So I took a break from vaping my medical marijuana, between late November and late December. What happened was that I caught a nasty tummy virus that just wouldn’t budge, and every time I vaped I’d just feel worse for some reason. I decided not to vape until I was better, and after spending a few nights in hospital and starting on blood pressure meds – until I’d spoken with my GP and Dr Agius about mixing these meds with cannabis. Something that I can happily report is fine to do.
Relearning Who I Am
Years of depression and anxiety have left me with a distinct identity crisis. I’ve become frightened to be myself so I’ve hidden away from the world. This is because who I am is someone with a lot of issues and I’m ashamed and embarrassed and I don’t want to get my mental health cooties on other people. So I hide, and stew in my depression until I Just Can’t Even.
The medical marijuana helps me to short circuit those bad habits by helping me form better habits.
For example; I realized, while high, that I tend to deny myself pleasure, and so I need to keep reminding myself that I *am* allowed to take pleasure in being myself, allowed to enjoy my life and my achievements and I’m allowed to enjoy my physical body, my mind and my personality. I am allowed to “be pleased with myself”.
Personal issues, like this one, become so much simpler to acknowledge, accept and address when I am high, and my ways of addressing issues become their own expressions of my identity. It is as though I am healing myself by becoming more myself. It’s a process of practising the habits that make me; me.
I don’t want to be a person who denies herself pleasure and enjoyment of life, so I am practising being a person who does allow herself pleasure. I wear make-up more often, I flirt with my impressive husband, I dance through our cosy home and I take flattering selfies and compliment myself in the mirror. And it’s not just about taking pleasure in my physicality, it’s about looking over all my creations and projects and enjoying seeing my journey as an artist, looking over my memories with my husband and taking pleasure in our journey through life together. It’s about feeling good about myself for waking up with fatigue and depression and doing laundry and dogwalking and shopping *anyway*.
I have many issues. Some of them are more deep-seated than I am currently able to deal with, but I have confidence that I can work my way up to finding and addressing even those issues. I like to think of it like a video game, where each level teaches you skills that help you to pass the next level, until eventually you reach a Boss Level and it takes all of those skills to conquer the boss and pass the level. I’m looking forward to it. I’m going to get high and play Queen of Issues.
And I’m going to take pleasure in every part of the journey.
