind is faster than mine it was too hard to keep up. He has mind palaces that are so structured and he can jump around his mind so easily I couldn't keep up with the mind palaces he created and how he navigates them. It was harder for me to do this with people who had a very high iq but I would practice everyday and would cherish analyzing introverts for practice. I walked on a street with a hundred people I would make an observation about each of them and could later recall exactly what I saw and what I was thinking. My kinesthetic sense was very good so physical distances was easy for me to calculate and remember. I truly believed that before starting weed I would become a doctor because all my strengths coincided with it. This ability, although most ppl might be able to do it, peaked for me right before starting weed. I was very much in tune with spirituality and enjoyed reading storybooks, meditation, and socializing. I was never focused on myself but what was around me, I kept my thoughts and feelings in a box in my mind to help me learn as I recorded what others were doing and thinking. I had balls - I asked out girls in highschool, and honestly wasn't afraid of much because both of you enabled me to experience life by taking me everywhere.