By Anonymous, Staff Writer, Emerson College
In high school, I was thoroughly, solidly average. I was a mostly an A-and-B student. I loved English and history but hated math. I sang in an a cappella group, attended church regularly, and never drank. I had a small, close group of friends, and though I was never very popular, I got along well with nearly everyone. If you had asked other people about me, they would have told you that I was a happy, normal kid. They would have been wrong.
Although my first two years of high school passed with little incident, my junior year ushered itself in with anxiety attacks that left me gasping in the hallway outside my classroom anywhere from three to ten times a day. There were no discernable triggers; instead, everything seemed to set me off, from getting scolded by a teacher for talking in class to not being able to find my notes from the previous day. I had never been a nervous or stressed out person, but the looming unpredictability of these attacks made me into a snappy, anxious mess, prone to dissolving into tears at the drop of a hat. I began pulling away from my friends because the mere thought of social situations made my heart pound. I approached my doctor about taking anti-anxiety medication, and although it did mute the constant nervousness I felt, it also erased all my emotion. I walked around for a month feeling like some sort of zombie-robot hybrid before I decided the pills weren’t working.
Through mutual friends, I met and bonded with a boy who was all of the things that my mother had warned me about. He was handsome, 18 to my barely 16 years, had a car, and dealt drugs to many people at the school. The first time he asked me out on a date, I spent the two hours before he picked my up alternately pacing back and forth in my living room and rushing to the bathroom, convinced my anxiety was going to make me throw up. He picked me up and the first thing he did was pull out a joint. I had never smoked weed (or anything else, for that matter), but my curiosity got the best of me. Afterwards, we spent hours riding around in his car, listening to music. I made him laugh so hard he had to pull over. When he kissed me outside my front door at the end of the night, I felt like I was flying, not because of my silly crush on him, but because I’d just passed five hours without a single twinge of anxiety.
For the rest of my junior year, I smoked several times a week. I kept going to classes. I did my homework. Nobody noticed any changes in my behavior. I went from having never touched drugs in my life to being a habitual user literally overnight. And I never looked back. My panic attacks went from multiple times a day, to a few times a week, then once a month, then never. Smoking weed quieted the constant twinge of anxiety that had grown to cripple my day-to-day life. My appetite came back and I regained the twenty or so pounds I had lost at the height of my struggle with the attacks. Without marijuana, I honestly believe I would not have made it through high school.
The reason I am sharing my story is because I think there is a stigma associated with being a weed smoker. When people picture regular marijuana users, I guarantee that the image that comes to mind does not resemble me (in all my tall, skinny, Jane Austen-loving, borderline cat lady-ness) at all. But I love weed and I will gladly tell people that it was my saving grace in high school. I rarely smoke anymore because I have not had a panic attack in months. But it is an immeasurable comfort to me to know that if I ever start to struggle with anxiety again, peace of mind is only a bowl away.
In high school, I was thoroughly, solidly average. I was a mostly an A-and-B student. I loved English and history but hated math. I sang in an a cappella group, attended church regularly, and never drank. I had a small, close group of friends, and though I was never very popular, I got along well with nearly everyone. If you had asked other people about me, they would have told you that I was a happy, normal kid. They would have been wrong.
Although my first two years of high school passed with little incident, my junior year ushered itself in with anxiety attacks that left me gasping in the hallway outside my classroom anywhere from three to ten times a day. There were no discernable triggers; instead, everything seemed to set me off, from getting scolded by a teacher for talking in class to not being able to find my notes from the previous day. I had never been a nervous or stressed out person, but the looming unpredictability of these attacks made me into a snappy, anxious mess, prone to dissolving into tears at the drop of a hat. I began pulling away from my friends because the mere thought of social situations made my heart pound. I approached my doctor about taking anti-anxiety medication, and although it did mute the constant nervousness I felt, it also erased all my emotion. I walked around for a month feeling like some sort of zombie-robot hybrid before I decided the pills weren’t working.
Through mutual friends, I met and bonded with a boy who was all of the things that my mother had warned me about. He was handsome, 18 to my barely 16 years, had a car, and dealt drugs to many people at the school. The first time he asked me out on a date, I spent the two hours before he picked my up alternately pacing back and forth in my living room and rushing to the bathroom, convinced my anxiety was going to make me throw up. He picked me up and the first thing he did was pull out a joint. I had never smoked weed (or anything else, for that matter), but my curiosity got the best of me. Afterwards, we spent hours riding around in his car, listening to music. I made him laugh so hard he had to pull over. When he kissed me outside my front door at the end of the night, I felt like I was flying, not because of my silly crush on him, but because I’d just passed five hours without a single twinge of anxiety.
For the rest of my junior year, I smoked several times a week. I kept going to classes. I did my homework. Nobody noticed any changes in my behavior. I went from having never touched drugs in my life to being a habitual user literally overnight. And I never looked back. My panic attacks went from multiple times a day, to a few times a week, then once a month, then never. Smoking weed quieted the constant twinge of anxiety that had grown to cripple my day-to-day life. My appetite came back and I regained the twenty or so pounds I had lost at the height of my struggle with the attacks. Without marijuana, I honestly believe I would not have made it through high school.
The reason I am sharing my story is because I think there is a stigma associated with being a weed smoker. When people picture regular marijuana users, I guarantee that the image that comes to mind does not resemble me (in all my tall, skinny, Jane Austen-loving, borderline cat lady-ness) at all. But I love weed and I will gladly tell people that it was my saving grace in high school. I rarely smoke anymore because I have not had a panic attack in months. But it is an immeasurable comfort to me to know that if I ever start to struggle with anxiety again, peace of mind is only a bowl away.