That time I got high
Aug. 20th, 2023 02:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stillflightI think about it sometimes because it was shockingly awful and I think I know why but it's difficult to talk about. It wasn't "a bad trip." I didn't hallucinate or act out. It was just that the specific intoxicating effect of marijuana did not mesh with who I am as a person. On a fundamental, very fucked up level.
A marijauna high makes every emotion feel deeply significant. It forces you to notice each one and feel it. The thing is, I can understand why so many people find this enjoyable or a meaningful experience. I am not like many people. I am a very broken person. I am emotionally repressed so thoroughly, so viciously, that it was uncomfortable to be in this headspace. Forced to notice my emotions. Things being significant was upsetting for me. Sober, I flee from meaningfulness. I avoid strong feelings. Nothing makes me more sick to my stomach than feeling like I want to react strongly to something minor. Sandpaper on my brain: the idea of tears about an inconvenience... or joy about a convenience. How'd I get to the point where emotions are so prohibited that I'm not allowed to feel happiness? What do I think is going to happen? So when I was high, if something made me feel happy and the happiness felt significant, and I couldn't look away, I wanted to gruesomely and bloodily rip my own soul out of my body.
Was I punished for expressing emotions as a child? Well, yeah, I know I was, but it couldn't possibly have been so harsh that this happened. I can't face emotions or experiences or meaning. I shy away. It's too... too something. Hard? Painful? Scary? Vulnerable? None of these. When I touch too deeply into a feeling, I feel revolted in my body the same way I do when I touch a gross texture. You know how some cars have lane sensors and buzz the steering wheel if you drift out of your lane without turning the blinker on? That is my brain. When I drift out of my stoicism lane, it senses it, panics, and buzzes.
Art is my blinker, I guess. Songs. Paintings. Stories. "Books must be the axe for the frozen sea within us." (Franz Kafka.) My ice sheet is so thick that you might think there's no ocean at all. It's just a myth, and you're swinging away with the axe all day long in the blistering cold for nothing. But I know there's life under there. It might not be majestic whales and happy dolphins. It might be zooplankton, niche-specialized squid with 20 foot tentacles, and some kind of weird echinoderm. But it's worth chipping away at the ice for. And I do that with art. It feels safer to experience meaning when it is presented to me through music or literature. I am allowed to cry about something I locked away in the recesses of my mind if a song is my filter and maybe I don't even realize what I'm actually crying about. I wept until I heaved watching a music video where two people walking by save a man from jumping off a bridge. I hadn't realized until then just how scarred I was by seeing those people walk on by when I was gripping the railing and ugly crying every time I looked at the suicide prevention hotline phone number plaque. In the throes of a song, I was allowed to cry. But when the song ends and I'm left alone with my thoughts, back deep down they go.
A marijauna high makes every emotion feel deeply significant. It forces you to notice each one and feel it. The thing is, I can understand why so many people find this enjoyable or a meaningful experience. I am not like many people. I am a very broken person. I am emotionally repressed so thoroughly, so viciously, that it was uncomfortable to be in this headspace. Forced to notice my emotions. Things being significant was upsetting for me. Sober, I flee from meaningfulness. I avoid strong feelings. Nothing makes me more sick to my stomach than feeling like I want to react strongly to something minor. Sandpaper on my brain: the idea of tears about an inconvenience... or joy about a convenience. How'd I get to the point where emotions are so prohibited that I'm not allowed to feel happiness? What do I think is going to happen? So when I was high, if something made me feel happy and the happiness felt significant, and I couldn't look away, I wanted to gruesomely and bloodily rip my own soul out of my body.
Was I punished for expressing emotions as a child? Well, yeah, I know I was, but it couldn't possibly have been so harsh that this happened. I can't face emotions or experiences or meaning. I shy away. It's too... too something. Hard? Painful? Scary? Vulnerable? None of these. When I touch too deeply into a feeling, I feel revolted in my body the same way I do when I touch a gross texture. You know how some cars have lane sensors and buzz the steering wheel if you drift out of your lane without turning the blinker on? That is my brain. When I drift out of my stoicism lane, it senses it, panics, and buzzes.
Art is my blinker, I guess. Songs. Paintings. Stories. "Books must be the axe for the frozen sea within us." (Franz Kafka.) My ice sheet is so thick that you might think there's no ocean at all. It's just a myth, and you're swinging away with the axe all day long in the blistering cold for nothing. But I know there's life under there. It might not be majestic whales and happy dolphins. It might be zooplankton, niche-specialized squid with 20 foot tentacles, and some kind of weird echinoderm. But it's worth chipping away at the ice for. And I do that with art. It feels safer to experience meaning when it is presented to me through music or literature. I am allowed to cry about something I locked away in the recesses of my mind if a song is my filter and maybe I don't even realize what I'm actually crying about. I wept until I heaved watching a music video where two people walking by save a man from jumping off a bridge. I hadn't realized until then just how scarred I was by seeing those people walk on by when I was gripping the railing and ugly crying every time I looked at the suicide prevention hotline phone number plaque. In the throes of a song, I was allowed to cry. But when the song ends and I'm left alone with my thoughts, back deep down they go.
