Mind Destroyed
I don't mean for this to be a diary, or anything, but this is something that I haven't really been able to talk about in my life, because most people haven't gone through it.
Also; after finishing this thesis I realize how self indulgent it is. I thought about deleting the first part, but out of laziness I left it. So if you just want to skip to the titular part, find the *****, and the real nitty is bolded.
To start at the very beginning; I started smoking weed at seventeen. And when I started, I started hard. I lived, just by happenstance, with a Colombian drug dealer, (boyfriend of my sisters), and just used to plow through the weed. Blunt after blunt after blunt after blunt. I'm sure that is not that abnormal, at least around these forums, but, just to say, during my weed-heyday I was easily in the top .1% smokers of weed by volume in the world.
It kind of fucked with me. I had always been a mopey kid. Introverted, sensitive, emotional. And basically over the next, say, four years destroyed most of my relationships, including my family.
At twenty one I fell in love with this girl and got her pregnant. I had been sober at the beginning of our relationship, but then, with the stress of everything, and the fact that her family gave me a quarter pound of weed for some reason, started smoking again. Some time later I told her that I thought about killing myself everyday. She broke up with me later that night. I always thought that was kind of funny for some reason.
I moved back to my old city, an emotional wreck--hyper stressed about looming fatherhood, until she called me a few months later to tell me that she had a miscarriage. I felt guilty for all the times I wished it, but more than anything I felt a feeling beyond relief.
Afterwards, with the weight of looming responsibility off my shoulders, I went off the darkside pretty hard. I wound up doing drugs I never would have done before, just because, well, fuck it.
And actually, now that my head is clear, there was about a year, maybe a year and a half afterwords that was good. Really good. The best I've ever been. I rode my bike 20 miles a day, had an omega juicer and was getting fucking crazy healthy. Doing all sorts of pushups and meditating and working and going to school hanging out being happy. It was all really good.
But then shit just happened.
Started getting high all the time again and fucking up all the relationships that I had grown.
Anyway, long story short--I wound up homeless.
********
I moved in with a guy I worked with, onto his couch. He was cool. DJ'd, smoked herb, did good drugs. But then he started with the nitrous, and, I'm not sure, but that may have been a contributing factor to my subsequent mental state.
At first I looked at him and his roommate while they were doing it like they were fucking joking. I passed on it for the first few times, but then eventually caved. Really the only drug I've ever done that I regret doing.
Anyway, things got tense living on his couch, I was spending all my money on drugs, and so didn't have the money to move out, and it was winter so I was kind of fucked. Anyway, I had the brilliant idea that: since weed was the only drug I consider myself addicted to, other than tobacco, and the hardest part of quitting weed for me is falling asleep--I would not smoke weed, buy some sleeping pills, konk myself out, and try and get sober enough to improve my living situation.
Well, it didn't work is the short end of that story. And I just wound up adding OTC sleeping pills to the menagerie of drugs I was already doing.
So here's what happened. Although I can't be sure which were really in my system that night, it was any mixture of the following: Oxycontin, Cocaine, MDMA, Nitrous, Tobacco, Weed, Alcohol, and of course, over the counter sleeping pills.
As I took that first cherry flavored pill, I can't really describe it, really, other than in metaphor. It felt like something between, my brain, or parts of my brain, popping like a balloon, melting, and or combined with being sucked into a black hole.
I always considered myself something of an artist, that I had a story to tell, or some burden, or some torch to carry for the world or something. And I remember what I thought right when it happened: that someone else is carrying that torch now. That was the last really clear thought I ever had.
For the next probably six months afterward my whole consciousness was really fucked. It felt like my brain was divided into these little bubbles, and each little bubble was experiencing reality in its own way--I think that this is actually the way your brain works, you have certain areas that remember faces for example, and certain areas that process certain information--My brain was just divided. It was in little segments that weren't working in harmony.
This happened about three or four years ago, so I've had time to process it all. But its interesting how people responded at the time. I remember telling this girl I worked with that "I've always identified myself by my mind, (whether art, or whatever) and now that's taken away," and she grinned.
I think that grin did more to destroy my opinion of humanity than anything else in my life. Like, my life was just destroyed and she got a little schadenfreuden kick out of it.
I remember smoking weed some time after this, maybe a year, and it literally felt like my brain was being raped by demons. Weed, once my favorite thing in the world, my most loyal friend, and now it tortures me. When I smoke weed it feels like my brain has these little tentacles that flail like electric wires, or something. It feels like these electric tentacles make up a little nest, a little coil when they are calm and happy, and then I smoke weed and it feels literally like my mind is being ripped apart. I don't think my "raped by demons" metaphor is too extreme either. That's exactly what I thought when it happened. I don't know if you have seen the movie Ghost, but it reminded me of those little black shadow demons that pull people down to hell. That's what it felt like.
Probably a year or more later, when my brain had at least calmed down a little, I found I could like move my jaw in a certain way and I could feel little bubbles moving along the side of my brain. That's pretty disconcerting. It still happens at times, not right now, but maybe when I drink too much or something.
Now, three or four years later, I can tell you my brain feels sore, like its been raped. Which might be offensive, but you'll have to excuse me for the sake of trying to express something intangible.
If I could describe the evolution of my brain since the incident as a balloon, it would be the first night everything except for maybe 5% was dissolved sucked into a black hole, the next week a series of little balloons started to pop up, then it was like a balloon that had like a vine wrapped around it and was being squeezed--like, have you ever grown a watermelon where this has happened and you can see where the roots and vines wrapped around the melon, restricting its growth. Anyway, now it feels like some retarded something balloon. The top part of my brain feels like it has a really bad sunburn, it still feels like it has little vines wrapped around it restricting its growth, and part of it feels like a big paper cut thats been peeled back and then laid flat, you know? Like an open sore basically. It's fucked.
As far as my mental operations go, the worst thing is that I don't feel like an artist anymore. So weaksauce. Like, before, when I would fuck myself up and get all depressed, I would feel kind of good in my depression. Just self indulgent, you know? Now I don't have any of the same artistic feelings I used to have. Hard to describe I guess.
I also used to get really emotional, but now more than anything I just get angry. And angry doesn't even really do justice to the way I feel. I remember a few years ago I got so pissed at this stupid bitch I nearly passed out. No fucking joking. Like, did you ever see a clockwork orange when the old guy freaks out when he realizes alex is the one that raped his wife? Well I put that motherfucker to shame with my fucking godless rage.
And maybe because I'm so emotionally unstable, I just can't trust my thoughts anymore, which is maybe the worst part. Like, one day I will feel really strongly one way or another about something, and then the next day I'll feel the complete opposite. Fucked.
My whole ability to form coherent thoughts or opinions is fucked.
The worst part about this whole thing is how stupidly it happened. To me its kind of like if Superman slipped on a bar of soap and died, you know? Like, if I would have gotten addicted to oxy, thats one thing. I could accept that. If I od'd on oxy I'd be like, well I should have known better. But over the counter sleeping pills? Are you fucking kidding me? And I know that they were the main culprit because I had taken them only one other time later and felt the same kind of mind-melting-being sucked into a blackhole feeling. Fucking fuck.
So thats that.
Other than that things are going pretty good though, how are you?